Thursday, December 8, 2011

Cashmere Alert!

Brief but important newsflash to fellow cashmere addicts:  Get your fix today at The Bay! It's cashmere-palooza there today, for one day only.

Bonnie Brooks, in yet another demonstration of her genius, has put the Lord & Taylor women's cashmere on a one-day clearance sale.

Free shipping if you order on line, or go try & buy in-person.

Cashmere-palooza @ The Bay

My cashmere fix was a charcoal cardigan, perfect for over a blouse at the office or over a t-shirt for a more casual look.

Enjoy your fix!
Cheers!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Health is Wealth

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." - Mahatma Gandhi 


As much as my inner Material Girl relishes the finer things in life, I've realized that in addition to friends and family, my most valuable possession is my health.  I'd love to say that I've come to this conclusion on my own accord, but rather, it was a number of wake-up calls over the past few years that really made me sit up and take notice.


As I look around my circle of friends, family, co-workers, and neighbours, at any given moment, someone is going through some kind of a health challenge. In addition to a Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis, my father-in-law has dealt with vascular surgery and crazy side-effects from a little "whoops!" that happened during the procedure. Cameron was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes as well. Like father like son...so I have to wonder if/when Austin will be impacted. Type 2 reached out and whacked my cousin too. My sister-in-law going through multiple cancers scares, tests, and biopsies. Two colleagues both with terminal cancer. The sudden and unexpected death of a friend. 


Even I've had a couple health-crisis episodes myself, but thankfully nothing chronic or untreatable. All of these add up to a far greater appreciation for good health and I have become inspired by the stories of others who have overcome and have made it their personal mission to raise awareness. Lauren Ward Larsen is one such inspirer. If you want to appreciate good health, read her book, Zuzu's Petals. It's a fascinating, shocking, and hilarious read by an amazing woman.  


Someone once said, "This body is the only one you've got. If you don't take care of it, where are you going to live?" Good point. So how do we go about taking care of our health? As a student of healthy living, I'm no expert. But here are some tips I've learned so far:

  • Take an interest in healthy living. Read up on it. Do some research. Watch "Dr. Oz". Do whatever you can to learn a little bit every day to inspire you to move forward on your journey.
  • Stick to the basics. Eat reasonably healthy foods in reasonable-sized portions, organic if you can. Exercise regularly, even if it's just going for a walk a couple times per week. Get your sleep and do everything you can not to get stressed out.
  • Moderation is the key. Radical lifestyle changes usually don't work over the long-term. And you can't enjoy yourself if you are too strict. A little food, a little wine, a little chocolate, none of that ever killed anyone in moderation. 
  • Schedule and go to your medical maintenance appointments like the annual physical and dental check-ups.
  • If you're not motivated to do it for yourself, get healthy for your kids, your friends, your family. Set a good example. Especially where kids are concerned, example is everything.
  • Be kind to yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, really, truly, who else will?
I raise my cup of yogurt (which I eat for my health, not because I actually like the stuff) to you and your pursuit of good health.  If you're healthy, you're wealthy.  Cheers!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Lazy Girl Dinner

Yesterday I was sharing with some colleagues about how much I love my slow cooker. They confessed they only use theirs for the occasional soup and are afraid to cook anything else with theirs. As I shared the virtues of my slow cooker and promised to teach them how to cook a chicken dinner, it occurred to me this info might be helpful to others. So here's the dealy-o on why and how a lazy girl cooks dinner in a crock pot.

Every Wednesday night, Austin goes to Cub Scouts, and it's a mad dash from work to home to eat to drop him off and then turn around and pick him up later. Throw a toddler into the mix and cooking dinner in the midst of that equation is just not do-able. So, typically, on a Tuesday night I prep the food for the slow cooker and then all day Wednesday it cooks while we're at work and/or school.

Clean a whole chicken (rinse it out good!) and pat dry with paper towels. You can stick an onion or some garlic cloves or a cut up lemon inside it if you want. If you're feeling extra lazy, don't put anything inside. Put it in the crock pot. Cut up some potatoes, carrots, maybe some onions, and put them around the chicken in the pot. Pour barbecue sauce or any kind of marinade you like over the chicken. I like the maple-flavoured Diana's Sauce. Sprinkle herbs on your chick if you want. Splash some lemon juice around onto the vegetables and sprinkle them with herbs. My family likes Herbs de Provence on our veggies, so that's what I use. When you're ready to cook, just set the pot on low for 10 hours. That's it. That's the lazy girl dinner.

Here's a shot of what tonight's lazy girl dinner looked like before cooking:

Some other tips for using the slow cooker: I like to set it cooking near a window and just crack the window open a teeny tiny bit. As much as I love the smell of dinner when I arrive home, I don't necessarily want the whole house reeking of it. A great tip from my friend/neighbour Russ: If your crock pot doesn't have a timer, just plug it into one of those timers that turns your lights on and off. Set the heat level to what you want (High or Low) and then set the timer for when you want it to end cooking. You can also get fancy and set it to start cooking at a particular time, if you want. Me, personally, I'm not keen on leaving food out not cooking til later. But I'm a germaphobe who wears latex gloves while handling meat, so I'll leave that choice up to you.

Final tip: Don't forget that you cooked dinner! I've been known to arrive home with an armload of groceries, gearing up to cook a meal, having totally forgotten I've been cooking dinner while at work. There's nothing like arriving home to a home-cooked meal, even when your lousy memory surprises you with it. Enjoy!

