Not Allowed to be Bored! Happy 80th to my Father!

It's my dad's 80th birthday tomorrow and I'm reeling at the thought of not being there. I didn't plan far enough in advance and am booked to photograph a wedding here in the bay area so I won't be able to be with him. I'll be there in a couple of weeks anyway for our annual family vacation (something I never miss!), but am still sad not to celebrate on his actual birthday.

As I drove out into West Marin today I was thinking about my dad and realized he taught me one of the most important and memorable lessons in my life. It wasn't like my dad and I had this great and deep relationship when I was young. In fact it was more like oil and water - both liquids, but not very interactive. We are very much alike in that we are strong-willed, but sometimes that was a big struggle for us. I also got his hair and skin, so that part of being like him was cool.

The reason I mention that we didn't have a deep relationship is because it wasn't like he sat me down to tell me about this great and important lesson. It was the seventies. You didn't have conversations like that with your parents. At least not in the midwest. It was more like a command when all six of us (yes, I have five siblings) were whining about being bored. He would yell something to the effect of "You're not allowed to be bored! You kids, you. For cryin' out loud! There's so much you can be doing! Go out and find something to do!" I'm sure I'm not the only kid who heard something like that from their parents, but when I think about being told specifically "not to be bored" I realized it stuck with me my entire life.

I'm never bored. I know. Who as an adult is these days? But really, so many of us go practically blind scanning Facebook, we watch hours of TV which most of the time doesn't have any value and the most scary thing that comes out of boredom, I think, is conflict. All you have to do is watch Jerry Springer or read crazy comments online and know that a lot of people need to find some better things to do.

 I'm proud of the fact that I love to read. I love to sit on the couch and chat with my husband about music or current events. I love that I can go to a restaurant by myself and sit quietly enjoying a meal. I love a solo hike where I can contemplate my life and the lives of those I love. 

I think I owe it all to my dad who never allowed us to be bored. So thanks, Dad and happy 80th birthday. I'm so glad that as an adult we have learned to emulsify our relationship. I may never be bored, but I can miss my father on his 80th birthday.

My dad, Ed toasting myself and my new husband - June 3rd, 2008

The Bath House Experience - The Way It's Supposed To Be!

"You American's don't know how to relax!"

As I luxuriated at the Kabuki bath house yesterday - somewhere around hour FIVE, I was reminded of a bath house experience in Capetown South Africa. I was traveling alone and decided I would check out a bath house I read about in my travel book. When I went in and tried to schedule an appointment time for a massage, I was confused when the woman at the desk told me I would get the massage when I was ready. 

She led me to the bath house where there was a sauna, steam room, cold plunge hot tub and lounging area where I found three Malay (local) women smoking cigarettes. So I got undressed and started the "circuit". After my first circuit I told the woman in charge - and seemingly the only person there - that I was ready for my massage. She then went on to scold me and said she's always amazed at "the americans". She said we didn't know how to relax. We are always in a hurry. She then told me I wasn't ready for my massage. The three women laughed and then welcomed me into their bathing experience. Although I didn't take them up on the cigarette smoking (that seemed a little counter-intuitive!) I had a joyful day lounging, loofahing and snacking with them and after about five hours, the woman in charge came in and told me I was now ready for my massage. 

Lately when I've gone to the Kabuki bath house, I've met my sister-in-law after work, we do the circuit for an hour or hour and a half and then leave to get in a gab-session and dinner. Although I love this time with my sister-in-law, I realized yesterday that once in a while, visiting the bath house on my own, staying for hours and truly relaxing is an incredible experience. Alone with my own thoughts, the sounds of trickling water and hushed whispers between friends and loving hands and warmth around my body is an incredible meditative experience - one that I hope I will do at least a couple of times a year. Someday I hope to structure my life in a way - The Healing Farm! - so that I can do this once a week. I can't even imagine what an incredible state of mind it will produce. Just six hours and I'm completely refreshed and inspired!

Kabuki Springs and Spa - One of the Best Deals in SF!

