wallpaper + design

The September issue of Sunset magazine features an article by a friend of mine, Christiana Coop, who operates Ferm Living (a hip wallpaper company in San Fran). Check it out. The coolest of the cool are featured in Sunset, so congrats, Christiana! Plus, the wallpaper designs offered by Ferm are really hip.

a day in the life of me

on lobotoME's blog today. Find it here. And if you skim the post (it's a long one), be sure to read the gratitude quote at the bottom. It's good. Happy Wednesday!

five good minutes

In my post last week about six elements to health, I mention stress as a major player to manage. (Nothing new.) I mentioned just taking five minutes - just starting with that - to set aside on the cushion; a mini meditation, if you will.

This weekend I was reading an article in this month's Delicious Living about Five Minutes. According to the doctor and author of this book, a mere five minutes can actually be really valuable. Here are some specific 5-minute meditations to try. Think I'll intersperse these throughout my workdays this week.

amazingly generous giveaways

a couple of shameless plugs for two of my fave blogs...



Head on over to simplemom! Go here to see all of the goods you could win! The gifts are all in-line with simplemom's thoughts on a simple life: green and frugal living, productivity and organization, taking care of yourself, etc.

Simplemom has a lot of good little tidbits for us time-starved, overstretched mamas. I really liked her last series 'how to be disorganized and uproductive at home.' My favorite on that list was not taking care of yourself, which, as I know, will get you every time.




And it's not too late to take part in Jenny's 'Get your yoga on' giveaway at lobotoME's brain fog blog! Jenny had one of those cool scenic yoga mats on our girlZ trip to Moab last weekend. Om shanti. Have a great weekend!

six elements to health

I was reading elephant magazine last night, a publication about 'the mindful life' out of Boulder, and read this:

There are six elements to health. In order of importance:

1. Thoughts
2. Breath
3. Hydration
4. Nutrition
5. Exercise
6. Sleep

The article is geared towards fitness, and most people are surprised to see that exercise is number 5 on that list. The author mentions that 90 percent of fitness is due to what you eat.

Last night I went to a vaccine talk by Dr. Roy Steinbock, a board-certified physician (pediatrician) in Boulder who takes a more holistic approach. I'll do a separate post with his suggestions regarding vaccinations, but what I want to mention about him here are (what I took away as) the top three things he stresses as vital for health:

1. Reduce stress
2. Proper nutrition
3. Find the middle path in all things (he has a Buddhist approach, with jives with me)

'Thoughts' (stress) and nutrition are high on his list too. Makes sense to me.

The woman who wrote the article in elephant, Ruth Hiller, suggests exploring your metabolic type to line up your nutrition correctly. She uses this book.

I did the short survey here and discovered I'm a 'mixed type.' To get more info, I need the guy's book, but overall, the results are pretty much what I already do ... a little of everything! (My only catch is I need to cut out some sugar...)



Read Ruth's entire article here.

So what am I taking away from all of this? For me, the most important things I can focus on (which do need improving in my life right now) are stress and nutrition. But for me, getting enough exercise allows me to feel invigorated and productive, which in turn affects how I eat and how I deal with stress. So I'd put that one up there really high too. This is nothing new! My plan:
1. Stress.
-Take stretch breaks at my desk and make them also breathing breaks. (Deep, full belly breathing).
-Attend sangha (Vipassana meditation group) 2x/month (more, if feasible!)
-Get back on the cushion. Start small. Five minutes a day. Don't I have five minutes somewhere?

2. Exercise
-commit every Sunday to writing out my exercise plans for the coming week. Schedule them. This is such a no brainer but I somehow still slack off on it. It's Friday, and I haven't worked out per se all week. And I'm feeling it. Argh. (But Ross and I are going for a bike ride in about 5 minutes!)

3. Nutrition
-again, a no brainer. Meal planning. Sundays. Need to get my tail into gear on this one. So far, I know that I want to plan on making two grain/bean salads per week - for dinners, then leftovers for lunch (ideal lunch food).

OK - all for now. Off on the bike!

101 things to do with zucchini

Ok, so that title is a little misleading - this post really isn't about that. But I did happen upon an amazing blog (does everyone already know about this one?) called 101 Cookbooks - exploring recipes one cookbook at a time. Mostly vegetarian. My quick perusal of it last night had me really excited about this new discovery. I googled the words 'healthy zucchini bread' to find a new recipe, and about 15th down on the list was this one, which I'm going to try out. (Will report back on the results.)

It must have been fate that I discover 101 Cookbooks yesterday evening, because immediately after I did that little search, I checked my email, and a fellow mom friend, Corrie, had email me the recipe for some chocolate zucchini cupcakes (which our tots had consumed eagerly the weekend prior; see chocolate-smeared faces, below). The cupcake recipe Corrie emailed me, as is turns out, is also from 101 Cookbooks.



I see myself spending a lot of time gleaning recipes from this site. We've been grilling a lot of tofu this summer (it's really quite good that way), and she has mentioned here 'Lemon Achiote Grilled Tofu.' I don't know what achiote is, but it sure sounds good, and I'm going to read all about it. She also has a wheat pizza dough recipe on there that she recommends for grilled pizza - another one to try ...