Like I was saying before I had been shooting with Jason Lee yesterday. Jason Lee is awesome and he is one of my favorite photgraphers to shoot with. I met him a couple years ago on a trip to West Virginia that was miserably cold. We made it happen though. Jason has a good vision for sure. One of the new crew of photographers that are taking a step back and really making shooting wakeboarding into an art. And I know you guys understand the vision I am talking about. You really need to check out his blog by clicking the pictures below. Jason Lee’s super duper blog.
It was a Saturday evening and Joseph and his wife, Ann, had just gotten into their third argument of the day and both were now giving each other the “silent treatment,” vowing not to be the first one to speak.
However, at bedtime, Joseph realized that he would need his wife, who always awoke at 4:30am to wake him at 5:00am to get ready for an early morning golf session with his buddies. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and thus lose the “battle”), Joseph wrote on a piece of paper,
“Ann, please wake me at 5:00am.”
The next morning, Joseph woke up at 9am, having missed his tee time with his friends. Furious, Joseph was about to go and see why his wife hadn’t awakened him when he noticed a piece of paperon his nightstand. The note read,
“Joseph, it’s 5:00am. Wake up.”
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WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU USED THE “SILENT TREATMENT?”
I grew up at a time my parents expected me and my siblings to become a doctor, professor or a teacher. Career in law, art, music, and journalism were not as popular among my parents’ peer. Choosing a career path for the children was a common practice among them. As a kid, being obedient and accepting whatever path my parents chose for me was a wise thing to do whether we liked it or not, “You will learn to love it…” was the usual phrase I often heard from my mom.
Mom sent me to the boarding school when I was thirteen to learn Thai traditional dance. She thought I was the best candidate among the five children to keep this traditional art form. My three elder sisters and younger brother were slightly luckier. They were given more choices to choose their own field of study. My mom was the first girl in her family to become a teacher, a profession that made my grandparents so proud. Back then it was so rare that girls were allowed to study, but mom was given the golden opportunity to pursue her dream. My dad was a headmaster, a VERY admirable and respectable post in my hometown. They were so dedicated and in love with their job that they ended up teaching for forty years despite the little pay.
Honestly, I was (still am!) so proud of my parents’ occupation, but I NEVER had a thought of becoming a teacher. I was afraid of being ‘poor’ because my parents always had a tough time making ends meet with their meager salary. Admirably, they survived the challenges both in their career and the parenting journeys. “It’s our purpose in life to give you this life-long gift of education although we knew this career wouldn’t make a lot of money,” dad explained. “When you love what you do, you tend to put your heart and soul in it,” mom continued.
All those years of great sacrifices, they had to accept loneliness to be part and parcel of their lives after they sent me and my siblings away to the bigger cities for a better education. Sadly, they never owned a home either. There wasn’t enough money left for that dream.They admitted that the most challenging task for them was keeping the five children in school from kindergarten all the way to the university at the same time!
With the teacher’s salary, I think my parents did an amazingly job.
As for me, I ‘tried’ so hard to love Thai traditional dance and did my best preparing myself for the teaching career. Somehow, I just couldn’t learn to love it. All I knew was I wanted to learn English. Then, luck was on my side. I got a scholarship to further my study in the US after I graduated from high school. I started to feel the excitement in life that I had to be part of it. I was so driven to learn English for some reason. I had fun learning it. Surprisingly, years had added on before I even noticed it. Soon, it was time to come home.
Since I was the first one in the family to speak English, my parents naturally expected me to become someone successful in her career. Living in the US was the best time of my life. I worked briefly in the Broadcasting field- my choice! When I came back to Thailand, I shifted my job to interior design- my second most favorite field. I worked for one of the high-end furniture retails in Bangkok. I loved everything about that job; the glamor, the handsome salary, the working environment and the people I worked with truly made life so enjoyable.
As expected, mom and dad were the happiest parents on earth.Suddenly, I told them I was getting marry and moving to Malaysia. I was only twenty-five and about to be promoted to the managing post, but I gave it all up.
Even with their great disappointment, my parents gave me all the blessing. They never questioned me either. They reminded me, “You must truly love what you do, so you can live your life happily.” Undoubtedly, they were very proud of me of how happy I have become, but deeply they believed I could be more than a housewife. A super mom, perhaps?
A few years later, mom still bugged me, “When are you going back to work?” But dad was very encouraging. He told me that parenting is one of the most powerful exercises to practice on the daily basis.I kept telling mom that there’s nothing wrong being a housewife and I have been ‘working’ very hard to create a warm and loving family of my own.
The ‘work’ and the responsibilities are so great that our daily life can be tough to handle.The multiple roles I play certainly give me the chance to exercise whatever skills and knowledge I had learned. Being the most important lady in the house and having the total ‘authority’ to shape my children to become wholesome adults is such an honor.
Nurturing my children gives me the opportunity to ‘appreciate’ my parents better. It is comforting to know that I am not a mess that I can organize my life and help my children adapting to the complex world they live in. I thought I didn’t want to be a teacher, but I am ‘teaching’ my kids every day now.
