Birthday Shout Out!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!! Love, Jonah!



Hey Dick! Have a great Birthday!! We are looking forward to your visit!!

Grocery Shopping

I saw this on another blog that I enjoy perusing...and I thought I would try it in my own life.   This is all coming from a book called "Hungry Planet"....which is a book I have yet to read BUT i still found it fascinating to look at photos of what other families around the world are eating and how much they are eating each week!  I couldn't wait to take a photo of what my family eats each week (as if I don't already know)!

How much food does my family eat in a week?



The biggest observation is the lack of veggies. This photo is not a totally fair representation of what we eat because at the time of taking the photo, we were buying our fruits and veggies from a local farmers market...and the night of shopping..we didn't go to the market. But there are a few veggies in the photo to "represent". Another thing that has recently changed in my diet is eliminating dairy and soy (due to possible intolerance issues for our son while breastfeeding). We are substituting with Rice Milk. Also, we do eat more grains (quinoa, bulgar wheat, lentils, rice) each week than is represented in the photo as well.


We shop mostly at Trader Joe's.....LOVE THEM! This grocery run in particular cost around $55. And our veggies at the market cost around $12-$15 each week. I am always very satisfied when I look at the receipt and all it says is $2.99 $1.99 for EVERY item. We LOVE the pizza dough from Trader Joe's and do lots of fun things with it each week...and they have GREAT rice chips!

Overall, I really do love the way my family eats. My husband is a vegan and I am a vegetarian. Our goal is to have very little to no boxed and canned foods. We also strive to eat very little sugar. To get our fix, every once in a while my husband will make scones (with more oats than flour and very little sugar) or we will make fruit smoothies or slushy limeades. Animal crackers are a great way to satisfy the sugar cravings as well. My recent indulgence and addiction has been peanutbutter and honey on toast (my comfort food). However, I may have to cut out peanuts from my diet if baby Jonah doesn't start feeling better. And today I had to say goodbye to my morning coffee as well. Let's just say...mom is sad.

So I encourage you to take a photo of the food you eat in a week! It's pretty cool to see what you eat from that perspective. And you may even see what you are missing in your diet from this perspective (or what you are eating too much of!).

Keeping It Magical

Okay so my 31 day blog-athon isn't working out so well. But I am blogging more than i have in the past...so I would say this is a success in its own right. You can't go from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye! But you sure can keep your eye on the prize and keep working towards it!

Another success that I have been working on daily is running. Yep it's back to the exercise grind. But my goal is to LOVE it...and the only way to LOVE exercise is to get into the habit of doing it ...to the point of CRAVING it. And I would say it's starting to happen for me...not without a lot of "I dont wanna's" in the mix. I mentioned in a previous "Re-engage Blog" a few tips on how to get started. I implemented some of my own tips on my very own "Re-engaging" project. Here is what I did:

1) I happen to have a husband who is a professional athlete and a best friend who is a marathoner. Perfect. 2 people who could have easily laughed at my 1.5 mile runs. But they didn't (thanks guys). Instead they shared with me how it is they get out every day and....TRAIN! "You have to exercise even when your body hurts or doesn't feel good. You have to learn to push through it." "You can't think about putting your running shoes on and walking out the door. You have to stay focused on how you will feel when you are finished with your run." I took all their advice to heart...and I recite it every day in my head....and it helps!

2) I bought a running magazine to enhance my knowledge base around the sport. I can't say that it helped in a direct way..but it was a step in the right direction of just inundating my conscious reality of what I was desiring.

3)I did buy some new running shoes. I bought them and then didnt use them for a while. I was still toying with the idea of running in my head...but it was nice to know that I had what I needed when I was ready to begin.

4)I am allowing myself to exercise with other people here and there to switch it up, learn something new, and just to have company to share my activity with.

4) And here is the fun part. I started using some new tools that I have never used before to enhance my running. I stepped it up a notch (thanks to my husband who has geeky athletic gear). Not only do I have a heart rate monitor BUT I have a neat graph and map that goes with it! Check it out:

So the question is: How can you keep re-engaging magical on a daily basis?

Daily Magical Tip #1: Track your progress! Find your own way to monitor yourself. This brings awareness to what you are doing daily and it keeps you curious about what tomorrow will look like! This is a great way to stay motivated. In other words, observe yourself. Watch yourself ebb and flow...see your patterns...what makes you succeed and what makes you turn away from success? Learn to see and know what motivates you and what doesnt...and find where you have the power to influence positive changes. Create new patterns.

