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Crunchy-Chewy Mama

Living naturally, most of the time.

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Holistic Health

The highs and the lows of living full out in the world with chronic illness

July 4, 2016 by Jessica Leave a Comment

I felt so much stronger this year. My energy was better. I made it through that whole long spring time of Mercury Retrograde with nary a blip in my emotional mojo. Morning yoga was a regular thing, and I’d been walking or using the elliptical with some regularly. I had been making progress on my…

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Filed Under: Featured, Holistic Health Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, BlogU, conference, depression, disappointment, doctors, exhaustion, fatigue, health, health coach, Holistic Health, labwork, supplements, support, therapy, writing, yoga

Bring it, Fall!

September 20, 2015 by Jessica Leave a Comment

In the past two days, I’ve actually done two things I really wanted to do and done them with joy. I spent the day at the Natural Products Expo East where I talked with some truly inspirational people about amazing products. And I talked with moms and other local leaders in the holistic parenting community…

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health Tagged With: happiness, health, Holistic Health, joy, Natural Products Expo, optimism

Modeling moderation when mama abstains

July 13, 2015 by Jessica Leave a Comment

As a woman whose health can’t support her drinking any alcohol, I feel pretty out of the mainstream with all the funny jokes out there about needing a drink. I can’t even tolerate decaf coffee anymore, so I feel similarly out of step when others talk about the day not starting without java. It’s not…

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Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Featured, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: #RefreshYourFunny, #TalkEary, adrenal fatigue, alcohol, coffee, Holistic Health

Our days, these days

March 10, 2015 by Jessica 18 Comments

Welcome to the March 2015 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Day in the Life This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have given us a special glimpse into their everyday. *** Since I’m always wondering where the time…

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Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: daily life, family, food, Holistic Health, meals, priorities, self-care

Failure to thrive in motherhood

April 30, 2014 by Jessica 5 Comments

The moment I realized I could no longer handle teaching high school, I was sitting in a Teaching for Change-organized class with Enid Lee, one of the authors of Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development and a huge force in the area of critical literacy, which was…

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Filed Under: Featured, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: adrenal health, Arianna Huffington, balance, breathing, business, career, depression, family, health, Holistic Health, life purpose, Mindful Healthy Life, mindfulness, passion, priorities, tai chi, teaching, Thrive, thyroid, work, working mother, yoga

Believing in work (and parenting): Femworking conference interview and reflections

September 30, 2013 by Jessica 4 Comments

What a delightful conversation I had last week with Kelley Sanabria, founder of Femworking, LLC and Nicole Dash, author of Tiny Steps Mommy blog and the co-chair with Kelley of the upcoming Blogger and Small Business Conference taking place in Arlington on October 26. They offered a discount for covering the conference for TheDCMoms.com, and…

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Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Featured, Holistic Health, The Arts Tagged With: blog, blogging, business, Femworking, health, Holistic Health, small business, working mother, writing mama, writing mother

A snapshot of health: tired adrenals

May 17, 2013 by Jessica Leave a Comment

In the past few weeks, I’ve had to cancel some appointments for my own healing because my children were sick and I didn’t have childcare. I got so down, I canceled even more that I could have made; I got overwhelmed and started to question how I was ever going to feel better. It felt…

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Filed Under: Featured, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, applied kinesiology, appointments, balance, DHEA, healing, healing journey, herbs, Holistic Health, homeopathy, hormone balance, hormones, muscle-testing, practitioners, priorities, supplements, thyroid

Morning with a high-maintenance mama

March 30, 2013 by Jessica 5 Comments

If “high-maintenance” means “requiring a lot of attention,” put my picture by the definition. With all the things I’m having to do these days just to make my body function (or to figure out what that even means in this shifting landscape of health), I feel like my children’s lives are passing me by, and…

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Filed Under: Featured, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: Alfie Kohn, Ayurveda, Claudia Welch, constipation, cortisol, digestion, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, green smoothies, health, Holistic Health, homeopathy, hormone, juice, juicing, Katrina Kenison, magnesium, meditation, mindfulness, raw foods, stress, The Last Best Cure, Vata, yoga

Yoga as birthday gift

March 9, 2013 by Jessica 3 Comments

I turned 40 on Monday. On my birthday eve — last Sunday — I had the most beautiful yoga class with a small group of friends. I walked in anxious and grumpy and walked out grateful and open-hearted. This weekend, I am off on a retreat through Beloved Yoga at the lovely Kent Manor Inn….

