In the next few months many of us will decide we have to "buckle down" and create all the presents and decorations that are on our imaginary -or sometimes not-so-imaginary- To Do List. We have deadlines- Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Day. And we cannot disappoint others by failing to create all the wonderful things that are swirling around our heads.
We settle down for several hours of work after a day of work. Soon, our hands are aching, our necks are creaking, and our lower backs are aching. But still we soldier on. In the name of all the magical goodness that is the holiday season, we will continue if it kills us.
Sometimes we end up in such pain that we wish it would.
To counteract all the physical demands we put on our bodies while we're crafting, we must warm up and stretch before we begin, and continue to stop, rest, and stretch while we are crafting. To give you some guidance about doing this, I made a simple video: Stretches for Crafters.
The stretches are simple stretches for the neck, shoulders, chest, wrists and hands. These, done before you begin and at regular intervals while you are crafting should help to keep some of the pain at bay. If repetitive stress injuries arise anyway? Alternate applications of heat and ice, NSAIDs, and rest will move you along your way to quicker healing.
Others in craft are also thinking about your health while crafting.
From what you guys had to say on Twitter, it sounds like all that yarn work hits ravelers hardest in the wrists, fingers, neck and chest. Never fear! Here are some poses to help you recoop a little bit.
I'm anxious to try several of these poses to open up my chest and wrists and feel some healing coming my way. But looking at the Bow Pose- I may need yoga to recover from doing some yoga! I wonder how I can regress that to something actually do-able?
Last week, I pointed you to the Knit-A-Square charity project. The organizers were care so much about their volunteers that they wrote a How-To on Knitting for Charity Pain Free. Their points include a plan for a basic knitting/crochet training schedule to build your body's endurance for this work! The training schedule:
You are attempting to be a marathon knitter and crocheter. And as such, like any elite athlete, you need to train to be able to knit and crochet with endurance. Too many of you, especially those of you learning how to knit or crochet, or picking up your knitting needles or crochet hook again after years away from the craft, just launch straight hours of work.Start slowly and build up. As a rule of thumb, you could start by working for 20 to 30 minutes a day, slowly on a sliding scale according to half your age. So for example:
20 minutes for 10 days
30 minutes for 15 days
50 minutes for 25 days
70 minutes for 35 days.
This will give your wrists and arms the opportunity to build strength and endurance just as a marathon runner must train over months even years to first run the distance and secondly run fast.
Now that we are armed with stretches, yoga and a training schedule, there is (hopefully) no need to pray that you receive a week of massage/chiropractic after the holidays end this year. Not that such a gift would be a bad thing if it were to come.
How do you prepare to get your craft on and keep yourself pain free?
When I created a vision board early this year I put on it a quality I wanted to learn how to live: fearlessness. I wanted to really live a life in love and not fear. Last night I had a bit of an epiphany in that I realized that the best way to learn how to to be fearless is to be confronted with scary situations and deal with them without fear. Because if everything is sweetness and light you wouldn't really be practicing or experience fearlessness.
Deep sigh.
I asked for the lesson but I don't get to control how it shows up. And I realized that the lesson I asked to learn has been showing up for a year or more. I'll spare you the gory details but there's been a lot of hard, difficult and frightening stuff and situations I've experienced. But what I also realized that I've dealt with them not completely without fear but with a lot more love and faith than I might have in the past. Older and wiser indeed has its benefits.
Twyla Tharp in her book The Creative Habit reminds us of the story of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi in the movie The Karate Kid. Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate and instead the teacher has the student wax on, wax off and undertake other mundane chores. Although Daniel didn't understand at first, he later learned that through these chores he was in fact learning the fundamental moves of karate even if the lesson didn't show up the way he expected.
Often when we are in the thick of things we don't realize that we are in practice and learning the lesson we asked to learn. Johnny Truant posting at Naomi Dunford's blog Itty Biz also recounts an aspiring martial arts student story as well as his own and how it illustrates really learning the lesson of motivation. His take is that he truly learned motivation when he needed to, when he had to. And that lesson showed up through painful and difficult life circumstances. He challenges readers to question if they are really motivated and if not how they might look at their lives and learn the lesson.
