Coconut-Banana Bread Muffins

Coconut-Banana Bread Muffins
(recipe from vegweb.com)


Ingredients (use vegan versions):

1/2 cup of oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 mashed ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup of cooking oil
1/4 cup coconut milk (or other non-dairy milk)
3/4 cup shredded coconut (sweetened)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven 350 degrees.

1. Put all the dry ingredients (except the sugar) in a medium size bowl.
2. Mix all the wet ingredients and the sugar together.
3. Mix everything together. If the batter seems really thick-- its ok, they should still turn out fine.
4. Lightly grease a muffin tray and fill each dip about 3/4 of the way with the mixture.
5. Throw them in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Done!

Optional: I also added walnuts to some of the muffins, and made about half with vegan chocolate chips, so good!!

Let me know if you make any changes, I love to hear what people do to improve recipes!

Love and Gratitude Friday's

The past few weeks have been some of the most challenging and rewarding weeks of my experience.  I have been highly stressed for a great deal of it, and I know my health and productivity levels have both taken a hit. Soon, some of my stressors will be resolved, and I will be able to better shift my focus. I have a lot in my life to be grateful for, and know that the Universe and my own sheer will power will always ensure than everything will be alright.

I am Grateful for...
My beautiful home, fenced back yard, full basement, new water heater, my soon to be installed new kitchen lighting, doggie door, garage, my waterbed, my own home office space and all of my utilities ♥ I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, the wonderful Kathy, and technicians, and our new corporate advisor Tim ♥ Triton's free photoshoot and the opportunity to meet such a wonderful family, the VanDuesen's, who took marvelous photo's and are also part of the raw food movement! ♥ the library for providing my entertainment ♥ Sarah Wilson for her daily blogs that are informative and inspirational ♥ I am grateful for our delicious Thanksgiving feast, and my family who is supportive of my vegetarian choice ♥ I am grateful for both of my parents, who have supported me financially, supported my holistic cancer choice, and continue to support me in all ways each and everyday ♥ I am grateful for each moment I spend with Triton, cuddling, wrestling, running around the backyard or going on walks

My Thanksgiving Dinner

My Love List...
I love crunching through the leaves in the driveway ♥ warm fall afternoons, sitting on the porch, reading a book, watching Triton eat my recyclables ♥ I love cooking, creating new recipes, making muffins, chili, soups, salads, smoothies, anything, it's so much fun! ♥ I love receiving letters from my soldiers, and sending out batches of letters to all the lovely ladies standing up for our country ♥ I love that I had an entire weekend filled with girl time, chatting about the ins and out and ups and down of our lives ♥ I love getting to go out for dinner and a movie for FREE, rebates are fantabulous! ♥ I love reading all the inspirational posts on HerFuture ♥ I love the latest Jane Austen spinoff "Murder at Mansfield Park" ♥ I love that I can tweet my thoughts to my favorite authors and get a response ♥ the smell of cinnamon and bananas ♥ reading all the new young adult fantasy series, with selkies, banshee, mermaids, witches, and all sorts of fun creatures ♥ watching season 4 of the Tudors ♥ the "Good Witch" trilogy on Hallmark channel ♥ breaking out the holiday music, especially Tori Amos, Kristen Chenowith and the "Maybe This Christmas" compilations ♥ my new haircut ♥ planning for 2011

My Favorite Links this week:

Tuning Fork Sound Therapy
I Want to Be...A Travel Writer
Have a Holly Jolly Holiday With EFT
New Traditions
Hairdos for Dogs
Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving
Sunday Life: Walking Meditation....Have You Tried It?



How I Met Your Mother, I Love You So :)



Super fun EFT Tapping Session for "Wicked" fans!

What are you Grateful for?  What's On Your Love List this week? I love hearing from you!!

Surviving Thanksgiving

Oh the joy of the holidays, the delicious smells, the changing leaves, Lifetime movies, and the family. While theoretically, spending time with family, preparing a special meal together, and sharing a common experience should be a joyous experience, we all know that's not always the case. How to cope? Here are a few tips to get you through and hopefully create a positive and loving experience.

