FREE Printables + Wise Traditions Conference in Pictures: How my Talk Went (Ugh), the FOOD, and more!

Look at the beautiful view out my hotel window in Montgomery, Alabama at the Wise Traditions conference!

I'll tell you all about a fun weekend with friends, along with scoop on the talk I gave and how that went (and why I won't be doing that again for a while!), and of course I'll share pictures of all the amazing FOOD we ate.  🙂

First, however, I have two quick things — some FREE stuff to tell you about:

1. If you know anyone struggling with cancer, I wanted to make sure you knew that the Truth about Cancer event will be up again in a few days, click here and sign up to watch for free.

2. For my talk at the conference, I really wanted to give a lot of VALUE, and there was a ton of info that I just couldn't fit into my talk.  SO, my awesome assistant Susan and I made up four new FREE printables, you can get them by clicking here and signing up for my emails (live, weekly, or monthly options), and if you're already on my list, just shoot Susan an email and she'll verify your email address ([email protected] — please be patient in case she gets a lot of requests) and then she'll send your directions for getting a copy of these:

• Real Food Time Savers
• How to Afford Real Food
• Homemade FAST Meal Ideas
• Real Food Snack Ideas

And don't forget the free printables that were already available:

• How to Get Rid of Head Lice Naturally
• How to Nontoxically Eliminate Bed Bugs — including DIY instructions for how to make an inexpensive bug trap
• Top 25 Simple Ways to Boost Your Health with Apple Cider Vinegar!

Again, click here to get those!

Wise Traditions Conference Highlights with lots of pictures!

Well there were mostly GOOD things at the Wise Traditions conference, and one big frustrating thing, but the good always outweighs everything else, and the top of that list every year is ALWAYS meeting new real foodie friends, and seeing so many of my “old” friends and wonderful blog sponsors.  I'll share a bunch of pictures below, but first, a few highlights…

• Click here to see a FB live video that Hilda, the Wise Traditions podcast host, shot outside with myself and Carla from Jovial Foods.  Here's the post I wrote about Carla's book, still a favorite that always stays in my kitchen.  She interviewed me for the WAPF podcast which will be available at some point,  click this link to hear past Wise Traditions podcasts.

Kelly & Hilda

Carla & Kelly

Carla's Einkorn book

• My friend Kay and I took some walks by the gorgeous river pictured above.  Remember when I told you about my trip out to see her in Minnesota?  And get this:  it was announced that next year the conference will be in Minneapolis, not far from her and her sister, Brenda, who came this year too!

Dinner out the night before the conference:  Brenda, Kay, Tina from Just Thrive, Jill (my friend and blog assistant), me

Look at all these delicious, nutritious snacks that Kay & Brenda brought for a little wine party in their room one night:

Wine (including some wine Brenda makes), homemade cheese from their “cheese lady” friend, kraut that Brenda also makes (she's a crazy woman and puts up all KINDS of foods every year, which I told you about in this post), nuts, crackers, dips, dark chocolate, and some sweet potato chips fried in lard that I bought at the conference!

Our attempt at a selfie.  🙂

• Another clear highlight of my trip was meeting Del Bigtree from the movie, Vaxxed.  He spoke in a Q&A after the movie showing, and he also gave a talk, so I got to hear him twice, plus we all had drinks in the bar one night, too — I could listen to him for hours.  He speaks TRUTH and is obviously as riled up about the issue of vaccine safety like myself and so many of you are.  He knows story after story and fact after fact off the top of his head, and when you hear him, you can't help but wonder, why doesn't everyone KNOW this stuff?!  I took a lot of videos of him speaking, but the audio and visual quality is so bad, I'm not even going to waste time trying to edit.  Instead, just go watch some of the Vaxxed videos here — his photographer was taking LOTS of video during the conference, hopefully those will be up on the video page soon too.  And for SURE, buy the Vaxxed film, as many copies as you can afford, and give them to your doctors, your friends, your nieces who are having babies, to your kids who are pregnant, just get the word out! (UPDATE:  I decided to try posting a few of my videos after all because the messages are SO important, let me know if you think the quality is okay, and please, if so, click here and give them a thumbs up and SHARE, thank you!)

 Leah's assistant, Teresa, Mandy (author of Real Food Recovery), Del (producer of Vaxxed), Leah (author of Freedom from Fibromyalgia), and me.

• A highlight is always going to Mass with my Catholic friends each year and seeing a new beautiful church, this year it was Kim Schuette, and her friend, Nida.  What a special time we had together, including meeting our sweet Christian Uber driver on the way home who ended up praying with us for my friend back home who had a mass needing to be biopsied.  Thank God we found out today it's not cancer!  (Usually Kathy from the WAPF joins us but she had to hit a 7am Mass due to timing, I couldn't make that one happen!)

