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  • Into Thin Air

    Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

     

     

    Wow.

    I guess I haven’t been doing the lightest of reading over the past few days, but this book definitely has me thinking.

    Into Thin Air is a personal account from a man who climbed Mount Everest as part of a commercial climb in 1996. The climb ended in tragedy, with the mountain claiming the lives of many of the members of the teams. The author, Jon Krakauer, attempts to tell his recollection of the events, keeping in mind that everyone lacks clarity when you are at that altitude and your mind and body are deprived of oxygen. He discovers along the way that he misjudged and misremembered events that happened on the mountain, and the story has a huge element of surprise when he learns where he made mistakes.

    It seems wrong to say that I “enjoyed” this book, since it is about such a tragic subject. I guess the best thing that I can think to say is that this book was fascinating. Before I picked it up, I knew very little about climbing Everest. I had no idea that an attempt to reach the summit included going up and down portions of the mountain several times, and over a period of 4 weeks. I assumed that it was more like climbing a less-imposing mountain, where you are always camping higher until you reach the summit. I didn’t know that it was much more of a two-steps-forward/two-steps-back endeavor.

    I also didn’t realize that helicopter evacuations are not possible anywhere near the top of the mountain, so your options for getting the injured down from the summit are very limited. I guess I had never considered all of the physical limitations that come with that kind of altitude. Supplemental oxygen is a necessity for survival over more than a day or so, and all oxygen must be carried up. That means that if something goes wrong, there isn’t an abundance of time for action.

    I would highly recommend this book, even though the subject is so sad. There are still great stories of survival and human strength contained in it. It really underscores the fact that tragedy can happen to even the best climbers. Nature is just such a powerful force.

  • Mothers and Other Liars

    Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret

    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    Mothers and Other Liars is the story of a teenager who finds an infant and decides to raise her as her own. Almost 10 years later, she reads an article in a magazine and finds out that the baby’s parents are searching for their infant who was kidnapped by carjackers. From that point on, the story unfolds in the midst of the ethical dilemmas of whether or not to turn to the legal system, parental rights, and how to cope when time with your children has been lost.

    Like many of the other reviewers on goodreads, I’m unsure of how to rate this book. Yes, the story is unrealistic and too “neat”, but it also stirred a lot of emotion in me. I cried as I read. I didn’t want to put it down. On the other hand, I also found myself incredibly frustrated with the characters…often annoyed at their selfishness.

    I think this would be a good book for a book club, because there are a lot of opportunities for ethical discussions that would be interesting to hash out.
    View all my reviews

  • The Family Dinner

    People say they don’t have time to cook, yet in the last few years we have found an extra two hours a day for the internet. — Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

    There is nothing like a crisis to remind you of what is important in life.

    Over the past few months, as my family has adjusted to our current, leukemia-battling life, I’ve come to appreciate just how important family dinners are for all of us. When my mom was released from the hospital after her induction therapy, I realized that cooking big dinners for my parents and my family was healing for me. I’ve always loved food, and I show love with healthy, yummy food, so it just felt “right”.

    Not surprisingly, as times of higher-stress have come… times when I’ve been at the hospital for large chunks of time (including dinner time), we’ve eaten out more. Not only have our bodies screamed that they don’t appreciate crappy food, but so have our spirits. It just isn’t the same.

    So, it isn’t a shock that I was instantly drawn to The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time by Laurie David. Part book and part cookbook, it is a nice reminder of why I value family meals so much.

    The encouragement, recipes, and ideas for family rituals are really beautiful. I love the place setting, conversation starters, table games and music ideas. Each recipe includes a list of prep/cooking items that kids can do. Are these things necessary for a great family meal? Absolutely not. They are fun, though 🙂

    Some parts of our family meals have been harder to keep up during this high-stress time, and one of those was our Shabbat meal with homemade challah bread. It is something that my kids love — the fresh bread, lighting candles, giving thanks… I smiled when I saw Shabbat meals mentioned in the first chapter and again later in the book, and realized that I’ve really missed those Friday night meals. I’m re-instituting them, effective immediately 😉

    …I think Shabbat is a perfect concept for any family, regardless of religion. It’s just too great an idea not to do your own version: a special night once a week where everyone knows they will sit leisurely around the table, take stock of the week’s highs and lows, and savor family, food, and friends… — The Family Dinner pg. 199

    On top of everything else: This book is just beautiful. The quotes and photography are lovely, and it is a joy to read. I can see how it’d be an encouragement for both those who already practice a family dinner or for those who want to start one.

