Aloha Tasi

The People Publish

2011-06-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a great new concept! I hope it works. It should prove to be an interesting way to get published. Go on over to the The People Publish and check it out.

Food for thought on Courage

2011-02-27T19:39:00.000-08:00

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying,
"I will try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher

I was looking for Mary Anne Radmacher on Wikipedia, but they have nothing on her! However if you are interested in reading more from this author and many others, check out this site; Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote done nicely by Jonathan Lockwood Huie, and sign up for his daily inspirational quotes from all the greats.

Also check out Mary Anne Radmacher's books on her Amazon page.

Look to Nature

2011-01-31T15:55:00.000-08:00

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

I've heard many times, again and again, to follow nature. If you seek a solution, look to nature for the answer. Lao Tzu's quote is fitting.

World Pulse

2010-12-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

I just found this wonderful magazine that is all about women of the world. I truly believe that women will be the catalyst to save the world by the deeds we do. This magazine shows us the possibilities before us. Please visit the website World Pulse

to find something that interests you in your heart of hearts.

A free and easy website builder

2010-10-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Gary Reef, also know as Capricornartist73 just created a new website here. He also has a link to Weebly on his site. I just really wanted to plug Gary here because I have enjoyed his Ning site and all his wonderful videos on You Tube. He is very creative and cute too! But seriously, he's creative, bold and generous. I have learned so much from Gary, and love the techniques that he shares with us.

Solar Winds

2010-10-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting article from Inhabitat Weekly that talks about a technology that can produce a 100 billion times the earth's energy needs. Not only is the article interesting but also very practical. It's about time that somebody decided to do something smart!

10/10/10 A Most Auspicious Day

2010-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

It will be fun! What else do you have planned for 10/10/10, why not record it with a great photo of your choosing? Take a picture on October 10th 2010! Easy as that! Then post to a 10/10/10 flickr group. Read all about it........Go Here!

Herbs and Spices

2010-08-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article about some the great benefits of herbs and spices. This article includes some of my favorites herbs and spices and Web MD is a wonderful resource for a lot of health issues. Enjoy!

Eight-year-old Rocks Art World

2010-08-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

8-year-old painting prodigy is new art world star

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 13, 8:54 am ET

HOLT, England – He's Britain's most talked-about young artist. His paintings fetch hefty sums and there's a long waiting list for his eagerly anticipated new works.
It has all happened so quickly — he's still getting used to the spotlight — and Kieron Williamson fidgets a little when he's asked to share his thoughts on art.
"Cows are the easiest thing to paint," said Kieron, who has just turned 8. "You don't have to worry about doing so much detail."
Horses, he says, are "a lot harder. You have to get their legs right, and you have to make their back legs much bigger than their front."
Paintbrush prodigy Kieron — dubbed "mini Monet" by the British press — is a global sensation. All 33 of the pastels, watercolors and oil paintings in his latest exhibition sold, within half an hour, for a total of 150,000 pounds ($235,000). Buyers from as far away as the United States lined up overnight outside the gallery, and there is a 3,000-strong waiting list for his Impressionistic landscapes of boat-dotted estuaries, snowy fields and wide marshland skies.
He has a website and a business card. Strangers approach him at the gallery, asking him to sign postcards of his work. Journalists from around the world travel to his small home town in eastern England to interview him.
Kieron shrugs off the attention. "It feels normal to me," he says.

Click image to see more of Kieron's work

It definitely doesn't feel normal to his parents, Keith and Michelle Williamson. They are bemused, proud and a little anxious about their son's talent and its effects. "It has been overwhelming," said Michelle Williamson, a 37-year-old nutritional therapist. She and her 44-year-old art dealer husband live in a small apartment with Kieron and his 6-year-old sister, Billie-Jo.
Kieron was a normal, energetic little boy, and his parents were surprised when he asked for pencils and paper during a holiday in Cornwall two years ago. They were astonished when the then-5-year-old produced an accomplished picture of boats in a harbor. He progressed rapidly to fully realized landscapes, many depicting the flat, open Norfolk countryside near their home.
"Keith and I don't paint, so we find it difficult to know what's going on inside his head," Michelle said.
"We don't understand it. We don't know where it comes from. But he's adamant it's what he wants to do. When your child has got such a gift and a talent, you have to support him."
[Video: Another child prodigy plays piano]
That hasn't stopped the Williamsons worrying about whether they are doing the right thing in exposing him to so much attention. They showed Kieron's work to a local gallery, which has mounted two exhibitions and is helping them cope with the flood of global interest.
"It's not a natural thing to want to put your kid in the media spotlight," Michelle said.
"We've met so many sharks. All they see is the financial element. They don't see the emotional stuff. You can't separate the art from Kieron."
A self-possessed blond boy, dressed in a polo shirt, shorts and sneakers, Kieron doesn't seem like a hothouse prodigy.
He likes soccer — he plays defense for a school team — and messing around on the broad North Sea beaches near his home in Holt, a pretty Georgian town 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of London.
When he talks about his work, it's with a striking mix of the adult and the childlike. He can discuss his color choices and the interplay of light and dark, but also remembers more idiosyncratic details.
"This," he said, pointing at one landscape, "is when we came back from Holkham and we couldn't get fish and chips because there was a line going from the fish and chip shop to the car park."
When he starts to draw, with a confident, relaxed fluidity, all childishness disappears. Working from a photograph of a river at sunrise, Kieron swiftly sketches the horizon, the mounds of trees and the line of the river, then uses pastels to color the yellowy pink of the sky.
His parents are happy for people to watch him work — it disproves any suspicions that the paintings are not his own.
They encountered that kind of skepticism at first, though Michelle Williamson says it has abated.
Critical opinion on Kieron's work is divided. One newspaper headline asked, "Is Kieron Britain's most exciting painter?" But others have wondered whether Kieron's paintings would be so well-regarded if he were an adult, and asked if his talent will endure.
The precedents are mixed. Pablo Picasso famously said that unlike in music, "there are no child prodigies in painting. What people regard as premature genius is the genius of childhood. It gradually disappears as they get older."
Picasso himself was a child prodigy, however, who went on to revolutionize art. The 19th-century English artist John Everett Millais was made a member of the Royal Academy at 11.
But for every Millais — or Mozart — there are many prodigies whose gifts do not survive puberty.
"Most brilliant 8-year-old pianists or footballers don't maintain it into adulthood," said Jack Boyle, a Glasgow-based child psychologist.
He advises the Williamsons not to worry too much. Kieron's talent is unlikely to do him any harm.
"Children like being successful and they like being the best," Boyle said. "My advice? Take the money and run. Milk it for every penny, but don't harm the child in the process.
"Develop his other interests — and sell as many of the paintings as you can."
At the moment, Michelle Williamson is looking forward to the start of the school year in September, when exhibitions and interviews will be replaced by homework and normal childhood routines.
The gallery is offering two new landscapes — Kieron's last work as a 7-year-old and his first as an 8-year-old — by an online auction that closes Aug. 20. A new exhibition is planned for next summer.
Michelle Williamson says she and her husband won't be disappointed if Kieron one day stops painting, as long as he is happy.
"We fully expect Kieron to change his mind," she said. "But we know that whatever he ends up doing, Kieron is going to give it 200 percent."
Kieron says he knows what he wants to be when he grows up — "painter and footballer."
And he is willing to offer advice for other aspiring artists.
"Never give up. Try and keep your buildings straight. And don't do a plain blue sky."

