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ore instinctive this way there is still time for things to shift but a scheduled c section is no longer just hypothetical i have to confess there is so much i dislike about the idea of a hospital birth the bright lights the strangers the smell of strong disinfectants covering the faint acrid smell of sick people i believe a natural birth is better for both baby and for me in the release of hormones that happens in the powerful contractions that wring the baby and let both of us know that something tremendous is happening there is irony in that i was a breech birth too my sweet mum labored with me for 28 hours before finally submitting to a surgical birth it was definitely not the birth they planned and my dad still talks about how it felt like a failure i have done a lot of crying in the past few weeks trying to come to terms with this bump in the road in a way it s a marvelous lesson about parenthood a reminder that my plans are no longer mine alone to execute this little person inside of me has their own will and will come in their own time and in their own way a midwife of thirty years teared up as she heard my story becky she said looking right into my heart i have never seen a birth that wasn t beautiful posted by the fab miss b at 2 57 pm 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels breech baby breech birth c section cool hand luke interventions moxibustion natural birth pregnancy spinning babies sunday august 03 2014 simple pleasures going up north wildflowers picked from the ditches beside the dirt road leading to the cabin minnesotans may love summer but they love their cabins even more eric and i joke that we really messed up when we married one another since neither one of us has a cabin in the family luckily some good friends invited us to join them up north recently it was an idyllic weekend on a lake with only seven homes on it it was so quiet that when a car pulled up across the way you could hear the gravel crunching beneath the tires there were two loons nesting on the lake and they had a tiny baby just a week old stasha and i stole across the glassy water in a canoe and got close enough to see the mother s ox blood red eyes on the drive up we stopped at lavaliers farm and picked hundreds of strawberries that were shiny jewels of perfect juice our fingers and mouths were stained pink all weekend we cooked some incredible meals is there anything more summery than grilled sweet corn burgers and watermelon we slept underneath taxidermy dear heads in a genuine log cabin that has been in her family for three generations in fact her grandfather told us that he first visited when he was just a few weeks old there were no passable roads to the lake so the only way in was by canoe and that very canoe served as his crib that first summer besides the complete stillness the lovely company and jumping off the dock into the icy cold water i loved picking wildflowers with my friend the boys joined us and we all picked tiny delicious wild raspberries we had fun turning the flowers into arrangements in whatever containers we could find in her grandmother s cupboards jelly jars bowls and an old tin camp cup after two days of slow and quiet it felt so good to get back to my life in the city i can see the magic of a going up north it s just far enough that your mind can get quiet and not long enough to set your expectations impossibly high like you would with a vacation in the carribean and going up north isn t necessarily about packing in a million adrenaline packed highs it s more about slowing down and appreciating what s already there people you love the beauty of the natural world and the way even mundane tasks can be pleasurable when you aren t rushing what has rejuvenated you this summer have you taken time for a vacation i filled an old tin camp cup with odds and ends found in the woods posted by the fab miss b at 5 40 pm 0 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels berry picking cabin canoe going up north loons minnesota spirit vacation wild berries wildflowers you betcha minnesota sunday july 06 2014 sugar rush four pack donut painting by doublestarranch a few weeks back my dad asked eric and i to see fed up a documentary about processed food in the american diet it was a compilation of the usual litany of offences there was a critique of the food pyramid suggesting that it supports america s corporate bread basket instead of nourishing the american public did you know the fda was created to sell more food to the american public but that it is also entrusted with caring for public health this documentary argues that there is a basic and impossible contradiction inherent in these two agendas fed up also touched on the interesting correlation between a marketplace saturated with low fat lite and low calorie options and our nation s expanding waistlines since removing fat also removes flavor and in manufactured food this means that sugar or salt or both in large quantities are added to make up the difference bottom line don t eat low fat foods michael pollan and many others have been telling us this for years but information that was new to me or that at least sunk in more deeply this time was that sugar in nature is almost always accompanied by fiber which slows the body s digestion allowing it to absorb more nutrients and release insulin more slowly in processed foods the fiber is removed meaning that sugar is dumped directly into your bloodstream as insulin which is eventually converted to fat so a calorie from an almond is not the same as a calorie from a bottle of coke donut conversation by mgenomgenom this all reminded me of a recent article in national geographic magazine sugar a not so sweet story charting the western obsession with sugar it s ugly association with slavery and our exponentially increasing consumption of it in 1700 the average englishman consumed 4 pounds a year in 1800 the common man ate 18 pounds of sugar in 1870 that same sweet toothed bloke was eating 47 pounds annually was he satisfied of course not by 1900 he was up to 100 pounds a year i eat a staggering amount of sugar every day we don t eat much processed food in our house preferring to cook for ourselves whenever possible but i let my sweet tooth run the show often having as many as three sweet treats in a single day take yesterday for instance i had a slice of rhubarb pie a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and cookies and not one but two slices of strawberry cake iced with cream cheese frosting half a dozen donuts by shopannshen that s in addition to all the hidden sugars i m likely eating in foods like peanut butter or bread shameful really i d like to curb this terrible habit especially with my baby on the way if i want my little one to have a healthy relationship with sugar i need to cultivate my own moderation cutting sugar out completely has proven extremely difficult limiting it to weekends via the common sense saying no sweets seconds or snacks except on days that start with s hasn t worked either even limiting it to one treat a day has tested my willpower what to do have you battled a sugar habit what did you do to help curb your appetite for now i m keeping the fridge stocked with gorgeous fruit so it s the first thing i see when i open the door and i bought a little supply of chewing gum to pop when the craving hits i also brewed