Lessons don't have to be painful but they can be difficult to recognize. Like Daniel, we often have ideas of how we are going to learn something, who the teach will be, what the lesson plan will look like and then when the exact fantasy we have in our head doesn't play out we potentially lose some of the ability to learn the lesson. By looking at the circumstances in our lives, the tasks we are asked to perform, the actions we undertake and the people who show up in our lives as opening the door to learning and being present to teach us, we can learn the lessons we are meant to a little easier and faster and possibly not be forced to repeat them.
Have you learned a lesson in an unexpected way? What did it teach you and have you learned how to better recognize educational opportunities in your life? Related Reading:
My dying father taught me about facing death with courage and peace. My dying dog is teaching me to face life with all the joy we can find because our time is always short, no matter how much of it we have.
More than anything, I am realizing that when you stop learning, you stop living. Fortunately, we are all surrounded by the finest of teachers, two- and four-legged both.
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. 5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
It's true, hindsight really is 20-20. We can't change the past, but we can choose to extract the lessons learned and move on with dignity and hope for the future.
Here are some things I've realized and learned:
All challenges are there to teach us a lesson. But we are conditioned to treat challenge as a bad thing. Challenge is our friend, embrace it!
BlogHer CE Maria Niles enjoys learning life lessons at PopConsumer
If ever there was a book for child- and teenaged-hood re-readers it's Lizzie Skurnick's Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. I'm sure that some of you know Skurnick from her Fine Lines column on Jezebel, where she reads childhood favourites with a fresh eye.
Shelf Discovery continues and expands on that column. I was kind of surprised by how few of the novels I had actually read. I felt as if I was just a titch too young to full appreciate the collection that she gathered. The reflections on the books I hadn't read, in all honesty, just were not as interesting to me. It does make sense really. It's rather hard to wax nostalgic about something you never really experienced. Notes From the Officers Club rather felt the same way. She grew up in Germany and (I know this will be shocking to many of you) hasn't ever read Judy Blume. She was unfamiliar with many of the books but was hoping to get a view of American teenaged girlhood but found herself a little disappointed.
For some of the novels, she definitely raised some very valid points.Many of them, I felt like I was simply reading a synopsis. And based onthe summaries, I could definitely see why these stories would appeal toyoung girls and how they could help them learn to be comfortable withthemselves and develop into strong women but I could have used a littlebit more of "and this matters because." If I had read the novels, I mayhave been happy reminiscing about old reads; since I haven't, I neededa deeper reading than she provided.
Live Under A Rock liked parts of the book, but also suggested that if we are going to re-examine those books maybe we should look a bit deeper at them, including looking at race issues in them while we're at it.
Guys? When I was a little kid and I read Little House on the Prairie, Ididn't even realize that "papoose" referred to a Native American baby. Wilder othered Native Americans to such an extent that I thought that apapoose was…guys, I don't even know WHAT I thought. Oh, and a fewyears back I decided to re-read Little Town on the Prairie becauseit was my favorite as a preteen (search me—I don't know why). Imaginemy horror when I came across the scene where Pa performs in blackfaceand Laura invites us to imagine how hilarious that must have been!
Librarilly Blonde felt like she was talking with a friend as she read the book.
Reading her writing makes me feel like I'm talking to a really cool,smart friend who understands how much these books formed our worlds when we were teens (and younger). We're older and wiser now, and we canlook at things like Harriet Welsch's growing empathy in Harriet the Spy and the ultimately bleak endings of Blubber and The Cat Ate My Gymsuit with an eye for literary technique, but ultimately, we are still ten years old and reading these books, reacting to them viscerally and re-reading with hunger. Reading Skurnick makes me unafraid to giggle and gasp and OMG as I read Go Ask Alice and Flowers in the Attic.
The author is in her thirties, so most, if not all, of the people inher age range will be familiar with just about every book. I'm in mytwenties and am about half and half as far as having read the books orat least being familiar with them. Then there are the teens, who Ithink are going to discover so many amazing books that they might nothave ever heard of or read. I love that it's written in a way as to beaccessible to those who haven't read the books, yet familiar enough forthose who have who want to reminisce.
If your teenaged reading habits involved everything from Little House in the Big Woods to Go Ask Alice to Flowers in the Attic, you need to move Shelf Discovery to the top of your reading list.
When was the last time you went shopping? Last week? Last month? Last year? Could you go a whole year without shopping? For clothes, that is, not food or toiilet paper or lightbulbs.
A whole year without buying a single piece of clothing. Think about it. Could you do it? Would you?
