A great morning-starter juice

I've been juicing every morning for several months but today I think I hit the perfect mix.

Watermelon with the rind
Apple
Kale
Parsley
Little lemon
Little ginger
Celery

Delicious!

New Year - Let's Get Posting

Today I found a very interesting new site called Momversation.com It shows videos of conversations between the top "mommy bloggers" from the web on interesting topics. This site is far more fun than reading text. I got sucked in for a good long while. Hope you enjoy.

Hang your Christmas tree lights in October

This morning I started the day at the dentist. 10 minutes late for my cleaning, teeth brushed, no food or coffee in me, I settled into the reclining chair with the bright light in my face. Exchanges between Obama and McCain on replay in my head from the night before as well as the news from NPR sinking in from my drive. The intensity of the world financial situation, like an earthquake in reverse. The boom went off everywhere and now it seems to be circling in, ring-like closer and closer to home.

With this heavy mindset I greeted my hygienist. I never can remember their names but they always greet me like we had lunch together just the other day. In her chipper way Nurse No Name comments of course on the weather and how brisk it is. I replied, "yes, amazing" and then told her that I saw some guy wearing gloves waiting for the bus. I think I logged this detail expressly, yet unconsciously, while driving here just because if adult life has taught me one thing, it's always be ready to talk about the weather.

As an add-on to the weather dialog, Nurse NN volunteers that she really loves this weekend coming up, Columbus Day, because she figured out a few years ago that if she hangs her Christmas lights now and just keeps them off until after Thanksgiving, she saves herself the hassle of wrestling with the lights in sub-zero weather. As she put it, "45 minutes in October is nuthin', but in December, it's a reallybigdeal!"

At that moment, my light bulb, (can't resist) went off and I realized, I have no words of wisdom whatsoever for these incredible times, other than it might be time to hang your lights. You may be needing them soon and it's only getting coldah.

Making space for possiblities

Has been a long time since I last posted. This is not for lack of thinking about it. It has to do with feeling stuck with nothing to say. Haven't felt like I had any worthwhile advice for quite a while.

Until this past weekend. I had time at home with my little guy. Husband was in NY and I had dialed back any plans with friends to just the minimum. We went to a friend's incredible new house in my favorite neighborhood for brunch. I couldn't be happier for her or feel there's a better person to live her life. However, I came home on Sunday and curled up in my bed while my little boy slept. I was crushed, sad and wanting a life other than mine. Her beautiful, spacious house with wallpaper, excessive numbers of bathrooms, double Viking ovens she wasn't quite sure what they were for...

After about 15 mins of not sleeping, not crying, not writing, not talking, just wallowing, I turned to a book I was given I don't even know how long ago nor by whom. I put it on my Amazon Wishlist a long time ago and then neglected it. Let it get dusty with the other great ideas I have scattered about.

The book is called Creating Sacred Space with Fung Shui by Karen Kingston. She talks about the energy of objects, rooms and spaces and how our spaces accumulate residue from the experiences we have within them the way cobwebs build up in corners if you don't clean from time to time.

I looked around my room, my house, the car, the garage and realized I had been neglecting the space I'm in now for as long or longer as I've felt stuck. My office no longer felt welcoming, my pantry was overflowing with stuff, my car was dusty and grimy, my sewing machine in disorder and stacks and stacks of papers.

It was no wonder I was constantly feeling overwhelmed, like there was no time to get to all my ambitions! I was burying myself. I realized if I want to create light and space and freedom in my life, I need to create that in my home. Kingston talks about the external home being a direct reflection of the internal life. WELL YES! HELLO!


Needless to say, the house is in major overhaul. My office is much cleaner, tidy-er and feels like a space where I can actually realize my aspirations. I have cracked open the wedding box from the garage, only 6 years later, to weed out documents that no longer need storage and pictures that finally can be put in books. I can honor my marriage, not neglect it on a shelf for a later date. And so it is going and it is ENERGIZING and fun and I have shaken my envy of my lucky friend. She has her space and I have mine and I love both.

