Archive for April, 2010

I mentioned last week that I need to say buh-bye to coffee again because it’s ramping up my natural antsiness, and not in a good way. There’s a fine line between feeling energetic and you-go-girl and so wired you can’t sleep — and I’ve most definitely crossed it.

So in place of my beloved Chock Full O’ Nuts (sorry, I’m just not the “tall, skinny latte” type…), I’ve been sipping lots of hot lemon water instead. And as the day progresses, I shift to the ice-cold variety. Though I’ve read, repeatedly, that H20 is best imbibed at room temperature, that just seems wishy-washy to me. I prefer to be a take a firm stand on this earth-shaking matter. “You’re hot or you’re cold….”

But I digress, and I really want to tell you about the benefits of drinking lemon water, of which there are several. Yes, your skin will look a bit peppier — mine already does. But most importantly, according to a cracking health and beauty book that I highly recommend, lemon water is brills for balancing your pH level. I won’t get all tech-y here about what a pH level actually is (I haven’t had my coffee!), but I’ll just say that it’s best to tip it in the alkaline, rather than acidic, direction. Though it would seem counter-intuitive, lemons and limes have an alkalizing effect on your body. Trust me when I tell you that you want a balanced pH level. It’s the key to not only feeling great, but warding off serious illness.

So grab some lemons and get slicing. Cheers!

Yesterday, as we were preparing to take the Diapered Darling to her very first Easter mass, I had a minor freak-out in my closet. What, pray tell, would I wear? We’re in that tricky seasonal zone, when it’s not quite warm and it’s not cold, and I’m quite un-psyched with my available options. I knew I wanted to wear a dress, but beyond that, I was stumped. So much so that I let the wee lass dress me — never a good idea. Before I knew it, I was in a purple frock and purple tights and we were on our merry way.

When we got back home, I spent a few solid hours in my closet — a really nice walk-in number that also serves as my meditation chamber — pawing over color-coded, carefully folded T-shirts and sweaters and organized little warrens of pants, jackets, dresses and shirts. So what’s my problem? I have a beautiful closet and everything is sorted to a fare-thee-well. Why do I often feel that I could look better? That it takes waaaaaaaaay too long to get dressed in the morning? That I don’t have the basic components of outfits for the various pockets of my life? That I need, in short, a major clothing Momover?

I have to get to the bottom of this, because it’s driving me kooky crazy. So expect a multi-part blog post as I attempt to figure out how to have the perfect go-to outfits ready to rock and roll for every occasion. Step one: tossing out the Mom cords. Life is too short for Mom cords.

If you have any tiny terrors around the house, like moi, chances are there’s one of these cute and cuddly dudes residing in the corner of the crib or stuffed in a toy box somewhere. Ours lives on a shelf in the Diapered Darling’s playroom, but he’s missing his innards, basically, because I’ve long since co-opted them for my own selfish self.

Why? Because I’ve discovered that the “removable sound box” is a primo meditation tool. Since I’m a newbie with meditation, I still need a lot of props, CDs, bells and whistles, what have you, to get into the zone. And I’ve loved that little baby boom box from the moment I heard it;  I can still remember trying to rock our daughter back to sleep in the middle of the night accompanied by the sound of whales calling out to each other as they glided through the dark and stormy ocean. (Or at least that’s what I was imagining in my bleary-eyed new-mama mental state…)

While I’m still completely loving “Whale Songs,” I’ve opened my mind to the other lovely ditties contained within, specifically “Ocean Surf” and “Spring Showers.” The fourth soundtrack – “Mother’s Heartbeat” – isn’t quite doing it for me, although when my Diapered Darling tries to “help” me with my meditation, that’s the one she likes the best. Surprise, surprise.

For years — years — I’ve had an on again/off again love affair with java. Lest you have any doubt about that, take a peek at this circa 2006 Momover column.

One of the key reasons I frequently break up with coffee is that it can exacerbate my natural tendency to get all wound up. And recently, everyday life has gotten the best of me. Work has been plagued with drama and sadness, I’ve taken on beaucoup extracurricular assignments, and Hubby and I made a pact that we would bite the bullet and wean the wee lass off the night-time diapers.

As such, I’ve gotten into a vicious circle of not sleeping well, zombie-walking out of bed, downing coffee, working working working fretting fretting fretting and then hitting the hay again 15 hours later only to repeat the whole sinister loop again.

To regain a little balance, happiness and sleep, I know that the fastest and most effective thing to do is to subtract the coffee from the equation. I’ve done it before and it always works.

To help me stay on the wagon this time, I’ve been pawing through some of my favorite get-healthy books for inspiration. So indulge me, please, while I quote a passage from Skinny Bitch:

“Think about how widely accepted it has become that people need coffee to wake up. You should not need anything to wake up. If you can’t wake up without it, it’s because you are either addicted to caffeine, sleep-deprived or a generally unhealthy slob. It may seem like the end of the world to give up your daily dose…but it’s not heroin girls, and you’ll learn to live without it.”

Duly noted. Again.