The other night I went to my friends for a BBQ. It was a much needed "kick-back" break in a week filled with writing, work, more writing, more work, housework, stress waiting to hear about a big fashion writing position at a blog (still waiting) and last week my body just wasn't feeling all that great. (waiting to get adrenal test results back). She had redecorated her patio and we planned to have a fire and use fresh herbs from her new garden in our meal. It was so pleasant and YUMMY! :) She is growing herbs (we used basil and thyme in our chicken! mmm!) and squash. It got me thinking about wanting to start my own garden but I've never planted anything. The truth is, it intimidates me, but I'd like us to be more self sufficient. So as my mind continued think on the idea of sustainability I naturally began to think on preparedness in general. 

Last night in Bible study I got into a long discussion with my sister-in-law about the topic. I look up to her in a lot of ways, one of them is how organized she is and with us both being avid Pinners I knew she had shared interest in the topic. She showed me what she has been stocking and gave me tips on how to save money in doing so. My plan is to start our emergency kit soon as well. I will post as I go and share tips, and the great ones I learned from her as well. She also gave me good ideas about how to store certain items at work and in your car as well! 

I think it's a smart thing to do in this day and age, to make sure your family has a few days of care in case of an emergency. In California it was just natural to have an escape route, water etc. because of the threat of earthquakes, I guess I just hadn't thought it about it in a while and feel like its something we all should think about. 

The holidays are getting so close and I have a lot of great holiday posts coming! My sister, Miss Ashley, is hosting Thanksgiving again, as is Mr. Charmings cousin, and they've both been amazing in making a gluten-dairy free menu. I'm really blessed to have family that, even if they don't exactly understand why I eat the way I do, still show compassion and accommodating care. I also have days 10-18 of the Gratitude photo challenge coming. It's been an enlightening photo project that I have totally fallen in love with. I think I may pick up another photo when this one is finished. It injects moments of positivity and creativity into everyday and who doesn't need a little more of that?

So, as I've mentioned before, I am an avid believer that retail therapy can be helpful in many ways. It can be good cardio (if you hit enough stores), stress relief (if shopping is your cup of tea), and it triggers our carefree, creative mindset. Of course these are attained by doing so in a responsible way. I'm not telling you to go blow your whole paycheck at the mall to feel free. But just treating yourself to something pretty once and a while can do wonders for a girl. Mr. Charming and I make sure the tithe and bills are paid, that we save a little for a rainy day and buy healthful food, however, sometimes, one of the things I need is to shop. To just detach for a while and shop. Mr. Charming understands this about me, and I in return understand his love for all things tech-y and gadget-y. Clothes and home decor are my specialties. Yesterday, Mr. Charming and I are redecorating quite a bit to make our space feel more like "us", I went to my favorite home stores and got some new place settings, rugs, and decor to compliment the furniture pieces I am refinishing at the moment. (which I am so excited to share with you all when it's finished and it is a HUGE money saver!)  I also got Mr. Charming some props for his photography business some cute fall clothes for the both of us, and some cute props and backgrounds for my foodie photography for Nosh & Nurture. 

Whil shopping is fun & lovely.. I wanted to move onto the Proverbs portion of my post. As I stated earlier this month I am focusing on being a more well-rounded woman. I adore my career(s), always have, so I had bit of a rocky start with adapting to the balance of housewife and career woman on top of my many, exhaustive creative endeavors that make my soul flourish. Connecting with God has helped me with this in so many ways so I wanted to touch on each portion of the Proverbs 31 post a little more in depth from time to time.

#1: Faith. When I get busy I am the first to admit that church falls to the wayside. I hope this changes when we are parents as I want to instill its importance in our children's lives, because I love our Lord with all my heart. Though I know, like with any habit, if I don't do it now, I can't expect to set a great example for my future children. However, God isn't only in church. He's in us, so I do make a point to do morning devotionals every day, couples devotionals at night with my hubs and stay active in prayer. Don't beat yourself up over how much you do or don't do. God knows our stories, our reasons, our excuses, and our attempts. He loves us no matter what, but I feel its important to make an effort so that we can grow. Share how you stay active in your faith day to day. I'd love to hear inspiring feedback!

