Deepak Chopra tweeted this yesterday:

Emotions are contagious. We monitor, regulate, and are regulated by each other's emotional state. Your well being improves my well being.

I found it apropos, as I was at the moment pondering these questions: How to get out of a “bad mood”? How to avoid passing negativity along to those around you? How to stay immune to the negative moods of those around us?  How instead, to be open to positive moods, and sharing that energy?

It’s something I think about often as you really can’t escape people. Or yourself, really. So better to learn to interact in the most beneficial ways.

Our energy levels fluctuate throughout the day – and thus our moods.  Lower energy I’ve found directly correlates with more openness to allowing negativity to have an effect me. Negativity & lower energy makes me feel less creative & productive. The less productive I am, the less good I feel.  The less good I feel mentally, the less good I feel physically, the less positive my interactions with others, and my low energy and mood gets passed along. It’s a cycle which I’d like to break.  Of course, the cycle works in the opposite direction as well, so maybe I just want to reverse it, not break it altogether.

The more productive I am, the more energy I have.  The more energy I have, the better I feel, the more able I am to deflect negativity thrown my way, and be creative in dealing with “bad moods” – my own, and others, to be more positive. When I’m positive, people react positively, I feel healthier, and things just work right.  When more things work right, I’m more apt to be grateful and expectant of more things working right. When you expect things to go well, health to be good, and people to behave well, they pretty much do.

So how to achieve that positivism reliably? This is really what I’m pondering. Thought into action.

In the short term, giving myself physical space from negativity or chaos works best.  If I can get a moment to myself, to think, breathe, it makes a world of difference. Taking my focus off a future or past worry, and centering instead on the current moment also works for me. If I cannot get my brain to shift gears from worry to peace, occupying myself with a task that requires concentration & creativity – art making or playing the piano or even organizing a space works to distract my mind and start the cycle working in the opposite direction – the more creative I am, the more positive I am.

Now, I can’t always physically separate myself from the chaos (say, driving kids in the car).  So in these instances, I find music helps center me. The more cheerful, the better. 

Your nerves gather with the altitude
Exhale the stress so you don't come unglued
Somewhere there is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood

~Owl City (from Rainbow Veins)

Alternatively, outside we go. Nature always has a calming, energy-boosting quality.  You can’t take a walk in the woods and come out feeling bad. I mean, unless you’re attacked by a bear.  (who obviously hasn’t discovered the virtues of positive thinking). But, I digress.

In the longer term, overall positive thinking & repetition of affirmations has worked the best for me, as trite as they may seem: I am healthy. I am productive. Life is good.

I do believe by repeatedly telling myself that things are good, things really can only become better.  Not by tricking myself, but rather looking at what's already there in a better way than I currently am (remembering that when I'm feeling down, negativity flows more easily than positivity). And if things don’t actually become better, at the very least, my reaction to them does.  Thus, the reactions of those around me become improved as well, and can lead to physically changing things for the better. Positive energy transfer: it’s what I’m striving towards – greater positivism, increased gratitude, more peace. It can only be good.

So, how do you cope with negativity and turn it into positivity?

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."

~ Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye)

I can’t believe J.D.Salinger died yesterday.  Not because of the dying – he was 91, but rather because I didn’t know he was still living.  So all in one day, I’m hit with: J.D. Salinger is dead? Which means he was alive? (He was alive?!) And now he’s dead.

So I admit to my ignorance.  I had never done any research on the man.  I was a self-absorbed teen (who wasn't?). And, I suppose I’ve never been much of an Annie Wilkes. Heck, I lived in Maine for 5 years & never once went looking for Stephen King.

But, with this revelation, I’m now left wondering if I had know he was alive, if maybe I’d have written him a letter – at least. Although, according to NPR, Salinger didn’t grant interviews, with the exception of Betty Eppes in 1980.  I would’ve been 5 then, and hadn’t yet read Catcher; though it wasn’t far off (My mother had a rather liberal view of books: if you can read it, you can read it). I’m not sure if I had written a letter, if he’d even have read it.  Yet, his books helped me slog through adolescence & provided inspiration to write. He earned a letter.  I suppose this post-mortem blog post will have to suffice.

So, I'm thinking now I’ll have to hike up to the attic & dig out all my old dog-eared Salingers, and start re-reading while waiting for the release of the “reams of unpublished fiction in a vault”, as the rumor holds. I wonder if reading Salinger as a 30-something has the same effect as reading Salinger as a teenager? Things to ponder.

Farewell J.D.

Mom?

Yeah?