This is fantastic if you love green!

2010-07-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

I totally love this concept! Take a look at what they are doing in England in terms of Green Living!

This is why I love my Inhabitat Weekly Newsletter. They are all about green design, which you know we desperately need in our world today.

Enjoy!

Sacred Circle Mandalas: Mandala of Sacred Hearts

2010-07-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful woman creating awesome mandalas from nature. Her work is fabulous and you can learn how to make your own mandalas. She offers (for free) a downloadable tutorial in Abobe Reader that tells you everything you need to know.

Thanks Sue. You have a loving and generous heart!

Sacred Circle Mandalas: Mandala of Sacred Hearts: "Mandala of Sacred Hearts - (Love Series) - © Sue O'Kieffe 2010 source image -calendula On July 11,2010 there was a solar eclipse that was m..."

New Series

2010-06-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

I was thinking...oh oh!

Well!!!! Anyway, I was thinking that it would be such fun to post some the great websites I am continually running across on my virtual travels online. I have in the past posted these lovely jewels in private emails to my varied friends who have a multitude of wide-ranging interests.

So! I thought I would peruse the website or blog and glean out something of interest for all of us. This way I would have a way to keep track of the really good sites and be able to call them up whenever I wanted.

So, here is one I found from Milliande's wonderful site that Vera from the UK passed on to us. Vera was inspired by Collecting Sacred Moments, an article by Annie B. Bond on the website Care2 make a difference.

Now, what to call this series! Any ideas?

Water, Consciousness & Intent: Dr. Masaru Emoto

2010-06-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to share this interview with as many people as possible and also share Dr. Masaru Emoto's prayer for the Gulf of Mexico. We need to change the vibrations to love and gratitude and stop the angry and negative vibrations surrounding the entire spill fiasco. Right now, most of us have the predominantly angry emotion when we consider what is happening in the Gulf. And while certainly we are justified in that emotion, we may be of greater assistance to our planet and its life forms, if we sincerely, powerfully and humbly pray the prayer that Dr Emoto, himself, has proposed.

Here is Dr. Emoto's prayer for the Gulf of Mexico:

"I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings. To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae, and all living creatures . . . I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you. "

Please say this prayer again and again for the good of the planet and please do pass this on!

We're still working it!

2010-06-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

We are still working on Cheryl Richardson's Life Makeovers; 52 Practical and Inspiring Ways to Improve Your Life One Week at a Time. We just finished up Week 6 and I have to say I've had many insights. These insights are about me, my life, nature and the universe! I'm having a great time struggling and rejoicing in my life past, present and future. I've never been happier to be who I am and where I am at this moment knowing full well that all could change in an instance and I'd still be feeling alright with it all. Now that's a miracle! I want to say thank you to the ladies who are on this journey with me, you make it rich.

Peace,
Ellie

We're doing Life Makeovers!

2010-05-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

I wanted to let everyone who is still interested in committing to 52 weeks to a better life that I have created a private chat room over at chatzy.com and that our room is password protected. It's important to me that everyone feels safe in this environment. I would like to think that we can go as deep as needed and still feel supported so it is imperative that we remain positive and be understanding of others feelings. Please leave a comment below so that I may email you the password.

The Journey Begins

2010-05-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

I am going through Cheryl Richardson's Life Makeovers; 52 Practical & Inspiring Ways to Improve Your Life One Week at a Time.

It's actually best if you have a partner and/or team to share the experience of going through the book. I put it out into the universe that I wanted and needed a partner and the universe provided, of course! I have created a private and safe chat room for us to do our work/sharing. If you would like to join us in the chat room please leave me a message/comment below and I will email you with the address and password.

Cheryl asks us for our first Take Action Challenge to get and start a journal. Our first journal entry is to list 25 things that we are proud of about ourselves from the past 12 months. Here is my first Take Action Challenge;

The Journey Begins

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.

Lucille Ball

Learning how to blog, actually teaching myself how to blog.
Taking and completing 3 online workshops = building community.
Acing all the classes for work positioning me for greater earning power.
Continuing the arduous paying down of debt, 20K last year.
Preparing for college again.
Quitting and continuing not to smoke.
Taking all my vitamins almost everyday.
Seeing myself grow as an artist.
Finally realizing I don’t have to fix everything for everybody.
Standing up for myself.
Looking inward and listening.
Pursuing my interests in spite of others opinions.
Becoming more and more computer savvy.
Declining invitations that don’t really interest me.
Connecting with a life coach.
Making a commitment to myself regarding Extreme Self Care.
Continuing to eat more organic and local foods.
Getting more and more exercise.
Letting go of old belief systems.
Getting to know the real me.
Taking bold steps; like blogging for a partner or team to do the 52 weeks with me. = Putting myself out there!
Building community for myself.
Getting approved for work study for the Soulcollage Facilitator Training.
Doing more things alone.
Being satisfied with the path that I am on.

I’m working on listing more accomplishments and things about myself that I am proud of, hope you do too! Stay tuned.

Note: The book I have was published over 10 years ago so I am only including the resources that are web sites or books.

Brushdance = www.brushdance.com

What You Need to Know Now-a Road Map for Personal Transformation =www.liveyourlight.com

The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor; Gail McMeekin

How Much Joy Can You Stand? How to Push Past Your Fears and Create Your Dreams; Suzanne Falter-Barns

Making Your Dreams Come True; Marcia Wieder

Tempe AZ, April 2010

2010-05-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm home from a wonderful visit with my daughter and grandchildren in the desert. It was a great trip and a wonderful visit. The weather was quite perfect, with sunny days, puffy clouds and a cool breeze. Just about the time you thought you were too warm a breeze and cloud would come to your rescue.

We tried to do all the things that are free in the Tempe area. So we took a lot of hikes in the early mornings to awesome places. Tonto National Forest, where the Saguaro reign supreme. We saw multitudes of wildlife and the cacti were ablaze with color, the desert is so alive. Hole in the rock, Tempe Town Lake and Papago Park, all fabulous.

