I got a press release this week in my email box with the title, “Goat Yoga Experience at Centennial Farm,” and I thought, oh the poor person who sent it out with an obvious typo. GOAT YOGA?! I started to giggle and opened it to come to find out that goat yoga is a THING. Like a REAL THING.
Did you guys know this??
And since it is a real thing, and brought me a huge giggle and smile, I wanted to share the info with you.
All the darkness of the night is no match for a single candle that refuses to die out.
Hello friends. It’s me. Just a little candle that’s been holding on in the wake of the darkness of grief.
I haven’t been writing or sharing regularly, because, when living with grief, it is hard to tap into creativity or really anything in addition to the daily things needed for survival. If that sounds dramatic, it is. But it’s the truth.
What I have learned is the timeline for “feeling better” is fluid. The feelings ebb and flow with periods of light, then darkness, then a little more light. Annnnnddddddd, repeat.
There have been so many times when I thought about sitting down to blog but something stopped me. I felt blocked. I had no energy. I didn’t know what to say. There was this emptiness in me that made it hard to channel any words. I felt like I had nothing to give.
My therapist gave me good advice – just start writing. Write something. Anything.
So here I am…
In the wake of last week’s horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, this article on how to talk to your kids about a tragic event in the news is brought to you by CHOC Children’s.
When tragic events happen in the news it is sometimes hard to know how to handle conversations about it with our children. How much information should we give? How do we answer specific questions? How does this vary with a child’s age?
Which is why I was so grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Nicole Vincent, PhD, a licensed psychologist at CHOC Children’s to get her advice to share with you today…
This article is brought to you by CHOC Children’s pediatric psychologist Dr. Carlos Konishi Ph.D on conversation starters for kids and advice on how parents can encourage communication beyond the one word answer. Getting kids to share more can be a challenge at times, especially for parents of teenagers. His information on how to get kids to open up gave me so many “AHA!” moments during my interview I actually had to apologize for saying “TOTALLY!” so many times after he said something that struck a chord. I was like an 80’s teenager myself. Totally.
One word answers.
Ugh.
How was your day?
Fine.
Good.
Okay.
What did you do?
Not much.
The process of trying to get more information out of your child can be painful at times, like pulling teeth. So how do you get beyond the one word answer?
Here is Dr. Konishi’s insightful advice… be ready to say TOTALLY yourself…
One of the things I adored most about my mom was she loved to CELEBRATE life.
Birthdays, holidays, accomplishments, weddings, showers……events in life (big or small) did not pass her by. She made a point to make her family and friends feel special. Getting through my first birthday this year without my mom here to celebrate with was really rough. So with my sister’s birthday on the horizon this past month I KNEW we had to do something awesome because it is what my mom would want.
I asked my sister what she would like to do to celebrate? She said she would love to go to brunch with girlfriends on her actual birthday (a Monday) and then a spa treatment after with whomever would be able to join.
As soon as she said that, I knew just the place to go for the best Orange County brunch and spa day, a place unlike any other, The Ranch at Laguna Beach. Invites were sent and a a reservation was made at their farm-to-table style restaurant, Harvest. The guests were going to be in for such a treat!
Most of the women that attended were from Aliso Viejo, only a stone’s throw away from The Ranch, but the majority had not been to the property before. I watched their jaws drop upon arrival. The beauty of The Ranch truly does take your breath away. It is like being in another world.
We had a beautiful table inside overlooking the canyon and plenty of space to giggle a little too loud without disrupting guests :)…