Rachelle at Magpie Girl is going to do precisely that: She is going to abstain from buying new clothing for herself for an entire year. What got her to this point? For starters, she's living in Copenhagen, where the cost of living is much higher than it is in the US and thrift stores are few and far between. But that's only part of the story.
...I went on a shopping spree this Summer in Seattle. Target, thrift stores, Old Navy. Now I was stocked on the basics. When I got back to CPH I was confronted by two American TV ads on Hulu. One for a designer discount store in which the spokeswoman said "Just because times are tight out there doesn't mean you should have to stop wearing designer labels!" The second was for Target and featured the new term "frugalistas" and designer Nina Garcia from Project Runaway. She encouraged an average- looking shopper to buy bright blue and pink jeans, because "This season denim is all about color."
WTF?! People are in foreclosure and designer labels are a priority? Soccer moms need to buy jeans they won't be caught dead in next year because "this season" demands a color we abandoned circa 1985?!
Look, beauty is a deep value of mine. I love self-expression, and I think clothing is one of the ways we differentiate ourselves to others. But this endless cycle of disposable clothing designed to last "this season" and be out the next, it is absolutely ridiculous. And as much as I adore Project Runway, I'm sorry sweetie but fashion, at least as part of consumer wheel of fortune, is not going to change the world.
A year without clothes, for Rachelle, is an opportunity to step away from the consumer madness (and no matter how much you love shopping or clothes or fashion in the abstract, it is hard to avoid feeling crushed by the constant stream of This Season's Must-Have Pieces). "I just want to see what it's like," Rachelle wrote, "to not be beholden to the trends of the 'season,' to get off the hamster wheel and just make-do."
Rachelle's post inspired a flurry of responses, both public and private. Eden Kennedy emailed me to say that she's thinking about trying this; among her reasons were these: "To find other ways to change my look than just buying new stuff. To challenge my creativity." Rachelle followed up her original post with a list of "*8 things to think about before going a year without clothes." Number five is Get Curious:
How will this help me be more aware of who I am internally and how I express that in my outward appearance? Am I a slave to fashion marketing or am I being my truest self? How deep is my resourcefulness and problem solving skills? How willing am I to learn a new skill? If I set limit, will my creativity expand?
Like Eden, Rachelle is interested in our shopping default; we're tired of our look (or our job or marriage or kids or life) so we recreate ourselves by shopping. Nothing wrong with that -- it's always interesting to challenge yourself to change -- but can change be affected without new clothes?
Of course.
Other women piped up that they are already doing this, already choosing not to follow trends and spend on clothes. Morra Aarons-Mele recently rethought her entire closet, and now feels like she's done shopping, for a while at least:
I just lost 65 lbs of baby weight. As a reward/necessity, I spent about $1000 on new clothes. I bought some gorgeous, multi-season pieces, not my usual TJ Maxx/run into the Gap special. I worked hard to edit my wardrobe and it took a couple months- after all those months of not buying clothes bc of baby weight, new baby, I really enjoyed planning out what I was going to buy, keep, donate. I made lists, cut out pages, and found an amazing boutique in Providence RI that I developed a relationship with. My sister came up and helped me weed out my entire wardrobe and edit it for color, cut, etc.
That said, I feel set now. I have no excuse to buy anything else. None. I want to see if my commitment to buying a "capsule" wardrobe, I think they call it, can last me a whole year.
I think it can.
But having all the right pieces is only one reason women don't shop. Some women, like Liz Henry, get dressed every day without elaborate shopping trips:
Anyone else here just wear what they have, and buy jeans at the thrift store or a cheap shop once in a while? I'd say once every 5 years or so I buy a nice suit jacket or shoes. Yearly underwear and socks. The occasional funny geeky tshirt online. A white button down shirt and a black one and three pairs of pants (more if I don't have a washing machine.)
I still get jobs, travel around the planet, go to people's weddings, and date people while dressing that way.
Finally, Leslie Madsen-Brooks offered this important reminder:
Since my pay has been frozen for two years and I'm taking a pay cut/furlough, I've already been doing this out of relative poverty because my income is now 14% below what it was supposed to be, and is on schedule to drop to 20% below within a year—if my job still exists.
Accordingly, over the last year I've learned it really is a privilege to be in a position to choose to shop or not shop. Remember that for millions of women (in this recession and beyond), not shopping for clothes is a necessity.
