Raising Yogis

Guess what?

The greatest thing happened several weeks ago! My yoga studio started offering classes for children. Even better, there's a session next door for adults!

I realize the concept isn't new since most gyms offer childcare, but unfortunately I'm not a gym person. I love, love, love that my children are learning something so near and dear to my heart.

After class, they tell me all about the poses they learned. Camel! Monkey. Tree.... We're even recruiting their friends to join us, so I get to see other moms. Win, win!

Now I'm guaranteed at least one day a week I can go to yoga without any worry about my husbands' schedule!

{Om shanti shanti shanti}

It's got me thinking of other areas in life that would benefit from this sort of Mum & Child arrangement (simultaneously but not together.) We need the occasional break, no?!

So far, here are class ideas I've come up with:

Cooking/Baking, Foreign Language, Musical Instruments, Painting, Photography, Pottery, Dance, Yoga, Martial Arts, Massage.

Now, who is going to make it happen? Please don't make me add it to my list of things to do! :)

Livin' la Vida Locavore

.htrae no ecalp tseippah eht tuoba deklat t'nevah I eveileb t'nac I

WHOA.

[REWIND]

I can't believe I haven't talked about the happiest place on earth.

No, silly rabbit!

Not Disneyland. My garden!

After many years of in-ground (desert) gardening with varied success, we finally bit the bullet and built raised beds.

At the end of February, we decided to incorporate Max's 4th birthday into a "gardening party," where we used the newly built beds as three different stations for the children to play in. One housed the worms, crickets, frogs, ladybugs, and praying mantis coccoons. One was for digging in the dirt with backhoes, shovels, pails, excavators, etc. And the last one was for planting seeds and flowers. I even gave a brief composting demonstration and showed the children how the worm bin works.

After I sent out the invitations, I had several parents say to me, "The children are going to be doing what with worms and dirt??"

I won't lie -- I was a little nervous. But the party turned out to be a total success! The children were fascinated by everything. I honestly think most had never gardened before and they genuinely seemed to enjoy the compost demonstration.

The following week we started planting. One box for herbs, one for tomatoes and one for everything else. I also sowed several pots with the overflow and filled in areas around the boxes with as many edibles as I could.

So far, things are looking better than ever! I only wish I'd built the boxes sooner. I've also had several *surprise* veggies/flowers sprout from Max's party. There are nasturtiums growing between tomatoes, random flowers amidst the peppers, not to mention lettuces, arugula and radishes hiding in unsuspecting places. I have to say, I don't mind surprises like those!

Let's face it, there are a lot of horticultural challenges in Las Vegas. Between poor soil conditions, ridiculous wind, lack of moisture, watering restrictions, extreme temperatures... it's a wonder anything grows here at all. But guess what? It does! And if I can do it, you can too. There is nothing better than walking out your back door to pick something to eat!

We are eating locally and seasonally. I love it!

All that said, I was a little over-zealous in my tomato planting (24 plants)! But so far there are loads of tomatoes growing already. Fingers crossed, they continue to produce.

We've also been eating Swiss Chard almost every day. Anyone want some? I'm trying to find new recipes because I've already made various soups, frittatas, chili, pasiticcio... we've had it braised, grilled, sautéed, etc. If you have any favorite recipes please, please leave them in the comments. We will be forever grateful!

But most importantly, the children are learning how to tend a garden. They are witnessing how food grows, how to take care of it and different ways to serve it on a plate. I'll admit, they've pulled one too many baby carrots out, but I understand their impatience. I was curious what those little carrots looked like, too! The next step is getting them to enjoy eating all of these lovelies... More on that later!

In case you are curious, here's a list of what I'm growing this season:

Tomatoes (many, many different varieties including several heirlooms,) Tomatillos, Carrots, Swiss Chard, Squash, Zucchini, Pumpkins, Hot Peppers (8 varieties), Sweet Peppers, Radishes, Corn, Asparagus, Spinach, Lettuce, Arugula, Garlic, Leeks, Strawberries, Blackberries, plus Herbs (Basil, Mint, Thyme, Italian Parsley, Curry, Sage, Borage, Cilantro, Lavender, Rosemary, Rue, Fennel, Dill, Chives, etc.) Let's not forget the citrus: Meyer Lemon, Bearrs Lime, Moro Blood Orange, Grapefruit, and Navel Orange. Sadly, the horrid wind blew a lot of the blossoms off, but fingers crossed we'll still have a good supply of fruit.

