My Mom is visiting next month so I figured I would make count down calender project to help Trent understand when she will be here. We spent his entire nap time getting crazy with crayons, glue, glitter and stickers.
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Over last summer my college roommate asked me to be the matron of honor for her wedding this upcoming April. I was so honored that she would ask me and said of course I would! I am really excited and nervous to have such a big job. We have been bouncing emails back and forth since July full of wedding plans, since she lives on Long Island. She and her fiancee are having the ceremony and reception at the coolest place; an aquarium!
Over the weekend I went and ordered my dress at David’s Bridal. Mine has a different style than the brides maids, but we will all be wearing the same color. Just to note, it is not that horrible pink you see me in up there. It will be clover green!
I had a crazy “it’s a small world” experience when I went to David’s to order my dress, though! The consultant helping me was very nice and we were chit chatting. We were talking about dress sizes and losing weight and I mentioned that if I were still in the Army I probably would drop a bunch of pounds before the wedding. Over the course of the conversation we came to figure out that I know her husband and worked with him at the Pentagon and we have all these mutual acquaintances. We then proceeded to gossip like hell about all of them! It’s a small Army after all!
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When I was a kid, I noticed that my sisters bangs were in her eyes. I decided to give her a hair cut for my Mom. Poor Caitlin had to have the shortest bangs ever at the age of two! Apparently in the twenty or so years since that happened I haven’t gotten any better at cutting hair. Tonight, as Trent was stalling bed time and eating a snack, we were sitting at the dining room table. I was looking at him and his hair was almost touching his nose. I have been looking at his hair for months saying he needs a haircut, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed the kitchen scissors and started snipping. Apparently I haven’t gotten any better since the last haircut I gave. Poor Trent.
Luckily, Garrick used to give haircuts while he was in the Army and was able to fix what I did. It’s not a good haircut, but it’s not a bad hair cut either. It just needs to be evened out a little, which Garrick said he would do tomorrow night.
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I have been meaning to post something about the earth quake in Haiti since it happened. The imagery coming out of Port-au-Prince is absolutely heart-wrenching. Boston.com has been putting up a lot of really powerful pictures all week. A good friend of my mine who is oversees right now is Haitian, and I sure hope that she doesn’t have any friends or family that were affected by this disaster. I got this image from Boston.com. Why is it children always suffer the most?
A boy lies injured in a makeshift hospital after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
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Today, Trent, Hunter and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to a playground. I have been hearing a lot about Fantasy Playground, so that’s where we went. It’s pretty cool. When I was a kid this kind of playground was my favorite kind. It is all wood with lots of little spots to explore and sort of hide, along with big towers and slides and all sorts of other fun stuff. It was a perfect day for it too. I spent the entire time without a jacket, and even got a little too warm when the sun was really shining. Here’s some pictures.
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So the kids have been sick for the past two weeks. Trent the first week, and Hunter the second. In addition to being sick, poor Hunter was cutting six teeth. I couldn’t do anything because all he wanted to do was nurse. Thank goodness they are both finally feeling better.
Today I have been playing catch up with my organization duties as leader of my Mommies group. I wasn’t able to post anything at all, or email any of my members, because I couldn’t type. I could look at stuff, but with Hunter in one arm it was impossible to do any sort of corresponding or updating. I still have a bunch of things I have to do, but for the most part I am now all caught up with everything, emailing people back and getting events up on my groups calender.
It has been pretty nice here the past couple of days and it is supposed to stay the same tomorrow. Since we’ve been cooped up for so long, I decided to take the kids outside tomorrow. We’re going to check out this neat play ground that I have been hearing a lot about since we have moved to our new neighborhood. I’ll take pictures tomorrow and try and write a review of the place. I’m really excited to get Trent out of the house, because he needs it badly. He hasn’t been good about taking his naps or going to bed, and I know it is because he has too much energy. Tomorrow he shouldn’t have any problems.
I’m also catching up with feeding my family. I have been struggling getting food on the table these past weeks, can you guess why? Anyway, I was at least able to get good nutritious food made every night, even if Trent won’t eat it. This weekend, though, I was able to finally sit down and make puree’s for baby food and to cook with! I have the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook and I have been wanting to utilize it forever, I just never had the time to actually make the purees to make the recipes. I made up a ton of purees over the weekend and I am going to start using them this week in recipes. Tomorrow I am making the banana bread with cauliflower puree and the spaghetti pie with carrot and broccoli purees.