Which brings us back to Rachelle's Year Without Clothes and her refusal to participate in the culture of trends. Rachelle is challenging her readers to play along, in some way, during the next year. Not ready to give up shopping entirely? How about committing to one of these options, then?
What are *8Things you could do to make A Year Without Clothes work for you? Or alternatively, what are *8Things you could do to make the clothes you have go farther for you? Or *8Things that will help me spend less on clothing? Or *8Things To Do To Dress Like Your True Self.
Are you in? Could you give up shopping for one year? Or have you already? And if you're not ready to step away from the mall, what can you do to become your own personal stylist, and -- to borrow a phrase from Tim Gunn -- make it work?
Susan Wagner writes about fashion at The Working Closet and about chic suburban living at Friday Playdate. She is not giving up shopping, but she is going to to think more carefully about dressing like her true self.
When Conde Nast announced on Monday that it would ~ 30 ~ (or let's see, would that be ~ 86 ~?) Gourmet Magazine, 'The Magazine of Good Living' first published in 1941, food bloggers were among the first to mourn its passing. On Twitter, the word spread like melted butter; within a few minutes of the announcement, 'gourmet' was a trending topic. Even six days later, this morning a thoughtful piece from the Buffalo News is being TWed and RTed.
Ever since, sadness -- there's no other word -- has poured out as food bloggers mourn the magazine's passing.
"I am beyond devastated that this magazine will no longer be delivered to my home - it has always been considered one of my "main resources" for cuisine, cooking styles and methods, restaurant guides, and inspiration. I felt a lump in my throat as I read the news articles about the magazine's ending, trying to fight back tears - yes, the magazine was that important to me. I certainly hope that they do not take down their website at least!" ~ read more at Veggie Girl, Gratitude for Gourmet
"I feel like the world of food writing has been pillaged and robbed by this decision. We aren't just losing a magazine, we are saying goodbye to an old, reliable friend … a best friend. We are losing our grasp on elegant food writing, and replacing it with accessible, easy, fast … how sad." ~ read more from Sarah Caron at Sarah's Cucina Bella, Goodbye, Gourmet
The Kitchen Sink Recipes ~ Bucatini Carbonara "Inspired by this Gourmet (sniff) recipe."
Is Conde Nast surprised at the reaction? "Please be advised that Gourmet magazine will cease publication after the November issue," reads the stark notice on Gourmet.com. Did Conde Nast think, you know, that we wouldn't notice?
In contrast, Ruth Reichl, Gourmet's editor since 1999 (and former New York Times restaurant critic, author and winner of four James Beard awards), who learned the news herself only the morning of the announcement, expresses herself warmly and openly. Two days after the news, she wrote on Twitter: "At Newark airport. Stopped to buy sandwich (no time to eat today), and the woman behind the counter said, 'I'm so sorry; this one's on me.'"
Other bloggers, especially those whose blogs are but one dimension in their writing careers, became thoughtfully assessed Gourmet's place in the food world.
"So what does the food world lose with the closing of Gourmet? I hesitate to use the word 'institution' here, but that's what it does feel like to some extent. but really, what it comes down to is this: If Saveur makes me want to explore the exotic, and Gastronomica makes me approach food with an intellectual perspective, Gourmet made me comfortable. It wasn't always engaging (although it could be) and it wasn't always exciting (but again, it could be). What it was was dependable. Challenging without being overly so, an issue of Gourmet could cover several topics without seeming either patronizing or trend-setting. At times, it was what I wished the food world could be." ~ read more from Kate Hopkins at Accidental Hedonist, The Loss of Gourmet Magazine
"Back in the day I thought Gourmet was about exactly that: food snobs and recipes that can't be made without importing ostrich eggs from Africa. Only after getting hooked on the website (and not having to leaf through all those awful advertisements that seem to clutter up 90% of magazines theses days) did I see what Gourmet was really about: living frugally. Treating animals and farmers well. Eating locally. Bringing the impact of eating (political, social, and environmental) to an audience that usually doesn't like to think about the results of their actions. " ~ read more at MadSilence, RIP: Gourmet Magazine