You get what you get and sometimes that's a good thing

View from our upstairs window tonight. 

Something has shifted in me lately and I'm so glad. I was anguishing for the past months, feeling doubtful about my future and about how I got to where I am now. Judging myself for not having an advance degree, feeling fearful about how to have a second pregnancy in light of money concerns and being in a new job. I have been sad when I drop off my son, feeling like I'm doing him an injustice shuttling him to someone else everyday. I've been short with and tough on my husband blaming him for some of our current circumstances.

I think all the inner turmoil peaked when I got the dreaded call from my Dr. that a mammogram, my first, raised some doubts and I needed to go back for a second look. I realize now in retrospect I really don't have the capacity to deal with this kind of news. I shoved it down and didn't actually acknowledge it. I just wanted to get the second views taken and move past this. All my fears about dying young, leaving my son behind, not doing all I want to do, etc. came to the surface but instead of seeking comfort I simply froze my heart and pushed through it. This was tough for me but probably 10x's harder for my husband. I was unreachable.

I am fine. The second scans came back and I got the all clear. They even send a letter in the mail to say, all clear. A very nice touch. 

Shortly thereafter lots of other clouds passed: we paid off our last debt - a remnant of our move to ME and our tendency to say, "we need it" even when we really don't. I have had a couple of proud work moments from standing my ground in challenging confrontations.  I've found there are real joys there and am working on some exciting projects. Ultimately, there may be regrets I'll have with my son for not being home with him everyday, but for now I have to believe we're both going to be okay. 

Anyway, the point of this post is you get what you get and sometimes that's a good thing. To demonstrate - this summer we're getting a weekly portion of food from an amazing CSA out in Scarborough. We got a few greens and a few of this-and-that's this week. Upon first glance nothing too sexy or inticing. But, after following the recipe on The Broadturn Farm blog, I discovered the most wonderful pasta meal we've had in ages. Fresh, delicious and a little unexpected. 

Giving Thanks Daily

A great way to connect with your kids &/or significant other every day: mark the start of dinner with a moment where you all hold hands and express what you are thankful for. 

It's a pretty delightful thing to hear what comes out of my little toddler every night. Typically he's thankful for some form of transportation. 

We've had:

 

- Trucks (the all encompassing category, followed by the question, "Are you thankful for trucks?") This single thing has been on the thankful list for a good 6 months running.

 

More specifically, we've had:  

- Moving Trucks

- Airplanes

- Airplanes that carry moving trucks

Also mentioned with some degree of frequency:

- Generators

- Grandma and Grandpa

- The sun

- and my favorite "you" (directed at me and his dad)

Anyway, this tradition is borne out of my upbringing where we prayed every night - a rote, Catholic chant that we tore through as quickly as possible just to get to the part where my mom would say, "Anyone want to say anything?", which was our open invitation to beg God for something we needed, i.e. my sister to stop touching me or bugging me or telling me what to do.

Now that giving thanks is part of our daily life, it's a really lovely pause in our day. Many, many times it has been the stopping point where I collect my breath, my thoughts and my always forward moving energy to just realize how much I actually have already.

Don't drink at auctions

Last night we went to an auction.

Had a glass of wine - no bids.

Had a beer. Encouraged husband to bid on a surfboard and wetsuit package. (Silent Auction) We won.

Had another beer. Live auction begins. High bid item of the night. A power blue Vespa. Bidding begins. A little slow. My hand goes up on second price called out. (I figured I could get some action going in the room.) A minute later. I own a Vespa.

Not priceless.

Now I'm looking for a buyer. 

Nothing much beats sleep

I could post a long blog post or go to bed. If I knew anything about Good Advice, I'd have to say, honey, go to bed.

I just want to say, Obama/Edwards looks like a great idea. I loved the way they complimented Hillary. I thought it was bold for John Edwards to say Hillary is where she is on her own merits and not because of who she's married to. This is a nice, if probably untrue, thing to say. It still is nice. If it's not because of her husband, then okay but then it's because she's playing on racism and that's not much better. But I digress and I meant to be light and positive.

