365 Inspirations—170: Green Juice and an Amber Alert

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."—Louisa May Alcott

Well, the adventure has begun. I took off in my car with new wheels this morning and headed for the woods. I'm at my family's lake cabin.

While much of the journey has been smooth and quite calm, there were a few glitches.

Let's start with the smooth and calm:

I sat on the ferry boat and planned my solo retreat out  on paper while staring out at seagulls and Puget Sound.

On ferry boat headed off on an adventure

 It felt good to finally be off. I stopped off at a grocery store on the way and bought enough food supplies to last me for about a week. I bought a lot of veggies and fruits because I had planned to do a bit of juicing at the cabin. When I got to the cabin, I unpacked my stuff and set up my room, meditation and yoga area up in the loft. I then took a walk around the lake.

I wore a raincoat because it had rained earlier, but soon found myself peeling it off. It was warm out! There was a gentle, warm breeze and I kept a moderate pace. I was filled with the heady smell of pine all around me. I felt my feet in my shoes and my breath on my face. I felt my body slow down as I worked my way to the top of the small hills. I noticed how naked everything looked from the other side of the lake ever since a private company came in and took a stretch of trees down on one side. The lake area residents tried to fight it, but they don't own the land on that side. Those trees are the reason people moved out here. Fortunately it's only in one small section.

Whenever my mind would start to wander off on various topics, I'd try and bring it back to my body and senses. I heard an owl in a tree hoo-hooing. I saw two huge puffy clouds overhead that looked like people flying. One was in the exact shape of a mermaid. Hmmm....flying mermaids.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, I felt the gravel beneath my shoes. Now an open stretch of highway walking. Suddenly I thought of my friend George who is walking across America and just about to finish after 4 years of walking. It made me smile to think we may both be walking on open roads.

Now for the Glitches:

While winding my way to the lake, my cell phone went off like a siren. I had no idea what was going on.

I picked it up and a text message read:

 Amber Alert. Blue Ford Focus, Montana Plates. License plate number %$#@!*?.

What the heck? This has never happened before. The siren on my cell phone just kept going off. I looked in my rearview mirror and there was a blue Ford! I turned off the main road and headed down a side street and the Ford followed me for about 5 minutes. I pulled into a driveway and the Ford drove away. As the car passed,  I noticed the car was not a Focus and it had Washington plates.

I got my wits about me and headed back out on the main highway. When I arrived at the cabin, I found nothing about this alert online, so I let it go.

I decided to get my juicer out and make vegetable juice. I threw in half a cucumber, a few heads of broccoli,  a third of a cabbage, half a head of garlic, ginger and celery. This juice was glowing green. It seemed to shout, "Drink me. I'm nutritious!'

I drank two sips and immediately felt a burning sensation and nausea in the pit of my stomach and thought I was going to either vomit or pass out. So much for juicing! I ran to the kitchen and took out a rice cake and slathered it with almond butter. The protein and fat seemed to help with all the raw stuff.

I later drank a half cup more of the green stuff and am feeling okay. I had planned to only juice while I'm here, but read online that some people can't tolerate raw juices very well on their own. I realized that I may not be a juice fast kind of person. I do better with lightly steamed or sauteed veggies and a bit of protein/fat. I seem to be okay with raw fruit juices with a few beets or carrots thrown in, however.

Live and learn is my inspiration today. The green juice taught me that I don't need to go to such extremes to be healthy. I just need to do what is good for my particular body.

The Amber Alert on my phone caught me off guard. Later, after some online research, I discovered that the government is using cell phones to alert people of natural disasters and amber alerts. I found the buttons on my phone and they were set to "on". I have kept these buttons on. At least now I know what this is all about in case it happens again. Now you know about it too!

The adventure continues....

Have you learned anything new today?