Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The student as teacher?

A few days ago, the hubs and I had a bit of a scuffle. I basically came home and got in a huff about something. I guess I raised my voice and he got mad, back and forth, back and forth. Well, I calmed down and apologized for raising my voice but he was still miffed. At one point, he asked the babes, "Was mom yelling?"

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Sitters

Man, I have had this post in my head for a while...just couldn't find the time to post. When the babes was younger, she didn't really take to babysitters. She tolerated them, but of course, she preferred us never to go out. Especially me. Now that she is older and has the capacity to formulate "If..Then" scenarios. I think she rather likes when we call in sitters. The newer the better.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Lunch Inspo

I've been meaning to post this for a while but just hadn't found the time! I wanted to share some lunch/snack inspos.
Firstly, what I have found to be a lifesaver is developing a lunch rhythm. Meaning, I have a weekly menu that I just follow. Right now it's the following:

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

The Ego

I have shared before that I do a lot of self-reflecting. Truly, I feel as if Los Angelenos should not need therapy at all. We all spend enough time in our cars, slowly moving that we have plenty of time to self-reflect and just think about life in general.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Going to school on crutches

The babes seems to have sprained her ankle the other day. She spent the day at home yesterday and since she was in such high spirits and seemed to be jumping out of her skin, I sent her to school today knowing they had crutches available for her.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Dog Meditation

These days, I'm practicing dog meditation. That is a form of falling into meditation whilst holding your dog on your lap, in your arms, by your side while petting him.

Yep, that's what I do throughout the day. In the nighttime, we are sort of crate training our little guy so I put him in his crate and pet him to soothe him while he is in his crate. I pet him until he crawls into a little heap and falls asleep. This can be 10 minutes or 20 minutes. In any case, whatever the time, is however long I am meditating.

Pretty good deal right? Yes, go out and get a dog. It's a win-win for everyone! A dog gets a furever home and you get some meditation in your life. Connect with your inner wisdom.

Check out A Purposeful Rescue, which is where we got our very senior (10 years old) puppy.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Dolly Parton and growing up dirt poor

We recently went to see Dolly Parton perform. Man, it was the BEST performance I have ever attended. She is so sweet. She tells stories on stage and she sings every song without any bells and whistles. It's just her and her lovely voice up there. She has a great sense of humor as well and her laugh is like bells chiming in the wind. If I could invite one person over for dinner, it might be her. Full of spunk even at the age of 70.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Pokemon Go...Away

I wish it would just be Pokemon Go Away...I'm a bit over seeing everyone glued to their phones looking for silly characters in a game. I mean, it might be because my child goes to a Waldorf school and there is a no media policy. But I definitely send her there for a reason and I really don't believe that children should have access to media. When your face is glued to your phone, you miss out on seeing the beauty that is in the every day, in nature. And I think that is a miss.

Pokemon Go...Away

I wish it would just be Pokemon Go Away...I'm a bit over seeing everyone glued to their phones looking for silly characters in a game. I mean, it might be because my child goes to a Waldorf school and there is a no media policy. But I definitely send her there for a reason and I really don't believe that children should have access to media. When your face is glued to your phone, you miss out on seeing the beauty that is in the every day, in nature. And I think that is a miss.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Best sun products

Summer is almost over..but here in sunny California, there is always need for sun protection. Here are some of my favorite products that I have been using all summer:



Firstly, a nice sun hat.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Back to School

Uh-oh. School is starting back up. Of course, I'm glad that it is but it also means time to start packing snacks and lunches again...and we all know how much I really dislike doing this because I can't seem to get organized enough to streamline.

Let's see if I can manage it better this year.

Firstly, school is starting and the seasons are changing so I probably want to start upping our Vitamin C intake every day. By a lot. Just so we are equipped with our "health armor" when we start school and we avoid any sick days. This means more dark green, leafy veggies, berries and peppers (still abundant at the farmer's markets), broccoli, citrus, peas

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

A sponge

You know how sometimes, there's these children that have this magical child-like innocence to them. An adult could talk around them all day long and they just wouldn't absorb any of it.

Monday, July 25, 2016

The spoken word escapes me

Sometimes, I do so much better with writing things out rather than having a conversation. I feel like in conversation, there's the possibility of being interrupted and throwing my thoughts off course. Especially during heated times. However, I think the hubs differs in opinion.