I was really excited to make the puree’s because I was using the new rice maker and hand mixer that I got for Christmas. I got the exact rice cooker that I posted about a couple of months ago, and let me tell you it is AWESOME! It has a retractable cord, I can set it to start cooking at a certain time, it has a slow cooking option. This thing is fantastic! I used it steam all my veggies over the weekend and then used my new hand blender to puree them. The hand blender is great too. It only has one speed, but it works so well that it doesn’t even matter. The feature that I like the best is that the stick detaches and can go in the dish washer. Rad!
Well, I have a lot more stuff that I could write about in this post, but I think it’s getting a little late. I can always write another post tomorrow!
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An article from More.com. Remind me to shop at DHC for all my beauty needs.
Japanese Women Don’t Get Wrinkles
Photo by: Kenji AokiFrench women may not get fat. But it’s Japanese women who live longest and rarely need face-lifts. MORE investigates.
When I was in Tokyo recently, I kept meeting attractive women who appeared to be in their late twenties. Then they’d tell me about the difficulties of raising teenagers or what they’d learned about careers over the past 20 years, and I’d calculate that they had to be closer to 40. I thought these women had all won the genetic lottery—until I met California native Tiffany Godoy, who moved to Japan 12 years ago and never left. While living in Asia and reporting on the fashion scene, Godoy has adopted many Japanese habits and says she’s noticed a significant difference in her complexion. Looking at her now, as she approaches 40, I would have guessed she was 10 years younger. Clearly, there’s something in the water (or the tofu). And as I asked—and looked— around, it became clear Godoy was no exception. You don’t have to be Japanese to age as well as they do. You just need to steal some of their diet, lifestyle and skin care strategies.
In her book Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, Naomi Moriyama describes her native country as a land “where 40-year-old women look like they’re 20. It is a land where women enjoy some of the world’s most delicious food, yet they have obesity rates of only three percent . . . less than one tenth that of American women.” Moriyama credits the Japanese diet: small dishes jam-packed with nutrients from fish, soy, rice, vegetables and fruit. Rice, especially, “is thought to contribute to better skin,” she says. “There is even a Japanese phrase for soft, supple skin: mochi-hada, or skin that resembles mochi, a moist rice cake.”
Jessica Wu, MD, a cosmetic dermatologist in Los Angeles whose parents are from Taiwan, grew up on a traditional Chinese diet (which has a lot in common with Japan’s), and she believes it’s the soy that plays the biggest antiaging role. “As a child, I drank soy milk exclusively. My mother made it fresh every day. And instead of meat and dairy, we ate a lot of tofu.” Wu cites science to back up her theory: Soy has been shown to help combat acne and to lessen such menopausal side effects as dry skin.
The Japanese fondness for green tea probably also helps slow the aging process. People guzzle this antioxidant-rich drink all day (rather than the vats of coffee, juice and Diet Coke we prefer in the U.S.). And antioxidants, of course, combat the free radicals (triggered by sun exposure and pollution) that break down collagen in our skin and cause wrinkling and sagging.
What the Japanese don’t consume may also play a role in the countless clear complexions I saw in Tokyo. Only about 10 percent of the women smoke, and they eat few processed sugars. “Growing up in L.A., I got orange slices for dessert, never a brownie,” Wu says. “In fact, I’m the only one of my cousins who suffered from acne as a teenager, and my mother is convinced it’s from the junk food I sneaked at school. We never got that at home.” According to recent studies, excessive amounts of sugar trigger inflammation, which exacerbates acne and can set off a breakdown in collagen. (For more information on this topic, read “Is Sugar Aging You?”)
If you’ve been to Japan (or to a major metropolis where you see Japanese tourists), you’ve probably noticed women walking under umbrellas on sunny days. Japanese women “are fanatical about protecting their skin from the sun,” says Susan Taylor, MD, a dermatologist in Philadelphia. An African-American herself, Taylor specializes in skin of color. “My Japanese patients loathe brown spots and understand they come from the sun,” Taylor says.