My talk on “How to Get Your Kids to LOVE Real Food”

When my talk was done, I had a feeling similar to the last time we pulled away from camping a few years ago.  I thought, “Phew, I never have to do that again!”  I think the talk itself went fine, and I don't mind speaking in front of people at all, it's kind of fun!  It's the other stuff that had me quite frustrated…

• The preparation stress was horrible.  Homeschooling, cooking real food meals, running my own business, and all the other being-a-Mom and running-a-household things are really all I can handle right now, and any extra projects on top of that are just too much.  So if I'm asked to do a Q&A type of talk, or something I didn't have to PREP for, then great, I'll do that, but nothing that takes months of researching, gathering info, getting the slides and notes just right, practicing, etc. etc. etc…

• The only tech guy at the whole conference didn't know how to adjust Keynote so it did NOT show my notes along with the slides.  Yes, I should've figured that out ahead of time (and should've remembered how from my previous talks, so I'm upset with myself too), but I thought for sure that would be an easy one for a conference tech guy!  He was a sweetheart and so was Elizabeth from the WAPF, they were trying SO hard to help me and I'm very thankful, but I got there an HOUR ahead to make sure everything was all set, my talk started at 2:20, and at 2:18 things STILL weren't working (that's when I snapped this picture, when I'd given up!), so I had to give the whole talk without my notes to refer to.  Thankfully I remembered most of it and talked for 40 minutes off the slides, but there were a lot of things I missed, important comments and transitions that I worked for months on that would've helped it all to flow better.  Hopefully these are things nobody noticed but me, but it was very frustrating.

• My talk was on a Sunday afternoon, which I KNEW meant a low turn-out, because many people leave Sunday morning.  At least there were more than FIVE people there, which I was really worried about, because after all that prep, I wanted more people to benefit!  So there were about 30 in attendance or so, and I'm planning to try and turn the whole talk into a book so I can help even more with the information I gathered, so if I can pull that off (I told you how I am with extra projects!), it'll all be worth it.  Please say a prayer that if it's supposed to be a book, that it comes together easily.  Thanks!

• I loved meeting everyone afterward, signing my books, and chatting with everyone, THAT was fun.  🙂

More pictures!

Okay here are a bunch of pictures, in order, with captions below so you know who they all are…

Kay & I took gorgeous morning walks.

Above is a panorama shot I attempted.  Maybe if you click on it you could see it better.  If not, I'm sorry!

More shots by the Alabama River.

Sorry this is grainy due to the lighting.  This was the first talk I went to, with my friend Hannah from Kombucha Kamp — click there to get all your kombucha supplies and info.  🙂

OR get the best selling Big Book of Kombucha here.

Another selfie attempt with my sweet friends and blog assistants (next year I hope my friend/assistant Susan can come too!):  Jill, me, Joanie (click on the links for their columns).

What a treat for Jill & I to meet vaccine rights attorney, Alan Phillips, author of The Authoritative Guide to Vaccine Legal Exemptions, he's been a great resource over the years!

Me with Hilary, author of the Heal Your Gut Cookbook, and Genevieve, author of the Mama Natural Week to Week Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth – available for preorder now!

Amelia and Pete from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, Will Winter, and Kathy Kramer from the WAPF office.

Frank Nicely, state senator from Tennessee, a champion for our food rights!

Banquet dinner:  Brenda, Kay, Joanie, me, Jill, Hannah, Genevieve, Tina.

Tender bison, a celeriac puree (yum), brussels, and green beans with caramelized onions, so delicious!

My sweet sponsors, Kathy & Norm, from Radiant Life, my favorite source for all things related to water safety and purification — read my post about why I ditched RO water.

Allison from the To Your Health Sprouted Flour Company, which was just up the road from the conference!

As mentioned above, I'm an Einkorn fan for sure!

These guys at Defender Shield have some cool new products!  They have a new security/travel pack AND new wallet cell phone cases that also hold credit cards, in new colors, too!  Right now you can get a 15% discount by clicking here and using the code SUPERSALE16.  

This is Chef Lance from BoneBroth.com, who I'm hoping to work with more in the future.  🙂  There's never any decent coffee at conferences (only Starbucks, ick), so I loved popping over to Chef Lance's booth for some tasty chicken broth.  (He's holding my book here.)

I loved meeting Tina from Just Thrive, now my favorite probiotic!  (Tina, Joanie, me)

It was great hearing Will Harris' talk and meeting him in person, what a neat guy!  He's the one I just did this post on recently:  From Factory Farm to Sustainable Farm – One Man’s Story.

Friday lunch:  pork tacos, curtido (like kraut), rice, black-eyed peas.

Maple flan!

I ate mine without snapping a shot, so I asked Elizabeth to let me take a shot of her plate at the VIP dinner (for speakers).  🙂  Chicken stew, rice, collard greens, kimchi.

Sausage, kraut, artisan bread and butter, various cheeses, and a caesar salad so good I'm trying to get the recipe for the dressing!

When my talk was done (ahhhhh), Jill, Joanie and I went out for sushi, yum!  We were honored to be joined by immunologist, Tatyana Obukhanych, author of Vaccine Illusion and the amazing “Open Letter to Legislators Currently Considering Vaccine Legislation” that went viral last year! She's super sweet and gave an awesome talk on How the Immune System Works.

The sushi was really good, but the ginger and the wasabi are my FAV.

Honorable Mentions/three of my favorite sponsors not there this year who I missed:  

• Cultures for Health — the best place to get all your supplies for dairy kefir, water kefir, cheesemaking, sourdough, yogurt, and more.

• Karl from Healthy Harvest — distributor of my favorite olive oil!

• And Perfect Supplements — where I get my probiotics, K2, liver detox pills, desiccated liver caps, coconut oil, and more!

This post took hours to write and get the pics uploaded, etc., so if you enjoyed reading it, please let me know in the comments!