In the afternoons we went to several Museums. We went to Tempe History Museum and learned a thing or two about the area. Information starting from the very early days, prehistoric days right up to what is happening currently in this area. We made a Tempe Town Post Card, it was an interactive software program that took our picture and allowed us to choose some really beautiful scenes around Tempe.

We also went to the library where there are passes for a number of events and happening throughout the Phoenix area and beyond. We got free passes for the Heard Museum. I finally saw great 3-D in a IMAX theater....Oceans, WOW! We had a massage at the Massage School that offers 2 for 1 massages that only cost $25.00 for both!

We ate at home every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner except for the last night of my vacation. Then we celebrated with all you can eat Chinese, we loved it!

All in all it was one of the best vacations I have had. I have lots more photos!

Life Makeovers

2010-04-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Cheryl Richardson's Life Makeovers; 52 practical & inspiring ways to improve your life one week at a time.

The book is divided into 52 weeks, so there is a chapter for each week. All the chapters are very short and sweet. Cheryl Richardson has divided the chapters into 3 easy parts, first the main focus, second the "Take Action Challenge" and finally the Resources. The Take Action Challenge is based on the main focus for the week and you will journal and do exercises reflecting that focus and the Resources will help you achieve that.

It really is spectacularly easy!

One of the first things recommended is to find a partner or team to share this with and that is the purpose of this blog entry....to find someone who will partner with me on a year long journey or point me in the right direction.

So if you are interested in practical and inspiring ways to improve your life one week at a time join me by making a comment so that I may contact you. We'll pick a date and start!

Chalk Guy

2010-04-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

My friend Sherry is always sending me cool stuff, awesome stuff, stuff you just have to share. Today it's Chalk Guy. He is an amazing artist, using chalk, he creates these 3-D images on flat surfaces in urban areas to the delight of city folk. Here are some images of his stuff!

He spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create the 250 square metre

image of the crevasse, which, viewed from the correct angle, appears to be 3D.

He then persuaded passers-by to complete the illusion by pretending the

gaping hole was real.

'I wanted to play with positives and negatives to encourage people to think twice

about everything they see,' he said. 'It was a very scary scene, but when people

saw it they had great fun playing on it and pretending to fall into the earth.

'I like to think that later, when they returned home, they might reflect more on

what a frightening scenario it was and say, "Wow, that was actually pretty scary."

Mueller, who has previously painted a giant waterfall in Canada, said he was

Inspired by the British 'Pavement Picasso' Julian Beever, whose dramatic but

More gentle 3D street images have been featured in the Daily Mail.

I hope that this inspires you to do something really big!

Love this concept!

2010-04-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my emails and ran across this monumental art work! This is so totally awesome. I really wanted you to see it.

It's a giant photo! A composite of a thousands photos of people walking in an urban setting.

I love that he has describes it as, "It is the translation of reality through my own designed camera." I think it's called, Urban Flow and he manages to capture little bits of time in an urban setting. It's an awesome work and a wonderful concept. Go see it at Adam Magyar

My Birthday

2010-04-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

It's not even noon yet and I've been wished more Happy Birthdays in this short time than I have my entire life.

My roommate took me out to dinner, (Chinese! last night, yummy!) and I received a giant bouquet of spring flowers with a card, I also got a smilebox from my daughter, a few beautiful e-cards from friends and family, phone messages, and lots of people from Facebook have wished me a good day.

Thank you everyone! This is fun and I am having a lovely day. It's so nice to have so many people thinking about me on my birthday. I am grateful!

Joe's Birthday

2010-03-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Joe!!

I hope you have a super great day and that all the luck you deserve goes on and on forever and ever and that all of your birthday wishes come true!

This slideshow design created with Smilebox

Hope you have fun with this!
Grandma loves you.

New Moon Expericence

2010-03-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

There is something so intriguing about a new moon. It always seemed so magical to do something at the dark of the moon. For years I thought that a dark moon was bad luck. To my delight I read somewhere recently that a new moon was a great time to start a new project. Last dark moon I started an art project. I think went very well. It was something that got me out to the lake and into nature, which was fulfilling in and of itself, but it also allowed me to express myself artistically. I'm trying something new this new moon and I'll tell you later what it is. For now........

Here's my dark of the moon project.

Here's the Lake.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

My Dad

2009-10-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

My Dad, Iopu Taesali · October 26, 1926- 2001

'Ua alu atu le afi - passing the fire. A Samoan chant for important social events.

My Dad was born in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the youngest of fourteen children. I once asked my Dad many years later why he would leave paradise and he said; "Daughter, what can you know about the world from an Island only 7 miles wide and 14 miles long?" He used to go back and forth from here to the island. I later found that he had become disillusioned with Samoa. He believed the American dollar had destroyed his island and after awhile he had no desire to go back home again.

But how did he get to America? My father was a brand new immigrant from Samoa, just 18 years old when he got to America. The story goes that in 1945 he stowed away on a cargo ship from Pago Pago harbour, the heart of American Samoa, with 8 others boys. When they finally got caught on board ship it was too late to turn back so they were all put into the brig and on their way to America. But my Dad had a secret. A stolen bottle of Tabasco Sauce from the galley which he kept hidden the whole trip. On the morning of their arrival to America my Dad drank the little bottle of contraband in it's entirety. He thought he would get hot and appear to have a fever, which he had learned would put him in quarantine for at least 21 days, buying enough time for a relative to come and claim him. It worked, but he paid a greater price than expected.

Actually all the boys that stowed away on that cargo ship became American citizens. They were scattered throughout the United States. All the boys kept in touch with each other and learned about their families, marriages, deaths and divorces. They even had a few reunions and teased my Dad incessantly about the Tabasco sauce every chance they got. They knew when he enlisted to the U.S. Army, because they did too. They knew when he got married, because they did too. The "boys" knew of my birth and the births of my brothers and sisters, Dad's divorces and all of his trials and tribulations just as Dad knew of theirs.

My dad died of a massive stroke at 75 years old.

Correction

2009-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

So sorry! I forgot to add my source for Thrivecraft. The source for Marianne Williamson was Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson

An Epiphany

2009-09-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

I was reading an interesting blog this morning called Thrivecraft, written by a former Buddist Monk, turned life coach. I was reading her article about how wonderful it would be to have help available all the time.

I had an epiphany! As I was reading, it dawned on me that I have been helping myself my whole life! Here's what I read.

Find Your Answers September 8, 2009 The Easy Way to Create Your Personal Help Hotline.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to feel that you could have help whenever you need it? The astonishing fact is that superb help is right there inside you, waiting to be tapped, every single day. Whether you are in the supermarket wondering what to buy for dinner, or finalising a major life decision on a deadline, inner answers and deep personal guidance are only a few breaths away.

