week seven: beauty

okay, i'm going to swerve slightly in another direction while i let my other work percolate. inspired by fellow blogger kelly tirman, i would like to focus what's left of this week on beauty.

recently she posted a challenge on her blog. she asked her readers to present her with their worst offending toxic skincare and beauty products. she would then hunt down natural, non- or low-tox alternatives.

i decided to take her up on her challenge and have a closer look at the products i use every day, and while some of them are above reproach, others contain ingredients that should never touch human skin. or soil that you ever want to grow food in.

here's where i've got it figured out:
- body soap: sappo hill unscented organic oatmeal (all natural, all organic, all good)
- hand soap: dr. bronner's almond liquid soap (all natural, all good)
- cuticle cream: burt's bees lemon butter cuticle cream
- lip balm: burt's bees beeswax lip balm
- lip color: burt's bees raisin lip shimmer

and after that is where it starts to get ugly...
- body lotion: v'tae vanilla super hydrating lotion (the best lotion with the best smell, but alas, not paraben-free)
- facial cleanser: mary kay timewise 3-in-1 cleanser (combination/oily)
- facial moisturizer: mary kay timewise age-fighting moisturizer (combination/oily)

and then there is the shampoo issue. i just can't seem to sort that out. right now in my shower i have:
- paul mitchell shampoo one and the rinse conditioner
- suave tropical coconut shampoo and conditioner
- aussie moist shampoo and conditioner plus three minute miracle
- suave for kids 2-in-1 cowabunga coconut shampoo
- TIGI catwalk oatmeal & honey shampoo and conditioner

i just can't seem to find something that works for me (love the aussie, but can't take the smell; love the smell of the oatmeal & almond, but it makes my hair too heavy; like the paul mitchell shampoo but not the conditioner... you get the picture).

so while kelly is tackling my facial cleansing program, i've taken a stab at my shampoo and lotion by trying the following new products:
- spectrum coconut oil body care in place of my current lotion
- avalon organics lemon clarifying shampoo and conditioner

i'll let you know how how it goes. and maybe once i've taken care of these, i can move on to toothpaste and antiperspirant... now that's going to be ugly.

week six recap

some weeks there is just so much going on it's tough to keep up. sometimes it lasts more than a week. that's how it's been for me lately. the good news is, a lot of what's going on is good. or offers the possibility for good. i just haven't had time to report it.

what i do want to post today though is something that has become apparent over the last few weeks focused on meaningful work, and it's this: meaningful work is not a stand-alone thing. it's one component of an integrated life, and that's what i realize i've been struggling to find.

i have been living my life out of buckets: the health bucket, the creativity bucket, the writing bucket, the gardening bucket, the job bucket, the spirituality bucket, the daughter bucket, the girlfriend bucket... and never the twain shall meet.

in trying to identify what my "heart's desires" are, i realized i couldn't break them down into home, creativity, health, relationships, etc. because they are all intertwined.

trying to focus on creativity made me realize my home is not a place that allows space for that. trying to focus on my health made me realize without spirituality and creativity in my life, my health will continue to be missing important components.

so what is my heart's desire? a creative, healthy, productive, integrated life and a physical space and interpersonal connections to support it. and now i have a pretty good picture in my head of what that means. and i believe that it is possible to attain.

i also wanted to share this video from a great chiropractor/nutritionish and all-around health-improver about how to maintain a healthy weight.

week one recap

so how did i do this week? considering the fact that i was sick for a lot of it, i think i did pretty well.

exercise

- stretch every morning -- check
- gym 3x/week -- nope, working out and sick don't mix
- take the stairs -- check
- walk (yes, mall-walking counts) -- yep

diet
- eat breakfast every morning (sitting down) -- all but once and i at it as soon as i got to work
- take vitamins -- check
- eat 5-6 small meals a day; include protein in each -- i definitely averaged five, so yep
- weekly food challenge: cook selected food three new ways -- definitely, see update below

emotional balance
- sleep 7+ hours/night (or at least in bed by 11) -- this one was tough, but i did manage 3 nights out of seven, a big improvement for me
- create and implement daily routines -- done and adhered to every day but one
- write morning pages -- check
- meditate -- every day but one
- begin mindfulness work --