People of all skin colors develop brown spots eventually, unless they protect themselves, but Japanese women get them sooner—as early as in their twenties. The reason? Compared with Caucasians, their skin has more melanin (pigment), so the spots can become quite dark, Taylor says. On the other hand, compared with African-Americans, they have less melanin, and since melanin can also act as a natural sunscreen, the Japanese are more susceptible to sun damage than darker-skinned people. To combat this propensity for spotting, many mothers slather their babies with sunscreen from birth, says Yuko Hoshino, a skin care specialist and trainer for Shiseido in Tokyo. As a result, the women not only suffer fewer dark spots as adults, Taylor says, they also get fewer wrinkles, because most of the lines we get in our forties and fifties are caused primarily by earlier UV damage.
So what can you do now if you haven’t been heaping on sun protection since infancy? For starters, women of all skin colors should apply it daily (yes, daily—not just when you’re beach-bound). As any dermatologist will tell you, being in the sun also brings whatever damage you’ve accumulated in the past to the surface. By slathering on sun block, you’re not just preventing future damage, you’re also keeping what’s hidden in your skin’s lower layers from emerging into view.Once you’ve committed to sunscreen, your next step is to fade the dark spots you already have. What will do the job: pigment-targeting topicals, applied to your spots. In East Asia, these products are best-sellers and are typically labeled “whitening,” says Yoko Kisara, 40, a beauty writer in Tokyo. Here in the States, they’re marketed as “brightening” and “tone correcting,” but the goal is the same: to fade just the over-pigmented areas (not your whole face). Two to try Origins’s new Brighter by Nature Skin Tone Correcting Serum ($40; origins.com) or Clinique Even Better Skin Tone Correcting Moisturizer SPF 20 ($43; clinique.com), which hits counters next month. For severe mottling, Wu suggests prescription products with hydroquinone or tretinoin (in Retin-A), chemical peels or intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy.
Very few Japanese women over 40 complain about dry skin, says Hideko Hattori, a dermatologist and director of the Skin Navi Clinic, in Tokyo. In fact, thanks in part to the high humidity in coastal Japan, some midlife women still complain about excess oil. You can’t change your climate, but you can adopt a few habits that will keep your skin from drying out.
Most Japanese use air conditioners and heaters very sparingly. In fact, in the summer, many companies adopt what they call a “cool biz” policy, allowing their employees to dress more casually in order to feel comfortable in what most of us would think of as an uncomfortably warm environment. As a result, people’s skin tends to stay a lot more hydrated. Try it at home and, if possible, in the office. Believe it or not, your body will adjust—and your skin will thank you for it.
Japanese women are also very disciplined about moisturizing. Many are willing to adhere to a daily regimen of four or more steps (whereas most American women want one hard-working product that does it all), Hoshino says, and at least two to three of the products they use are geared toward hydration. For example, Ikuko Watanabe, 50, a Japanese fashion stylist, uses a creamy cleanser, a moisturizing toner (called a softener in Japan), a hydrating serum, a serum to fade dark spots and a hydrating sunscreen. Many women also use a hydrating mask at least once a week. (See “Japanese Skincare Secrets,” for specific skincare product recommendations.)
“In the Chinese and Japanese cultures, facial massage is part of the skin care ritual. My mother taught me, once I was a teenager, to do a facial massage every night after washing up,” Wu says. Facial massage is based on the East Asian traditions of acupuncture and acupressure, stimu-lating certain points of the face to increase circulation, boost radiance and improve your skin’s ability to absorb skin care ingredients. “What’s interesting,” Wu says, “is that many of the pressure points associated with facial massage are the very same points dermatologists inject with Botox. For instance, the spot between your brows where the frown lines form—and the temples, just outside the eyes’ outer corners.” Wu is convinced the facial massage produces a measurable result, because “15 years ago, when I was just beginning to use Botox and fillers in my practice, I offered to inject my 55-year-old mother. But when I sat her down in my office chair, I suddenly realized that she had no wrinkles.”
To experience a facial massage, visit a Shiseido counter in September.. With the purchase of any Shiseido Future Solution LX product, you will receive a free facial massage and tutorial. Or go to sca.shiseido.com for a map that details how to do your own massage.
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I was perusing the intertubes this morning and I found an article about old internet memes from about ten years ago. Just a note, I usually use Digg for my perusing. The article brought up some nostalgic stuff I remember watching from when I was in high school, stuff like Homstarrunner and the GI Joe PSA’s. There were a couple on there that I hadn’t seen before and it was really neat-o to check those out, too.