The wisdom of the universe is ever present – a great sky full of answers to your everyday questions and a vast ocean of understanding that makes sense of your deepest problems. In days gone by we knew how to commune with this cosmic guidance system, but our modern lifestyle is such that we’ve by and large forgotten all about it. We scurry about getting more and more confused, taking wrong turns and running in circles. No wonder we don’t feel so good these days, that something is missing in our lives.

This is what I thought:

I have been looking to the universe my whole life, I just forgot that's where I draw my strength. My whole life everyone that has known the real me was amazed at my strength, and commented on it all the time. Since I was a child I have known that I had to rely on myself and I just knew instinctually to go within. It was only when I allowed outer influences, like people, such as my mother, father, schoolmates and others to convince me that I was worthless and not enough.

I see now that living with those kinds of influences has created a low self esteem, how could it not? Convinced by my elders and others, my damaged self esteem has actually joined the attack. I believe now that my low self esteem has alway been the part that battled my inner strength, fighting, sabotaging and making biting remarks that played and re-played in my brain about strength. Minimizing, always minimizing!

Well that is going to change starting today! I will look into what is available out there and most importantly, I will look within and rekindle that relationship with my self.

That reminds me of the quote from Marianne Williamson; "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Jill Bolte Taylor's Message of Peace

2009-09-06T10:05:00.001-07:00

I have long been a fan of T.E.D.. TED is all about "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

Great thinkers gathered together for great talks to change the world. One such talk, filmed in Febuary of 2008, deals with Jill Bolte Taylor, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html a brain scientist. She has written a book entitled; "My Stroke of Insight" ,about her having a stroke. Click on Jill's name to view the video, if you are the least bit emotional make sure you have a box of tissues, I cry every time. It is one of the greatest messages of Peace for the world I have ever heard. To view her book, click on the title.

If you are at all moved by Jill Bolte Taylor's incredible message please let me know.

A Little Bit of Ugly

2009-08-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Funny thing Synchronicity! I wonder about it all the time, my life is so full of little synchronicties.

For instance; I've been doing an online workshop, Vision Journaling, with True North Arts led by Kathryn Antyr the Collage Diva. There have been many synchronistic miracles for me since delving into that workshop on envisioning your dreams. Here's just one. It's week five and Kathryn sent us the Wayne Dyer's, Excuses Begone affirmations from his site. She put them on ATC sized cards and posted them on the workshop website. So, I accidentally came across that deck of cards that I have been working on. I only saved the unattractive little things because somewhere along my rambling travels on the Internet, I found a lady talking about how you should make something ugly everyday. So, anyway as I worked with these cards trying new techniques and working with new materials I managed to make lots of ugly things. I would love to give that lady credit because as I made my little displeasing cards I thought of her and kept forging ahead. She has been a wonderful taskmaster for me and has made me think keenly about my art. She's made me see art as an expression not just something pretty and these little cards certainly are not. But it just so happens there are exactly the right amount of cards for Wayne Dyer's affirmations........funny how that works. I went to work gluing down each affirmation on to the little uglies and now, the affirmations really do feel like they are mine!

"Dominion" and "The Stories I Tell Myself"

2009-08-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

I just did my morning Tarot reading and was thinking as I shuffled.

But first I have to tell you this;

In the back of my mind I've been formulating a theme for writing about myself on this journey. Something to go with the life timeline I'm creating to add details of different times and thoughts. I was thinking about calling it “The Stories I Tell Myself”. It's from something I read on the internet, got from one of my online groups or someone's blog or a website I'd been looking at. Or it could even be from something I've been reading recently. It's about what we tell ourselves so we don't have to accomplish the goal or succeed. Possibility from Wayne Dyer's Excuses Begone. Anyway, I thought that it would be fun to start a separate journal entry about “The Stories I Tell Myself”.

Well, back to the tarot reading........while shuffling I was thinking about a commitment I had made to one of my spark teams, possibly, Inner Journey, about meaningful eating, just the night before, I'm talking hours here. That night I wrote to my team about how I would concentrate on meaningful eating of my meals by lighting candles, using special dishes and playing soft music.

Within an hour of making that commitment I took my bowl of soup to the TV room and sat down and ate that entire bowl of soup in a semi-trance.

OK! Back to Tarot.....Shuffling. Here's the “story” I was telling myself when I realized that I had completely forgotten about my team promise..............

If I had my own house I could do all that.

If I didn't have a room mate I could do that, because it would be an inconvenience to her for me to do all that.

If I was home every night (I'm a caregiver for the elderly and work 72 hour shifts) I could do all that.

Then as I started listening to the stories, I realized, I need to find a way of making my meals meaningful no matter where I am, and that I need to listen to these stories I tell myself because there's a real message there......very interesting!

OK! Now, the reading!

The Dominion card in the soul position, reversed. That's the 2 of wands, and reversed means there's a block or resistance to the idea of the card.

This is the dictionary's meaning for dominion:

1. Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty: "The devil . . . has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion" (Jonathan Edwards).

2. A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.

3. often Dominion Abbr. Dom. One of the self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth.

4. dominions Christianity See domination

That's exactly what I meant when I was going over all the stories I tell myself, thinking about having my “OWN” house and “room mate”, not being in control to choose whatever I want.

This is what the tarot handbook said about my card, Dominion; “Spiritual Sovereignty, Power” - This is a state of integration and optimum balance. This is Mars in Aries; Mars shows dynamic forcefulness, energy, charge and direction, but only from a place of full power, dominion and balance (the two wands that are unified). When a person is drawn toward this card it is an indication of powerful spiritual force and drive to begin something new, to be a pioneer. There are gifts of dynamic energy and leadership ability to be expressed.

Now I took that to mean; I have the power! I can do it the way I want. After all I'm not really asking for that much. May be I won't light candles or listen to soft music and I'll just use the plates and dishes that are available at the moment. I can certainly eat with silent meaningfulness, no matter what.

Releasing Past Decision Guilt

2009-08-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

I'm trying something new. I'm sending my thoughts out into the universe. I'm releasing old useless stuff from my energy field, and sending it to the universe to be transformed into good, positive and empowering energy. From this day forward I am not going to feel guilty for having lived my life the way I did. There were good and bad reasons for the decisions that were made and I may or may not get to the bottom of all those reasons, it's enough I have thought of them.

I do hereby release all the guilt feelings entangled in those decisions and promise to stop and mindfully make new decisions while in a conscious mindset. I do hereby relinquish all anger and hurt feelings to their rightful owners. I am no longer willing to carry that burden. I forgive everyone involved, especially myself.

