The three of us are trying to think of a name for our little hiking group and one name made the 10 year olds laugh, Women with B. O. (Boots On).  I must say it made me laugh as well.  After trying about a dozen pairs, I'm happy to report that I have finally decided on my boots, I think!  
It's scary to think that I will be living in these boots for 8 days while hiking 75 km with 35-40lbs on my back.  Suddenly I can feel every little touch of a boot on my foot or ankle, suddenly I am terrified to buy boots!  All the sales people are about 20 and have hiked all over the World.  I find myself feeling old and inadequate.  I told one 20-something sales guy that deciding on my hiking boots has been more difficult than choosing my mate, he looked at me like I was mental, and maybe I am?    One guy rolled his eyes and actually yawned when I told him what I was doing so I found myself telling him that I cycled The Camino de Santiago last summer.  I felt like I had to prove that I was worthy of buying his hiking boots, what am I, 17?!  Today I drove an hour each way so I could try on more boots, just so I could be sure I love mine but I still haven't committed enough to wear them outside.  I will wear them in the house and to work for three more days and then I will make a decision... maybe.

I couldn't decide If I wanted to do a 28 day or a 30 day cleanse, so I did a modified 30 day cleanse, classic indecisiveness!   The evening of the 28th day I went to a gathering with friends,  okay I'll admit that I'm a Scrapbooker, and the snacks were yummy.  I brought an extra digestive enzyme and indulged in some fresh fruit salsa and chips but managed to pass on dessert.  The really hard part for me was avoiding the candies, I love candy but it doesn't love me.  Would I wake up with a headache if I indulged?  I really didn't want to find out and I think I'm finished with late night candy.  After you finish a cleanse like this you really need a plan for how you'll finish and how you'll incorporate what you've learned about yourself and what foods work for you.  I am planning to follow The Wheat Belly next but Dennis was just so happy to be finishing that he made plans for a sushi feast.
Now, I have learned that a sushi feast following a cleanse is NOT a good idea.  I already knew that I should slowly introduce more food but I wanted to go along with Dennis and I wanted sushi.  I was fine that night but the next morning I had a troubled tummy, cramps, bloating and a general unwell feeling but by the afternoon I was fine.  I'm still working on the small projects around the house as 30 days wasn't nearly enough time to get my act together, baby steps :-).
We finally went to the stone place and picked out a top for a beautiful cabinet we had made several months ago.  I wanted to find an environmentally friendly solution, Dennis wanted rock, so that's my excuse for why it took me so long to make this final decision!  For the kitchen we will look for a different option.
I'm still working away at my accounting but I now have the help of my friend Sylvia Cook, yippee!  Check out her services at Making Sense.
My next step is to write this cleanse as a proper blog, so please look for it and join.  Once I finish publishing all the old posts then I will get to work on The Wheat Belly Blog.  Thanks for following, to be continued, because our health is worth it.  

I've decided to hike The West Coast Trail this summer!  I have two friends who have always wanted to hike this trail so the three of us are diving in.  One friend has lots of experience, one has minimal experience and I'm right in the middle.  So here we go again, another adventure, another epic that starts with baby steps.   
I figure the best place to start planning a hike is with your feet. The last time I went officially hiking you just wore wool socks or whatever socks you had around, did you know they make socks just for hiking?  So here you see a picture of my new $23 dollar hiking socks, seriously?!  
Now to get in hiking shape.  I have already done my dietary cleanse so I'm feeling pretty good on that front, but now I need more muscle.  I exercise regularly but since the hike is a big challenge I decided I need to shake up my routine.  The idea came to me while talking to my plumber (who's awesome BTW), I need to try P90X!  I have 90 days before the hike so it's a perfect fit. 

I regret not taking a picture of the knuckle on the baby finger of my right hand.  When I started the cleanse the knuckle was red, swollen and very tender to move and touch. I think part of me didn't want to talk about my finger on Day 1 in case the problem didn't improve, I should have known better!  My finger is 90% better.  The redness is gone, it doesn't hurt to move it and it is tender only when I press hard directly on the knuckle.  I'm confident that if I continue to eliminate refined sugar and flour, the finger will be perfect within a month.  So many people don't need to suffer with inflammation and pain, food is the answer.  

We haven't been eating fancy or complicated dinners on this cleanse but if you're more adventurous and have time then I would reccomend the Candida Albicans Yeast-Free Cookbook by Pat Connolly.  I have this book and use it for inspiration.  Many people delay a cleanse like this because they are worried about the cooking and finding tasty recipes, well I say dive in and figure it out as you go along, today is the perfect day to start feeling better.

Over the last few days, as the cleanse is coming to an end, I have felt a sense of urgency to complete nagging projects.  First,  I finally organized and filed a big stack of papers that I have been avoiding for about six months, okay more like 18 months.  Next I wanted to work on my office.  My Wildberry partner Trish and I work opposite days in the office so even though we are business partners we never see each other.  We both really wanted to get some paintings up on the office walls so we finally forced the issue and squeezed 30 min into our busy schedules and now we have two lovely paintings for clients to enjoy.  These paintings are both by a friend's friend Laura Higgins.   When I look at these paintings I think of "Wild" for the one on the left and "berry" for the right.  I have owned and stored these paintings for 10 years and now they finally have the perfect home.