About Whole New Mom

For years, my husband told me that I should write a cookbook.

Then he started telling me that I should start a blog.  He saw me reworking recipes, helping friends with health and diet questions — basically spending a lot of time sharing what I had learned with others.

In a nutshell, what made me start a blog was a desire to put all of my tips and thoughts into one place. I had been running a natural food and product co-operative out of my home for over 6 years and had been buying foods in bulk for almost 10.  We have been dealing with life-threatening food allergies in our home for 10 years and have been in various stages of eating gluten-free since my son’s diagnosis with Asperger’s nearly 4 years ago. I am always working and reworking recipes to accommodate them to our family’s needs.  And due to the extra money we have always had to spend on health issues, coupled with our desire to be good stewards of our finances, I have always been on the lookout for ways to save money.

The co-operative evolved into a wholesale business license so that I could obtain and provide products at a better price for local families.

Then one day, a friend asked me for 3 gluten-free recipes (focaccia flax bread, fast and yummy bean dip and oat bran muffins) that she wanted for upcoming Christmas gatherings, and that was what I needed to get the blog rolling.  I got on the internet, found out how to get a blog started by following the tutorials on Blogging With Amy and there it was — my new blog.

What we hope is that Whole New Mom can be a place to learn and grow in our ever-changing world, without missing the boat on what is really important, and without trying to change at a breakneck pace.  Because the breakneck pace is hard to avoid.

Things are a lot different these days for everyone, including moms.

Financial matters used to be simple.  Now we have 401Ks, FSAs, HSAs, mutual funds, stocks, options and even talk of buying gold.

Diets used to be simple.  When I was growing up, we went out for fast food occasionally and cooked some things out of boxes and bought conventional produce and meats without even knowing what the terms “organic” and “GMO” meant.  Now we are talking about pesticides in our food, toxins in our water, whole foods and even raw milk.

Conditions such as autism, Asperger’s, Chron’s, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue were not household words when we were young.

Our neighborhoods and schools were places that supported our goals of raising God-fearing citizens who shared in our values of upholding a culture of that values life and traditional values.

We live in a much faster-paced, confusing world.  Headlines come at us at a breakneck pace, and we are faced with making decisions that we never thought we would have to make.  And we are having to make them faster due to all of the new problems that face us.

Amidst all of this, we are tired.  Our minds have been going so fast and we have been trying to keep up, but we can’t.

Going back to a simpler way of life is one answer to this problem, but a simpler life isn’t always easy.  Making things from scratch takes time and money.  Finding good resources for our diets at a good price can take loads of time and effort.  Most of the issues that we face take lots of time to research and then the plans take time to implement.  Going against the rush of our society is hard work.

I am here to try to help.  I think it is important that we step back and take a look at our whole person.  Baking with whole grains and sprouting nuts and eating whole foods is great, but not at the expense of attending to our souls.  Saving money is admirable, but not when we forget to attend to the needs of others.  And focusing on strengthening our family is a great goal, but when we neglect to intersect with the world around us, we become isolated and neglect our calling as true citizens of this world.

I have been working at sorting all of this out for a long time now.  I’m still a work in progress, but hopefully I can help you sort through all of the information to make decisions one day at a time that will help you be the kind of person in today’s society that you wish to be, without being worn out.

So pull up a chair and join in the conversation.  Let’s work together on becoming whole and new in this whole new world.  And let’s make sure we have some laughs and cries along the way.  And maybe there’s a cookbook in my future.

Or maybe not.