In one of my UC Berkeley business classes, we were told by our instructor to build in celebratory treats at certain milestones. Given the launch of The Healing Farm website today, I am taking the day off tomorrow to enjoy one of the best deals in San Francisco. The Kabuki Springs and Spa. What a super gorgeous bath house. An incredible deal. Their bath house day pass is only $25.00! You can't beat it. It's gorgeous, clean, has the full circuit - sauna, steam, cold plunge, hot tub and a lovely bathing area. When you need to get out of the chill of the bay area (like now!) it's the perfect cheap escape. I'm adding on some treatments as a bonus thanks to my dear brother and sister in-law who just gave me a gift certificate! Woo hoo and I can't wait!

Ready? Set? Launch!

So incredibly excited (and nervous!) to officially launch The Healing Farm website TODAY!!!

It's been a HUGE learning curve to launch a new business unrelated to photography, but after five months and many times said in the last four weeks "It is my goal to launch this week!" here I am ready to send out my launch e-mail by end of day today. Wow. 

It's been incredibly important to me to keep up with my life-work balance while I transition to my new business and it's been hard to do in the past few weeks. I've been running my photography business, writing, shooting and editing to create The Healing Farm site and learning more and more about the retreat industry at the same time. Plus my dear brother-in-law and new sister-in-law got married on the 16th and I photographed two weddings this past weekend. Although I was tempted to work on my launch yesterday, I took a much needed day off instead!

It was also important to me to start my launch day with my normal routine which is ten minute meditation, coffee, news and catching up with e-mails, then my very important NYT Scientific Seven Minute Workout and stretch session followed by my daily smoothie (see this post for the recipe). Still a bit worn out from my two wedding shoots, so the day started a little later than normal, but it is so important to me to keep up with my normal routine. I've got to remember to KEEP THE STRESS LEVEL DOWN!!! These are all important lessons I hope the Healing Farm will eventually teach many people throughout many years.

So much help and advice from friends has been given along along the way to this launch.

Thank you to these very important people:

My dear husband who has been living with my up-and downs as I've navigated through this process.

My family who always supports me no matter what I do.

My dear friends who are also always encouraging and there for me.

My informal group of advisors who have been gracious in responding to my requests for advice in their area of expertise.

and I specifically  want to thank:

Pamela Hawley of Universal Giving who was the instructor of the "Introduction to Entrepreneurship" class in the UC Berkeley Extension program  I've been attending - and yes! that's me in the picture on the righthand side of the page - the model student -ha!. I hope to do a blog post today specifically on the UC Berkeley Extension program and how I practiced being bold when asking Pamela for a mentoring session. She not only offered one session, but continues to mentor me through this launch process. She has been KEY in helping me to gain confidence and in offering much need guidance. I hope to also launch a personal journal of the building of my business process today at birthingabusiness.com.

Thanks also to the folks at the San Francisco Small Business Administration and especially the SCORE program at which I signed up for free mentoring with two angel investors who are patiently waiting for me to launch my website so we can continue our mentoring sessions as I move into phase one of The Healing Farm business concept.

Also so important in helping me out the last few months:

My dear friend Laurel Segel of KS Creative who has been helping me build The Healing Farm brand and who has patiently been helping me build a template site even though her specialty is custom website design! 

Ryan of DepthxHeight who has helped Laurel and I navigate the programming quarks involved in customizing a squarespace template site!

My good friend Mark who got me started in the process of applying for my trademark and the folks at The Law offices of Christopher Day who continued with me through the process. Also Caryn Glasser, Examining Attorney at The United States Patent and Trademark Office who granted me final approval on the trademark.

Chris Kresser who I'm very excited to have on-board as my keynote speaker for the first large-scale retreat at Mayacamas Ranch, his nutritionist Kelsey Marksteiner of Healthy Gut, Healthy Life who will be onsite at the Mayacamas Ranch retreat for the whole week to offer two lectures and private consultations, my two yoga instructors: Patti Cocciolo of The Goodness Blog and Erin Cookston and to all of the other people in the works to participate in what will be such a fun and informative retreat.

and of course, last but not least the incredibly nice and patient team at Mayacamas Ranch which is the lovely site of the "Paleo Reset" Retreat.

Part of what I wrote about The Healing Farm's mission is to help "average people of average means" become extraordinary human beings. It's what I'm striving for myself which is why I want to document this process of changing my own life and hope to start a sister blog called "birthing a business". Odd name, I know, but stay tuned to find out why!