    (For the record, I didn’t get a free copy or any compensation. I had to check the book out at the library ;))

  • Starbucked

    I am not sure what led me to pick up Starbucked, but I am glad that I did. I’ve certainly had my fair share of frappuccinos over the years, but I am hardly a Starbucks loyalist. As far as coffee chains go, I actually really prefer Caribou Coffee, which, thanks to this book, I now know is owned by an Islamic group that requires them to follow portions of Shari’ah Law. I had no idea…

    But, back to Starbucks:

    Clark starts out by discussing the draw of Starbucks. I hadn’t considered it before, but this section spurred a lot of thought in my mind and amongst me and my friends. Starbucks is marketed as a way to indulge yourself and it is an inexpensive way to have something that seems luxurious. For only a few dollars, you can feel like you are pampering yourself. The marketing is brilliant, and the demand for their product is seemingly endless.

    Clark also discusses the placement of Starbucks stores. Years ago, Starbucks executives realized that they could put in a store directly across the street from another store, and it would draw an almost completely different crowd. The Starbucks real estate team is top-notch, and they evaluate not just neighborhood education levels, number of children, and where traffic flows, but also the number of times a person visits a shopping center (dry cleaners and video stores are great neighbors for Starbucks, because you have to go back a second time to drop off or pick up items) or even the number of oil stains in a parking lot. Starbucks is perfectly happy to offer large sums of money to landlords in order to oust competitive coffee stores. They will even leave a retail space empty, just to keep it from being occupied by a competitor.

    On the other hand, Starbucks has created an industry where one didn’t exist before, and this has greatly benefited local coffee shops. Even though Caribou, the next biggest competitor to Starbucks, has only about 1/4 the number of stores, smaller coffee shops have a very good success rate. The success is far better than that of independently owned restaurants. Also, independent shops tend to do very well when they are located near a Starbucks. It seems that people get hooked on Starbucks drinks (which are mostly milk — they contain just a few cents worth of coffee) and then they venture out and try local places.

    This book is filled with these kind of dichotomies. Clark discusses the start of Starbucks (did you know that one of the founders of Starbucks bought Peet’s coffee, which was their initial inspiration, and sold Starbucks?), the coffee bean industry, the fair-trade debate, the way that Starbucks treats its employees, the way that Starbucks kills culture when it invades a new country, the fact that Starbucks basically sells milk, the fact that the espresso at Starbucks is no longer made by the baristas, but by machines, and so much more. It all goes back to what I said above… Starbucks is a big corporate monster, and yet Starbucks has helped a lot of people too. It isn’t black-and-white, and that is precisely why I liked this book. It would’ve been easy to take one side or the other (read Pour Your Heart Into It, the book written by the long-time CEO of Starbucks if you’re looking for a one-sided view.)

    I don’t plan on frequenting Starbucks. I will continue to support the local coffee shops and the smaller chains, but I can appreciate the way that Starbucks has changed our world, both for good and for bad. This book was a fairly entertaining read, and I will never look at the coffee industry in the same way!

  • Gut bacteria and being “10 percent human”

    E. Coli – Photo credit: balder2111

    I just finished reading this article on NPR about gut bacteria, and I thought it was worth sharing. I find it reassuring that our particular kinds of bacteria are attracted to us and will find us even after they’ve been killed off. I shared a similar story a year or two ago, but back then I didn’t realize just how important bacteria would become in my life.

    Gut bacteria has been on my mind a lot because of my mom. As I mentioned in my last post, my mom was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year, and one of the big side effects of chemo and bone marrow transplant is that they have to do everything that they can to destroy your immune system. Your good bacteria is wiped out during that process, thanks to the mega-doses of antibiotics that are given to protect you while you are immune compromised from the chemo and transplant.

