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Rolling Stones

Tiiiiiimmmme is on my side, yes it is!

No Mick Jagger... time is in fact on MY side.

And by this I mean - I might be aging slower than a lot of the people I know. Not to brag, but according to my husband – who was in a waiting room and picked up a National Geographic and read an article, which states – people with moles have specific genes that make them age, at least slightly, slower than those who do not have moles. Proof.

Being smug I pointed out that usually those of us with moles have to worry about skin cancer more. So we age slower, but we die faster??? In any case, I thought this was a ton of fun. My daughter Beezus noticed some tiny speckles appearing on her hand the other day and got very critical of them. Quite gleefully I pointed out that she is going to be one lucky girl to have a few moles on her. And, because she is cut from the same cloth as myself, she was quite dismissive of her mothers wisdom. (Laugh it up mom). Keeping track, as we must, Tinker Bell, her dad, the TV, her teacher AND the internet know more than me. Of course, this came from her dad...

Back to the moles: My husband did make a point of mentioning that I can still get my moles removed, as he does not enjoy looking upon them.

I responded – “oh yeah, well you should remove your face!”

No just joking. I thought that to myself while grimacing at him and instead reminded him very coolly (with about the same maturity in phrasing) why it is a bad idea to make your wife unhappy. He just laughed. Why am I not intimidating? I try so hard…

In any case, what we have learned is that there is a chance that those of us with moles are aging slower. Cindy Crawford and I are just gonna be chillin like villains (to use a Nik phrase) in our retirement homes later in life.

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

The photo above is another one of the abstract art 'heads' at the Botanical Gardens in Omaha. I am not feeling up to taking food photos today due to medical stuff - which I will post about later. Nothing to worry about Mom! Do not worry! I mean it!

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins:

3 ½ Cups Pamela’s GF flour (Pancake Mix)
½ Cup Butter (1 stick)
1 Cup Milk
½ Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Tspns. GF Vanilla
1 Non-Fat Yoplait Vanilla Yogurt 6oz.
1 Tspn. Cinnamon
1 Cup Blueberries

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350. Mix GF Pamela's flour, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, Yoplait yogurt, cinnamon and butter in kitchen mixer on medium speed. Butter needs to be at room temperature and should be added last. Then once nicely blended add in and mix ½ cup blueberries for less than a 30 seconds on low speed. Lastly, mix in second ½ cup blueberries using a spatula. Use ice-cream scoop to place in lined cupcake sheet. Cook for 25 minutes – not much longer.

Up-dates on Past Happiness Practices

I have not kept up on my meditation and yoga this last month… I have even fallen massively behind in my book readings. The kids had their last weeks of school in May. There were field trips, socials, class parties and end of the year events – the works. I volunteered at all of it and was extremely glad I did. It was also a great time to be very involved in the kid’s school and get to know some of the moms better. However, it left me exhausted, especially because for the whole two weeks or so of this my man was on business trips. I hear he had a good time reconnecting with friends.

And of course, we are determined to cram in the Midwest before we take off. Weekends have been packed with traveling to different “must sees”. This last weekend we hit the Ribfest, the Ren Faire and Wild Water West. We still want to go camping; however, all the weekends we want to try there are supposed to be T-storms.

We have kept up – every night – on our gratitude. The kids remind us if we get hectic and forget. It has been a wonderful experience and I still highly recommend it.

What I like about our Gratitude Progress:

1. I love that at the end of the day my entire family spends a moment to remember their highlights. It is way too easy to fall into complaints about life at the dinner table and this gratitude makes us practice positive thought patterns and focus. It keeps dinner a happy place too.

2. I like hearing what a high point was for different members (you get a glimpse into their priorities or personalities).

3. We have all had days at this point when we feel very ungrateful. I know I have. It is weird to state, but forcing ourselves to be grateful on those days actually makes those days better.

4. I have noticed in myself a newer awareness or focus on the positives in those around me as well. If someone does something nice for me, to me, around me I just notice it a lot more and remember it a lot easier. This is highly important if you are likely to ruminate instead. I will post about rumination another day. Noticing the great characteristics of those around me leads to a peace of mind – the world has its good.

These are striking differences from the first couple days when we had to think up one thing we were grateful for and we all sat there looking dumb founded. To be honest there are days we fall back on the easy “given gratefuls”. It is the – “lets just get his over and eat” moment. The kids are grateful for the neighbors fairly consistently or Beezus is grateful for her video game (though she very genuinely is). Also our gratitude has turned into a daily report gratitude. I consider the daily report good for the dinner table, but would like to branch out a bit.