Teeth brushing

Just a short note on teeth brushing since I've come across this twice and, in my opinion, twice is too much. Twice, and from two different families, I have seen that these little girls do not rinse their mouth after brushing.

Eww, gross is what I say to that. Well, not to their faces, but I promptly say, "You need to rinse your mouth after you brush. So you can get all the yucky stuff out of your mouth."

Friday, July 22, 2016

Self help post

I don't normally post about self-help...but last week during my Waldorf Teacher Training, we were given an exercise that really opened my eyes to a new perspective that I just had to share.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

DIY Shampoo

My SIL emailed me a few weeks back raving about their cousin's hair. It was so lush and shiny! She makes her own shampoo. Of course, I was right on that!!

Friday, July 8, 2016

Separation Anxiety

My child is seven years old. And, she's pretty outgoing so it seems. I know she has a very shy nature too. Might I venture to say a bit of a fearful nature. She's always been a bit hesitant to separate from my side but I thought that by now, at age 7 and a full year of first grade under her belt, she'd be different.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

A fairy tale dissected

Fairy tales are very big in Waldorf Early Childhood Education. The reason is because they impart the archetypal qualities of the human being.

“In the art and fantasy of fairy tales lies a very deep wisdom which has power to awaken children from the sleep of ordinary life. Forces of healing are also hidden in each fairy tale. The most important effect of the fairy tale is that they stimulate the feeling that man is a being of development, of struggle, of metamorphosis, and that behind all the adverse forces of giants and dwarfs, witches and demons there lies the good world of the true genius of man.” ~ Frederick Hiebel


Thursday, June 23, 2016

Bugs...to kill or not to kill

The other morning I found a spider in my bathroom. It was a very fast bugger, but as per usual, I caught him in a glass and took him outside. That's generally our approach these days to bugs. We just kindly take them outside. Might be my Buddhist mother-in-law's influence.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Waldorf - First Grade

For the past six weeks before school ends, every Waldorf class is in review mode - where the students review their work for the past year. Sounds boring? IT'S NOT!! Nothing in Waldorf is boring or meaningless. It is truly an intentional education based on human development.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Lunch

My girl is generally a good eater. But, oftentimes, she will come home with a full lunch. Barely touched. And several of the parents, when we get together will lament about that. They've brought it to the teacher's attention and at the beginning of the year, he did say he would try to be more conscientious about it and make sure the children are eating...

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Conscious Parenting

Have you ever read the book "Celestine Prophecy"? I read that book maybe when I was in High School and one thing totally stuck in my head - the idea that everyone that we meet, we are supposed to meet. And, I truly believe that. What does that have to do with conscious parenting?

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

New Clean Beauty Finds

In my last post I mentioned that I attended the Indie Beauty Expo here in Los Angeles. Firstly, I'd like to say what a great job they do in helping small indie brands think about scaling up. They brought in Evine as a partner and then since Evine is like a QVC, they also brought in Covalence Laboratories to help these smaller brands recognize that they can scale if/when they want to.

Now onto the discoveries! Well, my client, Lalun Naturals, of course launched her Astral Body collection. I walked away with two products. Skyblue Beard Oil and Golden Sun Drops.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Face regimen

I've been changing up my face cleaning regimen lately. Well, just my night time ritual. I used to clean my face and apply a moisturizer, be it oil, a balm or cream. A while back I had read a blog post by Josh Rosebrook where he talks about not using water to cleanse the skin. Or at least not oil AND water because that doesn't work. It made sense to me, but then again, I continued to use my oil and wash off with water. I know it doesn't quite wash it off because water doesn't do that. But I also wasn't willing to just "wash off" with my hydrosol because frankly, it costs a lot of money.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Peace & Connection

True to my Internet ADHD, I got sidetracked the other day...who knows what I was looking for, usually it's looking up articles that journalists have written and I came across this lovely post from ohh, 2015.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

A peek into Waldorf 1st Grade

Mind you, the "peeks" I offer are either taken from something I've learned from parent meetings or directly from what the kid tells me. The following is a song she asked me to transcribe for her. She asked me to do this probably in October of last year when they were learning their vowels.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The phone...