1. Mentally Bless Each Individual. It doesn't matter whether you are atheist or deeply religious or somewhere in between. Blessing a person simply means sending them positive loving vibes. Science has shown us that everything is energy, and our thoughts affect that energy. They have done studies where they put one person in a room alone, and had another person send them nasty, horrid thoughts. The person in the room would visible change demeanour, and blood tests showed clumpy, angry looking cells. Then, they sent the person loving, kind, healing thoughts. This time the person appeared more peaceful and their cells were healthy and beautiful. The person in the room had no idea what thoughts were being sent, or what the experiment was, but it affected him because thoughts are energy. If you send those loving thoughts to your family members, especially the more difficult ones, before getting together, it can literally change the frequency and energy in each individual and therefore the entire family situation.

2. Set an Example of Gratitude. Ask each family member to share at least one thing they are grateful for. This is a beautiful exercise that will add positivity and warmth to the occasion. You can also mentally walk through reasons you are grateful for each person, which can help keep you positive around anyone that may have a more negative personality or vibe. Another way to use gratitude is to thank each and every person who provided your dinner. From the farmer's who planted the green beans, the shipping clerks who packaged the rolls, the drivers who delivered the food to the grocery stores, the clerks who stocked the food and checked it out to you, the family member who took the time to cook it, and if eating Turkey, take time to send a prayer and thank the animal for giving it's life for your dinner table.

3. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). Let's face it, family time can bring up old wounds and emotions and insecurities. EFT is a wonderful technique that uses acupressure points to release emotional blockages. Check out Have a Holly Jolly Holiday With EFT to learn how to remove some of those blockages prior to Thanksgiving.

4. Communicate Dietary Changes Prior to the Day.  Many people nowadays have special diets, whether it's being vegan, gluten free, lactose intolerant or other changes for health reasons, it may be difficult to eat the traditional Thanksgiving meal.  Be sure to be gracious, but firm regarding your needs. Offer to bring a dish, or help with the meal planning. For more tips check out my blog entry Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World.

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Releasing Romantic Illusions

I've discussed Gabrielle Bernstein's book Add More ~Ing to Your Life: A Hip Guide to Happiness in previous posts. She has a social networking site for women called Her Future, where each month we have been focusing on a different chapter in her book. I've posted previously on Feel~ings, Forgiveness, Balancing and Mirroring, and this month's chapter focuses on relationships.

First, you need to honor your relationship with self. If you are not truly in love with yourself, you cannot possibly share love with another. A Course in Miracles (preface) states "...We seek in others what is wanting in ourselves. We 'love' another in order to get something ourselves. That, in fact, is what passes for love in the dream world. There can be no greater mistake than that, for love is incapable of asking for anything. Only minds can really join, and whom God has joined no man can put asunder." Essentially you must be love, otherwise, you will constantly be seeking people to fill your gaps, and that is not healthy or truly spiritual love. This is true of all relationships, not just romantic relationships. Spend time loving yourself, you are worth it.

Gabrielle also discusses "special relationships" in this chapter. Often times we place more importance on romantic relationships, than we do on friendships or even family. This imbalance can cause challenges in our romantic relationship because we are not in balance. By making that relationship more "special" than the others, we are essentially putting pressure on that person to fill our needs in a way that no one person can. Our relationship with self, friends, and family are equally important, and we need to release the need to make one person or relationship more special or important than another. Take time to find the love in all your relationships, and see how each and every person is special to you in their own way. You will strengthen all your relationships by experiencing them equally.

Releasing Exercises:
1. Make a list of your meaningful relationships, past and present. Write the story of each one, how it started/ended/the experience/etc. Release any nastiness that your ego is holding onto.
2. Make a list of how your partner makes you feel joy; or if single, how you would want a partner to make you feel joy.
3. Make a Love List and focus on the areas in your life where love shines. Focus on at least one thing that allows love to shine in your life each day.

The more you release the fears of the ego, the more love you will feel and the more you will attract loving healthy relationships into your life. When you feel ready to add a romantic relationship to your life, make a list of qualities you are looking for in a partner. Be specific, what is his personality like? His hobbies, skills, interests? His Spiritual beliefs? Does he love to travel and in what fashion? Write the story of your perfect partner, but keep in mind that creating a clone of you does not leave room for personal growth and will likely be boring very quickly.  Write your perfect partner story, and read it to yourself each day. Then share it with everyone you can. People have manifested beautiful relationships using this method. Write the story as if he is already there, for example, "My partner is full of gratitude, loves to garden, and is an expect on roses." Write in present tense, the Universe only understands NOW! I believe you could use this technique to attract friendships as well. Love yourself and the rest will follow.