Oh and another thing I am learning about re-engaging...

On the days you consciously say to yourself "I don't want to do this today" (and you are bound to have a few of those days)...PUSH THROUGH IT. Accept that it's gonna hurt that day...or that you won't feel inspired or creative that day but you do it anyway. Maybe you don't participate in Re-engaging "full out"...but instead you re-engage for 15mins or whatever it takes to just get you to show up and punch the clock. This is success. Sometimes the point of THAT day is just to keep in your routine and maintain your habit of re-engaging....expect nothing more than that on those days. Show up! Try it...you will see!!

Seattle or Bust!

Seattle was so fun! The weather was PERFECT! Sunny, blue skies! I wish we had another day to explore Seattle's downtown. It has an awesome urban vibe and fisherman's wharf ambiance.




We stayed on the 30th floor of a hotel with a stunning view of the water.



The Farmer's Markets are scrumptious! Cute veggie and fruit stands tucked away in alleys along the water.



Pikes Market is a gem! If I lived in Seattle, I would be a regular at this joint!




Seafood....



Pasta......



Flowers.....oooooh they smelled amazing!



Jonah just LOVED hanging out with Auntie Lisa! He would talk up a storm whenever she played with him! They had a lot of catching up to do.







Jonah really got the hang of hangin' out in the sling with Dad. He was a big boy in the big city!



Seattle was great. But the best part was getting to hang out with my sister!





Thanks for a great visit Lisa!!

We are heading up to Seattle this weekend! I am looking forward to taking some fun photos for a future blog!

so.....probably no blogs till Sunday.

do you ever hear a song and it brings you back to a specific time in your life...and you FEEL like you are there...it's as if the room shifts around you and you are thrust back in time....an energy that your body hasn't felt in a long time washes over you like and the details of that time come into crisp focus. 

Dave Matthews Band...Crash Album.  back in college...sitting in my apartment with my roommate.....hangin' out...talkin'...philosophizing...chillin'...welcoming friends over...watching out the window...roller blading ...hacky sack in the front yard...incense....and loads of hilarious laughter...cracking up over nothing....driving out to the indian mounds...

those were some good times. 

2 times i would relive....the birth of my son and seeing him for the first time...and my 2 years up at SDSU with my old friend.

i hope all of you out there have been able to experience a time in your life where you were carefree, having fun, good friends, good tunes, and some spiritual mounds to dance upon.

today i was asked: "What is the opposite of boredom?" This question was right on the heels of me saying how i was just plain ol' bored today and yesterday for that matter. blah. not in a depressed way. but in a genuinely bored way. after i thought about it, i decided that the opposite of boredom is intrigue and inspiration.

the two i's.

Intrigue.

Inspiration.

how does one come across these two i's in the midst of boredom? can you force intrigue? can you make yourself inspired? hmmm......

well, i tried it. i tried to force intrigue and i tried to make myself inspired today. did it work? well....it kept me curious. i am still curious. but i will say it wiggled me out of my funk. i am slightly blah...but in a "i'm on the fence" kind of blah...or a "toeing the line" kind of blah.

first off...i forced myself to go for a run. and i mean twisted my arm to get out and run. then i made myself leave the house after work and gather up some supplies for a creative project. i made sure i didn't turn on the tv while cooking. and for the cooking, i basically just had to just get up and do it regardless of the little voice in my head that was saying that cereal was good enough for dinner. i even went the extra mile and took a photo of my soup for this blog. perhaps i will WILL myself to do some yoga tonight....that is still undecided.

so what is the point of all of this boring blabbing? all in all....today took some effort to push through into intrigue and inspiration. i think that's okay. it's more successful to fake it till you make it than it is to just not do it all. in fact, it feels kind of inspiring just thinking back on my day and knowing that i tried to make it SOMETHING that it wasn't.

the best part of my day was just answering the question:

"What is the opposite of boredom?"

So you know my answer to this question.

