My chiropractor recommended that I read Grain Brain. I downloaded it last night and am reading it today. His argument is compelling, as he explains the connection between diabetes and Alzheimers, and overconsumption of carbohydrates and gluten.
We are not eating our grandmother's grains. Our genetically modified grains contribute to inflammation, the major risk factor in the upsurge of so many diseases.
While we should cut way back on carbohydrates, Dr. Perlmutter says that we should eat more healthy fats: avocados, olives, coconut and olive oils, and lots of nuts.
http://www.drperlmutter.com/about/grain-brain-cookbook/
Monday, September 7, 2015
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Recipe for a Reboot
There are so many recipes--but here's the one I chose:
After a nap, I went to Spa D'Santi and had an amazing massage focusing on my neck. I'd planned to get one this week, but I needed the knots out NOW--and the young therapist, Nick, did a terrific job. I walked out feeling like a new woman, and I liked her better than the old one.
Right next door, at Sky Nails, where they play instrumental music instead of TV, I got a much-needed pedicure and nearly fell asleep in the chair. A pedicure is--next to a massage--the best way I know to reverse frumpy.
Then I went solo to Cappy's, my favorite restaurant, just to close out the day on their deck with the best iced tea in the neighborhood, and watched the sun going down.
Today was all about solitude and pampering.
All of this set the tone for tomorrow's creative venture--learning the camera so I can take pictures and post the casita on Air BnB.
After a nap, I went to Spa D'Santi and had an amazing massage focusing on my neck. I'd planned to get one this week, but I needed the knots out NOW--and the young therapist, Nick, did a terrific job. I walked out feeling like a new woman, and I liked her better than the old one.
Right next door, at Sky Nails, where they play instrumental music instead of TV, I got a much-needed pedicure and nearly fell asleep in the chair. A pedicure is--next to a massage--the best way I know to reverse frumpy.
Then I went solo to Cappy's, my favorite restaurant, just to close out the day on their deck with the best iced tea in the neighborhood, and watched the sun going down.
Today was all about solitude and pampering.
All of this set the tone for tomorrow's creative venture--learning the camera so I can take pictures and post the casita on Air BnB.
Incredible Things
Elena stayed late both Saturday and Sunday, to my delight, but she's not yet ready to spend the night. We swam, ate dinner at Beto's with Freda, made a painting for her mommy, and watched a few episodes of Wild Kratts and The Einsteins. I introduced her to Dr. Suess and she thought "Cat in the Hat" was hilarious, interrupting every few pages to ask, "Why won't he just try it?"
Wild Kratts is her all-time favorite Netflix series--all about animals and their individual "creature powers." I highly recommend it if you have small children around who want to watch movies on your laptop.
"You know what I saw last night when I opened the door?" I asked. "A big fat raccoon was in the bird feeder, eating all the leftover sunflower seeds!"
"That is incredible!" she said. Then, after a pause, "Another incredible thing is that Mommy saw a huge porcupine on her run yesterday."
I asked Freda if Elena reminded her of her granddaughter at three. "Jessica wasn't nearly so chatty," Freda said. Neither was my Will. But Aunt Day was exactly like Elena in her chattiness. I used to have to bribe her with an Oreo to stop talking for five minutes. Elena, like Day at her age, has many opinions and stories to share, and she likes to contribute a great deal to adult conversations.
If she gets sufficient attention, she will embellish her stories. "Sometimes I slide off the saddle and fall on the ground and everybody thinks I'm dead," she said. (This has never happened.)
She had a meltdown, Will said, at her Meet-The-Teacher day last week, so we're all wondering how she will fare when she's dropped off on Wednesday for her first day in the company of a roomful of terrifying three-year-olds. I think she'll wind up liking them--especially if they have animals to tell her about. If she doesn't, that will be incredible.
Vulnerability and Wholeheartedness
I began my day in a quandary: two last minute cancelations for writing group left us too small a group to meet for our lift-off to the new school year, so we four who were left on board decided to postpone our opening meeting until October.
My first thought was, "Now what?" I'd planned for something, looked forward to it, and had to change course--just like on a road trip when you encounter unmoving traffic or a road block.