Now What?

2009-08-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

I hope that what I'm about to write will make sense to all of you. But even if it doesn't, I'm writing it anyway. I've been thinking so much, lately, about my future. Mainly because my kids are grown, I'm single, soon to be out of debt and feeling unsettled. So I have some decisions to make. I felt kinda unstable during the second Saturn return so didn't want to make any big decisions and now that's all done.

Now though, I feel it's time. I started art journaling recently. Something my therapist of old would have been so happy about because for years she tried to get me to write down my feelings. I guess I just wasn't ready..I am now. All this journaling is making me wonder what my purpose is. I've done a lot of reading and feel comfortable that this wondering, is part of, what I choose to call, crone hood, which by the way I am enjoying. Getting a little respect, bout time!

Anyway, from where I'm sitting, down the path at about 60, give or take. You know, you can really see a lot from here! I decided to make, write down, draw, paint, whatever, a life timeline to help me remember first but also to honor and affirm some of the landmarks of my life, because right now it's just a blur. I think I deserve that.

So I got a couple of ideas from some of my friends, also from some good people online and in groups and from my favorite authors. I love SoulCollage and some of the ladies who belong to the SoulCollage Playground have made "Decade Cards". A way of honoring each decade through collage. I also read an excerpt from Joan Anderson's book, A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After A Lifetime of Being All Things to All People. Now, I know a lot of you ladies out there, who are sitting close to me, out there on that path, are thinking that book title sounds uncomfortably familiar. But hear me out, Anderson brings up the same idea of, "honoring each ten year period so we aren't just aging but rather honoring and affirming life's progress". And of course, reading anything by Angeles Arrien will make you think long and hard about what has heart and meaning in your life. Last, but not least a couple of dear friendships I've developed on Facebook with people that I very much admire have helped me see things from new and fresh perspectives. Oh! Yes! All of the above AND... doing my affirmations everyday, like clockwork!

So, as you can see, I have all these ideas and all these images floating around in my head. I need to capture all of it and make sense of it all. That is why I have decided to make a timeline of my life....... I'll keep you posted.

Online Workshop!

2009-07-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

I am so excited because I just started my very first online workshop with True North Arts! It's a six week online course on Vision Journaling with Kathryn Antyr. Kathryn mentioned heart and soul, positive intentions, obstacles and strategies, vision journal and cards, which are all phrases that are definitely on my current radar. Blip! Blip! Blip!

Then I saw Shakti Gawain's name was mentioned and her book Creative Visualization, which took me back 20 years. After reading and practicing Shakti's Creative Visualization, I enrolled myself in the HCH Hypnotherapy Certification Program and became a Certified Hypnotherapist.

Ok! I was sold. But there's more. The open-ended format of an online workshop and the short list of materials needed made this absolutely irresistible to me.

Each Monday we receive a prompt by way of email to a blog, where there are instructions. I was very please to find an easy to follow set of instructions that were so much more that what I had expected. Thought and guidance in abundance. Lesson 1 was on Relaxation. There was an introduction and overview and a personal story to help us along. There are tons of photos worth a thousand words and it was really fun! I think I'm going to enjoy the next six weeks. There's still time to sign up, the deadline isn't till August sometime. Just go to True North Arts or Collage Diva Ok, now here's a kicker you weren't expecting, it's only $20.00. Yes, $20.00.

Join up and have fun.

I've loaded my collage and affirmations on to Flickr

Don't Come Here!

2009-07-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

If you want to forget all your woes come to the Pacific North Coast. Hide out in the woods next to the salt air. Oh no! I don't really mean that. It's so average and boring, really you won't have any fun at all! You'll just hate it and wish you'd never left home. Well, that's what you need to tell my friends when you get here. Don't tell them I said anything resembling good about our little corner of the planet. I do understand them wanting to protect this coastal beauty. But, really it's a wonderful place to let go. It's wild, wonderfully fresh and wide open. I had the most synchronitic opportunity to share a great beach house with some old friends this past week-end. The beach house is hopelessly comfy cozy comfortable, like being a little kid back home without a care in the world. The vast Pacific Ocean a stones throw away. And, the company of old friends was comforting beyond words.

Healthy Foods?

2009-07-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

I received an email from a close friend who was wondering about healthy foods and carbon footprints. This woman is a very twenty second century type of woman, highly intelligent and exceptionally knowledgeable in many fields. A woman that believes she can accomplish whatever she decides. I was very honored that she asked me to clarify processed foods and healthy foods. I've also included some of the websites that have very good information regarding several issues mentioned here. First her email with the questions then my email with some answers which are my own opinions. I have been wondering how one goes about eliminating processed foods from our diet. Foods like cheeses have some processing involved don't they?? Can you just not buy anything that comes in a can or is frozen? Here's the thing I've been wondering about, too: I have recently stopped buying those plastic bags to line the garbage can and instead use the paper sacks from the grocery store to put our garbage in. Because of this, I have to separate the "dry" garbage, like boxes, paper, cans, etc., from the "wet" garbage, like egg shells, coffee grounds, etc., so the wet stuff doesn't go through the paper sack and making it impossible to take it to the can outside without dumping it all over the floor - know what I mean? Anyway, I've noticed that I have a LOT more wet garbage than dry. My dry garbage bag has to be taken to the can outside about twice a week, whereas the wet stuff I take out almost daily. This all started because, #1, I want to reduce my "carbon footprint" with regard to landfills, etc., and #2 those plastic bags are so expensive. Now I am thinking maybe I could compost some of the wet stuff. Question: Does this mean I am eating a lot of non-processed foods? I guess I'm not sure what exactly is non-processed. Because we live so far from shopping, I go about once a month to stock up on mostly non-perishables and some perishables (I've discovered you can freeze milk - just remember to remove about 1 cup of it before you put it in the freezer). I know this is pretty long and involved - sorry - I probably should have waited until we get together but I'm curious - I do want to eat healthy.

I'm so happy that you are concerned with the carbon footprint that you leave on earth, so many people don't even know what that means! I'll save carbon footprints for another day. But I'm so glad you asked about healthy food! This is one of my favorite subjects.

I do think that you're on your way to making a difference in regard to carbon footprints and healthy living when you notice that your garbage has changed! When you have less cans, bottles and boxes to throw away it's tangible proof you're doing something right. Most processed foods come in that sort of packaging. Keep up the good work! Another thing you can do to cut down on landfill, carbon footprints and protect wildlife all at the same time is use cloth bags (sustainable)instead of plastic or paper. The thrift stores are chock full of them and you can get them very cheap. Personally, I like the washable ones the best, they're soft and can be folded/stuffed in to another bag or your purse. Speaking of landfill, as you move ahead with a healthier lifestyle your dry garbage will reduce even more and you will find that recycling and reuse of what you do end up with will be easier and easier to deal with. I'm following a lady's blog who uses the paper bags to do art on, and quite good art to boot!