Do you know who Gandhi is?

Yes.

He taught people about peace.

Yes, he did.

When did he die?

Hmmm, I’m not sure.  Maybe the 60’s?

How old was he?

I don’t really know, maybe in his 80’s?

How did he die?

I don’t know. We’ll have to look it up.

Mom?

Yes?

Why are the days shorter in the winter when the earth is turning the same every day?

Ummm, I don’t know.  I think it’s because of the way the earth is tilted.

But why? The day is always 24 hours. But in the winter there is less daytime than in the summer.
You’re right. We’ll have to look it up.

Every night, after the lights are out, is when my children dig up the best questions. Not just the, “how many hours are in a day”-type questions, but the, “WHY are there 24 hours in a day”-type questions.  

I realize we’ve come to a point, particularly with my 5 year old, that she’s asking questions to which many times I just don’t know the answers.

It’s amazing.  Amazing how much she knows, how much she’s curious about, and the depth of thinking she’s doing to come up with these questions.  And yet, at the same time, I can’t help but feel a sense of disappointment in myself when I don’t know the answer to their questions.  I’m MOM; I should know, right?  So, I’ve fallen back on the, “we’ll have to look it up” response.  And many times, we DO look it up, but I often forget.

I want to remember – for her – for them both – and to actively go to the internet and search with them the next day for answers to their questions.  Their sense of curiosity and wonder is so keen right now, as is their ability to process & save information; I want to take advantage of that, and not squelch it just because I didn’t know the answer. 

I’m thinking of keeping a notepad right outside the bedroom door, and jotting down the questions I didn’t have answers for after they fall asleep, so that the next day we actually CAN look up the information.

How do YOU answer the difficult questions?

So, just like that, I can go from unknown to published. Who needs novels when 140 character obersevations of under-couch contents will suffice? Perhaps my previous assertion that Twittering isn’t really writing was misguided. Because, apparently, my 15 minutes of fame starts…now:

Thank you to @mmiller0912 & @k8zeez for alerting me to the fact that one of my tweets has been mentioned on page 12 in the February 2010 issue of Parents magazine. Wahoo!

One of my resolutions this year is to more effectively & consistently use peaceful, positive discipline with my children.  I strive to connect with them, and teach (the right message) with every interaction; even if that interaction is one of a corrective/disciplinary nature.  Teaching children a certain behavior is undesirable doesn’t have to include anger, punishment, shame, or isolation. And it should include empathy, kindness, and natural consequences. I don’t achieve perfection every time, and do make mistakes. But I strive to learn from my parenting mistakes, to forgive myself for those I make, and move on with better tools in my toolbox (and leave the ones that don’t work in the garbage).

Positive discipline is so important to fostering not just good behavior in children, but more importantly, in developing a fully functional internal guidance system. What distresses me, is that for the overwhelming attitude of adults, “well behaved” is the penultimate goal for children. And because of this belief, any and every method should be used to achieve this in your children.  Punitive or not. Logical or not. I believe it’s a misguided objective, and leads ultimately to frustration. Unfortunately, it begins in babyhood with most - with the unreasonable expectation of producing a “good” baby: one who doesn’t fuss, and who sleeps through the night – and continues on through childhood with the “good” child who doesn’t talk back or tantrum or rebel. It’s as though people have forgotten that when babies cry, and children test limits, they do so from a natural, normal place of need: needing to be held, needing attention, needing to be gently guided. They are asking to be taught, not punished. They don’t come into this world knowing anything. And so, every interaction we have with them teaches them something.  Don’t we want to make sure that what we’re teaching is what we actually want them to learn? 

I fear that in an effort to make children more convenient, parents are resorting punishments and techniques aimed at quieting instead of actually parenting, and teaching: getting to the root of what the baby is trying to say or what the child is trying to learn or express.  Take “cry it out” for example, used rampantly by parents as a means of “teaching” babies to sleep.  While it may work in the short term – and achieve (at least temporarily) the goal of the quiet sleeping baby, it hasn’t actually taught the baby the intended lesson. Baby didn’t learn that sleep is a peaceful state, or to willingly go to bed.  Instead, baby has learned that no one comes when they cry, so stop crying.  That nighttime is a time of loneliness and discomfort.  What this translates to in the long term is a sense of defeatism, lowered self worth, and detachment from parents.  It may achieve a quiet “good” baby, but at what cost?

