June 26, 2013

Hiatus

I took my mamacita to the countryside in eastern New York this past weekend to celebrate her youngest grand baby's graduation from high school. She brought her bathing suit along for the ride but decided later that she was content in the shade, under the big blue umbrella.

Too much work getting a bathing suit on and off, especially for a ninety-one year old.

"Been there, done that!" she exclaimed happily. We all chuckled.

I know what she means, in more ways than one, and I have a hunch that you do too.

I am on a lovely annual four-week hiatus from my not-full-time job. Some of you might not know that I've worked as a household manager/personal cook/real estate manager since the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008. I call it my mid-life crisis job. It's close-by, pays well, and it's fun. Kind of like playing Martha Stewart with someone else's credit card. I am living the life that I didn't get to live when my kids were young and I had to commute into Boston for work.

But here at home, with my real family (or my "first family" as I refer to them), I am still struggling to launch the natural food product with my business partner. The bad news is that we still haven't launched. The good news is that we're still optimistic. With four shelf- life evaluations, and a second round at trademarking, I've had moments though of wanting to throw the towel in.

No wonder people don't launch food products.

However, if we launch, it's going to be good.

And hopefully, in more ways than one.


I hope you're enjoying the summer.

Here in New England, they say that summer is to the rest of the year, like the weekend is to the week.

Or something like that.

Personally, the heat knocks almost all ambition out of me!

XO,
Louise




June 19, 2013

Having a Baby



I thought I'd celebrate our 25th anniversary and my 53rd year with a baby.


Just kidding!


The two GUYS in this video, however, signed up to see what labor is really like. Brave men that they are.

I thought maybe we could all use a good laugh to start the summer off.

Thank you to Chris for sending this in.


Happy almost summer solstice to you all,

Louise




Labor Pain Simulation from Kensington on Vimeo.

June 12, 2013

The Breath of Life


After last week's scare, I was grateful to be able to head off with Tom to celebrate our 25th anniversary with a weekend workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.  I have been drooling over their body, mind, and spirit course offerings for many years.

The course we took was essentially about love, intimacy, and tantra sex.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Tom's anaphylactic shock episode and this workshop came together within 3 days of each other.

Tantra originated in medieval India.

I first heard of tantra or tantric sex several years ago when HBO featured it on their show Real Sex.  While watching it I thought, "Wow. This really takes sex and intimacy (and energy) to whole new level." The show piqued my interest and I never forgot about it.

You might be wondering if last weekend was one big orgy. It was not. In fact it didn't involve anything too strange, although it did put me outside my comfort zone at times.

Which is good.

The workshop was basically about breathing, and creating an energy flow, in part by squeezing the PC muscle, and bearing down with the stomach muscles.

Tantra is about channeling sexual energy, that normally leaves during orgasm, back into the body.

Kind of like recycling :-)

When we focus on the "grand finale" we miss an amazing range of pleasure. So instead of having a relatively quick genital orgasm what happens is that you are able to have a full body orgasm that goes on and on.

I kid you not.

And the beauty of it is that you don't need to have a partner to garner this energy and pleasure.

I will say no more but to add that I highly recommend taking a tantra class. What a great way to usher in the second half of life, create greater intimacy, and deepen pleasure.

Dr. Christianne Northrup has said that "Sexual energy is one of our most powerful energies for creating health. Our stress hormones lower and serotonin shoots through the roof."


If you are still with me, and curious, below is a video made several years ago by Steve and Lokita Carter of Ecstatic Living Institute, who taught our class.

They journeyed all the way from California and were terrific teachers.



   

June 07, 2013

Fragility


We had the scare of our lives on Tuesday.

Mr. Fix-It was prepping for a colonoscopy.

He drank his first glass of the PEG solution and within 90 seconds he said he knew something wasn't right.

Luckily our younger daughter was here and called to tell me he had broken out in hives.

I told her what to look for and said if he went south to quickly call an ambulance.



In a short amount of time Tom's chest started to tighten, his lips and hands swelled, and he went into anaphylactic shock. 

His blood pressure began to plummet and he blacked out. 

Our daughter called 911, and while the paramedics were en route, he was able to make it from the rec room up to the first floor. 

When they arrived they gave him a EpiPen shot and he fainted.

In the ambulance the paramedics where saying "Tom stay with us buddy!" and things like that. He wasn't responding to questions.


I arrived at the hospital after the ambulance had arrived, as did our older daughter.


We ran into the emergency room but they said he was out in the ambulance because they were still working on him  (low blood pressure).



This is when I knew he was really in trouble.



The weird thing is that 5-6 hours later, after being stabilized, he was back on his feet like nothing had happened.

He feels fine now but is on a steroid to counteract the PEG solution in his system.

Tom has said more than once how amazingly calm and helpful our daughter remained.


He was able to remain calm as well.

She saved his life.



Left untreated anaphylaxus is deadly, because eventual swelling of the throat will cause suffocation.

It has taken time to put my arms around what happened, and didn't happen.

Even now I can't stop thinking about it. The reverberations are still washing over me. 

Still putting the pieces together.

Life is so fragile.

What happened was life altering for all of us, I think.

I'm just so happy to still have my sweetheart, who I married 25 years ago this month.

I hesitated posting this because I don't want to ever dissuade people from having a colonoscopy. The reaction that Tom had from PEG is HIGHLY unlikely- in fact, nearly impossible to find statistics of on the web.

The lesson we learned however is take the signs of allergic reaction seriously, and get help, immediately. 

Don't wait. 

As soon as the hives broke out he should have been on his way to the hospital.

We know this now. 

With love to all my readers,
Louise