I'm tired because I traveled down and back to Newark yesterday. Nervous I'd miss the 4 am wake up, I woke up at every hour leading up to 4 am. Then I got home last night and couldn't really wind down to go to bed early. And again tonight, same story - not the Newark part but the winding down part. Had to finish a favor for a friend so I've been sucked into my computer and away from my millions of tiny little threads counted by small people in Indonesia for my pleasure. So, to bed I will go.

I'm liking the website www.dooce.com btw and think she's not getting a fair shake on the TV. What else is new? I'm also wondering if there's a space anywhere online where someone's not selling something - including themselves. Why is everyone wanting to get something from someone else. Is this a uniquely American phenomenon? Do you even know what I'm talking about? I must be rambling. Last night I was talking in my sleep about twittering. I guess that's when you know it's bad.

Don't want keyboard face.











xo my friends. xo.

Not knowing what's going to happen

I think the pause in the blog is indicative of something. Two of the bloggers are pregnant and two of us are not (as far as I know). For the two who are, not only are they pregnant, they have existing children to care for, marriages to maintain, houses to run and jobs to do. Maybe in that order? For the two of us that aren't pregnant, thinking about when to get pregnant, what to do for work, how to plan it properly by money considerations, travel, work, etc. it's all very mind boggling yet so big it's actually out of our control.

This blog is a public thing and probably too open of a forum to talk about these issues here in any great detail. Our colleagues, friends and strangers read it and take away some sort of perception about who we are or what we mean. I for one know that most of what I've been thinking about lately has not exactly been good advice - how can I give any when I feel rather adrift?

Anyway, just wanted to check in. Register that life is in flux and it's as it should be. this is right for our age but bad for the blog. If any bright good-advice ideas come to me, i will be sure to post.

A couple things for those who work and produce documents: don't email a document that's not formatted to print. always number your slides in powerpoint. be sure your font is consistent through out your whole document and save each version of your excel docs with a date or version number so you can keep track.

separately, right now my favorite obsession is to do haiku on twitter, but that's so obscure and techie, I can't see many of my mom friends getting what I'm talking about. my advice would be to join in and see what's going on on twitter. I suppose I like it because it seems like a ticker of the collective unconscious, but maybe it's all just crap. Follow me: www.twitter.com/emilybee

I have the privilege of working with a guy who (though pretty young) is quite clever and very wise.

As a tribute to his "mad" life skills and quick wit, I feel compelled to share some of his wisdom (his good advice) here on the blog.





Carter Thomas, b. 1983


Top 10 Lessons I've learned from Carter Thomas:

10 - No pun is too corny when writing a beer column.
Describing an expensive beer, "price may be hard to swallow" or blonde ales, "Rumor is true, blonde ales have more fun" - these beer articles are worth reading just to see how over the top he can go.

9 - The phrase "sick" can actually be used in complete seriousness to describe something one thinks is really great.
In context: "The big spike in the sales results we saw yesterday was sick!"

8 - When engaging in a bet, the exact meaning of the word "snow" is open for interpretation.
Just because the air outside is filled with white colored precipitation, it may not actually qualify as "snowing". There's the does-it-stick factor, the density of snowflakes in the air - many possible important variations.

7 - Facebook only has a two year cool period from initiation point, after that it's out.

6 - 80's music is cool and ironic in the way disco was for my age group.
Today it was "Gloria, I think I got your number." Tomorrow, "Mr. Roboto"?

5 - When the world's gotten on your last nerve, go throw rocks at the ocean.

4 - With respect to work bribes, nothing much tops a free sandwich.

3 - With respect to working out, nothing even comes close to trumping a push-up.

2 - Most things in life can be turned into an over/under bet.

1 - Top ten lists are sick.