One of the things I learned from looking back at my past is that, whatever we do, we have to find strength in our character. Being secure with who we are and loving ourselves is a big part of how we treat other people. Thus, whatever we do matter; happiness is a daily decision. I believe that life satisfaction mainly comes from what we choose to do for living and who we get to be at the end of the day.
Low-Carb Diet Lowers Blood Pressure
Low-Carbohydrate Diet Better Than Weight Loss Drug Orlistat at Lowering Blood Pressure With Weight Loss
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Jan. 25, 2010 — A low-carbohydrate diet may have health benefits that go beyond weight loss.
A new study shows that a low-carbohydrate diet was equally good as the weight loss drug orlistat (the active ingredient in Alli and Xenical) at helping overweight and obese people lose weight, but people who followed the low-carb diet also experienced a healthy drop in their blood pressure levels.
“I expected the weight loss to be considerable with both therapies but we were surprised to see blood pressure improve so much more with the low-carbohydrate diet than with orlistat,” researcher William S. Yancy, Jr., MD, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, says in a news release. “If people have high blood pressure and a weight problem, a low-carbohydrate diet might be a better option than a weight loss medication.”
Researchers say studies have already shown that the two weight loss methods are effective at promoting weight loss, but it’s the first time the health effects of each have been compared head to head.
“It’s important to know you can try a diet instead of medication and get the same weight loss results with fewer costs and potentially fewer side effects,” Yancy says.
Low-Carb Lowers Blood Pressure
In the study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 146 obese or overweight adults were randomly divided into two groups. Many of the participants also had chronic health problems, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
The first group was advised to follow a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet consisting of less than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, and the second group received the weight loss drug orlistat three times a day, plus counseling in following a low-fat diet (less than 30% of daily calories from fat) at group meetings over 48 weeks.
The results showed weight loss was similar in the two groups. The low-carb diet group lost an average of 9.5% of their body weight and the orlistat group lost an average of 8.5%. Both weight loss methods were also not significantly different at improving cholesterol and glucose levels.
But when researchers looked at changes in blood pressure, they found nearly half of those who followed the low-carbohydrate group had their blood pressure medication decreased or discontinued during the study, compared to only 21% of those in the orlistat group.
Overall, systolic (the top number in a blood pressure reading) dropped an average of 5.9 points among the low-carb diet group, compared with an increase of 1.5 points in the orlistat group.
Researchers say weight loss itself typically produces a healthy reduction in blood pressure, but it appears that a low-carbohydrate diet has an additional blood pressure-lowering effect that merits further study.
Comment- Excuse my sarcasm, but If only information like this was promoted 40 years ago, millions of lives might have been saved. Imagine the incredibly obvious truth, consuming less sugar (carbs) in your diet is healthy and will promote weight loss! Wow, what a revelation, WebMD really went out on a limb, I’m surprised it even made the website!
Lucky #13: Let me tell you friends…we’ve never seen so many ground beef recalls packed together in a few weeks as we have recently. About 1 million pounds worth. Fraught with hormones and food borne illness fears, it’s enough to have converted this once carnivore into a meat-no-more. Even as standards rise in the fast food industry, the environmental and health impacts from frequent beef eating is hard to stomach.
So what’s a burger loving lady or lad to do? Plenty to feed the bun-loving craving, from turkey to tofu, vegetarian burgers to vegan patties that wow the tastebuds and won’t leave you lusting for moo. Plus, they fit with the Eat Cleaner philosophy by eating lower on the food chain.
For a Turkey Twist, Oprah featured Mar-a-Lago’s Turkey Burger as a favorite of hers and posted the recipe. If you want the Veggie route, you can check out the recipe featured at La Vida Locavore that is fit for Vegan consumption as well. The beauty of this post is that others in the community have offered their favorite recipes, including an interesting Mushroom burger recipe video. You learn something everyday when sharing knowledge online.
It’s all about adding flavor, so this is where you get can get creative. Place them between a whole wheat bun or wrap them up in our favorite Ezekiel sprouted tortillas. Get your 5-9 of veggies and opt for a wrap of crisp romaine lettuce and fill with a myriad of good-for-you fun like spicy daikon sprouts and sliced avocado topped with roasted tomato salsa. Add a slather of pesto or horseradish mustard for added kick. My favorite? Vietnamese style, with bean sprouts, cilantro, grated carrots and spicy peanut sauce. And of course, give those veggies a bath in Eat Cleaner Fruit + Vegetable Wash before gobbling. We managed to convert the whole family and not one nose wrinkle from the lot!
Pharrell Williams was the kenote speaker for the MIDEM 2010 music business conference in Cannes, France, this past week. Co-CEO of Cornerstone, Rob Stone did a lengthy Q&A session with the super producer/media mogul/fashion designer, among a million other titles. GlobalGrind got Rob Stone to speak on the experience of interviewing Pharrell for over 40 minutes. There was a lot going on behind the scenes to make the information sit-down happen. – Global Grind
Well, I should be at work right now, but ahah! No go. My car needs an alignment so I was going to get a ride with my sister, but apparently, her car won’t start. It’s “no big deal” but it has to warm up in the sun. Which takes a few hours.