"It seems that most of [Gourmet's] critics stopped reading Gourmet in the 1980s. Or they ignored the 90% of magazine that doesn't have to do France or fine dinnerware. What's so "elitist" about street food in Thailand or a mom-and-pop Chinese barbecue stand? Or a first-person account, not just some fluffy service piece, about living frugally? Or for that matter, in-depth coverage of sustainable food issues? If elitism is defined by reaching beyond the scope of soccer moms and trend-seekers or calling olive oil by its rightful name, then I must be elitist too." ~ read more from the ever-thoughtful and -eloquent Diana Kuan at Appetite for ChinaGourmet 1941 - 2009 - "Elitist", Intelligent, Loved
"The New York Times ... noted that now-prominent chefs and food writers were weaned on the pages and recipes of Gourmet and how it provided a 'home for literate, thoughtful food writing. Its stable of contributors included James Beard, Laurie Colwin, and M.F.K. Fisher…' It even quoted Alice Waters saying that a 'review in Gourmet used to mean everything. "Yes, you could be in The New York Times, but that was sort of fleeting. Gourmet was just a bigger cultural picture."'" ~ read more from The Jew & The Carrot, The Demise of Gourmet Magazine, a Cultural Icon
"Why Gourmet? Because after just one or two issues, it felt like a kitchen I knew my way around in, while Bon Appetit always felt like a restaurant I couldn't afford or just plain didn't like. I skipped the froofy travel stuff about Michelin stars and went straight for my favorite sections, "You Asked For It," "Quick Kitchen" (now "Gourmet Every Day") and "The Last Touch." I didn't know a goddamn thing about food, but Gourmet never talked down to me. Gourmet didn't care that I'd never tried foie gras (still haven't); Gourmet said it was okay to make easy-awesome beer-battered fish tacos instead. And easy-awesome orzo with pine nuts and feta. And easy-awesome ribeye steak in a balsamic reduction. And the the decidedly un-easy but definitely awesome, best effing mac and cheese in the world." ~ read more from Beth Boyle Machlan at The Faster Times, Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living Is Dead
Food blogger Rebekah Denn never thought she'd wrote Gourmet's obituary.
"Gourmet is survived by Bon Appétit, another Conde Nast title, which we like but which really isn't the same. It is also survived by Reichl, who we think of as its mom, by media food editor Zanne Stewart and its other amazingly knowledgeable employees, and by legions of wonderful writers and loyal fans. There is no specified charity for donations, but perhaps contributions could be made by cooking one favorite dish from its archives and raising a glass in thanks for the years of inspiration." ~ read more at Al Dente, The Sad, Sudden Death of Gourmet Magazine
And what's next, what comes AFTER Gourmet?
"I would suggest that the next wave in food publishing isn't necessarily just blogging–or at least, it's something that includes blogs but is much larger. This is Web 2.0, folks, the era of social media. ... The thrilling but also terrifying aspect of this new stage of food journalism is that we are all editors. Ideally, consensus builds, great minds do think alike, and the cream rises to the top. Worst case scenario, novel but inane ideas go viral just for the fun of it, and we are the poorer for it. ... Bear in mind, none of this is a replacement for Gourmet… exactly. Nothing will replace Gourmet or the other food glossies that fall because that is a model that no longer works in this media climate. The part of this that worries me the most is the kind of in-depth reporting that print media has traditionally been able to fund. It's the same problem we face as more and more newspapers fold. Who will pay for the time food journalists spend doing research and polishing their writing? If this new medium is passion driven, is passion enough to ensure quality when unpaid foodists are working in their spare time, after the day job? Who is paying for this writing now?" ~ read more from Adriana Velez at Farm to Table, So Gourmet Is Closing, What Will Rise From Its Ashes?
What can we do, can Gourmet Magazine be saved?
Blogger Kylie Sachs, who calls herself an 'aspiring cook' though isn't a food blogger, grabbed the Twitter handle @SaveGourmet. She wrote:
"Condé Nast and friends, dare to be different and RAISE standards, SET a tone, LEAD a market not just follow every Tom, Dick and Rachael*." ~ read more from Kylie at Chapter XVII, Good Living, One Meal at a Time
Food blogger Julie O'Hara is hosting a food blog event and invites bloggers to 'celebrate' Gourmet by cooking a recipe from Gourmet magazine and posting it by October 15th, Get more information at A Mingling of Tastes, Blog Event: Let's Celebrate Gourmet.
And you? And you, will Gourmet be missed? Leave a thought, a link to a favorite recipe from Gourmet, or what you're doing to support other food magazines, you know where, in the comments!