My new goal is to try, at least once a week, to focus our gratitude on a theme. My aim is to stretch and exercise our grateful abilities a bit. I have already tried “things we are grateful for about Daddy”. I would like to have a family theme night for each family member. Other themes will include: things we are grateful for this summer, in Sioux Falls etc.

Just like a muscle we need to stretch and build it to make it work even better!

I have a post I would like to do on Savoring this week. Time to add new happiness practices and not focus just on the old ones.

Californians! We are not under water yet!

We found ourselves a renaissance faire out here! Some guy offered for me to leave my husband all day like that for 5 dollars. I told him he had himself a deal. Then he did not take me up on it. Maybe I sounded too eager?

I have been getting some concerned parental calls worried we are drowning out here in the Dakotas. They are letting some water go from the dams out here due to excessively bad winter with a lot of snow and rain water. It is flooding some parts down in Dakota Dunes (about an hour drive South of us), Sioux City (little more than an hour drive South of us). From the little I have seen from the highway, the flooding is rather impressive. It is sad too. Seeing someone's home surrounded by water is a reality check. It also makes me wonder why they build homes near the river if there is flooding! I just do not get it. Then again we build our houses on top of the fault lines. I might try to get some photos on our way down to Omaha in a couple weeks.

We are near the river and I think if the water gets high enough the park at the end of our street might be submerged, but I kinda doubt it. I will keep everyone in the bay area updated.

This last week we had less T-storms (aka Thunder Storms). Lightening is different out here - it is all in the clouds. The clouds light up, but you do not actually see the lightening. The thunder just rumbles constantly.

We have had a couple tornado warnings. It is very exciting. Ramona was pale, curled up in her blanket and worried. She kept asking if we were “going to die”. I kept telling her no. I gave her hugs, made popcorn, suggested watching American Idol. I assured her that we are fine. I explained what would happen if there was one. I kept my explanation easy, "we will go downstairs and sit in the closest till it is over." Nothing I said seemed to help. Beezus claimed it was, and I will quote, “the best night of my life”. She thought a tornado warning was the absolute apex of excitement. We might have a future storm chaser on our hands! She started happily hauling all her favorite toys down stairs – this will prove convenient for when I start to do my next “goodwill cleaning” – everything upstairs apparently is fine to give away. I was just not sure how serious to take the warning, since there was literally not even a breeze outside. I kept thinking someone needs to call the weather channel and let them know we don’t even have wind!

The TV has a standard message that beeps and sounds really intimidating lets you know what counties have been advised to hang out in the basement. Ours came up a couple times.

Yet I have read about horrible tornadoes not that far away in Iowa and many further South. Thus far I am super grateful we have not had a serious tornado warning. Every other Wednesday they set off the tornado alarms for practice – super loud.

Anyway, not to brag, but we have had some clear and hot days out here. Not too humid yet. We went to the water park for Ramona’s b-day. We all got sun burnt even with many layers of sun screen!

Great News for Beezus

We had our annual celiac blood work done and got a little bit of scare when Beezus's WBC count was low. Sometimes, when you grow up spending time in hospitals, it can be easy to assume the worst before it happens. But today we got the results from the second round of blood work and the WBCs look great! This has been such a HUGE relief for us.

We were holding off on planning any vacations till we got our good news, but now that we have it we will be in CA in July! We can not wait to see everyone again.

Unfortunately her IgA protein (antibody) levels were still too high. They are going down, slower than we would like. So I will be cracking down even more on eating situations. This means I might not let her eat food prepared by non-immediate family members, we will be bringing our own food everywhere and we might be done with eating out even when they claim it is gluten free.

Please support us and be understanding. We love you all we just can not eat the food you do!

Happy Birthday "Ramona"!

Off to Wild Water West to swim off the summer heat!

I remember the day "Ramona" was born. A lovely summer day. I went into labor early that morning and as I was running around preparing things for little, almost two year old, "Beezus" I almost passed out. I was so nervous about leaving "Beezus" for the night. It was funny labor the second time around was so fast! Mostly from that day I remember holding "Ramona" for the first time - it was heaven.

Ramona was an easy baby! She slept in her swing to rock n roll (not on loud), she fell asleep in her high chair while I vacuumed. She loves blue berries, LOVES them! She laughs, smiles, dances, climbs onto every ledge she can find, sings, loves music and loves to hug. When she was two she would come into my office and curl up in my arms each night to fall asleep, because she needed that extra cuddle time before bed. Every night she reminds me to tuck her in with kisses.

She is definitely a light in my life. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that my life is worth it because of her and her sister! Thank you for our family Jewel! I am extremely grateful for my summer babies!

Have a great June 5, 2011 San Fran! We will be back in July with love, hugs and good vibes.