My day started off like this. And all credit must go to Trader Joes for their new gluten & dairy free pancakes. I make 95% of my food fresh, cooking it myself, but sometimes on busy work mornings such as today a frozen pancake with minimal ingredients was a-ok to me. I sprinkled them with fresh, organic blueberries and I got organic, all natural chicken and maple sausage to go along with. Mmmm!

I must say I felt very balanced & accomplished today. I give all the praise to my heavenly father for that one because lately I've felt a little overwhelmed trying to keep up with two jobs, the house and relationships. Today I managed to:

• work a full shift at the studio, secure a concert with Nike and blog!
• fully cleaned my office and kitchen. I'm talking top to bottom, cupboards, stove, microwave, the works.
• Prepared breakfast, and a healthy balanced dinner for Mr. Charming.
• AND I found out a song of mine got placed on MTV2 on a show called "Guy Code"

I usually don't toot my own horn, but since I've wanted to spend a lot of this month in bed (partly due to my current ear infection and earlier this month due to hormonal and food issues) I have to give praise and thanks for super productive days. Especially since I'm currently trying to be more intentional on being a Proverbs 31 wifey and woman to those around me. Energy definitely comes in handy for that! So.. on to those new recipes! I posted a ton of new recipes this weekend with even more to come. The latest additions are all gluten & dairy-free with additional notations made on each recipe. If you have any dietary restriction recipe requests, let me know! Without further adieu.. bon appetite!

• Chocolate Granola
• Egg & Veggie Scramble
• Bacon Wrapped Eggs with Sweet Potato Hash
• BLTA Wraps
• Grilled Cabbage & Bacon
• Pesto & Tomato Spaghetti Squash
• Zucchini Pasta 

So, at it's conception I started my little blog here to post recipes. Recipes of food that was safe for me, and others who can't tolerate dairy or gluten, to enjoy. As it started to bloom and I started cleaning up the environment around me, I branched out into incorporating fitness and ways to clean your home without all the harsh, gross chemicals. After getting my certificate in natural beauty my love for organic, all natural ways to do my hair and makeup and skin care inspired me to add that. And so on. 

Yet, as I look at my life and all the wonderful little puzzle pieces... one of the things, if not the main thing, that makes me most happy, and healthy to my core, healthy in my heart, my soul, is love. God's love, love I pour out to others, love that others pour onto me and this man right here. My husband's love. My Mr. Charming. 

I've opened up about my story. I go through these things in my life for a reason and I adore helping others make healthy choices, so I felt like, if I didn't share our story I wasn't sharing a big piece of me with you all. My best friend and I got married September 17th, 2011 and I adore this man. He supports me in all that do. He cheers me on to go for my dreams, he will go to twenty grocery stores in a day just to see a smile on my face when I finally find that perfect gluten free treat I'd been searching for. He holds my hands on the days that are scary and celebrates with me on the days that are amazingly God-gifted and beautiful. I pray that I can one day give this man all the little babies his heart desires, which is one of the reasons I stay on this journey to figure out my health stuff so that I can be strong and healthy to have a family. I thank you all for reading. For being a part of my little journey. I love being able to share and inspire and in return learn and be inspired from all of you. 

I will be sharing more of our journey together here on my love page, as well as other ways we can inspire and love one another!

