Hi!
Will you join me for a few minutes to explore who I am, who you are, and what we can share with each other?
I am going to start with five “facts” about me that define who I am and what I believe in. THEN, I hope you will share with me the same about you!
1. My roots reach back to the dark, rich soil of Siberia (YES! It is very cold, but also amazingly beautiful). My mother (a pediatrician/neurologist) and father (an engineer) raised my two younger sisters and me with a strong preference for the natural remedies that Mother Earth so lovingly provides. Even though my mom is a doctor, we grew-up with garlic, onions, fresh milk, honey from our friend’s beehive, homemade jams, and herbs from our garden and wild fields as our first line of defense against illness. And with temperatures often hitting -30, you bet we needed a strong defense!
My love and appreciation for the healing gifts of Nature sprouted very early!
My parents “invited” my sisters and me to help in our sizable garden. We had about 1/3 acre of veggies, berries and greens, and almost a full acre of potatoes. Although I never learned to love pulling weeds, I sure did love the fruits of our labor! We had a root cellar filled with fresh and bottled foods that my mother preserved for our family. Healthy food grown in nutrient rich soil is my favorite “medicine,” and this food, combined with the hard work to produce it has contributed to who I am – I have great skin, healthy nails and beautiful hair. In addition, my grandparents had their own livestock, fed with healthy food they prepared themselves. My Grandpa and Dad would gather wild field grass every year for the pigs, chickens and rabbits. (My dear husband even helped dad gather Puchka for the pigs one summer). If you have never slept on a bed of fresh dried wild grass you don’t know what you’re missing! This is heaven!!!! I enjoyed it very often during late summer as my grandparents had their own storage area filled with mountains of hand picked dried wild grass.
Healthy food grown in nutrient rich soil is my favorite “medicine”.
2. My family was not rich with money or material things, but my childhood was rich with countless memories of the reward that comes from hard work! I was accepted into a very prestigious and highly competitive five year Bachelor Degree program in Marketing, which I completed in 2 ½ years. Then my career took a few funny and perhaps ironic twists and turns. I had amazing experiences in marketing and sales working for the distributors of (very well known) perfumes/cosmetics, tobacco, pharmaceuticals and vegetable oil / mayo.
The irony is that I don’t use make-up or perfume, I don’t smoke, I hate drugs / pills, and I very rarely eat mayo (only once in a while as part of a traditional Russian salad). How funny is that?
3. I loved the challenges and opportunities that I encountered in those jobs, but as I look back, it is clear to me that I was searching for something that I could believe in and love! Now I see the answer so clearly – my deep love for nature, natural remedies, and a healthy lifestyle started with my first “sip” of mother’s milk and now permeates every cell in my body. Finding this answer, however, required a journey through difficult circumstances.
The universe (and perhaps more than a few guardian angels ) brought me together with an amazing man, and convinced me to leave my beloved Moscow to marry Paul (you really should visit sometime – seriously, I would love to take you for a tour of my favorites – just give me a call!). I moved to America, and in spite of my ongoing work with a personal trainer, in just 6 short months I gained a lot of weight and went from a size 8 to size 12/14. I was devastated, it was a disaster. I got depressed and fell into eating a lot of tiramisu…like, really…A LOT!!! I continued to work hard at the gym, but didn’t see any progress (the tiramisu probably didn’t help).
This was when I started looking at food labels, and I COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW!
4. From that point on it became my personal mission to eliminate as many harmful foods from my home as possible. It took time and a lot of work to clear the chemicals and garbage out of my home and out of my body, and I still have some weight to lose, but I felt so much better, and I started to share my successes with anyone who would listen. Do you have any idea how many drugs and antibiotics are sold in the U.S. each year? Do you know how many of these chemicals are used in the production of the food that you eat every day? This is I.N.S.A.N.E!!! Chemicals may temporarily suppress symptoms, but they do NOT promote health!
My dear husband works out in the weather a couple days a week all winter long. To help him get through cold and flu season I “fixed-him-up” with garlic necklaces to wear to work, chopped onions that I put on his chest to clear the congestion, herbal tea that was hand picked by my parents in Siberia, and REAL honey.
