Talking Turkey

I don't know about other people's families, but on Thanksgiving day everyone in my family is in the kitchen helping prepare food. Grandma is making crust for the apple pie. My mom is stirring gravy. My husband is mashing potatoes. I'm forming rolls. Jordan, my daughter, is given small tasks so she feels included. And we are all chatting up a storm. Hearing stories from when Grandma was a little girl on the farm and having to catch the turkey. Laughing about how my mom went into labor with my brother the day after Thanksgiving. Telling Jordan about honorary "aunt" Rose who made up the Jell-o salad recipe that we still serve today more than 50 years later. By the time dinner hits the table, it is well infused with love and laughter and maybe a few tears.

But there is also the stress of the holiday meal. So, here are my tips on de-stressing and how to get kids, and husbands, involved:

1. Make sure everyone, men included, have a dish they are responsible for making. Mashed potatoes are a hard one screw up - peel, boil, mash, done. He can do the potatoes early on Thursday, then scoop them into a buttered crock pot, set on low - they'll stay warm and moist until dinner time. He doesn't even have to miss football.

2. Start early. Figure out what can be done before Thursday. The Saturday before I make cranberry sauce. Jordan helps by pouring water and sugar into the berries. She can also prep the jars and lids so they are ready for me to fill up. Wednesday, Jordan and I will make the Jell-o salad and the pumpkin pie. Jordan can measure ingredients and stir. Early Thursday morning, she and I will start the dough for the rolls. I've had Jordan kneading dough since she was five.

3. Don't make new stuff. Every year all the magazines and newspapers come out with new fangled green bean casserole recipes or stuffing or whathaveyou. Personally, I don't need the added stress of trying something new and hoping it works out. My family has been doing the exact same dishes since I can remember. The way we end up with new items is when a new person joins the family. My brother's wife's family tradition is a apple-cranberry pie. She brought one when they were dating, it was a big hit and is now part of the meal.

4. Laugh. Mistakes will happen. One year we peeled the potatoes into the garbage disposal and tried to run it. We broke the garbage disposal and water came flooding under the sink and all over the floor. As we were cleaning up the mess, the news was on and they were going over tips for the day. One of the tips - don't put potato peels down the garbage disposal. Right. Check. I've also burned the pie crust, used salt instead of sugar in the Jell-o, added vanilla instead of soy sauce to the green beans. Each time we just laugh about it and it makes a great story to tell in the kitchen the next holiday.

5. Keep kids busy. Have a couple crafts for kids to do. Every year Jordan makes the name tags for the place settings. This year she is also going to make a Thank You Sunflower. You take a small paper plate and color it all brown. Then you cut out petals from yellow construction paper. Each person writes what they are thankful for on the petals and tapes them to the paper plate. Note - I suggest choosing the crafts and going to the craft store two weekends before Thanksgiving, so it's not yet another thing you have to do at the holiday.

6. When all else fails, drink more wine.

I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with lots of friends, family, love and laughter and really, really good food! If you want any of our family's recipes, shoot me an email mindybrooks34@yahoo.com

May Meeting Notes: Three Pillars of Optimal Health

This month, CityMamas joined the Women's Affinity Group Meeting on May 13th.  Dr. Greg Nigh, a Naturopathic Doctor and Licensed Acupuncturist from Nature Cures Clinic presented three strategies that can dramatically reduce stress and increase your health.  Here are some notes I jotted down from his presentation:

In Naturopathic practice, there are a few basic principles:

• Find and treat causes of symptoms (not symptoms)
• Symptoms are the clues and not the problems to cover up.
• Avoid suppression
• Bodies are good at being healthy, if we stay out of their way.

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He presented 3 pillars of optimal health: 

  

1.  Eliminate anything that isn't supposed to be there.

• allergens, infections, heavy metals (such as mercury or lead), hormonal imbalances, and most importantly, FOOD
• FOOD is the most important clue that pushes people out of balance
• Dr. Nigh practices elimination of foods and then reintroduction to determine cause
• a book on the Nature Cures Clinic website takes you through elimination dieting
• the brain is made up mostly of oil.  Unhealthy oils = unhealthy brain
• occasional mild short-term stress is good.  chronic heavy stress is very bad.

2.  Provide whatever isn't there in sufficient amounts.

• vitamins, minerals, oils, sufficient blood (circulation in general), and other nutrients
• basic vitamins: B complex (6 & 12), A, C, D, E
• basic minerals: magnesium, potassium, lithium, boron, zinc.
• for instance, most people don't get enough magnesium.  When magnesium deficient, blood pressure goes up, hypertension.  Epsom salt bath helps!
• basic herbs: ginkgo, green tea
• Labs are essential for understanding the underlying cause of symptoms

3.  Remove stress.

• Stress isn't a thing; it's a way of thinking or a pattern of thinking about our circumstances
• Stress management is THOUGHT management
• Stress is one of the single greatest contributors to poor health.
• Stress is a choice we make about what will occupy our thoughts in this moment NOW.  
• Thoughts + physical reaction to thoughts = stress.
• Time and effort spent in meditation that occurs earlier in the day can carry over in stressful situations that occur later.

Dr. Nigh's take-home exercise (to practice any time, all the time).  He uses a pill-timer that vibrates in his pocket every 20 minutes to remind him to do the following:

• Stop.  Stop thinking what you're thinking.

• Notice, categorize, and scan your body.  Notice what you're thinking and categorize it to see if there are patterns, e.g. I'm remembering an argument with my child, I'm feeling right about something that happened today, etc.  He says you will start to notice the same types of thoughts occurring.  It helps to be aware of what is causing you stress.  Scan your body to determine what contracted with that thought, and to relax the muscle that contracted. 

• What are you doing now?  Start to narrate what you're doing now, e.g. I'm reading this blog.  I'm sitting.  I have my legs crossed.  The longer you can keep up the narration, the more you can manage our stress, because it is challenging to hold "present awareness".  

This whole process takes just a few seconds.  It may help you to stop the stressful thoughts, and to think and live in the present.  It may even stop you from thinking the stressful thoughts before they happen. 

There were about 8 CityMamas in attendance.  
  

Any thoughts on the presentation?   Has anyone tried the exercise?  Anything to add that I've missed?