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2020 Valentines 💜

My new friend (and total kindred spirit) recently wrote one of my favorite blog posts about a home/interior “design”. She has a way of sharing the “imperfect” things in a way that makes them so beautiful/makes people think more deeply about what real beauty is! So often it in the world of interior design all things “imperfect” are dismissed as needing repair/needing renovation or put on some to-do list/thought about in a future-oriented way. I think it’s so important to find beauty in what is already there! To do lists can be helpful and there’s definitely a creative side to interior design projects that can be fun but it just makes me sad when there is this hyper focus on the future; of how “tomorrow” or next month or 5 years from now will somehow be better! Because tomorrow is not a guarantee and right NOW is pretty great and truly all we really have. We have lived in rental houses for many years and living in a rental house compels you to appreciate things for what they are because tearing up the linoleum or the blue carpet is not really an option. Instead just finding the beauty in things has always been such a great lesson for me! I also see this idea relating well to many other aspects of life. So many women (and also men too!) I see as patients struggle with their body image; and improving body image is not about changing one’s physical body, it’s about beginning to love and appreciate the body one is already in! It’s really hard to treat things (or oneself!) kindly if you don’t first love and appreciate yourself (or things) as they are! Or with uncomfortable feelings; rather than sit with sadness or frustration people do all sorts of things to try and run away from simply just feeling them! “Be present” and “in the moment” are oft used phrases and I think just so important to all aspects of life!

Teal countertops make for fun backgrounds! And do countertops really matter at all in the grand scheme of things? Methinks not! Often kids have a very simple way of showing us what matters most of all:

So sweet!! We had a LOVEly Valentine’s Day. I had cupping done at work with heart shaped cups and we had a very fun time taking pics of the process and then of course sharing them on social media! I took this shot of someone else having cupping done:

I am really enjoying learning about traditional Chinese medicine (and majorly brushing up on my anatomy with the chiros and PTs too!) and finding many overlaps between TCM and things I’ve learned in functional medicine settings but also just the things I learned in the garden!!! Herbs and plants and seasonal patterns/foods; it’s nice to put new names to things I always found to be so important to health but didn’t always have a way to explain them!

Also on Valentine’s Day a friend and I braved the blustery freezing day and GALlivanted around Portland capturing a little bit of the work of the Valentines Bandit (a tradition since 1976!) I wrote a little about it last year and it was fun to see it in person/take in a little of Portland’s sights this year:

Then in the evening we had a bunch of teenagers over which is becoming a fun regular thing (strange how I still consider my oldest who is 14 to be about 5 years old lol). So all in all it was a day filled with lots of love in many forms!!

Here are some other pics from earlier in feb:

Oh! And a few valentines we made this year:

Thanks for visiting and much love to you all!

January 2020; Happy New Year!

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Hello and Happy 2020! I skipped over a “Best of 2019” post but will recap and say it was a wonderful year; I think the very best yet for many, many reasons. And 2020 is off to a great start; all these pictures were from our galavanting around Maine and also a few from a weekend in Vermont visiting family.

I think at the start of this new decade I am feeling extra nostalgic for the happy/special things of the past/that have led up to all the wonderful things of the present, and in the context of this blog world/onlinedom I found myself wondering what happened to Fran, aka narf77. She was a longtime commenter and garden blogger and we fell out of touch and with the terrible fires down under (including where she lives in Tasmania) I am hoping her and “Stevie-boy” and her dogs, chickens, garden are ok. Probably (hopefully) she is just digital detoxing and immersed in real life/elbow deep in the dirt but if any one out there in blog-world knows where to reach her please post in the comments! I was thinking about her because over the past year I really got out of my comfort zone and connected more with people via social media. It seemed super important to do; so that I understand the whole social media thing in the context of healthcare (and I wrote a few posts about that last year: e.g. Healthcare for Generation Z.) But aside from it being educational, I also ended up connecting with so many kindred spirits and special people many of who I’ve connected with in real life. And so I sent people many long-winded messages, commented, “liked” and “shared” and I remembered how good it made me feel when Fran would comment on my long-winded posts about deer fences and squash bugs and life. People who make me feel really warm and fuzzy; those are the people I’m striving to be more like (and to connect with!)

I heard on the radio the results of some survey that said the average person hasn’t made a new friend in 5+ years and vowed to never be like that (at one point in the past I used to joke I had a “no friendship policy” I thought I was “too busy”/satisfied enough with my own family and a couple close friends and also didn’t want to get my feelings hurt/didn’t see the incredible value of really connecting with others. As it turns out there’s always room for new friends and there are tons of kind, warm and nonjudgmental people out there! Though you definitely have to “put yourself out there” and also make sure you let people know you’re not selling anything lol as a lot of social media is people making connections with the ultimate goal of selling something. Which I realized that was kinda what I was doing when I first joined Instagram via my practice; I thought I was trying to “network” to promote myself but quickly realized no I didn’t want to sell anything I just wanted to share love/health info and make some friends! And in making new friends I also more deeply appreciate old friends; including all of you who have followed along with this site for the past 7 years!! So thank you sincerely for reading/following along and I hope this decade is off to a great start for you!!! Much love to you!!!