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Featured, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: Beloved Yoga, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, healing, health, Holistic Health, Karen Maezen Miller, Katrina Kenison, Lil Omm, nutrition, yoga

A day of focus

January 5, 2013 by Jessica Leave a Comment

That crazy sound you hear is my head spinning so fast I think my eyeballs will melt from the inside out. In other words, today blew my mind. I left the house at 9 a.m. for a workshop with healer Dr. Claudia Welch on breath, Ayurveda, and hormones. I left that gig an hour early…

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Featured, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: Alfie Kohn, Ayurveda, Beloved Yoga, breath, Claudia Welch, education, healing, Holistic Health, hormones, parenting, school

Food for thought

November 28, 2012 by Jessica 2 Comments

I can’t stand it. After 27 days of writing poetry, I want to write about nutrition! Aside from the fact that tomatoes are out of season and that I didn’t preserve any local ones, and aside from the fact that I’d once all but banned even gluten-free pasta from our house as a processed food…

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Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: food, health, Holistic Health, Kaayla Daniel, NaBloPoMo, nutrition, poetry, real food, soy, thyroid

20 years ago today: How I Met Their Father

April 24, 2012 by Jessica 2 Comments

I met my future husband at a dorm room party on Friday, April 24, 1992. Twenty years ago today. “You were babies!” people exclaim when I tell them this. Yes and no. I was 19, he almost 21. We did, in some ways, grow up together.  We’ve seen the world change together, from days of…

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: birth, breastfeeding, cesarean, commitment, family, health, Holistic Health, homebirth, marriage, nostalgia, past, pregnancy, priorities, relationship, thyroid

Diary of a wimpy kid’s mom

April 11, 2012 by Jessica 7 Comments

My son is not strong. He is, as the kids say, a shrimp. On the soccer field, the kids complain when picking teams, “But he’s so small.” When one of his good friends found out he was taking a sports class after school, he told my boy, “You suck at sports.” I imagine he’s probably…

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Filed Under: Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: allergies, athletics, baseball, biking, endurance, Frisbee, From Left to Write Book Club, health, hiking, Holistic Health, running, school, sports, strength, weakness

Back on the mat: $5 class special at Radiance!

March 22, 2012 by Jessica Leave a Comment

When my friend and neighbor asked if I would watch her son so that she could take advantage of a $5 yoga deal, I said, “How about I offer up my babysitter instead and go with you?” I’ve been meaning to get to Old Town Alexandria’s Radiance Yoga for a while, but it’s just a…

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: adrena, Holistic Health, mental health, mental wellness, thyroid, yoga

Blooming trees and buzzing Bs

March 18, 2012 by Jessica Leave a Comment

Eighty degrees in March, and nothing is at rest. The flowers are up, stretching their arms after nary a winter’s nap. The magnolia has exploded into blossom way before its time, dropping its once-precious petals onto the ground where they turn slipper and slimy like a million mini banana peels. After she sat down on…

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Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, exercise, GAPS diet, healing, health, Holistic Health, home, mental health. self-renewal, renovation, thyroid, yoga

Mediocre would be good enough

March 9, 2012 by Jessica 3 Comments

No one has to convince me not to try to be perfect. Okay, I do have perfectionist tendencies in some areas, but when I read about mothers having epiphanies that they don’t need to keep the house spotless, I feel like I am living on some other planet. One with lots of spots. My floors…

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, GAPS diet, health, Holistic Health, mental health, mental wellness, priorities, thyroid

Now is the time for now

January 24, 2012 by Jessica Leave a Comment

The instant I read the words, I regretted picking up my BlackBerry that one last time before going to bed. A well-meaning relative of mine had read my recent post about my health and my leaky gut problem and told me: “This is not the time to volunteer for things.” She intended to point out…

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Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: depression, family, healing, health, Holistic Health, home, mental health, mental wellness, nutrition, priorities, school, volunteerism, wellbeing

My gut, she leaks

January 8, 2012 by Jessica 10 Comments

I wouldn’t have even bothered to do the test if I didn’t think I had digestive problems. I know I do. But some of the information I got from my labs this week was information I didn’t even know could be found. It’s been 11 months since I went on the GAPS diet, which has…

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Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: dairy-free, Diagos-Techs, food, GAPS, GAPS diet, glutamine, gluten-free, gut, health, Holistic Health, IBS, leaky gut, mental health, mental wellness, nutrition, pancreatic enzymes, thyroid, traditional foods

Staying healthy this winter (with a giveaway!)

December 1, 2011 by Jessica 5 Comments

For me, food is medicine. If health is a priority, take out foods that don’t work for your body — because of allergies, because they rev you up (like caffeine or sugar), because they draw you down (like alcohol) or because they add to inflammation (like sugar and a lot of the Standard American Diet)…

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Filed Under: D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: Allison Kitchen, cold, DCMindBody, Emergen-C, flu, food, health, Holistic Health, Holistic Moms, nutrition, wellness, winter

A weekend of holistic health and blogging

October 23, 2011 by Jessica 1 Comment

A tale of two conferences I’ve had a split personality this weekend. Much of my time has been spent at the wonderful blogging conference, Blogalicious. Since I first arrived at the conference Friday morning, I’ve met great people, caught up with friends, and learned a ton about social media and media resources in general. A…

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Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: balance, blog, Blogalicious, blogging, family, food, GAPS diet, health, Holistic Health, home, marriage, priorities, relationships, Take Back Your Health Conference, writing

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Primary Sidebar

Welcome to Crunchy-Chewy Mama, where the wilderness meets the sidewalk. Around here, I do my best to live as healthfully as possible. But compromises abound.

I also publish the resource blog Mindful Healthy Life of Metro DC. To learn about my writing and appearances and for details about the writing, editing and consulting services I offer, visit JessicaClaireHaney.com.

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