Can I Lose Ten Pounds in Ten Minutes?

photo by neelgolapi

This is so not fair!

Does this happen to you?  You wake up one day and suddenly remember you have to weigh less than you do.  Or else.

I have to weigh ten pounds less by Friday.  Or else.

Why this is so not fair

I lose weight in molecular amounts.  And don’t think that’s easy to do.  What is dreadfully easy for me to do is gain weight.  Dr. Gage, my endocrinologist explains it this way,  “Your metabolism is farkockt (Yiddish for messed up).”

He did say it in a more medically appropriate way but you get the idea.  I actually have a hypothyroid condition which is very strange to me because I am a runner and I can’t sit still.  Still, I have to pop little Levoxyl pills every day and count every calorie to keep my body chemistry from getting more  farkockt and to keep my weight down.

Why am I dreading Friday?  That is because I see Dr. Janov, my nutritionist and static trapeze enthusiast, who is in charge of helping me control my weight.  And the weight I am supposed to be is ten pounds less than what I am at this very moment.

I could:

Reschedule.  In a heartbeat.

Resume healthy eating habits immediately.

Exercise, exercise, exercise.

Stop eating.  Period.

So not fair!

I could kill myself doing all of that and what would happen?  I would lose one, maybe two pounds.  Dr. Gage tells me that some studies show that at some point, your body starts to worry it won’t have enough food so it begins to hoard fat cells.  Oh, great!  There are other studies that claim that some women cannot lose fat because their bodies think they may become pregnant.

Not going to happen to me, HELLO!  now can we let go of the fat?

Do you have a way to lose weight and keep it off?  That would really help me and everyone else who has this problem.

Somehow my brain needs to talk my body into believing that less is more.  Meaning, I will love myself more when there is less of me.

Ten pounds less.  And by Friday, please.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Creative Real Estate

This post first appeared on the Queens Council on the Arts blog

I sat in a room on Monday morning with some very smart and experience people for a conversation about creating spaces for artists and creative entrepreneurs sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Center for an Urban Future and Grey Advertising.

So here we are.

Hanging on to the edges of what we know and looking for what we dream of.    In a real estate downturn, looking up for opportunities.  Lower construction costs, higher vacancy rates.

What do we really want?

Rebecca Robertson, President and CEO of the Park Avenue Armory,  expressed the need for a “culture czar”,  someone who could pull out an inventory of properties and a warchest of incentives.  A centralized hub to connect people interested in creating artistic communities.

I liked how my friend Elizabeth Streb, Action Architect of STREB Lab for Action Mechanics, describes the individual artist as “a generating force, mildly untameable” in the mix of community.  Creative growth is a “rhizome, not arboreal”.

Don’t you just love that?  If you want to be on the cutting edge, you need to live on the edge.  Better to be  rhizome.

Heard people mention the waterfront in Sunset Park  in Brooklyn,  Jamaica, Queens,  anything north of 96th street on the west side as places rumbling with potential.  And movement just shy of legal according to Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the New York Tri-State Region, CB Richard Ellis.  “Art and illegality” is the pairing as per Elizabeth.

Also heard Seth Pinsky, President of New York City Economic Development Corporation, argue passionately for capacity building in arts groups and for a whole sector vision.

Many spaces share a common history of  “accidents and missteps”  that eventually lead to artistic use.  I wonder if Patricia Cruz, Executive Director of Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall was referring to her own journey.  With a mischievous smile, she did say,  “Older is good.  Older and abandoned is even better.”

I think she was talking about buildings.

This is what I think we all want to make it possible to live in vibrant, creative and energetic places.  Let me know if I’ve left anything out.

• A culture czar, wizard or quarterback who can run plays
• A strategic advocacy effort
• A way to support and strengthen cultural infrastructures
• A public/private policy of cultural development

Check in with the Center for an Urban Future for a transcript of this session.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

A Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives #11

Someone gave me a plant.

I am sure she meant well and thought that I would enjoy taking care of yet another thing that I have to water, repot, find a place for, figure out what it is and casually toss into my compost heap when no one is looking.

But no.  I kept it on the front porch where I passed its wilty brown leaves everyday thinking to myself that I really should trim it or stick it in a bigger pot, mais non, I just let it sit there annoying me every day.    And sure enough, I grew to resent the sight of it, the guilt of itm and my inability to get myself to spend any time doing anything about it.  All this because someone gave me a gift.

Gift, Shmift

Beware of energy sapping gifts.  These are items that give the giver more pleasure than the giftee.  Usually they are things that the giver thinks are “special” or “something you wouldn’t get for yourself”.  Chances are, you were never consulted about what you would like or what you could really use.  So, the tchotchkas you have accumulated as well meaning gifts over the years have found their way into your precious closet space or forced you to become a gasp! regifter where you run the risk of making a dreadful faux pas should you regift to the wrong person.