Here's the 'after' pic.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Sunday Dinner

Yesterday, my good friend/neighbour Lori shared with me that her family eats Sunday dinner in their dining room. This is something we used to do, but had strayed away from once Lauren came along. In thinking it through, it's kind of strange how we have a perfectly good room in our house but we really don't use it as a family, other than for special occasions. In a way, the dining room has become my quiet space where I read, meditate, and write. And our cat, Coco, treats the dining room like every other room in the house - her personal lounge.

Really, it makes no sense to make the room unofficially off-limits. Who are we saving it for? Company? How often do they come - once a month? And while we're thinking about it, how about the 'good' dishes. And the 'good' towels. 'Special' clothes? All that stuff? I realized that by saving things for others and not making use of them myself or with my family, then the message I'm sending myself and to those nearest and dearest is not very nice. Undeserving? Not good enough? Perhaps too messy and likely to spill/wreck something?

All that went out the window a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving when we had a bit of a large-scale red-wine incident involving white dining room chairs and beige carpeting. But I managed to clean it up and although one chair is a tiny bit greyish now, it's become a funny story in both the fabric of our lives and that of our dining room. In the midst of blotting the wine, I found myself to be surprisingly calm about the whole thing. My mom remarked about it and I responded, "You know, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter. Everyone's here, we're all healthy, and people are way more important than things." Perhaps I'd consumed too much wine to be concerned about the spillage but I suspect it was more likely that recent events in my life (including the sudden and unexpected death of a friend just days before) had wiped the bullshit out of my eyes to help me focus on what really mattered. At any rate, some sort of wisdom came from my mouth, be it wine wisdom or my own.

So here we are - the final waning days of Autumn, poised on the brink of that grey zone between Halloween and Christmas. Everyone who knows me knows how much I hate the next few upcoming weeks. Bare trees, grey skys, wind, and bleakness as we brace ourselves for Winter. I've taken Lori's reminder to heart and am getting set for Sunday dinner. A small ham and a new recipe  for cheesy scalloped potatoes & carrots (courtesy of the Kraft Canada "What's Cooking" magazine) are in the oven and the table is set. We're going to eat in the dining room and we're using good dishes. We'll use the set inherited from my Uncle Bill and Aunt Marion, which make me happy and a little bit sentimental, like memories of Summer this time of year.

When we gather around the table in the dining room, I know I'll be asked, "What's up? Why in here? And the good dishes?" And I'll say, "Just because." And I'll know it's because we're deserving and we're worth it. And if a little wine gets spilled, let's just hope more remains in the glass than on the carpet. Cheers!




Friday, October 28, 2011

Rich in Life

Dorothy Parker once said, "I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it." I know I could be pretty darling at it myself, but despite being a member of the office lotto pool, a million dollars has yet to drop in my lap. So what's a girl to do?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about money. Not in the "Oh gosh, how will we keep a roof over our house and the kids fed" kind of way, but just in general. Money is constantly in the news, especially lately with the whole Greek debt situation and all the conflicting messages out there about the economy. Some say the economy is slowly growing, others say we're heading for another recession, while some say we are still in the same recession as 3 years ago. I know people who are struggling with financial woes and I know others who are spending like darling millionaires. Taxes, retirement savings, "come bank with us, you're richer than you think", union wage rumblings, and deficits are all issues I am bombarded with on a daily basis. It's enough to make anyone crazy. 

Over the past year or so, I've been through a lot and through some of the processes, I am thankful to say I seem to have had the jadedness wiped out of my eyes and I am seeing my world around me a lot clearer than I used to. With this has come clarity about what's important to me and how I approach money and respond to the constant barrage of money-related messages.

I've realized that everything I need is already in place or is within my reach if I make the effort to go after it. I've also realized that when you really look at life, it all boils down to having your friends, your family, and your health. And your faith. Whether you're spiritual or not, you have to have faith in something. I have all of these things and I am darling rich with the goodness of all of them. I choose to make these things my priorities in life, and I spend my time and money in support of them.

I also make a conscious effort to do things that make me, my family, and my friends happy. Nothing extravagant like a blow your brains out party on a yacht in the Mediterranean, but simple, relatively inexpensive things or taking the time to do something special for someone or for myself.  For example, this week I planted close to 100 spring bulbs in our gardens. It was a minimal financial commitment and a moderate time commitment for the purpose of making myself and others smile in the spring. As I planted each bulb, I thought about how beautiful the tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils will look and how not only will I smile when I see them, but my neighbours will enjoy them. A major reason to do this was so the kids who wait by our house for the school bus will have something pretty to look at in the spring. I think the soft yellow, baby pink, deep purple, creamy white, and sky blue flowers will make those kids smile at the fresh growth of spring.

Planting these bulbs became for me a ritualistic and symbolic experience. As I tenderly placed the bulbs in the ground, I hoped the squirrels wouldn't steal them and I wished each bulb a good winter and good luck. I did the work, and now I just have to have faith that in the spring, the flowers will come up as my reward. Planting the bulbs was an act of faith as well as an exercise in digging in the dirt.

So while I'm not a millionaire, I am darling rich in the knowledge that I am taking care of the priorities in my life. And simple acts of fun and faith keep me going until that lotto win does eventually come in.