Today I get started on my blog!

I have been putting this off. I went back to a raw vegan lifestyle early in May, but I've been too busy doing it, and procrastinating, that I just getting around to this! I have so much to say, I hardly know where to start...so, I'll just start.

I went raw 5 years ago and stayed 100% raw for 1 year. At that point, I decided that I proved I could do it, and I wanted to add a little cooked food to my diet--such as steamed veggies. Well, gradually, I added something else, and then something else.

I had become a vegetarian in 1980, and had wanted to give up eggs for years. I had a love/hate relation with them. After becoming a raw vegan in 2003, I was glad to finally give up eggs & cheese.

So, when I started eating cooked again, I decided at least I would remain vegan. I moved to Knoxville, TN. and found a wonderful vegetarian society. There was a lot of cooked vegan food at these potlucks, and I decided that if it was vegan, I would eat it. It wasn't long before I began gaining weight and getting back into some of my old eating habits.

After moving back to south Florida, my raw friend, Cathy, asked me if I wanted to go to a raw lecture & demo with her. I agreed because I thought it would be nice to do since I already knew about eating raw and knew I would enjoy it.

Four months after being back in Florida, my weight was up higher than I wanted. I decided to go raw again. This time I thought I wouldn't be so fanatical. I would do between 80-90% raw. Then I went to a green smoothie demo and within a week, I realized that I wanted to be 100% raw again.

Since I moved back, I noticed how many more raw foodists are here. There are raw food demos, lectures at different health food stores, a monthly open house and raw food prep & sprouting classes at The Hippocrates Health Institute, and raw potlucks in West Palm Beach. There is even a new raw cafe, the Soma Cafe, in Lake Worth, which is about 25 minutes from here.

I kept seeing some of the same people at these gatherings. I decided to create a raw food group here in Palm Beach Gardens for us to form a sense of community with like-minded people. Since then, my life has become so busy! Every week there is some kind of raw event around here.

Saturday night, Paul Nison gave a lecture at The Soma Center (this is also where The Soma Cafe is). He has a Meetup.com group--if you are local, be sure to sign up to find out when his lectures and events are. His next one will be September 27.

Each Tuesday night, Rene Oswald gives a raw food demo at Nutrition S'mart on Northlake. I look forward to these.

More exciting news is that an Italian restaurant called Graziano's Italian Cuisine, will start serving 3 raw menu items daily. They will kick it off with a raw potluck this Sunday, August 31. I have r.s.v.p.'d and going to bring my raw carrot cake.

Monday night I got my new dehydrator. It was at night because I had to take my husband to Miami that day and had it delivered to a neighbor. By 10:30 p.m., I had the dehydrator going with my first batch of crackers.

In the past 3 days, I've made 3 different kinds of crackers, 1 kind of cookies, a nutloaf with ketchup, dehydrated walnuts (to use for making nutbutter), and also some celery (to make celery powder). I finally turned off my dehydrator at 6:30 tonight. I wanted to get a lot done at the same time, so I wouldn't use it for a few days.

Now that I got this started, I hope to update it frequently.