a big batch of mint iced tea to sip on with ice and lemon a perfect summer treat from what i ve read cravings lessen after a week and can dissipate completely after 8 weeks the trick is making it that long posted by the fab miss b at 7 41 am 1 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels culinary delights diet donuts fed up food junk food michael pollan national geographic sugar addiction wednesday july 02 2014 water the flowers not the weeds quillebeuf at the mouth of seine by william turner moving back to minnesota has inspired me to put down roots metaphorically and physically having an investment in a place means a lot to me after our nomadic lifestyle i ve planted a garden for the first time this year and i enjoyed including perennials that will take years to become truly established my grandmother and aunt gave me transplants from their gardens including a peony bush a rhubarb plant that came from my great grandmother s farm in austin minnesota and a pretty wisp of a white bleeding heart for the shade garden out front we ve been here for about two years now and i ve enjoyed creating a life in minneapolis far more than i expected the satisfaction i feel has many sources but one of the most enduring was a decision to focus on the positive and avoid complaints it s that old saying water the flowers not the weeds i first learned to direct my thinking in bikram class where mark my teacher urged me to smile when i felt discomfort or frustration he suggested breathing deeply and avoiding making grunting or groaning noises which send the message from your mind to your body that you can t handle what you are experiencing your mind gives up way before your body does he said i was amazed that i could stop grunting easily and that smiling really did make the postures more bearable even fun i became curious about other ways to create endurance and resilience in my mind and body laughter yoga embodies much of the same philosophy but without the physical demands instead you just need to a willingness to fake it whether you feel like laughing or not mary my teacher says the idea is to practice making laughter your first response to frustration and discomfort to see how that shifts things when we moved back to minnesota from hawaii i made a conscious choice to avoid complaining about the weather since griping about the weather is minnesota s official state sport it isn t always easy but for me complaining is not as innocuous as it might appear it actually puts my brain in a groove where i m actually seeking out other things to be grumpy about and believe me there is never a shortage of things to be grumpy about the weather is one area where i most definitely have no control at all so i chose not to complain about it doing my best to accept whatever comes and be prepared for it i have begun to extend this no complaining philosophy to other far more important things in my life too i m prone to ruminating on people and situations in my life forming judgments about their choices and how they affect me and expressing mystification at their motivations i m making an effort to change the stories i tell myself about other people and especially what i saw out loud about others it s way harder than not complaining about the weather because it feels far more personal but in the relationships where i have been able to change my story about what is going on i ve seen huge shifts a relationship that felt tense and uncomfortable has become relaxed and friendly in the course of a year i suspect the major change was my effort to suspend judgement and be kind in my thoughts and words if only i could do that in every relationship yesterday a storm rolled across the sky i could have felt discouraged at a rainy day in our precariously short summer but instead i was transfixed by the sky it was a breathtaking study of light and shadow roiling blue black clouds mixing with brilliant sunlight and shimmering white wisps of fog william turner would have had a field day painting the scene what beauty posted by the fab miss b at 7 27 am 1 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels bikram yoga laughter yoga positive thinking spirit water the flowers not the weeds william turner yoga wednesday june 25 2014 learning from the peony these beauties came from sevald nursery at mill city farmer s market in minneapolis peonies are my favorite flower and have been since i was twelve years old in minnesota peonies bloom for two to three weeks from early to mid june in a glorious explosion of color ranging from satiny ballet slipper pink to the deep fuschia of a fine cabernet as june deepens the blossoms swell burst and begin to hang heavily from their skinny green stems after a rainstorm their ruffly layers of petals fill with condensation and their massive heads sink deeply into the damp lawns cut a few to bring inside while the heads are still the size of a kumquat and they will open at first it s slow and lazy but suddenly the blossom unfurls into a glorious dish of velvety petals almost five inches wide revealing a fringe of feathery yellow stamens it feels almost indecent to look deeply into their centers as though one is considering the depths of the finely ruffled tulle petticoats of the moulin rouge dancers in the days of toulouse lautrec and then spent from the effort of this decadent display the petals will begin to slip off in a dramatic pile of plumage like a tropical bird molting the pile of soft perfect petals in a spectacular mound of color and texture is so beautiful i hesitate to discard them right away instead leaving them scattered on the tabletop like precious confetti what is it that makes a peony so delightful you will rarely find them in supermarket bouquets since they are so delicate and short lived but here in minnesota people plant them in their yards with abandon they are plants that offer little in the way of daily or immediate reward the flowering season is perilously short two to three weeks in early to mid june is the longest one can expect the rest of the year they aren t particularly lovely as a shrub just a lot of scraggly green leaves a sturdy perennial peonies take several years to get established sending thick strong roots deep deep into the earth a peony bush may take as long as five years to begin producing flowers prodigiously but once they get going they can be exceptionally long lived plants lasting forty to fifty years for me each of these details is worth considering the peony s enduring appeal lies particularly with it s fleeting but unfettered flowering you must wait and wait and wait the buds are tight and compact with the diligence and dignity of internal work being done the anticipation and enchantment only grows as you watch the bud slowly begin to swell and ripen and then in an instant they give every last ounce of beauty they can muster withholding nothing of their full rich and complete abandon there is nothing shy about a peony in full bloom it s a short season but it comes back every year without fail i d like to live my life that way i d like to prepare with a deep inner concentration and focus slowly i will build momentum then when the moment arrives i ll let all the beauty i ve known flood through me in a display so ostentatious and un self conscious that even the denouement is beautiful posted by the fab miss b at 5 25 am 1 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels gardeni...