environment
- 15 minute pick-up every day -- all but one
- weekly declutter challenge: kitchen -- i cleaned out the fridge and freezer, reorganized a couple of cabinets and cleared the counters to make room for my kitchenaid mixer; unfortunately i didn't  get to everything i wanted to do (including the top of the fridge) but now that i'm on the mend i will try and make it up this week


and as for the food challenge, here are the results:

spinach pizza

okay, i'll admit it, this was a lazy decision. it was late, it had been a long day at work and i just wanted something yummy with a healthy twist. i used the pizza crust recipe from The Wheat-Free Cook: Gluten-Free Recipes for Everyone, then topped with spaghetti sauce, italian seasoning, mozzerella and frozen spinach with a dusting of garlic salt. yum!

crustless spinach quiche

yes, i picked this one because it didn't require a crust. i also made a few adjustments. i only used half an onion instead of a whole one (which was still a lot) and substituted the 3 cups of muenster cheese for 1.5 cups of feta and 1.5 cups of cheddar. unfortunately i forgot to adjust down (aka omit) the salt to make up for the saltiness for the feta, but i still loved in, and best of all i have three pieces left for breakfasts. i think this is going to become a great staple for me and i can switch it up with different veggies, different cheeses and other fun things like herbs and spices. very excited.

creamed spinach

for this recipe i doubled the medium white sauce recipe on the back of the kingsford cornstarch box with the following variations:

1. sauteed onion in melted butter
2. added cornstarch
3. used half-and-half instead of milk
4. used 1.5 10 ounce boxes of frozen spinach

i thought it turned out a little on the oniony side and yet somehow kind of bland, but the rest of the family loved it.

but more importantly, did i learn anything? yes. taking the time to do some prep work each night and sticking to the routines that help me feel better every morning and remembering to make time for things like reading and gardening that feed my soul is just as important as how often i exercise and what i eat. but really, when it comes down to it, the most important thing is sleep. so i'll keep working on that.

oh, the irony

three days into my week dedicated to health, i've come down with the sore throat and cough that has been rampaging through the office like wildfire. the good news? so far, two days in, i'm not half as sick as everyone else has been, so maybe this whole health-focus thing is working after all.

lesson two: have the right tools before you start

so far, i'm doing a pretty good job of keeping up with all of my resolutions. i'm doing my exercise, i'm eating (mostly) right, i'm making progress on my decluttering... where i'm not doing so well is with my mindfullness activities and with scheduling (which technically isn't on the list, but with so many tiny tasks, it helps to have a way to keep track). why? because i don't have what i need to get the job done: a dedicated notebook for mindfulness and a calendar for scheduling. 

i thought i could get by just doing my mindfulness exercises in my morning page journal, but it just isn't working out. the notebook needs to be bigger. and it needs to be easier to find the mindfulness entries for easy reference.

and then there is the calendar. i have a lot i want to accomplish in the next five weeks (and beyond). i have a great system at work. i use my outlook calendar to note meetings and block out project time and a whiteboard for tracking status on specific goals. i think for this project, a weekly planner would take care of both birds in one binder -- something that i can use to schedule my time, jot down my goals, and keep track of my to do lists (ideally in a size that i can slip into my purse).

looks like i'll be making a stop on my way home tonight.

week one: better health

okay, so i'll admit it. i cheated a little bit. to get ready for week one i did a few things ahead of time so i could hit the ground running. you already know i joined a gym. i also met with a nutritionist to get some advice on how to tackle the diet part of the program. i even started meditating. but enough about prep-work. here's the plan:

exercise
- stretch every morning
- gym 3x/week
- take the stairs
- walk (yes, mall-walking counts)

diet
- eat breakfast every morning (sitting down)
- take vitamins
- eat 5-6 small meals a day; include protein in each
- weekly food challenge: cook selected food three new ways

emotional balance
- sleep 7+ hours/night (or at least in bed by 11)
- create and implement daily routines
- write morning pages
- meditate
- begin mindfulness work

environment
- 15 minute pick-up every day
- weekly declutter challenge: purge one room per week

it looks like a lot on paper, but each one is really a pretty small change, so it should all be completely doable. i guess we'll know soon enough. (check my joesgoals banner to watch my progress.)

this week's book and website reference list:

