Excellence | Week 4

We are in the last week of January already oh lawdy say it isn’t so. I had BIG plans for you January B-I-G, this was the month that I was going to start the daily practice of meditating with a little motivational push from Elise Cripes’ Goal Tracker. I bought the download and had it blown up and here it sits on the floor staring at me. I am having issues finishing things again, namely my office and the ledge shelves that require mounting, I gave up when I hit the metal studs, I need a special drill bit and I’m leveraging that in support my procrastination habit. There, said it.

Can anyone recommend an app or website to help find a GOOD handyman? I’ve hired all types, the cheap (and awful) kind, the volunteer who offers to hang curtains only to have them rip out of the walls at first woosh, the ones that come highly recommended and then never show or return your call and then there’s the ones that make you cringe when you hear the whine of the drill followed by “oh, sh*t” … I’m like just get out. Now. I don’t have it in me anymore to let people come in and flat out ruin my walls. I can do that just fine on my own.

I’m not super organized this week let me just say that, I don’t have my sh*t together, my desk is messy and the piles are reaching max capacity, I had a sick kid and its only been a month since her last bout with a respiratory infection, she was my whooping cough baby turned asthma child and now bronchitis. Here she is around 18 months, this was probably January 2008.

Super B managed to undo all my chemical free housekeeping habits in one fail swoop when he fired up the oven coated in Easy Off. Not helping Super A nor mom who is super sensitive to toxins, especially after starting the process of detoxification following this book: The Prime: Prepare and Repair Your Body for Spontaneous Weight Loss.

I met my sister for breakfast and then decided to tag along on her doctor appointment which ended up being a joint consultation in the end. More about that later, its a post in its own and one that deserves a whole series in itself, but more on that later.

I make no apologies for expecting excellence

My recommended reading this week, How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Dr. Michael Greger the founder of nutritionfacts.org the book covers all the major diseases and ways inwhich our organs and internal sysems can fail us but more importantly in detailed explaination, why they are failing and and how switching to a plant based diet is the path to a body that will heal itself.  I think every man, woman and child needs to be on a plant based and I would say I am 90% there, I have never loved meat, mom you can chime in here and back me up on this. My kids are the same way and if you asked my husband he would cite my attitude and my pickiness as the real reason they like me prefer foods other than meat. He complained the other night that I am to picky after I threw away my dinner because my chicken was too striated (it flaked like fish) it seemed like manufactured meat, in my defense I replied, I’m not apologizing for my high expectations when it comes ti what I eat, I demand excellence and I give excellence. He got a good laugh out of the latter part.

I took this after yoga on Sunday.

Weekly shopping the bain of my existence, I’m trying not to think of it this way I really am the grateful sort, promise.  I made Gwyneth’s Chicken Chili and it was delicious, this book is one of my favorites and I preordered her new cookbook It’s All Easy this week.

My creative muses this week >>

photographer, David Maisel

Another book arrived, this one a photography book. I linked to David Maisel last week after finding him through another story a girl who turned her Instagram account into performance art. I have to thank my friend Corinna she helped me find Maisel’s work.

I had to have this one as you can why below. I love the abstract you get with aerial photography.

He also did the opening for HBO’s True Detective earlier this year.

 

Vlogger, Casey Neistat >> Jonas came and Casey made the best of it

The Revenant

Date night and we saw The Revenant (n: someone who comes back from the dead) er the weekend. I haven’t loved a movie that much since Interstellar and and I know why, aside from Leo and Tom, cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki (Tree of Life).  I saw the trailer a long time ago and expected an outdoorsy movie full of crusty mountain men, our beloved Leo and one huge ass grizzly bear.  But I soon recognized all the hallmarks of Lubezki along with influences (who was here first) of  The New World by Terrence Malick, who also directed Tree of Life. I sat there and just smiled, it was terrifying and beautiful all in the same breath.  As a photographer I identify with Emmanuels visual sense of perspective.  He is a master of light and shadows. You will be blown away at how vast the scenes are, all evidence of production completely stripped away.

This movie embodies the word excellence, let’s hope the Oscars feel that way too.