Coming of Age Challenge #2: Education - Future Career

Challenge #2: Education/Academic  - October 2011

Last year Grade Zoé-Pascale had to research and write a report on careers she was interested in and Universities that provided similar degrees. As we all know, at 12 what you want to do might change drastically by the time you are 20, but her choice (at this time) is to be a Marine Mammal Veterinarian. Recognizing, after doing the research s,he first need to go to Vet school and then specialize in Marine Mammals, she proudly announced Cornell, UC Davis, and Australia as 3 top choices.  As one of her challenges she asked if we could go visit UC Davis, one of the premiere Vet schools in the country.

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Chocolate- Pistachio - Rosemary Matzo Brittle

Create a somewhat healthy brittle -- by adding Dark Chocolate, Rosemary and Pistachio, and Matzo -- all healthy ingredients! My friend Kathy shared this fantastic Desert (great for Holiday gifts). An amazing and simple recipe.

Chocolate/pistachio/rosemary/salt Brittle 

• 4-5 sheets Matzo
• 2 sticks butter
• 1 C firmly packed brown sugar
• 12 oz bag semisweet chocolate chips (or use dark semisweet chips)

 For sprinkling on top:

• Chopped shelled, salted pistachios
• Fresh chopped rosemary
• Kosher salt or Sel Gris

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and grease the foil with non-stick spray.

Arrange the matzo in one flat layer in the pan, breaking and fitting the pieces as needed to cover the pan.

Combine the butter and brown sugar in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring well to dissolve the sugar. Once it starts to boil, continue to cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until it turns to carmel.

Remove the carmel from the heat and pour over the matzo. Spread it evenly to cover all the matzo. Bake for 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let stand for 1 minute until the topping is slightly solidified. Pour the chocolate chips evenly over the matzo and return to the oven for 1 minute to soften the chips. 

Remove from the oven and spread the melted chocolate evenly over the matzo into one layer.

 Sprinkle nuts, rosemary and salt as liberally as you desire.

Have a great time in the making, eating, and giving!

Book Passage Speaking Event

Book Passage, Corte Madera, Friday night was standing room only. A dream we had since we started writing the book was to speak at the infamous Book Passage -- our dream came true and it was a ball of fun!

Recognizing that only 20% of the people had read the book we started (and planned) to tell the story by reading excerpts from a few stories. Back and forth we banted moving into the two major themes of the book and our message. 

1. Live your big dreams

2. Live everyday with joie de vivre. 

As we broke the participants into pairs to share their dreams, you could hear the sound amplify and both excitement, questions and a few forlorn faces peeked out from the crowd.

Questions such as; how do you truly make them come alive? what happens if you have too many? what happens if you have none? were shared. No matter what everyone left feeling someting. 

The subject of everyday joie de vivre resonated with the people of Marin as this is something they do aim for with our beautiful backdrop of Mt Tam, the Pacific Ocean, and San Francisco Bay. We all agreed, we were lucky to live in a beautiful place with such gorgeous nature and it was up to us to take advantage of it everday.

The Coming of Age Challenge #1: Physical

Note: If you are unaware of the Coming of Age Challenge, Please Go To "What Is The Coming Of Age Challenge" and learn how you can have fun and help your daughter, nieces, and friends move into teen years with confidence and pride.

Our first challenge for the Coming of Age 12-13 was a physical challenge.

A Bike Ride from Tiburon – across the Ferry – through San Francisco – over the Golden Gate Bridge – along the waterfront of Sausalito  -- down to Mill Valley – over the freeway and back to Tiburon. A 25 mile ride under the glorious September sun.

We are your average bike riders of 5-10 miles a few times a year, this however was a true adventure of mind, body, and spirit.

We started out riding down the 2 miles from our house to the Tiburon Ferry catching the 10:40 am. Sitting outside on the Ferry with the wind in our hair was the perfect beginning for this adventure. Arriving at the SF Ferry building we rode down the embarcadero and turned off to ride up to Chinatown where a celebration with a dragon parade was taking place.

Continue Reading about the Challenge and let us know your ideas!

1 hour of Joy in an Airport

The big question as we sit in airports waiting for our flights to leave is; "What should I do?"

My choices like many revolve around:

• catchup on email
• eat
• shop a bit if there are shops
• buy a new book or read one you brought along
• and eat some more

Today I arrived 3 hours before my flight and was exhausted already knowing that I wouldn't arrive home until midnight. What to do? Ahah I thought, I always walk by the xpress spas, but never quite have enough time to check them out. Tonight was different. I was semi caught up, had time, not hungry, and needed a pedicure. 