Stormy weekends always call for time at home. I'm always so focused on feeding me and my family healthy, yet sometimes in the hustle and bustle of juggling two, sometimes three careers, a blog, and classes I don't do my best to take care of my home and my soul. The days that I get to connect with my husband spending time making our home, a true home, and connecting with friends and family, my soul smiles. I find His peace and contentment and it recharges me for all the tasks I have throughout the week, big and small. Tonight we had some friends over and just played Wii. I haven't played like that with friends in months and I hadn't worked out yet today so we popped in Just Dance and danced out all the frustration and pressures of the week. It was followed by an amazing talk about scripture and God with a good friend of ours. A good night to ensure great sleep. 

There are many reasons why I adore Sundays. 

1. It's the one day Mr. Charming and I have off together and connecting to my husband is the second best thing I need to refresh & inspire me for the week.

2. The number one is our time with God. Getting to worship as husband and wife, spend time making our house a home as husband and wife, and spending quality time with friends and family sharing in community. 

3. Delicious mornings sleeping in and having time to make breakfast more of an adventure and less of a grab-what-ya-can-and-kiss-me-quick-on-the-way-out-the-door-to-work breakfast. I love cooking with Mr. Charming, making healthy, organic meals and sitting down together sharing in prayer and our plans for the day. 

This morning we made my Oat Pancakes, I added a few Enjoy Life dairy-free chocolate chips to them this morning as a treat since we've both been working so much and eating so clean lately. I served them with organic eggs. And because of the chocolate chips I didn't need to put ANYTHING on them. YUM! 

After breakfast we spent the morning at Home Depot. Mr. Charming has an affinity for home projects and he is super handy at building and home design/decor. (Fun fact: he went to ASU for architecture!) He decided to work on building our home theatre (in the very beginning stages, I'll update as we go.) So I decided to deep clean the kitchen, which we are also redecorating. Here are some of the cute touches I've added to make it more "us". I am accenting with seafoam-y blue and coral. Which I LOVE! The Paleo Comfort Food cookbook was lent to me by a friend and it was SUCH a saving grace in the beginning of my food journey before I started experimenting with my own recipes. I also LOVE chalkboard labeled jars there are a lot of them throughout our kitchen/pantry. 

Even though I stopped drinking coffee long ago, I still keep my coffee pot on hand for hosting dinners, holidays and for making tea. I also have an OBSESSION with coffee mugs. Seriously, I drive Mr. Charming kind of crazy. And yes. That is a central perk mug. I also have a slight obsession with FRIENDS. 

Deep cleaning is hard work, but I think I ate something that didn't agree with me yesterday or the day before (I gave daiya cheese a try. Nutritional yeast. I'm not sure that was a great idea.. may have been the GF oats. Sometimes my body doesn't care for grains.) So I'm not feeling three meals a day right now, the pancakes kept me plenty full. But I was feeling snacky so I made a trail mix that was refreshing, crunchy and had a touch of sweet! It was so yummy! You can find the recipe here. 

I hope you all have a blessed and beautiful Sunday! I also got some great recipe submissions from some of you and I will get those up soon. I just need to go over them and confirm they are gluten-dairy and grain free! Talk soon! Muah!

When a tragedy strikes I believe we have the innate sense to help. However, when the tragedy happens far from home or when it's an overwhelming disaster we can feel so small and helpless in a world so big. I believe though, that even any tiny little thing we can do when we put our heart in the right place can help. Even if it's just one person or clean up one yard, or make a day a little easier on someone who is scared, lost or hurting. That's Gods purpose for it. I believe our inner health and happiness grows and flourishes when we are able to help our fellow man. Which brings me to my post. When I heard of the tornadoes in Oklahoma, like most of you, I felt like I should do something. These people lost their homes, some of them lost family members, friends, pets. It's unfathomable to imagine. And I felt at a loss of what I could do to help. Then one day as I was pinning and perusing recipes I was brought to a site that specializes in gluten-free packaged meals and a blogger was talking about the gluten-free crisis that takes place when disaster hits.