What is YOUR opposite to boredom? and how do YOU find it?

i am intrigued to hear your answer to this question.

tomorrow is a new day. let's hope for the two i's to show up effortlessly this time!

i am 5 days in to my blog-athon and i am kind of wondering to why i committed myself to this. i am cmparing this blog-athon to a running a marathon. this would be the 5 mile marker. i would imagine that runners at this point would still be feeling pretty good and doing their best to not remind themselves that they have 21 more miles left (in my case 26!). so here i am...already running out of steam...trying not to look too far ahead. hmmm....what to do about this?

so today...nothing profound. just hoping i get my second wind...

a wondering a pondering...

i was talking with my friend Sam the other day about how our little brothers are growing up so fast. we both agreed that we still see our little bro's as younger than they really are....it's just how we remember them. when i think about my brother, i still see him as 18 or 19. i know very well he his much more mature than this age (he is 26) but it's the 18 year old image that comes to mind when i randomly think about him.

so, in discovering our selective memories, we wondered what age others remembered us as ...and more than that....what caused them to remember us at THAT age? taking it one step further...what age do YOU remember yourself to be? when you view yourself...how old are you...and why?

i think i remember myself being 25-26. why? i remember feeling free. i remember the biggest growth spurt and such a healthy strong body. i remember the energy of my home, my neighborhood, my friends, my work. i remember there was a magical quality to the air that everyonce in a while i get a scent of....typically in the fall....i was anticipating that there was so much life out there for me to experience... yes...i remember it being fall...i remember the air and color of the light outside....the leaves and the trees....the chill and the warmth. i remember my clothes and my routine....that all the little details in my daily life mattered... there is part of that time that is best left in the past....and there is a part of me from that time that i would like to resurrect anew....it may very well be happening already...it's fall now...and i am noticing the air.....i am recognizing the energy....i can feel a faint buzz of magic in the air...so much life ahead of me to anticipate....and i am enjoying the little things that add so much depth to the color palate of my life right now.

i am not really going anywhere with this...its just a pondering a wondering....

A Message for my Sisters.

I just finished reading the fiction book "The Other Boelyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory. I am not typically one to get into fiction books, especially period novels. I must say, I couldn't put this book down. The book is written around actual facts surrounding the time of King Henry and the Boelyn family. I had two realizations while reading this book:

1) Women were totally oppressed in the 1500's ...even women in influential families.

2) Not too far off the mark from centuries ago....women are still oppressed today.

In the 1500's it was very transparent that women were of no value and to be used as pawns in their family's pursuit of power. Okay, so we (hopefully) dont' experience that blatant division today! BUT....there are still divisions between men and women. Women are not VALUED for their feminine power...in fact, we are taught to devalue our own power! I am not going to get into Britney Spears or the devaluing images of women in the media....

What I will get into is Sarah Palin AND women blindly falling for her BECAUSE she is a woman. While those women supporters are being mesmerized by her "perfect" woman IMAGE...she is standing for all those things that don't support US...or our femininity. I won't get into why. I want YOU to find the answer for yourselves. Look BEYOND the pretty image...and FEEL what isn't supportive to the woman in YOU...to your daughter...and your grand daughters.

Women....I implore you to demand something better for US. We are powerful in the most beautiful way.....more powerful and beautiful than any image can ever convey. Be the wiser. Use YOUR intuition and feminine power to make choices that create a world of equality that is beautiful inside and out.

Deepak Chopra's View about Sarah Palin

Obama and The Palin EffectFrom: Deepak Chopra Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of 'the other.' For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black.

The shadow is a metaphor widely in use befor e his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message.

In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:
--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.

--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.

--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.

--'Reform' -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical , that minorities and immigrants, being different from 'us' pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of 'I'm all right, Jack,' and 'Why change? Everything's OK as it is.' The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time.

She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness. Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum.

The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are g etting, without disguise.

31 Day Blog-athon

Have you ever done something intentionally for 31 days?

I am challenging myself to post a blog every day for 31 days. There are so many days where I have a revelation about something and I think to myself "I should blog about that today!!" and then a few minutes later i think "Eh, I will do it another day." Since the past few posts have been centering around re-engaging, I decided to challenge myself to do something that I imagine doing but don't follow through with in the end. Who know what these posts will consist of each day....a picture....a pondering....a quote....a revelation...wisdom....noticings...personal experiences... a post about not knowing what to post...

The point of this is to just DO IT! To allow myself to be open to the possibilities of creativity each day. To post when I don't feel like it. To find a new connection to my blog. To just know that I accomplished my own goal.

I invite you to do something intentional for 31 days. I would love to hear about what you chose to achieve for yourself.

Journey with me as I move through 31 days of the unknown....total possibility!

Wishing consistency and inspiration for us all!