Category Archives: All blog posts

Change of Venue

If the daily humdrum of your life is starting to get to you, may I recommend a change of venue? I’ve had the good fortune to spend the last several days in Miami while my husband attends a conference for work. Tagging along has given me the chance to work in very different surroundings (that picture is today’s!) and it’s been positively inspiring. I’ve had bigger ideas than usual and more of them…and it’s no coincidence. You don’t have to go to the beach to accomplish this (though it doesn’t hurt!); you may have glorious spaces right under your nose that you’ve overlooked. All you need to gain some freedom is to consciously take yourself off autopilot and open your eyes!

The beauty of living and working in 2012 is that you can do it anywhere. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that we can take advantage of that freedom and flexibility to make our work lives even better. And if your work life involves scheduling your children’s camps and making grocery lists and planning home improvements, it’s still your work. There’s no rule that you need to be chained to a desk to do it.

Need some inspiration? Try one of these…

1- Poolside, even at your neighborhood pool! Go early before the crowd arrives and catch few hours of inspired work time

2- A table at your favorite cafe

3 – A different room in your own house – you’d be surprised by how different things look just from a new seat!

4 – A well-kept, fragrant garden with a wrought iron table

5- A corner table in a new coffeeshop in a different part of town

6 –  A picnic table at the park

7 -The lobby of a swanky hotel

8 – The beach or anyplace with a water view (river, lake, pond?)

9 – Your own backyard deck or patio or screened-in porch

10 – The library

It’s summer, and the last thing you should feel is trapped or bored. So, order up a change of venue and enjoy the creativity that flows as you enter that new space. Where will you go today???

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Healthier Classic Chicken Salad

My husband teases me that I think the epitome of a summer lunch is chicken salad in a tomato cup served al fresco. This started when we took one of our first road trips to Savannah, GA and I ordered exactly that at an outdoor cafe on a perfect summer’s day. These days I’m hesitant to order chicken salad since it’s usually loaded with high fat mayonnaise (and rarely made with organic chicken).

This recipe solves the problem beautifully. Poached chicken (organic if you can!) is shredded and mixed with light mayo and just a teaspoon of olive oil for richness. You can certainly serve this as a sandwich, but if you’re looking to recreate buy Savannah lunch, get some fresh tomatoes, split them into quarters, leaving the very bottoms intact so they open like flower petals, and add a scoop of this salad to the middle. Place that on some butter lettuce leaves. Add a tall glass of iced tea or a chilled glass of rose and you have the perfect summer lunch indeed…

 

Healthier Classic Chicken Salad

adapted from The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook

serves

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

salt and pepper

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/3 cup light mayonnaise (Hellmann’s is the best)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

2 ribs celery finely chopped (optional – I’m not a fan of celery in my chicken salad)

2 scallions, minced

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or tarragon

Directions:

1. Pat the chicken breasts dry and season lightly with salt and pepper. Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet and the canola oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook on one side until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Turn chicken over and add 2/3 cup of water. Cover and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer another 6-8 minutes longer until cooked through. Remove from skillet and let cool slightly. Shred or chop as desired. (This can be done ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.) A great tip I just learned is to run the slightly cooled chicken through your stand mixer with the beater attachment (e.g. Kitchen Aid) – it shreds the chicken for you perfectly!

2. In a large bowl whisk the mayonnaise, lemon juice, olive oil, celery seed, and 1/4 teaspoon each, salt & pepper, until smooth.

3. Stir in the chicken, celery, scallions, and parsley or tarragon until well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste and let sit at least 15 minutes until the flavors have blended.

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Grace and Humility

I took a great yoga class night that got me thinking about the mind-body connection in a whole new way. The instructor (Heidi for those of you keeping track) kept asking us:

“What would it look like in your body if you fully opened yourself to grace and humility?”

That’s a pretty good question when you’re twisted into a pretzel and trying to keep your balance! But when I let my BODY answer it instead of my mind, I found the pose went a little farther, the stretch was a little deeper, the exhilaration was even greater.

Being open to grace makes me roll my shoulders back, makes me lift my face skyward, makes me breathe more fully. It is an expression of confidence –  that I’ll be taken care of, that everything I need is already there or will be provided. Being open to grace says “Here I am” and “I can do this” and “Bring it on.”

Conversely, being open to humility gets my ego out of the way; it makes me bow more deeply, makes me curl into myself, allows me to surrender. It’s an expression of gratitude – a reminder that I didn’t really earn any of the blessings I have – that each and every good thing – my health, my family, my career, even my productive morning or shiny new belonging – are gifts bestowed upon me that could just have easily gone to someone else. Being open to humility whispers “thank you” and  “i am grateful” and “i am blessed, blessed, so very very blessed.”

Holding those two thoughts in my head simultaneously, let alone getting my BODY to express BOTH of them is daunting! How do you express both seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time?

I think the answer lies in this amazing quote by Glennon Melton of Momastery. (If you’d like to read her whole post, it’s here.)

“Be confident because you are  a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is, too.”

Brilliant, right? I love the idea of having both confidence that grace will be extended to me and humility because that doesn’t make me more special than anyone else. If I had to express both of those things simultaneously in my body I would be balanced. I’d be firmly grounded yet uplifted. When a yoga instructor says “Ground down, reach out” this is what I imagine she means. Grounded in humility, uplifted by grace. And believe it or not, it’s one of the most natural and effortless yoga poses to hold. Imagine that.

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