What is actually more distressing is the energy you waste dealing with all of this.  Think of the clear space and clarity of mind you would have without these things in your life.    These physical tokens of misdirected love take energy away from you that you could be using elsewhere.

So, early one morning, after a beautiful headclearing beach run, I came home with a plan.  I calmly dumped the plant into my composter where it will become a welcome part of my future garden.  And do I feel better?  Absolutely!

We all need plans and we all need plants.

Now that you know what I did with my plant, here’s my Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives.  For those of you joining us, here are the steps you missed:

1 Get over yourself

2 Get off the grid

3 Get local

4 Bring on color

5 Avoid vampires

6 Read like a writer

7 Stop the frenzy

8 Live artfully

9 Thank yourself

10 Do small things bigly

And the step for today is:

11  Fix your feng shui

Is there something in your life that you could find a better use for?    According to feng shui consultant Catherine Brophy thefengshuidetective.com,  ” These things take energy from you that you could expend on something else.”  So the next time I passed by that pathetic plant, I made up my mind to add it to my compost and not get fahrdreht (Yiddish for turned around/crazy) over it ever again.

Believe me, you will feel great once you take care of your dead plant, squeaky lock, or that picture that always hangs crooked and your feng shui will be fei cheong (Cantonese for very) fabulous.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Apples

photo by Ali QJo

“Two girls.  Three months and three years.”

One clearly surprised mother. Her eyes widened as I instinctively twitched.  An inevitable reflex that I acquired over years of being around small children.  Especially that small.  I shuddered and forced myself to sit up straight and smile brightly which is hard to do if you are clenching your teeth.  Think back, think back to those times, immersed in babyness and singsong one syllable conversations – how sweetly wonderful they were.

OK, I am remembering packing up the car with blankets, toys, snacks and heading up to Masker Orchards on Yom Kippur with my kids and their friends to hold them up to pick apples, drink apple cider, take them up and down the mountain to the bathroom all day, and drive home  in time for dinner with the Krakauer family – that would be Mildred and Irvin, my mother and father in law, Aunt Lillian and Aunt Florence.

- and try to figure out how to eat all of these apples.

Crispy, fragrant, tree sweet apples.

I loved the tasty apples we picked and the yearly pilgrimages we made to the orchard.  Luckily, Mildred had a great recipe for an Apple Betty and we made a lot of them.  It was simply Wow! and wonderful with freshly picked apples.

There are many apple picking outings to come for the three year old and the three month old children of the world.  Are you planning to go to an apple orchard?  You may find yourself wondering about what to do with all of the apples you pick.

Here’s a recipe for you.

Wow!

Mildred Phyllis Krakauer’s Apple Betty

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Crumb mixture:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter

Apple mixture:

2 1/2 cups apples peeled and sliced

Sugar mixture:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon each nutmeg, cloves, and kosher salt

2 teaspoons lemon zest.  Hang on to that lemon for later.

Optional topping mix:

1/4 cup of raisins or currants.  Mildred used golden raisins.  Diced apricots are also fabulous.

To make:

1. Line the bottom of a baking dish with one third of the crumb mixture.

2. Place half of the apples in the dish.  Cover the layer with half of the sugar mixture.

3. Spread second third of the crumb mixture over the apples.

4. Add second half of the apples and cover with second half of the sugar mixture.

5. Shpritz.  That’s right.  Mildred said to shpritz (Yiddish for squeeze and spray) the apples with the juice of one lemon and a bissel (Yiddish for a little) water, about 1/4 cup.

6. Place the last third of the crumb mixture on top.  Cover and bake for 40 minutes until apples are almost tender.  Take cover off, increase heat to 400 degrees and let brown for 15 minutes.

Makes 6 servings that look wonderful on Grandma Anna’s dinner plates.  Wow!

My children are not so small anymore and I get my apples from the local farmers market.  They, too, make an awesome Apple Betty which brings back the sweet, tart, crispy memories of those times.

Guaranteed to take away the twitch.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Ten Thousand Days

Sunday was my Ten Thousand Day anniversary.

Seth and I have spent over twenty five years together. Ten thousand days.  We have celebrated many unique anniversaries – sixty months, one million minutes, nine thousand hours.  Why should we limit ourselves to Hallmark events?

We were walking on the beach in Montauk on a bright September morning when we decided to spend the rest of our lives together.  I remember how he held our hands up to the sky.

Seth remembered too and snapped this picture to celebrate that lovely moment ten thousand days ago.

So much to be happy about, so much to look forward to.  What about you?  What are you going to celebrate?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?