Oops! Ran off on a tangent. Back to the issue. It is true that cheeses and some other foods such as tofu are highly processed, and what is most important about these foods it that they be organic whenever possible. If you eat no other organic foods milk, cheese and tofu should be organic. Unprocessed foods are foods that are direct from or closest to nature. Fruits and vegetables are whole foods direct from nature, whole grains and beans have been processed but in a very natural and simple way, mostly just separated and dried. Highly processed foods are foods that generally come in cans, bottles, boxes, and plastic wrapping or bags, they are shipped thousands of miles to the centralized processing plants along with all the other ingredients needed to produce the product creating untold amounts of carbon. Potato vs Potato chip, the potato is simply a vegetable straight out of the ground, whereas the potato chip, starting out simply as a potato, has been put through a rigorous process of many steps and finally dumped into a bags and shipped thousands of miles adding to our carbon footprints. The same story goes for whole grain breads vs white bread, though, even whole grain bread has quite a few steps to its process before we eat it. I often think that is where the average person gets confused about processed foods. I would say there is a significant difference between the highly processed foods like white bread and the nominally processed such as whole grain breads.

I would love to think that all grown foods were good for you. The problem is that produce which has been commercially grown is heavily treated with chemicals and pesticides both on the plants and in the soil. It's known as Agribusiness because they make big money growing hundreds and hundreds of acres of one particular type of food. The problem with this technique is that the single food has to fend for itself all alone with no companion plants to help protect or feed the predator. Organic farming on the other hand is all about building up and fortifying the soil and companion planting. When you plant a variety of plants/foods each plant has aspects that augment the other plants/foods. An example would be, tomatoes grown with peppers and onions have protection from certain caterpillars because peppers and onions attract the beneficial bugs that attack that certain caterpillar that would normally devastate the tomato plant. Also companion planting provides ways for each plant to attract or repel certain beneficial bugs or pests to the garden, they are working symbiotically. There are tons of books on the subject of companion planting and is viewed as the best way to control pests in a garden. One of the best ways to build up and fortify your soil is to compost your wet garbage and start a worm box, there are a ton of websites that offer great advice on composting and how to build and maintain a worm box, see below.

I would like to suggest several books that I found helpful in my striving to be/eat healthy. One is Nicolas Perricone's The Wrinkle Cure and the Perricone Promise and I do need to warn you however that he can be quite steadfast in his beliefs, but has a great foundation for eating well. Another favorite of mine is Andrew Weil's Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, I did his program and felt so wonderful! He has a more comfortable and easy going attitude.

I know how hard it is to maintain a healthy diet while not spend too much money or throwing out spoiled food. One of the things that I do to save money is to eat only fresh foods that are in season. Sometimes this means eating the same old thing over and over, but it provides a wonderful opportunity to build your own new and exciting repertoire of tasty recipes. Don't even get me started on herbs and spices for changing up a meal! So the next time you walk into the produce department think of a rainbow. Try to purchase the most colorful foods. All those colors show you that they are full of antioxidants and vitamins. They should be vibrant and full of life. There are some links here for you to start your adventure into healthy foods. There is a list of foods crops that are grown commercially but still safe and also a list of the crops most heavily sprayed and to be avoided. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium has a great list of seafoods that is concerned with many issues including both mercury and environmentally safe caught practices, called the Seafood Watch Program.

It does take time and effort to find your way to a healthy lifestyle. I admit our quest for healthy foods and living it is not quite mainstream. There are a lot of unscrupulous people and companies out there taking advantage of our naivety making it that much more difficult. But if you look around you'll find there are a lot of good people fighting the good fight to bring this information to the forefront. Here are some of the websites I feel safe in passing on to you. They are full of good information and advice.

This was the article that started my friend wondering....and an excellent one at that!

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/07/healthiest-foods-nutrition-lifestyle-health-healthiest-foods_slide_3.html?thisSpeed=15000

Nutritionadata.com is one of my favorite sites to find nutritional values for foods and just researching. http://www.nutritiondata.com/

A Composting Guide for the Home Gardener http://www.composting101.com/

A great article from Wikihow, How to make your own Worm Compost System http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Worm-Compost-System

The George Mateljan Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation with no commercial interests, is a new force for change to help make a healthier you and a healthier world.

http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php

For Dr. Perricone http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1248042950/ref=a9_sc_1?ie=UTF8&search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=perricone

For Dr. Weil http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b_0_8?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=andrew+weil&sprefix=Andrew+

This is a website that will keep you on the cutting edge of sustainablity and how to use it in your everyday life. http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/

Here's Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program page, I think they are an awesome

organization doing very important work in helping us understand the oceans of the world. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

2009-07-13T16:54:00.001-07:00

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2009-07-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

I love the whole idea!

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2009-07-06T14:47:00.001-07:00

The Fool

2009-06-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

After taking the "Your Tarot Reading" quiz on Facebook and "pulling" The Fool, I wanted to clear up some unfounded ideas about the fool as a personality card for some folks.

I'm going to type in a excerpt from Angeles Arrien's book, The Tarot Handbook; Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols which I have owned since forever. Angeles Arrien is an anthropologist who specializes in cross-cultural myths, symbols and ritual, and with this book allows you self-discovery through the cards. The book was published in 1987 and is still a comprehensive guide to the much debated Aleister Crowley's Thoth deck.

".........the Fool as your life-time personality symbol reflects a person who is seen as highly creative and in need of of variety. Fool people are not foolish or fool-hardy. They are courageous and risk-taking. They come across fearless even though they might feel fear gnawing within them. They are drawn toward and tend to explore the mystical, transcendent, and trans personal realms of consciousness. They inspire the sense of adventure and courage within others. Their sense of wonder and anticipation is contagious.

The Fool is an excellent symbol to use as a visual affirmation to enhance courage, risk-taking and the creative expression that is needed to give birth to new parts of one's life. The Fool represents the energetic essence of who we are, the essence of ourselves which is always whole, healthy. and without fear. This symbol reveals the spirit of who we are, that spirit so often expressed and experienced in those states of wonder, awe, curiosity, and anticipation. This is an excellent card to meditate upon if one is experiencing a lot of fear."

Arrien also lists a few sample affirmations to use while focusing on the Fool.

1. I am a radiant Being.

2. I am a living treasure.

3. I deeply honor and value the unlimited resource of courage that is within me.

4. I respect the nature of who I am.

5. There is nothing to fear.

Arrien also gives us a special reminder about the fool in this book; "The Fool is the state of ecstasy and wonder experienced by all humankind. It is an inherent resource we all have that is waiting to be remembered and utilized".