For a mom fix

My sister sent me this link today to Postcards from Yo Momma. it was featured on the very clever Very Short List, website today.

I found myself laughing out loud to some of the posts on there and the hilarious things that moms say to their grown children. It's been a long time since I got a note from my mom, but this little site reminds me how funny and precious moms can be.

Keeping good baby records

True confession is I've not written word one in my son's baby book. I have a cute one, baby book that is. it is on a shelf with stacks of mementos I'm meaning to paste into the book. this is not unlike my honeymoon book that is packed in a box with photos and all kinds of crafty things to be pasted in someday when I take a month long vacation and don't leave home and have paid help around. ahem, like, never.

So, a scrapbooker I am not but I am a damn fast typer. So, here's the good advice of the day - and something I actually do - not just preaching here, friends.

Get your child his/her own email address. Advantages:
a) get a good email name before the next kid with your kid's name snatches it up
b) you can charm grandma and grandpa with emails from your kid to them. even though everyone knows you beloved child can't type or spell yet, it warms their hearts to see their grandchild's name in their "from" list
c) you can freak your husband/baby-daddy out when you send him an email from your child's email address. (note: key to the surprise, don't tell him you're setting up the email address.)
c) as you think of things you'd want to tell him someday, you can just send an email to him and it will be there someday when he can actually read. it will already be chronological and it will capture the tone of how you actually would tell the story.

Caveat - occasionally you will have to do some maintenance on the inbox to purge the pervy spam mail you won't want her to see

The Granola Recipe

Emily’s Baked Granola
Modified from The Kripalu Cookbook

6 cups rolled oats
1 ½ cups pumpkin seeds
1 cup flax seeds
1 ½ sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup walnuts, chopped
2 cups blanched almonds, chopped or in slivers
2 cups shredded coconut

½ cup barley malt
¼ cup honey
1/3 cup canola oil
1 ¼ cup maple syrup
2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
A little cinnamon
A little salt

Chopped dates
Raisins or currents

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl combine all the wet ingredients. Add the wet mixture to the dry and combine well.

Spread the mixture into a large baking sheet with tall sides and bake for up to 50 mins. Check the mixture every 20 mins and rotate the mixture in the pan so the bottom doesn’t over brown. When mixture is lightly browned, remove from oven. Let cool for 30 mins. Granola will harden and darken as it cools.

Mix in the raisins and dates and serve immediately or store in airtight, sealable container after it’s cooled completely.

Best of the Web - 2007

To keep you hip to what's cool on the internet, here are a few great summary pages.

Best of YouTube 2007
I could watch the tetris one over and over. Don't quite get the chocolate rain one but it kicked off a phenomenon, so you have to watch it at least once.

As an aside, I wish this video ranked up there:


South by Southwest 2007 Website winners These are great sites. These are the change-makers.

Webby Awards 2007 More conventional, better known. Some of the "bests" are debatable.

Eight Annual Weblog Awards This is the most relevant award list for us authors of this blog to read. There are amazing blogs recognized - great for browsing, discovering new sites, interesting activity going on on the web.

What are your favorites? Let's discuss.

p.s. This blog didn't rank in any "best of's" but it's pretty darn clever and so close to home it hurts.

Inspirational Quotes re. Persistance

“It always seems impossible until its done.”

Nelson Mandela

"Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Hey, you never know."
New York Lotto slogan

Banter and blog posts

Has been a poor showing from me on the blog lately. Blame it on the stars, the endocrine system, the time change. Hard to say why the pause from posting much, but my once fool-proof method of thinking, "what did I do today that went well...blog about it" has failed me of late.


Actually, it's mostly because my good advice lately has to do primarily to do with work, getting to work or feeding myself at work. Since my fellow blog-girls don't work in an office, it's feel somewhat useless in this space. But, I'm wondering, is the not blogging about the pointless work-efficiencies holding up the better more useful flow?

Anyway, here's my dumb good advice du jour:

- keep granola and yogurt at work in the work fridge. you'll never regret it and will start everyday well balanced. I will post the granola recipe later from the downstairs computer.