"Doing nothing" is not a comfortable response. So I returned some broken things to Lowe's, washed all the sheets and towels, and cleaned the casita. But with an aching neck, I was forced to stop, to do nothing after all, and go to bed with an ice pack and ibuprofen. I read my Sunday School material--Brainpickings, which is wonderful. And this week's post linked to another favorite, "On Being With Krista Tippet" in which she interviewed Brene Brown. The interview lasts an hour, I fell asleep ten minutes in and will have to rewind to hear it all.
With my chronic neck issues of late, along with a few other things, I have been feeling vulnerable. I've always hated to admit it when I feel a negative feeling--like vulnerability or depression. I want to be perpetually sunny, positive and strong. I shrink even from talk about vulnerability or shame (Brene Brown's subjects), and have therefore not been an enthusiastic reader of Brown. But this morning's piece on Brainpickings, along with the interview changed my mind:
She's right. As soon as I admit feeling vulnerable, or whatever, that feeling usually begins to dissipate as I turn my focus to something creative.
My first thought was, "Now what?" I'd planned for something, looked forward to it, and had to change course--just like on a road trip when you encounter unmoving traffic or a road block.
"Doing nothing" is not a comfortable response. So I returned some broken things to Lowe's, washed all the sheets and towels, and cleaned the casita. But with an aching neck, I was forced to stop, to do nothing after all, and go to bed with an ice pack and ibuprofen. I read my Sunday School material--Brainpickings, which is wonderful. And this week's post linked to another favorite, "On Being With Krista Tippet" in which she interviewed Brene Brown. The interview lasts an hour, I fell asleep ten minutes in and will have to rewind to hear it all.
With my chronic neck issues of late, along with a few other things, I have been feeling vulnerable. I've always hated to admit it when I feel a negative feeling--like vulnerability or depression. I want to be perpetually sunny, positive and strong. I shrink even from talk about vulnerability or shame (Brene Brown's subjects), and have therefore not been an enthusiastic reader of Brown. But this morning's piece on Brainpickings, along with the interview changed my mind:
A common denominator Brown found in those able to rise strong from their facedown moments is an active engagement with the creative impulse, whatever the medium — a physical practice integrating the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual:
Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration — it is how we fold our experiences into our being… The Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea has a beautiful saying: “Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle.”
She's right. As soon as I admit feeling vulnerable, or whatever, that feeling usually begins to dissipate as I turn my focus to something creative.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Elena and Tella
Tella is Elena's very soft girl monkey.
Elena wanted to make a costume and glasses for Tella.
Jan overheard the request for glasses and brought us jewelry wire--which made perfectly good monkey glasses.
Then we went swimming with Freda, but not Tella--who was in the car worrying that she had no dress. So when we came home, we got out the sewing machine and, to Elena's great fascination, made a monkey dress.
I hadn't used the machine in a long, long time. "Can it make a raccoon costume?" she asked.
Taking pictures of each other at the pool:
Elena wanted to make a costume and glasses for Tella.
Jan overheard the request for glasses and brought us jewelry wire--which made perfectly good monkey glasses.
 |
| Tella's Portrait by Elena |
Then we went swimming with Freda, but not Tella--who was in the car worrying that she had no dress. So when we came home, we got out the sewing machine and, to Elena's great fascination, made a monkey dress.
I hadn't used the machine in a long, long time. "Can it make a raccoon costume?" she asked.
Taking pictures of each other at the pool:
Asking for what you want
Last night, Elena found a basket of fabrics at my house and asked, "What are these?"
"Fabrics," I said. She loved the word, fabrics--just as earlier she had loved the word, success. At three, she is acquisitive as all three-year-olds are, for words and new things.
"What do you make of them?" she asked.
I told her that someday I planned to make a patchwork quilt.
"We could make me a raccoon costume!" she said. "Or a skirt with all different colors of ruffles."
"Can I take these home?" she asked.
"You can pick out your five favorite ones and take them," I said--and then watched as she carefully folded them and put them in a bag like treasures.
"Can I have that doll with the apple on her head?" she asked as she was getting in the car seat, clutching the little tea pot she'd already wished for and received.
Lesson learned: Ask for what you want and you will probably receive.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Color
I have about ten thousand paint chips in my house--no exaggeration. Each time I go to a paint department, I take a handful.