Does anyone else have this ridiculous problem that I seem to have lately...when I pick up my phone, let's say, to use the calculator, somehow I get sidetracked for the next TEN MINUTES or more by my social! WTF?!!

Total time suck.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Joan Chen

Hmm, the hubs and I have been watching Twin Peaks. We didn't catch it the first time around and we are obsessed! Such a good show. I believe this show came on when I was in college or high school?? Goodness, who could get anything done? It's too good. LOVE the acting by Kyle MacLachlan.
Today the hubs asked me to look up what Joan Chen has been up to. Well...who knew??
She has her own blog! AND it's chock full of yummy recipes. Her daughter just got accepted to Harvard? Hot Damn! Good for her!
I'm for sure going to be checking out the Hungry Empress on the regular AND, maybe follow JC on Twitter. You're welcome!

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Cruddy pots and pans...Bring it!

Ah, woe is me. The other day, I tried to cook up some garbanzo beans from scratch. Unfortunately, rather than sit around and wait for it I ran out the door! And completely forgot that the beans were on the stove. I tried to call and text the hubs, but I didn't think he was anywhere near his phone. And, he wasn't!

Monday, March 14, 2016

Turmeric

Annnnd, this would be a case where something might work for some people (like African Americans) and not so much for others (like Asian Americans or just Caucasians or the like).

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Working mothers

I don't know how working mothers do it. I feel like there is ALWAYS a load of laundry to be done - washed, dried, folded, put away. Once one load is done, another one is always waiting. Then there's the dishes.

I don't know how working mothers get up, pack a lunch, go to work and then come home and still find the time to make dinner and tend to the house. It's exhausting.

It's unjust that they don't get equal pay at work. It's crazy. That's it. That's all I have to say for today. Working mothers are amazing. Mothers are amazing people.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Power of Essential Oils

I really cannot tell you how much I love essential oils and it really irritates me that essential oils and homeopathic remedies are not suggested at a regular doctor visit. It is very annoying that something so healthy will be overlooked to plug our bodies with poison.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Vanity

So, you know the babes just recently had to get stitches. Firstly, I understand it was a very sensitive spot on her face. Kind of prominent - like, an L shape right over her left eyebrow... And you know, her father and I are talking with the doctors and they are saying plastic surgery, ophthalmologist...stitches, scar. It's enough to make any seven year old feel self-conscious.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Parenting other people's kids...again..

Just had dinner at a friend's house. We were in the kitchen prepping dinner when her daughter came in and announced, "We're bored"...now mind you, we hadn't even been there 30 minutes. I turned right to her and said to her exactly what I have said to D,

Friday, February 26, 2016

Stitches

Ooh boo. The babes had to get stitches the other day! She was horse riding and her horse spooked and she fell off. I'm convinced it was her helmet that caused a huge gash right above her eye that require stitches. I'm just about to shoot off a letter to the manufacturer AND inform all horse riders and trainers, that this particular brand of helmet is a hazard!!

Monday, February 22, 2016

On Silence

When I drive, I usually do not have the music on. I might put NPR or KPCC on for a minute and then I'll get tired of it and turn it off. I kind of just really like silence. And so when I have D in the car, it's silence. No news.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

A couple of great recipes

I have come across some really great recipes lately!! Alas, when I am cooking, I am not always so inclined to take photos either before, during or after. So, I have no photos to share, but all the blogs where I get my recipes from have beautiful photos, so why add my own? :o)

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Waldorf First Grade - Vowels


These are the vowel fairies. As per usual in a Waldorf classroom, the teacher draws the images beautifully on the chalkboard and the children draw their own into their main lessons books. These are the vowel fairies that were introduced in language arts. And immediately, the vowels go missing.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Illuminizer

Well, who knew that something in a little glass bottle could really transform one's look! Recently, I've re-discovered by Josie Maran Argan Illuminizer and I always get compliments when I wear it!

Sunday, January 10, 2016

The 6-year old challenge

My child is a 6-year old challenge. We've been having quite a bit of back talk from her, general not listening and a lot of hot flashes. Well, it all sort of came to a head when we spent a good 10 days with the family. The cousins, there are two that sort of flank D on both ends - one is 6 one is 9. Both girls listen quite well...and D doesn't so much or at least she hasn't been lately.