So, instead of calling in sick and actually doing something with today, I’m sitting here et up with guilt after calling and telling the truth and my sister’s gone back to bed. It’s not worth fighting about particularly since there’s not a damn thing to do about it, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong somehow. I don’t want this to send the day akilter, though I know it will, and I really don’t want to change clothes or workout because I don’t want to go through the whole workout-shower process.
I recorded what might be a preliminary vlog, but however, as it’s got me situated in front of an open messy drawer, and has me pretty scattered, I’m thinking I need to re-record it. Lest anyone think I was giving up on this little dream of mine to vlog. Mornings are bad, usually, and evenings are worse, so the timing has been very difficult to try and record. We’ll see. It feels a little soul-baring, and like wow, people can be judgemental on the internet, wow. That’s not necessarily a good thing. I have to be ready to handle that, or much more likely, the complete void of feedback I’m likely to receive.
So. One crazy day and 260-odd words later, and I have a burrito bowl from Chipotle with rice in it sitting next to me. I did not order the rice, but I got the rice and I was so hungry and stupid, I took it. Confidence, my girl, confidence. However, despite laughing today that I avoided that side of the street because I didn’t want to fall into a Chipotle. I did.
Sort of. I haven’t eaten the rice. Don’t plan to. But the thought of trying to make nothing out of the nothing in our refrigerator after spending about $200 on keeping my car out of the grave was agony. I’d had a shake for breakfast and then coffee and water and I was feeling lightheaded and stupid, particularly because I was all yay, I’m really going to lose weight now. Which, no, idiot, your metabolism is not cooking and basically you’re just making your brain run on fumes.
At any rate, not planned, minorly controlled as I pretty much scarfed it down as carefully as anyone may scarf anything they can’t eat 100% of. I probably didn’t have a teaspoon of rice and I don’t know if I want to live in a world where accidental rice fucks up your diet for eternity. What I need to do is go to work early and get some food tomorrow otherwise this running by the seat of my pants bullshit is going to happen again and probably with less favorable results.
Tonight: 1/2 hour walk and WiiActive. I really have to find it within me, because right now,
Since my last blog post, I have attempted to create a painting a day. Often I’ve started one that carried over into the next day, but then began another. It’s only been a few weeks and already I have built a nice selection of work, using old techniques as well as new ones. The merging of techniques has been tricky. It’s been fun as well as exhausting.
Like I mentioned earlier, I have built a nice selection of work on paper, canvas, as well as particle board.
My friend & mentor THH70 dropped by the other day & filmed the early stages of a new piece “Female Smoker” T did a great job putting the video togher. Take a look.
The NEW work is Great. I’ve impressed myself a little…. but don’t take my word for it. I encourage you to visit my new website and take a look for yourself.
I’ve recently crossed paths with an old school friend who I haven’t seen in over 25 years. We now work together and it’s been great getting reacquainted with her all over again. Having fun reminiscing about the past and exchanging our life stories. After a few weeks of spending lots of time together, she said there’s something different about me now that never showed before. She summed it up in one word saying that I was “free” – carrying myself as if I’m weightless – there’s no baggage from the past. I appear happy and content with my life, open/approachable and I don’t have any ulterior-motives/not expecting anything in return.
I never really put much thought into how I’m being perceived but to have someone tell me that I come across as being “free” is a compliment that I gladly accept. I guess the last 10 years of being on a “letting go” journey is showing its true colors.
What I know for sure about living free
We make life more complicated then it really is.
Happiness is living a purposeful life and being true to your authentic self.
When you find yourself in a useless battle – you just simply walk off the battlefield.
There comes a time in one’s life that in order to move forward and allow change you have to let go of old beliefs, habits and thoughts. To unlearn the many things that you’ve spent your entire life learning.
Letting go of all anxiety, stress, anger, grudges and resentment means that you are freeing yourself up for many blessings that are in store for you.
You are what you think - your outer world becomes a reflection of your inner world.
You must believe and have faith that your present and future holds the best days of your life.
You attract what you put out: Learn to release the need to “control” everything in your life. Let yourself to become spiritually open to allow all good things to flow into your life. Trust in your instincts and God’s nature to guide you.
Stop trying to make everything happen according to what you think should happen. Let things happen according to the natural flow of life.
Living one’s life with an attitude of gratitude. It’s not possible to move towards what you want when you aren’t grateful for what you already have.
Learning to let go is one of the biggest gifts you can give to yourself and share with others.
I’ve practiced letting go long enough to know that it feels a whole lot better than not letting go. It has brought me much needed peace, joy, and happiness.
Let me tell you friends…we’ve never seen so many ground beef recalls packed together in a few weeks as we have recently. About 1 million pounds worth. Fraught with hormones and food borne illness fears, it’s enough to have converted this once carnivore into a meat-no-more. Even as standards rise in the fast food industry, the environmental and health impacts from frequent beef eating is hard to stomach. 
Well, I should be at work right now, but ahah! No go. My car needs an alignment so I was going to get a ride with my sister, but apparently, her car won’t start. It’s “no big deal” but it has to warm up in the sun. Which takes a few hours.