The same goes for the typical punishments of childhood: spanking, parent-determined consequences, and coerced/enforced/isolation timeouts. Don’t hit, or I’ll spank you.  Don’t talk back or I’ll put you in a time out & I’ll tell you when to get out.  Certainly, the hypocrisy of hitting as a punishment for hitting is obvious. But what about the less obvious parent-determined punishments like timeouts?  I say that punitive discipline (as opposed to natural/logical consequences) only serve to teach children this: Don’t do what parents don’t want you to do; with one big caveat: while they’re watching.  You see, unless you teach children WHY hitting isn’t an acceptable form of expressing frustration – and unless you give them alternative methods of expression, they WILL continue to hit, they’ll just do it when mom isn’t looking.  Kids may appear to behave, but unless they have an understanding of why, and how, the “good behavior” is in appearance only.  Wouldn’t you rather a child have the ability to self-control, instead of behaving only due to external control? A kid who can understand that we don’t hit because it hurts another person, and hurting another person feels awful to me, and to them, and instead I should walk away before I hit, or use my words to express my frustration, is SO MUCH better prepared for life than the child who doesn’t hit because Mom is in the room & doesn’t want to get in trouble. 

To this effort, I strive for more thoughtfulness, and less reactivity in my responses to my childrens’ unwanted behaviors. I keep a keen eye on my own actions and responses, as children learn most from what they see & do than from what they hear.  I DO tolerate more that perhaps is typically expected, because I don’t think just “being good” is good enough for my kids, or for me as a parent.  I expect my children to learn from their behavior as I learn from mine. In my previous post, I mentioned the Positive Discipline parenting cards.  The one I chose for this week seems appropriate to this post:

If you're interested in positive discipline, and getting away from punishment, you may find these articles & sites helpful:

Positive Discipline Methods
What is Discipline?
How Children Really React to Control
The Case Against Time-Out

I love the positive renewing energy that comes from a new year – and with 2010, we start a new decade!

In that spirit, here’s my list of things to improve upon, goals to reach, and things that I will do in 2010:  

1)     Get Healthier. Okay, yes, #1 is uber-cliché & conventional as far as New Year’s resolutions go.  But who couldn’t be healthier? Personally, I need to increase my HDL (“good cholesterol”) and reduce my TSH (thyroid level).  To achieve these goals, I have three things in mind: exercise more, eat more raw, fresh food, and keep better tabs on what exactly I DO put into my body & how much I actually DO exercise.  Fortunately, we have an elliptical machine, a fantastic Blendtec smoother blender which makes super-good fruit & veggie smoothies, and my ever-present pal, iPhone.  With all these convenient, modern technologies how can I not get back to a place of better health?  Of course, losing a bit of weight & getting stronger in the process are, of course, nice side benefits! :)

2)     Practice peaceful, positive discipline with my children more consistently and effectively! I recently purchased a pack of 52 cards to help me stay on track, called “Positive Discipline Parenting Tools: 52 Cards to Improve Your Parenting Skills”. The ideas presented on the cards are fantastic reminders to stay kind, positive, encouraging, and consistent in your interactions with your children.  They suggest positive discipline techniques without overusing praise or punishment. Just perusing some of the cards, I’ve found them to be helpful in making a natural progression from the Attachment Parenting techniques we’ve used with our children as infants/toddlers to preschoolers! If you’re interested in the cards, I purchased them here (not my site & I’m not affiliated, just had a good experience with my online purchase). 

3)     Read 10 books.  Now, ten may not sound that lofty to most.  Frankly it’s not to me either.  But with working, parenting, homemaking, gardening, blogging, etc., one of my favorite pastimes, reading, often gets left by the wayside, so I’m being realistic here folks. One book every 1.25 months I can do. I have 7 on my bedside table, ready to go. In fact, I just cracked the first one open!

4)     Write. More. Often. I so enjoy writing, yet like many other time consuming personal activities, since having children, I’ve pushed it to the backburner. So, 2010 is the year to bring quadrant two (non urgent, important [Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here's a quick review of Steven Covey’s Quadrants] to the forefront, and push quadrant 4 (non urgent, not important) to the background. And when I say write, I’m not talking about Twitter - because while it’s a fun place to share information – the time spent “writing” on twitter (and I use quotations as 140 characters dsnt leav mch rm 2 actuly wrt) could be much more productively spent actually writing. Like in my blog, or my novel (oh yes, I WILL complete it).