Whew! So here we go. Ready? Set? Launch!

Marin Agricultural Land Trust

I'm a proud volunteer for the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) and was thrilled to be out in gorgeous West Marin to help check in artwork for their annual fundraiser called "Ranches and Rolling HIlls". I had the pleasure of photographing the members pre-sale and farm to table lunch last year and decided since I love the rolling oak studded hills of West Marin so much (I lived in Stinson Beach for two years) and would more than love to see The Healing Farm on a piece of rolling ranch land out there, it would be a good idea to contribute to their effort and get to know the land a little more intimately. From the artwork I saw being checked in today, the art buyers will NOT be disappointed! Ironically, my brother-in-law gets married this weekend in that VERY sweet West Marin town of Nicasio! Here's a a couple of pics from last year's event!

THE HEALING FARM (TM)!

As I mentioned in the e-mail I sent out last week to my informal advisors, family and close friends, if I could have done a wheelie on my bike as I rode away from the post office after getting notification from the US Trademark office that they granted me the trademark on The Healing Farm (TM) name, I would have! So incredibly thrilled to see this business come to life and after 1 1/2 years and two filings, it's approved THE WEEK BEFORE I RELEASE MY SITE. Serendipity and great joy!

It's official!

Why My Smoothie Isn't Pretty

I decided I should include a picture of my not-so-good-looking morning smoothie (recipe in last post). Funny, because the picture actually makes it look pretty good! I guess being a professional photographer helps things a bit! BUT, truthfully sometimes it comes out more green (which is pretty) and sometimes it comes out brown. I suppose it just depends on the inconsistent amounts of the ingredients I put in day to day. My good friend likes her smoothies to be pretty so she puts in lighter colored fruit so they come out bright green. She’s got a design background so pretty is important and I guess that’s true for lots of people based on this recent article about kids school lunches:

LA Times story on making kid’s school lunches more esthetically pleasing helps increase their fruit and veggie consumption!

But the reason I don’t care about what my smoothie looks like is because it’s more important to me that I get the most nutrition out of my smoothie every day. If I make this the habit that means I get a dose of omega 3, pro-biotic, antioxidants and a whole variety of vitamins and minerals every day without having to think about it (see my recipe post for detail on the nutrition). So pretty smoothie be damned, and ugly smoothie wins the day for me! Plus some “light” fruit has a lot of sugar and some even has high mold counts (go here for a list of foods that have high mold counts) so for someone who is trying to reduce inflammation for chronic conditions, this is also important. Some of those lucky people can have pretty smoothies and gluten-full food and be just fine! Lucky ducks (that’s my hubby too!)! Sigh. That’s not me.

Morning Smoothie That Packs a Nutritional Punch

I was having dinner with friends the other night and while having a conversation about why I don’t eat cereal (because it’s mostly gluten-full, loaded with sugar and pretty addictive), they asked me what I have for breakfast and lunch and I described my morning smoothie. Then they asked me why I soak my walnuts and because I almost never remember why I do the things I do (I read a good reason why, incorporate into my eating habits and then promptly forget the reason) I thought I would look it up again. Then I realized I should post my recipe and the reasons I use the same ingredients every day.

Remember I’m all about ease and building good habits into your EVERY DAY routine. This is why I don’t change up my recipe. I figured out a combination that PACKS nutrients I need every day (things that don’t necessarily get into my diet through what I eat), it tastes pretty good and it’s filling. Once I saved up money to buy my Vitamix Blender (an essential tool which took me TWO YEARS to save up for – I asked every birthday and Christmas for gift certificates to Williams Sonoma!) I was able to build this easily into my routine:

THF Power-Packed Smoothie Recipe (serves two)

Note: Ingredients are all organic if possible

1/2 – 1 c               Kefir

1/2 – 1 c               Coconut Milk

1/2 – 1 c               Frozen blueberries

1/2c                   Frozen or fresh other berries

2 sm or 1 lg         Banana

1/2 c                    Raw walnuts soaked in warm water for a few hours

4-6 c                    Spinach (a little sweeter than others) and other greens

thumb-sized        Raw ginger

Other                    I sometimes throw in other fresh fruit that needs to be used!