What really piqued my interest was a link to keyboard cat in the articles first paragraph about some of the most current memes. I had heard of keyboard cat before, but had not yet seen the meme in action. My curiosity turned me over to Youtube and the expansive Wikipedia. Of course wiki will get you lost on its vast array of pages for quite some time. I eventually came across the mother-load of internet memes; Know Your Meme. This site is great! It breaks down every internet meme Barney-style! Crazy internet stuff I had known about for years is on there, but neat background stories are given. Stuff I haven’t been subjected to yet is on there, waiting for me to become knowledgeable about.
If you want to waste hours of your life learning the history and stories behind the internet’s most popular crazy stuff, this is the place to do it!
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From Baby Center, more reasons to nurse your baby as long as you can. When I say that, I mean within reason. I’m not an advocate of nursing your nine year old.
Breastfeeding may protect a woman’s heart
Mon, Dec 21, 2009 (HealthDay News) — Although many women choose to breastfeed because of the numerous health benefits it offers their offspring, new research suggests that breastfeeding may also help the health of the mothers’ hearts later in life.
In a study of nearly 300 women, researchers found that those who had not breastfed were much more likely to have calcification or plaque in their coronary artery, aorta and carotid artery. When calcifications and plaque build up in the arteries, blood flow can be reduced, and, if enough of these deposits build up, they can cause a heart attack or stroke.
“Women who had not breastfed were more likely to develop changes that might lead to symptomatic heart disease,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Eleanor Schwarz, an assistant professor of medicine, epidemiology, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Health Care.
Results of the study will be published in the January issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Schwarz and her colleagues had previously looked at breastfeeding’s effect on older women, and that study found that post-menopausal women who had breastfed were less likely to report having heart disease. Another study on breastfeeding from a different research group recently reported in the journal Diabetes that women who breastfed were less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that indicate an increased risk for heart disease.
The current study included 297 women who’d had at least one baby. At the time of the study, they were 45 to 58 years old, had never been diagnosed with heart disease and had no known symptoms of heart disease.
The researchers used two imaging techniques — electron beam tomography and ultrasound — to assess the health of the women’s blood vessels.
They found that 32 percent of the women who had not breastfed had coronary artery calcification, compared with 17 percent of the breastfeeding moms. The researchers found calcifications in 39 percent of the aortas of women who hadn’t breastfed, versus 17 percent of the women who had. They also found plaque deposits in the carotid artery of 18 percent of the women who had not breastfed and 10 percent of those who had.
After adjusting the data for socioeconomic status, family history and lifestyle factors, heart disease risk factors and body mass, the researchers concluded that women who had not breastfed were five times more likely to have aortic calcifications than women who consistently breast-fed.
Schwarz said the researchers suspect that the apparent benefit from breastfeeding on later heart health stems from how a woman’s body stores fat and how that fat is released — or not released — after pregnancy.
“A woman’s body expects to go through pregnancy and then lactation,” Schwarz explained. “During pregnancy, a woman’s body stores fat that it expects to release during lactation. If women don’t breastfeed, then the body has to deal with excessive fat.”
The bottom line is that “it’s really important to try to breastfeed,” she said. “If you can breastfeed for three months after each pregnancy, your blood vessels are likely to be in better shape down the road.”
She added that women who can’t breastfeed for three months ought to try for at least a little while. “Some women may feel overwhelmed by some of the long-term breastfeeding recommendations,” Schwarz said. “Our study looked at three months, but if that’s not possible, the longer you can stick with it, the better.”
Dr. Catherine McNeal, an associate professor of medicine and a specialist in cardiovascular disease prevention at Scott & White Healthcare, said she agrees that a decrease in fat mass after pregnancy is probably the factor that’s providing a heart benefit to women who breastfed.
“We used to think of fat as this inert material, but it’s very bioactive,” McNeal said. “It produces a plethora of bad hormones and inflammatory markers that influence blood pressure, lipids and the risk of diabetes.”
McNeal said that the study provided preliminary data “and we need to look at this area more closely, but I’m excited to see they found a positive effect of breastfeeding.”
– Serena GordonWhat you can do:
Breastfeed your child if you can. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding your baby for at least the first year of life, and longer if both you and your child wish to continue.
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