And that's when I realized what I wanted to do to contribute. It's hard enough when you have access to clean water, organic food, and a working kitchen to make sure we eat clean and healthy so our bodies don't break down. But think about being someone with food allergies, sensitivities, celiac, leaky gut, etc without access to these things? They are saying that even with the Red Cross, as amazing as they are, bringing in food a lot of isn't Gluten Free and celiac's are living on fruit :( While they are greatful to have food, A church in OK teamed up with GoPicnic.com to supply safe food to those who need it! 

Today, June 10th, is the last day they are matching your order to double what is given but I believe they are accepting donations longer, shipping is FREE and the blog tells you where to send the food. 

All the information can be found here. http://glutendude.com/gluten/gluten-free-donations/

You may visit www.gopicnic.com if you have any questions. I spoke to an awesome rep there to verify all the details and it's wonderful what they are doing in conjunction with the church in OK. 

If you have already helped in others ways, don't feel pressured by this blog to do anything more. I just wanted to share my story and that I felt I was called to help in this way. Blessings! - Mandi 

Anxiety. fatigue. constipation. anxiety. anxiety. For those on the outside looking in, we are seen as the ones who have the picky diet. The one that is almost annoying to invite to dinner. The one who always brings her lunch, the one who is too tired to hang out sometimes. The one who is too anxious to drive over. The one who seems to have a lot of stress bogging her down when she has so much good. For those who have the issues that we have, and for us, ourselves. It's a process. A whole frustratingly, sometimes hopeless process. Of balancing food that our body won't attack. Balancing hormones, balancing vitamins and minerals that our body is so severely depleted of. And as a lady, who loves her God more than anything. Tries to do so with grace. With a smile on her face, knowing that she has His hope, His peace, and His light with which to guide this sometimes rocky, unstable and frightening path.

Luckily I have an amazing doctor. The ability to get the food and minerals I need. But somedays it's hard. Really hard. And you get knocked down. Scared. Take two steps back. And you look around and you say thank you to those who support you. 

It's days like this where I am glad I started Nosh & Nurture. So I could release some of my thoughts. So I could connect to others who HAVE to cut out gluten or you get sick, or mentally disrupted by it. Those who know it's not a trend or a fad. Connect to those who understand the gut & psychological syndrome. (which I will be touching on a lot more now that I am starting to share my story more..)

God has put me on this path for a reason, and it's OK. As long as He is holding on strong and not letting go, I shall trust this path and do what I can to keep my body, mind and spirit as healthy as possible. 

A big part of what's gotten me through my struggles and life changes are the people in my life who understand me who know me and who genuinely care. God has brought some beautiful people into my life (truth be told He's also removed some people from my life who weren't so healthy for me) and I count my blessings that I have a safe space to talk about my issues and just 'do' life in general with. 

One friend in particular is Miss Shana. She's the host of our bible study and she's one of the most genuine, kind hearted, loving people I've ever met. Her and her husband do amazing ministry work, have raised two beautiful children and have a marriage that couples can look up too.

This post is related to nourishment in the way that, a lot of people in my life have labeled me "the freak at the table" in a sense. They either don't understand or don't try to understand why im taking care of myself in this way, or eating the way that I do now. And I don't expect everyone to jump on board. However there are a few people in my life who just support me. They don't ask why, they see me getting better, or they themselves have been helped by food and supplementation and they can understand. 

Tonight Shana took time out of her crazy busy life to bake me sugar-free, dairy-free, vegan, gluten and grain-free cupcakes so that I could share in having a treat at bible study. It's the little things like this that just touch my heart and I appreciate her so much. 

I know first hand the time and preparation my diet takes, and for her to do that just makes me love who she is even more.

I totally planned on taking a photo of the DELICIOUS (yes, they were amazing,and I ate two before dinner) dessert, however, I ate them up and then remembered my plan to photograph them. 

Oops.

I will get the recipe though! And post it if she allows me to share. Because I WILL be making these on a special birthday occasion in the future. 

Cherish those in your life that care for you in little ways. They are the ones who make the biggest impact