    As a double-whammy, my mom is also unable to eat fermented and raw foods — including even many raw fruit/veggies — while she is in treatment. So, your good gut colonies are killed and you have no way to replenish them. Gut bacteria are so important for fighting infection (which is the number 1 cause of death during treatment), and yet they have to destroy them to keep the cancer away. It sucks!

    Thinking that her good bacteria will find her and replenish is nice. It is scary to think of what we would do without our good bacteria. As the article says,

    Right now, in your mouth, in your gut, on your skin, you are carrying about 10 times more bacteria cells than human cells. If you swallow antibiotics and kill a lot of them, a few weeks later, the same bacteria come bounding back. They’re staying.

    “We are, in essence, only 10 percent human,” Dr. Roy Sleator, lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, told The Daily Telegraph. “The rest is pure microbe.”

    On a side note:

    As my mom has gone through her treatment, the stress (and eating out, due to not being home nearly as much) has led me into a nasty cycle of inflammation (plus antibiotics) and has thrown my good bacteria all out of whack too. The bad guys have been trying to take over. 😛 During her first 2 months of treatment, I had several cases of mastitis and bursitis. The suffix “-itis” means inflammation, so you can see the trend. Many things can increase inflammation in our body: stress, sugar and refined foods are especially big culprits. So, I’ve been trying to go on more hikes (to help me chill out), go to the gym (same), and to prepare healthy food ahead of time (foods that are also consistent with an anti-inflammatory diet) so we aren’t as tempted to eat out. It is amazing what a difference it can make.

    In the end, this whole experience has already been a huge lesson on just how fragile our bodies are, and how important it is to give our bodies the right fuel and de-stress as much as it is possible. One common theme that I’ve noticed is that the overwhelming majority of cancer survivors that we’ve met were also people who transitioned away from the standard American diet and did things to nourish themselves, both inside and out. Research backs this up. Healthy diets and lifestyles give you the best chance of living cancer-free. It certainly isn’t a guarantee, but if I can make changes that will lead to greater health, then I want to do what I can. It sounds like my basic gut bacteria make-up will be here to stay, and that is fine by me 😉 I just need to get them healthy again!

  • 2011 has been a real doozy…

    As some of you know, my mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia earlier this year. All of our lives have turned upside-down while we’ve adjusted to her new schedule of treatments and procedures. As is so often the case with difficult times, we’re all learning and growing from the experience. She moved across the country for treatment, so she’s now living in our town. That part has been great. My parents have been able to watch my youngest learn how to talk and walk, which is so cool.

    My mom has been on a very aggressive chemo schedule as she is awaiting a bone marrow transplant. They were able to find a donor in the national donor registry (please consider placing yourself on the life-saving donor list!), and her transplant is scheduled to take place on June 16th. It has been a challenging road so far, but we are hopeful that the transplant will be successful.

    I have quite a few things that I’ve wanted to write about, so I’m going to go try to get those posts up…

    Many thanks to everyone who has been supportive as we’ve gone through this storm. I love you all!

  • 52 books… Want to join me?

    This year I’m trying to read 52 books. I’m currently right on track, woohoo! My handy Kindle has been a great help, because I can read behind my nursling’s head without distracting her. Turning pages on a real book inevitably makes her reach and grab. Hooray for e-ink!

    So, here are my first three books of the year:

    #1 – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
    Jane Eyre

    I really have no idea how I made it this far in my life without reading Jane Eyre. It was such a great book. I have every intention of re-reading it, because I loved it so much. I was excited to find out that a new movie version is going to be released soon. I definitely want to see it!

    #2 – Listening to Your Hormones by Gillian Ford
    This really wasn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t my absolute favorite. She has a lot of great information about hormones and the female reproductive system, but I didn’t like how much she focused on taking hormones as a remedy. I think her approach is valuable for women with serious problems, but that most women could benefit from more natural remedies.