Now WHY do I put these particular ingredients in my smoothie???

Kefir: 99% lactose free, provides A&D and live cultures that will help your gut flora. See Chris Kresser’s super popular post on Kefir:

Chris Kresser on Kefir

Coconut milk: I get mine from Trader Joe’s for convenience and they call it coconut beverage (not 100% ideal but it’s convenient. It’s also organic even though it doesn’t say so on the front of the carton). This provides (I think it’s fortified) calcium, A, D and B-12

Blueberries: For your brain! In a nutshell (from Dr. Axe site):

• Anti-aging – Antioxidants are your best friend to keep Father Time at bay.
• Brain – Because they contain such a high amount of phenols, particularly gallic acid, blueberries are known as “neuro-protective agents.”

I love this super passionate post on Jen's Reviews about all of the health benefits of blueberries!

Other Berries: ANTIOXIDANTS!

Banana: Potassium

Raw walnuts (soaked): Omega 3 fatty acids (great way to get your omega 3s in every day!). Also antioxidant and anti-inflammatory (so important for reducing chronic inflammation!). Easiest to keep a container for soaking on your counter next to the jar of walnuts. When you rinse the soaked walnuts to throw in the smoothie, then simply refill the container with more walnuts and warm water, cover and let soak until the next morning when you’re ready to put them in your smoothie – repeat!

Read more:

World’s Healthiest Foods Site

Why soak them? Taken from the “Food Matters” Site:

“We are mimicking nature when we soak our nuts, grains and seeds. Nutritional inhibitors and toxic substances found in nuts grains and seed can be minimized or eliminated by soaking. These inhibitors and toxic substances are enzyme inhibitors, phytates (phytic acid), polyphenols (tannins), and goitrogens.”

Also see The Blender Girl's Description.

Greens: Great way to get your leafy greens in every day! I think we all know about health benefits of leafy greens, but here are just a few: antioxidants, calcium, vitamins A, K, C, folate, potassium, fiber. Read more here:

WebMD

Ginger: Oh my. Ginger is like the wonder ingredient for healing! I use it for anti-inflammatory benefits. Also great for digestion and immunity. To make it easy to use, I rinse and cut up the raw ginger into the thumb sized pieces when I cut up the rest of my veggies for the week and if you use a Vitamix there’s no need to peel, put the cut pieces into a baggie you keep in the freezer with or near your frozen berries and grab a piece to throw in every day.  Read more nutritional benefits here:

World’s Healthiest Foods

The Healing Farm Retreats: Paleo Reset at Mayacamas Ranch, April 17-24, 2016

Mayacamas Ranch will be the gorgeous setting of the first large-scale retreat offered by The Healing Farm {Retreats}. I am more than thrilled that functional medicine practitioner Chris Kresser will be our keynote speaker and we will feature the first seven days of a paleo “reset” as featured in Chris’ New York Times best selling book: “The Paleo Cure”.

Nestled in the Mayacamas mountains just outside of Calistoga, Mayacamas Ranch will be the perfect setting for this affordable holistic wellness retreat. On the property our participants will enjoy organic and grass-fed meals and snacks, holistic health and nutrition lectures, an organic garden tour, cooking demonstrations, daily hikes and yoga, plenty of electronics-free relaxation and pool time and optional add-ons like a field trip to a local grass-fed cattle ranch, massage and acupuncture treatments.

Although I would hope that participants will want to immerse themselves in the calm and relaxation of our retreat and stay put most of the week, the area surrounding Mayacamas Ranch is world class Napa Valley! With the sweet town of St. Helena, warm spring pools and mud baths in nearby Calistogaand loads of additional options for hiking there will be plenty of extra curricular activities to explore.

A few shots from Mayacamas Ranch in the wintertime:

The Healing Farm Retreats Website Coming Soon

I’m so excited to finally be working on The Healing Farm’s official website! Stay tuned and in about a month I will officially start booking the first Healing Farm large-scale retreat featuring the holistic healing practices of functional medicine practitioner Chris Kresser, New York Times best selling author of “The Paleo Cure”.