So, as you can see, the Fool is a wonderful card to have as representative of your personality. So be proud and use this powerful card to your advantage!

For those of you interested in reading more from Angeles Arrien, please follow the link below. Angeles Arrien has written other wonderful books such as, The Second Half of Life; Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom, The Four Fold Way; Walking the Paths of the, Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary, and Signs of Life. There are a multitude of other books both on her own and in collaboration with other great authors. Here's her page on Amazon; http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b_2_7?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=angeles+arrien&sprefix=Angeles

Polyvore

2009-06-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

This is so much fun! You gotta try it! Just go! Have fun! Get your creative juices flowing! It's so easy!

Create! Here are a few images I've created using the easy to use tools at Polyvore. In no time at all you'll be publishing your creations to your page or to one of the many groups. If you have to stop in the middle you can save your creation as a draft and go back later. The "editor" is a very simple workspace where you can test out different images to see how they add to your picture. The images are easy to add and easy to remove and you never have to settle for less than you wanted. The available images for you to choose from are practically limitless. You can create your own list of images from the Polyvore pool or use images straight from the Polyvore's pool. Or even use your own images; however if you do use your own images they are up for grabs for everyone else in Polyvore so a little thought before adding your own is a good idea.

Shop! Explore! Blog! There are other things to do at Polyvore. Fun is just a click away! Send me some of your creations.

Onions

2009-06-20T19:48:00.000-07:00

I'm cheating! I haven't posted for a long time. I'm taking a shortcut!

I've been visiting with my daughter, Kristi and my grandchildren, Vanessa and Joe who all came to see me from Phoenix Arizona. So of course I took a few days off. We were all living together when I wrote this story. I guess I was trying to be funny in a sarcastic sort of way. This photo is from Flikr's Creative Commons, taken by Bahman Farzad, entitled "onion-sha". For more information on Bahman Farzad click on the title "Onions"

12/27/05

Onions

Life is a bitch! Full of hurt feelings, the kind that make your eyes bright red and well up with big old alligator tears. Your throat feels like it’s locking up. Your chest hurts cause you heart is breaking in half and you feel like you can’t breathe. So while all this is going on, you’re acting like none of it is happening, to save face. It’s killing you but you manage. You wait until you’re alone, like in the shower and then you sob. But this is a hollow cry, a counterfeit cry, because it’s lost it’s wallop, its truth, it’s time in reality. Then you wonder why you react to hurt feelings like this. Haven’t you done the work? Haven’t you read numerous books? Watched PBS.

So, just when you think that you’ve solved some of the major problems of the past, an old crisis rears its ugly unrecognizable head. Most likely, a huge and brutal ordeal endured in childhood. Which has, unbeknownst to you, affected your entire life, but you thought you worked it out, you know, dealt with it. By dealt with it, I mean that you’ve taken time, like years. Given the problem a ton of energy, meaning your ongoing life is now unrecognizable so you could roll your sleeves up and really give this wickedness all you’ve got. To keep at it until you know you found a thick layer of deep-rooted pain and peeled it back to reveal feelings you have kept hidden for years (very painful) and then came to some healthy resolution. That would be in a perfect world.

But no! There are many, many layers to these spastic evils and it seems that the troubles are never really solved. They just recede into another level. Another deeper, thinner, more transparent level, that is further and further away from every day life, as a matter of fact, it is just out of your conscience reach. True, its not as painful as the really profound, well hidden ordeals, but never the less, its THERE, a little black mark on your soul, and no matter how tiny it gets, it’s still there. Forever! It’s the place that eternally shows the wounds of living. It’s a special little scar, which can perpetually be reopened, time and time again, by some kind of trigger in your life.

A trigger would be an unknown or unremembered set of events that somehow resemble a deep trauma earlier in life. The really tricky part is while your conscious mind keeps the tempo of your life intact and promotes your existence, thinking every thing is just sunny, your subconscious mind is in anguish re-living the same old upset again. And you don’t really know why you feel like shit, you just do. It’s like the movie “Groundhog Day”, where the guy lives the same day over and over again until he finally gets it right. But of course that is Hollywood so eventually there’s a happy ending. Real life on the other hand is ongoing and never ending until of course you die. So you get to re-live all those horrid disturbances from your early childhood. For your entire life. The other really fucked up part about all this is that you emotionally spiral downward into a terrible depression that you can not let anybody else know you’re experiencing. You can never let them know because they are compelled to fix you, but no matter what they try to do for you, they can never fix it. Besides that, being depressed is not the politically correct thing to do. We are supposed to be able to heal ourselves and deal with the issue at hand promptly and neatly. So you look at how you are dealing with things in your life because that’s the beginning of trying to heal yourself.

What do you see? Your life’s a mammoth muddle and every little thing that happens is bothering you but you definitely don’t have any idea why. You’re basically emotionally unavailable in your own life. It’s just kind of a sketchy vague feeling. Like a dark cloud hanging over you. You can’t see it you just recognize its there, casting a murky shadow on your life. You can’t seem to do or think anything right. That’s when you realize that you’re not dealing with it in a prompt and neat way. The more you think about it the more you realize that you’re a failure, and will forever more be a failure because of some childhood setback that you can’t ever seem to “heal”. So there goes the spiral. Down. Down. Down. And as sad as all that seems, the really sad thing is that people like me raise people like me. It’s a circle. It goes round and round.

Ok! That’s where I am right now. Hopefully, it will change soon. It always does.

Book Review

2009-06-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

I just did a book review for Amazon.com. The review is for Monica Reinagel's Inflammation Free Diet Plan. I orginally borrowed this book from the local library and got hooked. I thought I could get by without having the actual book to refer to but I was wrong!

I have been diagnosed with Arthritis and I have had a lot of pain. I changed my diet using the ideas from Monica's book. I actually developed a eating plan based on Monica's inflammation free foods. So, for 30 days, which was so much easier than I thought it would be, I ate nothing but inflammation free foods. My pain disappeared! I slowly started adding back some of the foods I really missed, like yogurt and eggs. I still was not experiencing any pain. Over the next few months I fell back into my old eating habits and gained all the weight I had lost and also was having to deal with all the annoying aches and pains again. Damn It! I did it again! Well, I tried to remember how I got to the inflammation free diet and just couldn't remember all the details, so I bought the book. I'm so glad to have it at my fingertips and feel secure that I can start the diet again. The full book review is below or you can click on this posts title and read the short version on Amazon.