When I first moved to Texas, we visited a painter and poet couple who lived in a house of many colors. The dining table was a picnic table, each chair a different primary color. I remember looking longingly around that house, imagining that one day we would have a house drenched in color.
We had no money--I was a college student and my husband a part-time art instructor by night and an Air Force illustrator by day. But the former renters of our shabby rent house had left behind a cabinet and we splurged on a quart of green enamel. That and three paper flowers from the mercado constituted our interior decor.
The Sherwin Williams brochure has 56 whites. When you put one against another, the brown, pink, or yellow undertones pop out, yet when you see a particular white in isolation, it's just white. Color, like words or notes of music, do what they do in context of the colors next to them, the size of the wall or building, and the light at different times of day.
When I showed Pam a picture of the new brightly colored casita, she wrote: Yes to color! Yes to life! Yes to everything good and wonderful in this amazing universe! Yes with gratitude and thanksgiving!
I don't just want one color, I want them all. I'm thinking of gluing a few thousand paint chips on the wall like a mosaic.
When I first moved to Texas, we visited a painter and poet couple who lived in a house of many colors. The dining table was a picnic table, each chair a different primary color. I remember looking longingly around that house, imagining that one day we would have a house drenched in color.
We had no money--I was a college student and my husband a part-time art instructor by night and an Air Force illustrator by day. But the former renters of our shabby rent house had left behind a cabinet and we splurged on a quart of green enamel. That and three paper flowers from the mercado constituted our interior decor.
The Sherwin Williams brochure has 56 whites. When you put one against another, the brown, pink, or yellow undertones pop out, yet when you see a particular white in isolation, it's just white. Color, like words or notes of music, do what they do in context of the colors next to them, the size of the wall or building, and the light at different times of day.
When I showed Pam a picture of the new brightly colored casita, she wrote: Yes to color! Yes to life! Yes to everything good and wonderful in this amazing universe! Yes with gratitude and thanksgiving!
I don't just want one color, I want them all. I'm thinking of gluing a few thousand paint chips on the wall like a mosaic.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The Invisible New Neighbors
Jan and I have been kvetching from yard to yard.
In the space where Allen's modest house used to be, two huge houses are going up. When Jan and I look across the street, the first one--already framed in--looks like a giant Tinker Toy construction. Two and a half stories high and very deep, we think it belongs on a large lot with trees instead of crammed into a lot too small for anything green.
The new owners have already complained about having to have a utility pole in their yard and asked that it be installed in Jan's yard instead! She has successfully rejected their offer to host their pole. They've also asked the other neighbor to cut down his trees so leaves won't fall into their pool. He, too, has rejected their invitation to chop down down his beautiful old trees for the sake of their pool. It has been reported that the new neighbors are not happy campers.
From what planet do these people come, that they can invade our street of small houses with one that dwarfs us all AND demand that the neighbors accommodate their wishes? We haven't met them yet, but we've already decided that they will not be our best friends.
All day today and yesterday, the workers have treated us to music so loud you could probably hear it on Broadway, six blocks away. Someone on our usually-quiet street called the police and asked them to ask the builders to lower the volume. When they did, it was like the ending of a migraine headache. I'm not a fan of music in any language during nap hour, but mariachi music in the middle of the day is particularly noxious.
"Good fences make good neighbors," Frost said in one of his poems. I wonder if we can build a fence down the middle of the street.
In the space where Allen's modest house used to be, two huge houses are going up. When Jan and I look across the street, the first one--already framed in--looks like a giant Tinker Toy construction. Two and a half stories high and very deep, we think it belongs on a large lot with trees instead of crammed into a lot too small for anything green.
The new owners have already complained about having to have a utility pole in their yard and asked that it be installed in Jan's yard instead! She has successfully rejected their offer to host their pole. They've also asked the other neighbor to cut down his trees so leaves won't fall into their pool. He, too, has rejected their invitation to chop down down his beautiful old trees for the sake of their pool. It has been reported that the new neighbors are not happy campers.
From what planet do these people come, that they can invade our street of small houses with one that dwarfs us all AND demand that the neighbors accommodate their wishes? We haven't met them yet, but we've already decided that they will not be our best friends.