I headed down to the xpress spa and checked out the menu settling in on my own custom version of a pedicure and foot massage. A bit on the high side, but considering I needed the pedicure I counted the additional charges my luxury. Settling into the leader arm chair I saw the back massage button hanging off the side and grabbed it, settling in on the full back massage. "Let the chair do my back and the lady my feet," two for one I thought. Soon I closed my eyes and felt the woman place a warm blanket on me creating a cocoon feeling. I put on my ipod listening to some soothing music and slipped away. My feet were in heaven and the rest of me was in shock how good it felt. Twenty minutes later she saw me starring at the woman next to me who was receiving a face, head, and neck massage. "You want, she said." After a moment hesitation, a glance at the clock (I still had 2.5 hours to go). I nodded yes. Simultaneously my chair massage was kicking out the kinks and I was focusing on clearing my mind and thinking abundant thoughts (something I'm practicing daily). My cheeks, nose, forehead, ears, and scalp were tingling, my neck was relaxing and I was drifting off again. As she finished she said, "You can stay until we need the chair." "Fantastic" I replied, and fell back into the relaxing state I had been in for 45 minutes. An hour and 15 min later I left the spa with feet that felt like they were walking on pillows, bright pink toes, and an overwhelming feeling of relaxation and joy. 

The secret I realized was I had the time and I gained much more by lying in the chair longer with my ear phones on than I could ever have imagined. A gift from them to me. 

Next time you are in an airport and have 2 hours to wait, check out the spa and ask if you can sit in the chair longer!

We find some extra happiness wherever we can, and today it was in the airport.

Coming of Age: 4 Stages

Coincidentally, Zoe-Pascale's is studying Coming of Age, what it means and reading books that depict these types of stories. Synchronicity at work.  Through this she is learning that Coming of Age consists of 4 stages and has 9 characteristics (hey, I'm learning something too). Her favorite example of this is Harry Potter -- A basic Coming of Age story.

The 4 stages include:

1. Realization - growing, changing, emotional, mental preparation
2. Removal - separated, change environment, environment
3. Challenge - prove if you are ready
4. Reintegration - rebirth and coming back into society with new insights and status

Read more about the 4 stages and 9 characteristics of Coming of Age

High levels of sugar in your diet damage your brain

I love my sweets as much as the next person, but after reading this another great reason to avoid those high fructose corn syrup sweets - avoid dementia

High levels of sugar in your diet damage your brain. by Dr Baylock, M.D.

New evidence continues to demonstrate this link.

In a recent study of 980 elderly people followed for four years, those with the highest intake of calories had a 50 percent increased incidence of dementia.

So why would eating lots of sweets and carbohydrates increase your risk of dementia?

Well, there are three scientific reasons:

Reason 1: Sugar dramatically increases your metabolism, and high rates of metabolism become a major source of free radical production. (Pesky free radicals damage your cells and impair their function.)

Reason 2: High levels of sugar in your body cause the sugar to react with various critical proteins, including enzymes that repair DNA damage caused by free radicals.  <https://www.newsmaxstore.com/newsletters/blaylock/offer2a.cfm?promo_code=D1E8-1>  

Reason 3: Continued high sugar consumption prevents your cells from absorbing the sugar needed to produce energy ˜ a condition called insulin resistance. Another recent study found a high incidence of insulin resistance in those with Alzheimer's dementia. The worst form of sugar is high Fructose corn syrup.  40 percent of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages are of high Fructose corn syrup.

So if you want to avoid this disease, you can see that minimizing your sugar and simple carbohydrate intake is crucial.

Coming of Age Challenge -- for girls age 12-13

The year my daughter was born I read a book called, Cultural Creatives: How 50 million People are Changing the World, by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Andersen. The book is about how millions of people are changing the world through behaviors. Some of the values that dictate a Cultural Creative’s behavior include; authenticity, engaged action, seeing the world as inter-connected, idealism, activism, globalism, and the importance of women.  At the time, I just had a baby girl at age 45 and was fascinated by one specific story that has stayed with me for 12 years. This story is about how one family took the critical year of 12 to 13 and created a series of challenges that would imprint on their daughter a sense of accomplishment and achievement, confidence, and strength. Reading the story I could see the girl blossom with confidence through each and every challenge.