BlogHer food editor Alanna Kellogg remembers distinctly how her first issue of Gourmet in 1987 rocked her food sensibility, creating the early inklings of the 'fresh seasonal recipes for everyday healthful living and occasional indulgences' she now collects at Kitchen Parade, the food column her mom started in 1959.
This is a post in honor of breast cancer survivors. They are women sharing their stories of hope, struggle, determination, and survival. Some are in words and some are in video.
In October of 2006 I returned to the classroom following a six month leave for breast cancer treatments. My first day back to work presented many obstacles. One, I wasn't ready to go back. Two, I needed to decide what type of fashion statement I intended to make with my fuzzy bald head. Three, I had to figure out how much I should share with the students about my illness. Four, it was the middle of the second quarter and I didn't even know my students. Five, I wasn't ready to go back to work. I'm sorry? Oh, I already listed that? Too bad. Let's just make I WASN'T READY TO GO BACK TO WORK numbers five through ten.
My name is Nicole and I'm a hoopy frood who really knows where her towel's at. I'm also a thirtyish (I'm refusing to use the phrase "thirtysomething". It's so 80s. I'm sure it's copyrighted somewhere anyway.) SAHM and non-practicing musician/teacher who has become a knitting/crocheting fiber addict. I have been married to my wonderful DH for 8 years (yes we got married in 2000 JUST so it was easy to count.) I was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer in January of 2008 and am now in the middle of reconstruction.
I wore wigs and hats and scarves. And my hair did grow back. Even though at the beginning it was really curly and short, and my husband V. said I looked like George Clooney. I could live with that. I like George Clooney. And having my hair look like George Clooney's hair meant a good hair day. Because ever since I was bald, every day is a good hair day. A great hair day. And I am lucky enough to have had continuously great hair days for the past 13 years. And now whether it's age-inappropriate or not, there's a reason my hair is almost as long as it was 13 years ago. Because someday in the future I am going to sit in a chair in a hair salon and have a stylist cut it off again. Only this time I won't be making a wig for me. I'll be donating my hair to Locks of Love to make a wig for someone else . And I have a feeling that is going to be the best hair day I've ever had.
Ironically, Danny first refused to nurse on my right breast in October 2005-- my first sign of cancer. It's appropriate that I ended my breast cancer treatments nearly three years ago during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It took me only five weeks to realize that something was wrong with my body. The last normal weeks of my life. It took another four weeks for a breast exam, mammogram, ultrasound, surgical appointments, fine needle aspiration and finally, a core needle biopsy, before my diagnosis on December 22. Merry Christmas. Nine weeks. And life is never the same again. Nine. Short. Weeks. And every month since has been Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
I found a lump on my left breast on April 11, 2003. I had just turned 35. I wasn't sure if the lump had to do with my menstrual cycle because it was that time, so I waited a week to get through the cycle and then decided to go and have it checked. I decided to have the biopsy. It was a good thing I did because on May 19, 2003, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember getting off the phone and immediately calling my husband, but he did not answer his cell phone at the time so the next person I called was my mother. I told her I had received the results of the biopsy and then when I started to say that it was cancer, I found myself without a voice. It was hard to breathe. I started crying and finally got the words out. I spoke with my mom for awhile and then called my husband. I found myself in the same situation when I told him—no voice, no breath, bursting into tears. After getting off the phone with him, I remember sitting on the couch, crying, and praying. I took a deep breath and said to God, "Okay, I have this cancer now. What do I need to do with this?" That was the last time I cried for a long time about it.
I want to live my life so that I leave a legacy that lives beyond me. I want to make a positive difference and help heal the world. And it's so strange not knowing whether I'll live months or years, or decades. It's like I straddle two worlds – one that is the normal like everyone else and one that requires an urgency to get everything that I want to do in my life before it's over. There is a difference in how even the breast cancer community interacts with those who have advanced breast cancer. They call it terminal and incurable and sort of write us off. I think many of them are scared. What we want the world to know is that we are still the feisty women we've always been and we are LIVING with breast cancer. Breast Cancer is not glamorous or pretty or PINK, and not everyone has just a 'speedbump' in life. For some of us, it becomes our lives. How do we LIVE with cancer until they find a cure? LET'S FIND A CURE ALREADY!
In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, FitSugar pays tribute to some of the celebrities who fought their breast cancer in a very public way. We applaud the courage of these women and the efforts they have made in speaking out for the cause.