Love and Gratitude


Shanna

Cinnamon as a Healing Agent

Cinnamon smells divine, tastes like heaven, and is a major healer. You can easily add this wonderful herb to smoothies, tea, oatmeal, chili and many other recipes.

Health Benefits of Cinnamon

• Regulates blood sugar, treats type 2 diabetes
• Heals yeast infections
• Prevents unwanted clotting of the blood
• Reduces arthritis pain
• Proliferation of leukemia and lymphoma cells
• The smell boost cognitive functioning and memory
• Fights the E Coli virus
• Heals the common cold
• Great source of manganese, fiber, iron and calcium
• Lowers cholesterol
• Improves digestion
• Treats diarrhea
• Treats toothaches
• Eliminates bad breath
• Treats migraines and headaches
• Improves flatulence
• Improves nausea
• Helps with painful menstrual cycles
• Improves energy, vitality and circulation
• Helps our body digest fruit and dairy products
• Helps stop growth of unwanted bacteria

How do you use cinnamon in your diet?

Take Ownership of Your Happiness

Recently I've been reading a lovely book by Marci Shimoff called Happy for No Reason. This wonderful book provides tools for happiness and highlights stories of people who are simply happy. She shows us that circumstance has relatively little to do with our state of being, it's our perception that determines our level of happiness. In Chapter 3, The Foundation--Take Ownership of Your Happiness, Shimoff provides three habits that allow us to experience happiness.

1. Focus on the Solution.  How often is it that a problem arises and we spend hours, days, weeks even, agonizing over how horrible it is, why me, I can't believe this is happening, etc.  What would happen if instead, we used all that energy to create a solution? Wouldn't that make us feel better and reduce the number of hours wallowing in negativity. It's easy to get lost in our perception of "what is" but being stuck in the problem only causes misery and in the end we dig a deeper hole for ourselves. When facing a problem, face it. Allow yourself a few minutes of misery, than take a deep breath, and focus on the solution. You will feel better, plus, chances are, problem solved with will make you feel even better!

2. Look for the Lesson and the Gift.  How often do we assign blame to a situation? My dog ate my homework, traffic was terrible, he doesn't like me, I tried my best but she wouldn't listen, it's all her fault, blah de blah blah blah. Recognize your own responsibility in the matter. Think about what you could learn from the situation and in some cases, it may even be a gift. One of the stories in Shimoff's book involves a woman who's fiancee ended their engagement just three weeks before the wedding. She spent a year wallowing in grief, blaming him for being a jerk, and playing the victim. One day her therapist said to her "If your relationship was so perfect, why is it over?" Sometimes we see only what we want to see, and in reality, her relationship had flaws that she simply did not want to face or take responsibility for, so she focused on the blame. After coming to terms with this, she focused on taking responsibility for her own actions, and ended up in a much healthier relationship. There are lessons everywhere, we just have to look.

3. Make Peace With Yourself.  Taking responsibility does not beating yourself up. There is no happiness to be find there. Simply, recognize areas that may need work, forgive yourself for your errors, and be grateful for the positives. Let it go and be at peace with your decisions. We all make mistakes, but you can choose to forgive and see each trial as a lesson.

I highly recommend investing in this wonderful book.  You can also download some of the exercises and happiness stories here.

Limited Time Only! Schedule a Reiki Session With Me!

Just this week I finished my Reiki III degree, giving me the tools to heal myself and others. I have learned how to do a full body Reiki session, both in house AND long distance, psychic surgery, which is a method that pulls out energy blockages that prevent physical healing, and shorter "spot" treatments. For the rest of the year, I am offering love donation based Reiki sessions for all who are interested, in order to send a little love to the world and hone my skills. You can learn more about my early Reiki experience here.  Click the contact me tab to schedule a session, and don't forget to put "Reiki" in the email subject line.  I am excited to offer this to all of you wonderful, beautiful people and look forward to getting my healing on!

Love and Gratitude,

Shanna ♥