- have a folder on the toolbar of your internet browser called "everyday". put your sites in there you like to visit to start the day. keep an eye on the clock and stay within a reasonable time period (like 15 mins). good way to warm up the brain and something do to while eating granola. I typically check my email accounts, facebook, nytimes, wsj and my horoscope. on a slow day I'll also check in with Perez.

- make a little extra dinner in the evening and then take it to work the next day (this is probably something you're already doing if you like to pack your lunch, I know. Just trying to slay the demons)

- read perez at lunch. do it on the sly. somehow gossip's better when you're sneaking around.

- IM with the hubby, very briefly everyday. better than a phone call and good way to get essential information to one another, i.e. "need milk on way home." "okay". also pretty fun to do on the sly.

- keep a stocked diaper bag in the car at all times. gives you the freedom to change plans on the fly and keeps your child tended to. keep an extra set of clothes for him/her in there, too. where I live, the beach is luckily almost never out of the question.

that's all I have today. hope it helps someone somewhere and if nothing else opens up something better tomorrow.

If you are the Gov. known for ethics

Get your booty calls at home.

Finding Om in the Brillo Box

I skipped yoga this morning based on the thin excuse that there was too much snow for me to drive. Since I live in Maine and we've had about 30 feet of snow this season already, this is especially weak, but my husband was being sweet and it was my son's first day of swim lessons - how could I abandon them for a sweaty mat and some hip opening contortions?

So, instead, I made them omelets. Recently I read this article in Gourmet about one man's obsessive crusade to make the perfect omelet. I had never thought much about how to make an omelet but now I view it as a work of great art. My first, by the way was a dud, but the second one was much improved.

The real highlight of breakfast wasn't the omelet. It was the cleaning of the omelet pan. Not the inside - that part is Teflon and cleans in a snap. It was scrubbing the bottom. I'm not quite sure how this particular pan had gotten so nasty but it was dark and various shades of dark brown to black. I went in with a vengeance with my new-found-love the Brillo Pad. My mom used to always have some on hand and I remember the joy of getting hard to clean pots clean. This past thanksgiving my sibs and I stayed in the home of a fellow clean freak and discovered her stash of the Brillo. Oh, the joy! I forgot about this ingenious cleaning tool for I had been toiling away with the green scrubby for most of my adult life. I spent a good fifteen minutes putting serious arm muscle into the job, mindful to keep my shoulders relaxed, my hips aligned and my jaw relaxed. I went in circles this way and that and in this cleaning trance, the shiny, gleaming lovely All-clad omelet pan revealed itself to me. I saw my reflection in the bottom and as it happened, Krishna Das was chanting from the stereo. I had found my yoga moment after all.

Useful sites for our lives

Babble.
A site for parents from the guy who did Nerve. I did the RSS feed on the Strollerderby page. Now I get feeds in my outlook regularly updated. Keeps me up to speed with the hipster parent dialog. Which means I get to vacillate between guilt, indignation, self satisfaction and nervousness with the mass of other gen-X parents raising kids these days. (Am I gen-X? What exactly are the qualifiers?)

My Del.icio.us Bookmarks.
Delicious is a social bookmarking site. It's useful as a place to find information that's been found by people before you. It's a way to search the web in a more narrow way. People tag sites they find useful to Delicious. The aggregate power of the social network raises the status of certain pages above others. It's sometimes a better resource for finding detailed information that might not make it to the top of a search on google due to newness or being in a crowded, broad category.

If you use Delicious and want to save articles for me to see, when you tag your links, set a tag that says "for:emilybigpicture" and I can see what you've thought I might like.

Captioner
Take pictures of other people and write captions on them. Fun and funny.

Astro

Enter your date and time of birth and get an incredibly accurate daily horoscope.

Real Clear Politics

A one stop shop for the best articles Politics.

When you're craving a sweet but wanting to stay thin (or get thin)

Drink tea.