Now that I live in Pennsylvania, I have to find new oncologists, of course. Recently, I spent a stunning amount of time on the phone getting registered with the docs at the University of Pennsylvania. The doctors there in the breast cancer center are named "top docs" in a number of places, and they're known for their cutting-edge research. I feel confident that I'll be in good hands.
We are twenty mothers with cancer. Each of us has a different cancer type, stage, and/or prognosis. Each of us has children, from babies to teenagers, and each of them has their own unique reaction to the cancer and the ensuing changes in our lives. We are very different, but we agree on one thing: this experience needs to be talked about, to be brought out of the shadows, and the whole family supported when one member is diagnosed with a serious illness like cancer. Our experience may not be your experience. However, it is experience, and we're here to share one very important message: you are not alone. We invite you to come along on our journeys, share our stories, and help others who are even more newly diagnosed than you or your family.
Blaire Kessler: Offering Natural Beauty -- "When you are battling cancer, your self-image sometimes takes a hit," says Blaire Kessler, breast cancer survivor and founder of Pristine Beauty, a line of all-natural cosmetics. Hers sure did, especially since she was working in the modeling industry, which relies so much on looks during the time she was diagnosed. "My double mastectomy left scars on my skin and my hair was very dried out and damaged from the treatment I was receiving."
At age 31, breast cancer was the last thing newlywed Molly Fritch thought about. She regularly administered breast self-examinations, but didn't realize this simple act would save her life. Fritch, professional counselor for the OU Cancer Institute and co-founder of a breast cancer survivor group called SHOUT, was diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer after completing graduate school nearly three years ago. "My life changed in seconds and I feel like now it's my mission to tell women about this," Fritch told an audience of women Tuesday in the Oklahoma Memorial Union's Governors Room. "If you feel anything, you need to get it checked out. I stand here today and there is no detectable cancer in my body."
The following is a personal interview between local breast cancer survivor, Audra Smith-Odum, and Melodie Willis, one of her best friends. Audra: I will never forget the rush of emotions that I experienced after being told that I had a very aggressive form of breast cancer. I was scared, shocked, numb, and in total disbelief of my diagnosis. I looked at my husband, Corky, and my two beautiful children, Harlie and Cole, and made the decision right then that I was going to beat this. There is no way that I will let a lump in my breast take me away from this wonderful family.
As you may well know, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I can't urge you enough to CHECK YOURSELF and/or get checked by a physician REGULARLY. But then you already know that right? In celebration of the month and in honor of my favorite breast cancer survivor, my mom, I'm reposting her story.
I am a Red-Head (to know one, is to love one), Zionist (last of a dying breed), Idealist (can't help it, I still want to change the world), Enthusiastic People Person (love to meet you!), Mom (my kids are EVERYTHING to me), Wife (married to my best friend), and Cancer Survivor (read on!).
I'm a 30 year old mom of 2 young children, Chance is 3 years old and Sinclaire is 2 years. I was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer in April 2009. This blog was started a few days after diagnosis, see my older posts to see how my cancer journey began. I'm married to Ken, 38, who is handling the new cancer diagnosis well, and is being as supportive as he can be. Noone in his family, not even his parents who are still around and in their 60's have battled cancer, yet here is his 30 year old wife going through it. That has to be confusing and tough for him, I think it hit him harder than it did me actually. But he's doing great and so am I:)
I am the mother of two beautiful boys who are a source of endless joy and amusement, as well as being quite different from each other. Great blog fodder. My spouse T. and I have been together for 16 years. I adore him. I am fortunate to have wonderful friends and family and a pretty good life. I am also in remission (but still in treatment) with breast cancer that has spread to my liver. I plan on defying the odds for a long time to come.
Here are some videos from breast cancer survivors...
Most of us know very little about Muslims, with the exception of the limited (and often alarming) views we get from the media. Let's go a little deeper, learn some facts, and hear from some Muslim women bloggers.
Here are some interesting facts taken from the Pew report:
1. More than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia 2. About 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa 3. More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. 4. India has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. 5. China has more Muslims than Syria. 6. Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined. 7. Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. 8. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
By the way, the Sunnis and Shia Muslims divided after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 over a difference of opinion about how his successor should be chosen to lead the community -- whether it was by bloodline connected to the Prophet (Shiites) or by a man chosen for his qualities (Sunni). (Each group has its fundamentalist extremists, just as in Christianity and Judaism.)