    #3 – Lives in the Balance: Nurses’ Stories from the ICU
    Lives in the Balance
    Admittedly, I decided to read this book when I saw that it was offered for free on the Kindle. I was nursing a sleepy baby and wanted something new to read while she dozed off…

    Although this book was clearly not penned by professional authors, it is still quite good. I enjoyed it, and I appreciated the glimpse into the lives of nurses in the ICU. It was far less gory than I expected, and instead focused almost exclusively on the emotional and relational aspects of the job. I’m really glad that I gave it a try.

    ….And, I have one more book that I want to mention, even though I technically read it last year (I finished on December 28th.)


    Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
    Unbroken
    I am a make-love-not-war kind of girl, so I wasn’t sure how interested I’d be in a story that revolves around war and the cruelties that take place therein. I am SO glad that I decided to read it. The story is very well-told, and it was difficult to put down even during the parts of the book that dealt with sensitive subject matters. You really couldn’t ask for a better message, and I found this story to be really inspiring.

    In reading Unbroken, I was reminded of how lacking my modern history exposure was in high school. Inevitably, we’d run out of time before the end of the year, so we’d learn something like “…then there was the great depression, two world wars, Kennedy, Vietnam, Reagan, and then today!” We never went into any detail. Reading more details about the second World War was fascinating. I can imagine reading portions of this book with my children when they’re older (maybe the whole thing… when they’re MUCH older), because she does such a great job of making the topic engaging. It is truly a Living Book, as Charlotte Mason would say.

    Well, I’m off to read some more. I hope everyone is having a great new year!

  • Slowing down

    Tonight my almost 3-year-old was having a tough time at dinner. She doesn’t really nap anymore, and every couple of days it catches up to her and she is sleepy before her normal bedtime. I asked if she wanted to go upstairs to lay down and snuggle for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if she’d fall asleep or if we’d just have a little time of connection and then she’d be off on her way.

    We talked for a few minutes and then she started drifting to sleep. Falling asleep is seemingly so unremarkable, but the beauty of the moment always makes me smile. I love to watch a toddlers’ eyes as they dance and sparkle. I only wish that we, as adults, could maintain that same quality in our eyes when we are awake. Soon, as sleep starts to set in, their eyes get quiet. Their eyelids start to get heavy. Their breaths become deep and rhythmic, like a perfect yoga session. It is one of those moments that always humbles me. The peace is contagious. I can’t help but breathe a little slower and relax my body too.

    Tonight I laid there and thought about how easy it is to fall into a trap of thinking that you need to train your children to sleep, and then you’d miss out on watching these little daily miracles. It happens so much in our culture. We are encouraged to improve upon things. Babies fall asleep while nursing, but the books say that she must play after she eats! Humans are so resilient. We adapt even when our nature, our best system, is screwed with. It tricks people into thinking that just because something seems easier then it must be the “right” thing to do. If only life were so black and white that the easiest thing was the “right” thing 😉

    It seems so cliche, but tonight I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to slow down, enjoy the breathtaking moments that are so easy to miss, and be present. It is so hard sometimes, but so centering. I missed a lot more of them with my oldest because I felt far more pressured by society to make him an “independent” sleeper or a “self-soother”. I am thankful for the opportunity to savor these moments now with each of my kids. Life passes so quickly.

  • The Containerization of our Children

    LOVE this article!
    The Containerization of Infants

    The article talks about the huge changes that have happened in just two generations…

    recent research study replicated a study done in the 1940’s, in which psychological researchers asked kids age 3, 5, and 7 to do a number of exercises. Today’s 5 year olds were acting at a level of 3 year olds, 60 years ago, and today’s 7 year olds were barely approaching the level of the 5 year old (1, 4, 5). In the 1940’s, children were reported to walk at 8-12 months of age, now children are reported to begin walking at 12-15 months of age (2). Realistically speaking that is only a generation ago; that’s a huge decline in functional performance in a relatively short time span.