Grow Younger, Live Longer
The Self-Healing Cookbook
The Schwarzbein Principle
The Wheat-Free Cook
8 Minute Meditation
A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook
The Power of Now
The Highly Sensitive Person
How Did I Get So Busy?
You Can Find More Time for Yourself Every Day
Let Go of Clutter
Unclutter Your Life in One Week
Rightsizing Your Life
FlyLady.com

some i've read, some i plan to read, others i'll probably just flip through and pull out whatever sounds interesting, but i will post reviews when i have them.

the plan

okay, so a couple of days i hinted at a plan. here it is in a nutshell:

5 weeks, 5 goals

week one: better health
week two: stronger relationships
week three: personal style
week 4: joie de vivre
week 5: meaningful work

each goal will contain a number of smaller resolutions and actions, some of them already in motion, others to be added on as i go along. each week i will not only work on the goals for that week, i will also try to maintain everthing from the previous weeks as well. i've even set up a joesgoals account to help keep me on-track (and give you all a chance to check up on me). you can see the overview in the right column. want more detail? just click.

week one starts monday. between now and then i'll be posting more details for each goal.

book review: how did i get so busy?

i'm a busy girl. just juggling my job, my boyfriend and trying to keep myself fed pretty much takes up all my time, so i had to wonder just how i was going to fit anything more into my schedule. but given that a big part of the refabbing project will be making more time for things like hanging out with friends, exercising, actually cooking, making art and a whole host of other inspiration-focused activities, i knew i had to find a way.

enter the book: How Did I Get So Busy?: The 28-day Plan to Free Your Time, Reclaim Your Schedule, and Reconnect with What Matters Most, which i came upon randomly during a trip to my local library.

now, this is not a time management book. it doesn't tell you how to shave precious minutes off your daily chores or how to squeeze out pleasurable activities in tiny chunks between meetings or on your way to pick up the kids. instead, it asks you to really look at where you spend your time to help you re-prioritize what you do and how you do it.

each day serves up a topic, such as "hurrying up is slowing you down" then provides a discussion of that topic, a related challenge, a journal assignment and a one-minute meditation. going through the exercises helps reveal places we may have let shoulds overwhelm wishes and provides insight into how we can turn it around.

the chapter on creating daily rituals has already had a huge impact on my life. i already knew that i needed to make time to meditate, do stretching exercises and eat a real breakfast in the morning. but how? by looking at what i spend my time on in the morning i realized that by changing my before bed rituals to including pulling together my next day's clothes, pre-packing my lunch and by paring my morning journal writing from 10 pages to 3, i would have plenty of time to add what i needed. it was shocking to me how little i had to do to create time for things that have a huge impact on my health, productivity and happiness.

i definitely recommend it.

lesson one: more is not always better

when it comes to improving health, the first two things that come to most people's minds are diet and excercise, so in the interest of starting simple, that's where i've decided to start. to that end, last week i made an appointment with a nutritionist and joined a gym.

joining the gym was easy. there is one right down the road on my way to and from work. it's actually a circuit gym -- a 30 minute loop through three rows of mats and machines. now, as you've probably guessed, i am not the most physically fit person on the block but when i went in to sign up there was an 85-year old man with serious health problems and a recent double-hip replacement who wasn't even breaking a sweat, so i figured, how hard could it be?

HARD. the trainer walked me through slowly, setting up the machines, picking the tensions, explaining everything. and still, during the first row i started to get dizzy. so i sat down for a quick rest, letting a sprightly 75-year-old pass me. by the end of the second row, i nearly threw up. so i rested again, then sucked it up and finished it up. it took me only 65 minutes to finish an abbreviated version of the 30 minute course. and yes, by the time i got home after a quick smoothie pick-me-up, i hurt.

still, the next day, i went back again, doing my best to shake off the lactic acid burn. i maybe did half the work-out (less if you consider that not only did i skip a lot of the machines i also reduced all of weights).

and it helped. i was tired, but in general, held up okay. until yesterday when i went back again, determined to push through. bad idea. immediately after finishing i felt like i'd been felled by the flu. muscles ached and temperature fluctuated as though i'd caught a nasty bug. i am only now beginning to feel marginally okay after nearly 24 hours of straight rest.

the moral of the story: listen to your body. there is a difference between pushing through and pushing too hard and since i clearly can't tell the difference between the two, i really need to start erring on the side of caution.

next time, i'll limit myself to a few minutes of cardio and work up to the rest one machine at a time.