Historically, when a girl moves into teen years she is coming of age. For many traditions, there are often rituals (bat mitzvahs, confirmations, and more) that a girl engages in at age 13 to help her “come of age,” but the idea of doing something for an entire year (one a month) is an idea that makes sense to us; coming of age doesn’t happen in one day.

As we know in today’s complex, fast paced, global, connected world this “coming of age” is getting harder and harder to navigate without fallout and a running start. What better way to build up her confidence and strength than to create with her a “Coming of Age Challenge” that lasts an entire year.

Selfishly, I know that to spend the time with her, planning, helping, supporting, and participating in the “Coming of Age Challenge” at this critical period is a gift for all of us not just her.

Now is the time

My daughter, Zoé-Pascale is turning 12 in October – and now is time. Starting this month, we are beginning the Zoé-Pascale Coming of Age Challenge. Our goal is to choose one activity a month in which she will accomplish that builds confidence and strength in body, mind and spirit throughout the year. The activities need to be something she wouldn’t normally do and are a challenge to accomplish, experience, or make time for. As a framework, the challenges will fall into the following categories and some activities might fit into more than one category:

• §  Physical
• §  Mental
• §  Intellectual
• §  Emotional
• §  Spiritual
• §  Gratitude
• §  Giving Back
• §  Future/Career
• §  Adventure
• §  Travel
• §  Creative
• §  Fun 

We are starting with a list of possibilities that will get refined as some need more planning than others. As a family we will discuss them and vote on the ideas, but she has to decide if it is right for her and will be something she sees as confidence and strength building in body, mind, or spirit.

Watch out world, here she comes!

You can read about it on the website at Coming of Age and all the challenges and experiences will be posted there as well as on the blog.

If you have any ideas, let us know!

Connected

I recently heard about the new film, Connected, out in theaters this week. Recognizing that I am tethered to my computer, iphone, email, and other technologies more and more with every passing week, I can't wait to see the film. As I read the excerpt below, what interested me was her question, "Can we find great value especially for women with this interdependence of technology?" And also, the unanswered question is, "How do we turn off technology and be allowed to live under the sun and with people?"

Excerpt about the movie

Have you ever faked a restroom trip to check your email? Slept with your laptop? Or become so overwhelmed that you just unplugged from it all? In this funny, eye-opening, and inspiring film, director Tiffany Shlain takes audiences on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride to discover what it means to be connected in the 21st century. From founding The Webby Awards to being a passionate advocate for The National Day of Unplugging, Shlain’s love/hate relationship with technology serves as the springboard for a thrilling exploration of modern life…and our interconnected future. Equal parts documentary and memoir, the film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Shlain’s father battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a brilliant mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain reveals the surprising ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. A personal film with universal relevance,Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.

To hear an interview with the director go to:

http://www.wearewatermark.org/2011/09/tiffany-shlain-talking-connections-and-connected-the-film/

" Your wish is my command" the Genie in Aladdin

I was recently reminded of the story of Aladdin and the Genie and how the secret of living the life you want is all told in those few words the Genie repeated over and over, "Your wish is my command." The essence of this story is the truth of living our dreams. If you trace the story back there is actually no limit to the wishes you want. The grand Genie is a metaphor for all traditions in which you believe in something bigger than yourself; angel, higher power, higher self. The grand Genie only says one thing "Your wish is my command." Every tradition says there is something bigger than us. The Genie has answered your every command and is always listening to everything you think, speak and act. The Genie thinks everything you speak about, act upon, ask for, think about, feel, is what you want. The Genie doesn't question your command. 

The key is to make a command to the universe (the Genie) and let the universe know what you want.

Three steps to making your command 

1. Ask for what you really want  (this does mean you have to know what you really want). You get to choose what you want and you do have to be very clear what you want. Take the time to figure out what you really want and ask for it. As you get clear in your mind, you are asking.

2. Believe that it is already yours. You must believe that what you want is already yours. Similar to ordering a book on Amazon and trusting it will arrive, your beliefs in what you have asked for is the same. Believe it is already on the way. Your thoughts are attracting it to you by believing you already have it.

The how it shows up will be shown to you, just believe it is on its way. 

3.  Receive  Begin to feel wonderful about it. Feel now the way you will feel when it arrives. Feel it now. When you are feeling good you are putting yourself in the frequency that it yours. A fast way to get on the frequency is to say, "I am receiving ___ now." When you say this, feel it all through your body. 

For today, give it a try, find your Genie and your wish shall be his/her command.