Sufism arose in the 8th and 9th century as the mystical branch of Islam, known to many Westerners by its chief poet, Rumi. Here is one of his poems:
Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end. Imagine, a suspended ocean, riding on a cushion of ancient secrets. All souls have drowned in it, and now dwell there. One drop of that ocean is hope, and the rest is fear.
Now, to answer the question posed in the title of this post -- the study says:
A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
One in every four people worldwide is Muslim. (By contrast, Christians are one in every three people.) France and Germany have approximately 6% and 5% of their population identifying as Muslim. Each has about twice as many Muslims as the US. We have less than 1% of our population as Muslim.
The size alone of the Muslim world means that we need to understand it more fully, in order to build bridges, and to build dialog. Yet, the average person in America can tell you very little about Muslim belief.
We all need to be able to learn how to speak with each other, how to find a common language that heals this earth instead of destroying it with fear and hatred.
Muhammad was born in A.D. 570 at Mecca and belonged to the Quraysh tribe, which was active in the caravan trade. At the age of 25 he joined the trade from Mecca to Syria in the employment of a rich widow, Khadija, whom he later married. Critical of the lax moral standards and polytheistic practices of the inhabitants of Mecca, he began to lead a contemplative life in the desert. In a dramatic religious vision, the angel Gabriel announced to Muhammad that he was to be a prophet. Encouraged by Khadija, he devoted himself to the reform of religion and society. Polytheism was to be abandoned. But leaders of the Quraysh generally rejected his teaching, and Muhammad gained only a small following and suffered persecution. He eventually fled Mecca.
The Hegira (Hijra, meaning "emigration") of Muhammad from Mecca, where he was not honored, to Medina, where he was well received, occurred in 622 and marks the beginning of the Muslim era. After a number of military conflicts with Mecca, in 630 he marched on Mecca and conquered it. Muhammad died at Medina in 632. His grave there has since been a place of pilgrimage.
Muhammad's followers, called Muslims, revered him as the prophet of Allah (God), the only God. Muslims consider Muhammad to be the last in the line of prophets that included Abraham and Jesus. Islam spread quickly, stretching from Spain in the west to India in the east within a century after the prophet's death. Sources of the Islamic faith are the Qur'an (Koran), regarded as the uncreated, eternal Word of God, and tradition (hadith) regarding sayings and deeds of the prophet.
Let's check in with some bloggers. Many blogs by Muslim women are written in a variety of other languages. Here are a few written in English.
------------------
Muslima has a lot to teach us. This link takes us to her section called "News" but she is also a crafter and her clothing section features many of her hand-knit items that go with her traditional dress.
Cwzy Muslima is a Pakistani American woman who wishes that the place of women within the Mosque was different. She imagines:
I imagine an event where the men sit in the women's room and the women sit in the men's room. An event where women may go to the mosque and worship in huge halls while men are crowded together into back rooms. An event where women can sit and read Quran or make dhikr in peace while men contend with hyperactive children and screaming babies.
Ginny speaks about an Egyptian cleric's attempt to ban all full veils.
So if you want to argue from an Islamic basis why niqab isn't necessary, that's one thing, but to argue for a ban of it, because in today's climate it just so happens to be a symbol, to some, of "extremism", is just wrong, again, IMHO. Islamic concepts should be argued from an Islamic point of view, not argued based on the whims and caprices of the "modern" world or what non-Muslims think of our practices and customs. Because where will it end? The day that a scholar from Al-Azhar tells the Muslims that we don't have to pray if our employer bans prayer in the workplace?
Our worlds may seem eons apart, and in fact in many cases they are. But we will only widen the gap unless both groups, Muslims and non-Muslims, work to understand the passions and hopes of the other.
What Muslim blogs do you read regularly? What blogs can you recommend? And to our Muslima BlogHers - What internet sites would you point people to who wanted to learn more about Islam?
Mata H is a CE for Religion and Spirituality. Her blog is Time's Fool and she'd like to hear some advice about how to best get a Muslim/non-Muslim dialog started.
Hello, I Like your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation. Wish you best of luck for all your best efforts. You can also check health benefits of dhanurasana
1 comments:
Hello, I Like your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation. Wish you best of luck for all your best efforts. You can also check health benefits of dhanurasana
Post a Comment