I'm also attempting to take photos of everything I harvest (excluding the herbs), so expect to see those pics shortly...

How does your garden grow? What have you planted this season? Please tell me I'm not the only one out there that gets turned on by luscious, green growth. :)

Heiress

It's not all sorrow and regret around here!

One exciting thing happened while I was away... I discovered that my brother had somehow (ahem!) inherited my parents original SX-70 Polaroid camera.

And to think all this time I thought it had been long gone!

He kindly gave it to me and I promptly ordered some film from The Impossible Project. I bought 2 packets of TZ-Artistic film which contain a whopping 16 photos total, working out to be $3.75 per polaroid!

Even though it claims to be more sepia than cyan, I found the opposite to be true. It's supposedly manipulable, which I will have to try. So far, only 3 out of 5 turned out. Not liking these odds, but I'm really happy to be playing with polaroid again.

Remember these?

Claim the sky

Death is a strange bird, isn't she?

I haven't really dealt with loss like this since I was a teenager. Most recently, I've watched three loved ones lose their babies and that is possibly the worst kind of pain imaginable.

{I'm not afraid of much, but I fear death.}

But losing an 83 year grandmother is a little different, I suppose.

Although she'd been suffering for several years after a bad stroke, she was still my last living grandparent and I felt like a generation died along with her.

I was hit with a wide range of emotions this past week: sorrow, fear, compassion, confusion... but mostly regret.

REGRET.

What an ugly feeling that is.

Even though I'd spent over half my life in the same city as my grandmother, I barely knew her. Although very direct and honest, she was ultra-private about her life. She wasn't the typical warm, fuzzy grandma that baked you cookies and stroked your hair when you were upset. Instead, she was an independent, stubborn, rather brash, hard-working, athletic, smoking, drinking gambler of a grandmother. Quite the combination, eh?

I wanted so badly to stand up and say something during the time of remembrance at her funeral, but I didn't know what to say. I hadn't spent any quality time with her. My husband had more history with her than I did and he'd only known her 1/4 of the time! (BTW, he shared the sweetest, funniest story at the funeral. I was bawling like a baby at the way he summed her up so perfectly. So many people came up to me complimenting his words.) Instead, I compiled a slideshow of photos of her for the service.

[FAIL.]

On Mother's Day, I spent hours looking through boxes and boxes of old family photos trying to piece together who my grandparents were. I found old letters from the war, a driver's license from the 30's, love notes from my grandfather, purses filled with lipstick, kleenex and matchbooks...

Where had she been? What made her the person that she was? Why did she hold it all inside?

They must've had so many interesting stories.

After looking at all those photos, I felt really proud to come from a long line of Alaskan pioneers. I mean truly, it takes balls to live there now and these days, it's fairly civilized -- so to have so many relatives that moved there during the Gold Rush long before it became an actual state, is pretty impressive in my book. (As soon as I have time, I'll scan some photos of the early days for you. They are fascinating!)

But no matter how hard I try to let go of that which I cannot change, I am bathing in some serious regret that I never coerced the story of my Grandma's life over a large batch of Manhattan's (her favorite cocktail.)

.... I'm sorry about that, Grandma. I wish I'd listened to my gut and just asked you anyway. R.I.P. xxx

Coda

They say when one door closes, another one opens.
Our doors are open and welcoming all the change, but it has been a little too breezy for my taste. It has been an exercise in floating gracefully through the grey.{Admittedly, I'm happiest in the black or white.}

But we're beginning to see the light.

We keep going.

We don't give up.

{The light we follow is actually inside of us..........}

Unfortunately, my grandmother's light has gone out. I'll be MIA for another week as I go home for her funeral.
Please excuse my absence of words and worse, lack of imagery. Don't give up on me!I'm still writing and shooting like crazy -- I just can't seem to hit [publish].
~
PS. Thank you for sharing your dreams with me. I know it's such a personal thing to put out there for the world to see... but I do believe that the act of sharing can ignite action. I can't wait to see you make your dreams a reality, too.