All day today and yesterday, the workers have treated us to music so loud you could probably hear it on Broadway, six blocks away. Someone on our usually-quiet street called the police and asked them to ask the builders to lower the volume. When they did, it was like the ending of a migraine headache. I'm not a fan of music in any language during nap hour, but mariachi music in the middle of the day is particularly noxious.
"Good fences make good neighbors," Frost said in one of his poems. I wonder if we can build a fence down the middle of the street.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
A good podcast on creativity
I'm listening to Liz Gilbert's podcasts, Magic Lessons, which is a companion to her new book, Big Magic, coming out this month.
In talking with a photographer who wants to start a new creative project, Gilbert says, "Your fear makes you think that everything new you do will kill you....You have to have a conversation with fear as you embark on a new venture."
In talking with a photographer who wants to start a new creative project, Gilbert says, "Your fear makes you think that everything new you do will kill you....You have to have a conversation with fear as you embark on a new venture."
First Day of September
Elena is one of my favorite teachers. I watch her intently and listen to the absolute, unvarnished truth of her words.
Were we all that honest when we were three? Or did something in scary school (or school of life) teach us how to pad and finesse the truth? School socializes us, teaches the norms of what to say and what not to say-. Maybe Elena senses that things are about to change in a big way as she looks back nostalgically to babyhood.
I noticed in the text I shared earlier that Elena said, "I wish I were..." She's spot on with her English grammar. and presumably also her Spanish.
But when she said, "I'm brave to snakes, not school," she used a surprising preposition--as we don't follow "brave" with "to."
I loved it! It made me think of all the things we have to be brave TO, to stand up to, to blunder through with courage.
If an adult says something Elena doesn't like, she looks at that adult in the eyes and says so, no holding back.
For example: last week, Mike told her cousin Preston he was a good boy. She looked directly at Mike and said, "Mike, don't make fun of Preston!" (He wasn't making fun of him at all, but she obviously objected to his words for some reason and told him so.) I admired her spunk.
My "school" this week is watching camera tutorials, compliments of the nice people at YouTube. As my read-along text, I'm reading the Book for Dummies. Technology has advanced so much since my earlier version of this camera that I feel like I'm in preschool. School is scary--just as Elena said.
My teacher on You Tube is a frenetic, bushy-haired photographer. He hops about the room, squatting, changing his aperture, doing stuff with the touch screen, raising and lowering his ISO, and switching settings for different effects. I admire his confidence with the camera, but I have to keep stopping and writing down what he says before he's on to the next thing. I'm as intimidated by this new school as Elena is intimidated by the prospects of meeting a bunch of scary three year olds on Monday.
Were we all that honest when we were three? Or did something in scary school (or school of life) teach us how to pad and finesse the truth? School socializes us, teaches the norms of what to say and what not to say-. Maybe Elena senses that things are about to change in a big way as she looks back nostalgically to babyhood.
I noticed in the text I shared earlier that Elena said, "I wish I were..." She's spot on with her English grammar. and presumably also her Spanish.
But when she said, "I'm brave to snakes, not school," she used a surprising preposition--as we don't follow "brave" with "to."
I loved it! It made me think of all the things we have to be brave TO, to stand up to, to blunder through with courage.
If an adult says something Elena doesn't like, she looks at that adult in the eyes and says so, no holding back.
For example: last week, Mike told her cousin Preston he was a good boy. She looked directly at Mike and said, "Mike, don't make fun of Preston!" (He wasn't making fun of him at all, but she obviously objected to his words for some reason and told him so.) I admired her spunk.
My "school" this week is watching camera tutorials, compliments of the nice people at YouTube. As my read-along text, I'm reading the Book for Dummies. Technology has advanced so much since my earlier version of this camera that I feel like I'm in preschool. School is scary--just as Elena said.
My teacher on You Tube is a frenetic, bushy-haired photographer. He hops about the room, squatting, changing his aperture, doing stuff with the touch screen, raising and lowering his ISO, and switching settings for different effects. I admire his confidence with the camera, but I have to keep stopping and writing down what he says before he's on to the next thing. I'm as intimidated by this new school as Elena is intimidated by the prospects of meeting a bunch of scary three year olds on Monday.
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