The Inflammation Free Diet Plan

This book was written by Monica Reinagel, forward by consulting editor Juius Torelli, MD. It is a Lynn Sonberg Book, published by McGraw-Hill in 2006. For your easy reference, IBSN 0-07-146471-9

Monica Reinagel has a comfortable writing style an excellent bibliographical reference and index, so everything is simple to find. The book is sectioned into 4 chapters and has a List of Tables and Figures at the front before the foreword.

The first chapter helps us determine our own risk for inflammation and why inflammation is near epidemic. Reinagel maps out exactly what you can do to keep tabs on your own health and how to weave your way through the medical tides. Most important though is that Monica Reinagel reveals a path that you can easily take to a healthier and longer life.

The chapter that was most interesting for me was chapter two because she very clearly shows how the IF ratings were calculated. Reinagel never says exactly what IF stands for but I assume its Inflammation Free. The rating takes into consideration over twenty nutritional factors that affect inflammation. The calculations come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture which is the basis of the National Nutritional Database for Standard Reference and the most recent update of the database was published in 2004. The formula also incorporates the glycemic index which was sourced from the Glycemic Index Research Institute at Sydney University in Australia. The IF Rating chart also includes for each food the grams of fat and carbohydrate. Reinagel has used the latest information available so we are very up to date.

In chapter three outlines a flexible and easy-to-follow eating plan. You are able to easily modify an eating plan for yourself, so that you can achieve weight loss, reduce pain and allergies, prevent disease and slow the ageing process; all great reasons to watch what you eat. There are a few quizzes so to speak that also help you find the level/plan you need to start with, and some target values to help you stay on track. There is lots of information on meal planning. Then there are some great recipes and even a recipe worksheet (page 60) so that you can work out the IF Rating for your own recipes. She even has tips for calculation of recipes. Using a recipe worksheet Monica shows how you can modify a recipe to realize a higher IF Rating.

The last chapter is the IF Ratings Charts. Monica Reinagel has divided the charts in two ways to make it even easier to find and calculate your ingredients/foods. The first chart is IF Ratings: A to Z, and then the ratings are organized by category to which she has included a Category Guide in the front.

Over all I found the book easy to read and understand. I found the information relevant and learned a few things that surprised me. My only negative issue with the book is that the IF Ratings only include 1600 foods. That is a lot of different foods but while looking through the ratings I found some items that I use frequently missing, like tofu.

"Stay-cation"

2009-06-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning. Just as I was driving out of reach of my local NPR radio station they were talking about the "new" vacation Americans are and will be taking instead of the usual fare, calling them "Stay-cations". What a fabulous idea! As an American who hasn't taken many "Vacations" I think it will be very good for the American people. First of all, it will prove that we, as Americans can have fun without spending obscene amounts of money. Secondly, and much more importantly, American families might finally find that sacred space of quiet and stillness to actually re-connect on a deeper level to their own families.

It's a very good practice to do with less in an era where conspicuous consumption has been the highlight in our lives to the point of global warming and mass extinctions, where bigger is better and nothing is sacred. Think of it as building character. This is a good time to stay home and stoke the home fires. Get your house in order, make your connections and be prepare for whatever comes at us next with a united front. People are suffering all over the world, including in our own neighborhoods, it would be nice if we stayed home and took care of our local communities, finding a way to hold them up and making them solid again. It can only be good for us to spend more time at home with our families and really get to know our local communities. Really, how many people know their neighbors now days? I was raised in San Francisco, just south of Market, in the early '50's. We knew all of our neighbors up and down the street, no one never locked their doors, we walked to our schools through downtown traffic without adult supervision and we played in the streets all the time. The world was a different place, a slower, closer to home place. I do understand that. As a matter of fact, I am scared to death when I think about the life my grand kids might have to live. We have so many options, to make things right, get back on track and save face, and the world too! So, speaking of staying home, I want to share with you a weblog that has wonderful ideas and is working for a better world. http://www.inhabitat.com/ is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. Please visit, be inspired and enjoy this website by clicking on the title of this post.

Drawing Day

2009-06-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

Today is Drawing Day! It's a world wide event. This event wants to create a million drawings to share today. Here's what they are saying:

One day a year, the world stops to remember that joy we had when we first picked up a pencil and created our first piece of art - that's what Drawing Day is all about. The goal for Drawing Day is simple - to create enough drawings to make some noise worldwide for the sake of art. 2008 was the first year of this initiative. Our goal is definitely a long-shot, but we continue to aim for 1 million drawings worldwide. We have no precise measure to know if we reach this goal. If we come close we will all definitely know. Even if we reach 10% of our goal in the first year of this initiative, it will be a great achievement but we will continue aiming for the magic million.

I think this it is one of the really fun and creative online events that is all enclusive. It will bring together lots of people in the spirit of fun and art. Go have fun and visit them by clicking on the title, Drawing Day.

Affirmations

2009-06-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

I saw Louise Hay on PBS last night. I was lucky enough to catch the last part of Wayne Dryer's show, "Excuses Begone" when Wayne announced that Louise was in the audience. Of course when the cameras focused on Louise Hay she was emitting a wholly healthly and profoundly alive glow. I would say that makes her 82 years on earth affirm that affirmations do work! The universe works in strange ways and was again to my rescue, at just the right time for me to see what I need. So I decided to link bmindful.com to my blog to remind me to focus on affirmations as a tool to make necessary changes, painlessly I might add, and stay on course. Hope this is a help to you as well. I also added a wiget from "Quote of the Day" just to keep us close to great minds. Enjoy your day - I'm going to!

Oceans Day June 8, 2009

2009-06-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

I love this place! Go! Enjoy! This guy was in hiding last time I was at the Academy but should be back at center stage by now. Earlier this year, the United Nations issued an official resolution designating June 8, 2009 as the first annual World Oceans Day. Now that's exciting!

Speaking of exciting, I learned how to link a title! If you click the title above it will take you directly to the "Celebrate World Oceans Day" page at the Califorina Academy of Sciences, which has planned lots of events to celebrate Oceans Day.

And now for the best part, the most awesome shot of the roof taken by my friend Sherry Brown

A whole new universe

2009-05-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

This blogging thing is very new to me. It's like a whole new universe for me to explore. I was thinking that I would post at least once a week in the begining. I'm not sure if that's good timing or not but I think it's a good place to start. So, as it goes, I have to fill out a bunch of stuff for this blog. I will leave you with this link. http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2009/May/Astronauts-Ready-for-Last-Hubble-Repair/

The Hubble Space Telescope will never again be touched by human hands.

New Beginings

2009-05-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Day One Hi folks! I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. But as fearful as I am at this moment I still want to have community more. I think this is the way to go, the fourth screen so to speak. I have so much to learn. I just hope the learning curve is not to steep and wild for this old gal!