    I’ve read about this in other places as well. Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is the first book that comes to mind. Both Dr. Sarah Buckley (author of GBGM) and Brandi Breitback (author of the above article) focus on the importance of vestibular stimuli. In other words, a big part of how our babies learn is by experiencing the world around them through natural movement. Being in an infant bucket for many hours each day means that your baby is only checking out the ceiling (or sun hood), and her inner ear is not getting to register the movement that is NEEDED for their brain to develop. It is so important!

    As Dr. Sarah Buckley says,

    Movement stimulates the vestibular (balance) center and the cerebellum, at the base of the brain, helping to establish brain-wiring connections that have major consequences for later brain development. For example, an area called the cerebellar vermis, which is stimulated by movement, is now thought to be a crucial region for mental health in adulthood.

    As the article says,

    As we look back at how infants were cared for one to two generations ago, we can imagine that infants had much more exposure to movement and seeing the world from changing angles and depths. It is more likely that a mother of generations ago would put her baby in one arm or on her hip and go about her day; the baby at that point experiences several positional changes from the mother’s body moving, as well as from the mother likely changing holds on the baby. In this manner, the baby is then experiencing changing vestibular and proprioceptive inputs that are natural to a mother’s movement and gravitational force. Baby-carrying provides the elements of pressure, motion, pleasure, warmth, security, sound that is essential to the development of the vestibular nervous system

    We were at the Apple store the other day, and the employees were shocked at my husband and I. It wasn’t because we had 4 kids — as a matter of fact, 3 of them were not with us. We only had our 4-month-old, and we were carrying her in-arms. I had a clean diaper in my purse, but no giant diaper bag or baby paraphernalia. The employees couldn’t believe it. This one guy, who was in his early 20s, was all, “That’s so cool. You’re just rockin’ it with your baby and no stroller or baby bags or anything.” They all thought it was so novel. 😛

    In the grand scheme of things, the employees were really quite close in age to me. I’m fairly sure that none were younger than 20, so we didn’t have 10 years between us. They grew up around infant buckets, though, and I didn’t because they weren’t popular when I was little. It was funny to me and my husband as we watched them process that we were just carrying a baby.

    I understand the appeal of being able to strap your baby into the carseat, unhook them at the mall and place them in the stroller, shop, and then wheel them back to the car where they plug right back in. Sometimes life works out where you just need your hands/body free or you can’t carry your baby for some other reason, but why not carry our babies when we can? How many times have you seen a baby crying and the mother frantically pushing the stroller back and forth? (Actually, I think I WAS that mother at least once when my oldest was a baby…) Our babies’ brains are AMAZING, and they are hard wired to want to be picked up. As Dr. Sarah J. Buckley says in her book, part of why babies developed the desire to be held was so they could ensure that they were safe and not attacked by a predator… throughout time, babies have needed someone to hold them!

    And, honestly, how else are you going to get to smell all of that yummy baby smell? MMmmmm! Mommas are made to want to carry babies too 😉 Our society has redefined the norm, but that doesn’t change how we are made.

  • Time Spent Together

    The National Family Institute reported that the average American child spends 12.5 minutes each day communicating with her parents. Of that time, 8.5 minutes are spent on corrections, criticisms, or arguments. A University of Iowa study revealed that on average, a child hears 432 negative comments daily, compared to 32 positive ones (Hochschild, 1997.)

    Isn’t that a scary number?

    Here’s another one:

    If you concentrate on playing with young children for at least five minutes a day, you may reduce power struggles by as much as fifty percent.

    Amen! I completely agree!

    I’ve been reading Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey for the past few weeks, and it has been wonderful. It has really been the perfect timing for me. As with almost all parenting books we read, Joe and I have been using the techniques primarily on ourselves, lol. It is humbling to see all of the ways that we can improve. What I really love about this book is the focus on your own thought patterns and how they impact your relationships with others.

    I hope to come back and discuss it more… Hopefully in the next week! I am insanely busy between the kids, midwifery school, finishing my doula certification, working on my herbalism class, and taking a few web design jobs. Hopefully it’ll slow down soon… I have a big assignment to turn in for my midwifery school and I expect to have a little more blogging time once it is submitted. 🙂 (Well, except then it’ll be time to work on the next big assignment, LOL!)

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