5)     Seeing Dave Matthews w/Tim Reynolds in concert. Yes, this is on my new years resolution list.  Why? It’s been nearly 20 years since I’ve had a real concert EXPERIENCE.  I’m craving one again, and from everything I’ve read, Dave will pull through for me.  I wasn't more than a sometimes fan of Dave Matthews until about two years ago when I stumbled upon his & Tim Reynolds’ Live at Radio City video on the home theatre display with my daughter in an unnamed big box store.  We sat & watched, entranced.  What a performer! Been a big fan ever since (and even got Adam hooked too). Its time to experience it in person!
 

So there you have it:  Get healthier, parent better, read more, write more, and see a good show.  That shouldn’t be too hard, right?  I’m up for the challenge! Who’s with me? I’d love to hear your resolutions – please share your comments!   

We have many houseplants – I don’t think you can ever have enough!

Houseplants are proven air cleaners. They add oxygen, regulate humidity, filter out toxins, and beautify your space.  I believe they add positive life energy to a home, and help children learn about caring for living things.

NASA did a study on houseplants and indoor air pollution.  Certain plants are able to remove dangerous chemicals from the air like trichloroethylene, benzene, & and formaldehyde!

Read NASA’s findings on interior landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement.

Based on that study, here are my recommendations for best air cleaners: 

Top chemical removers:

Gerbera Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)

Marginata (Dracaena marginata)

Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum “Mauna Loa”)*

Janet Craig (Dracaena deremensis)

Bamboo Palm (Chamaedorea seifritzii)

Mum (Chrysanthemum morifolium)*

Mother-in-law’s Tongue (Sansevieria laurentii)*

Other great air cleaners:

English Ivy (Hedera helix)**

Golden Pothos (Scindapsus aureus)*

Chinese Evergreen (Aglonema modestum)

Green Spider Plant (Cholorphytum elatum)

Heart leaf philodendron (Philodendron oxycardium)*

Ficus (Ficus benjamina)

Dumb Cane (Dieffenbachia)*

*NOTE: I find it interesting that many of the aforementioned plants are considered toxic– particularly when ingested. I wonder if this is partially because they are so good at absorbing (and thus, perhaps harboring) chemicals? I have marked the toxic plants with a star * in the event that you have small children or pets. Those with two stars ** are particularly toxic, and I definitely do not recommend for households with small children or pets who could consume the leaves.

For a list of toxic & non-toxic plants for pets, please see the ASPCA’s page.

For a list of toxic & non-toxic plants for children, please see the National Poison Control center’s page

That being said, all plants have the ability to clean air.  If you are uncomfortable with keeping any plants in your house known to have some toxicity, I’ve compiled a list of  common non-toxic houseplants (not listed above). Now, while these specific plants may not have been studied to show the ability to drastically reduce toxic chemicals, they will still do their job cleaning your air & beautifying your environment while being safer to have around children & pets:

African Violet (Episcia reptans)

Begonia (Begonia sp.)

Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exalta)
Christmas Cactus (Zygocactus truncatus)

Hoya (Hoya sp.)

Jade Plant (Crassula argentes)

Kalanchoe (Kalanchoe sp.)

Lipstick Plant (Aeschynanthus lobbianus) – this is a favorite!

Peperomia (Peperomia sp.)

Ponytail Palm (Beaucarenia recurvata)
Rubber Tree (Ficus elastica)
Wandering Jew (Tradescantia albiflora)

For a list of hundreds of houseplants with description, photo, and care instructions, check out this site.

Which houseplants are your favorites?  Please let me know!

I’ve been thinking lately about our indoor space. I suppose this is only natural when its 30 degrees with blowing wind outside, making it extremely uncomfortable to be anywhere BUT inside!

But the cold weather & closing up of windows & doors always makes me uncomfortable.  Cleaning products, dirty shoes, dust… not to mention the continual offgassing of carpets & paints; I can’t help but think of the accumulation of unhealthy particles.  So I dedicate this post to trying to keep our indoor air healthy this winter!

We’ll start with the shoes.  We’ve always kept a shoe rack by the front door and, as strange as it may be, I do ask everyone to remove their shoes on entry.  This prevents the continual tracking of icemelt salt, dirt, and other gunk, through the house, and on/into the carpets.

So… carpets. And paint. Sigh. In a perfect world, where I could design my own house, I’d have chosen natural ZERO-VOC paint for the walls, and toxin-free tile or wood for the floors.  In reality, our home came with carpeted floors & painted walls of unknown origin.  To this end,  whenever we’ve had to do paint touchups, I’ve purchase all natural paints from BioShieldPaint.com (I don’t operate nor am affiliated with, but I’ve had good experiences with).

To clean our carpets, I use hot water, a squirt of dish detergent, and essential oil of tea tree & lavender in the detergent compartment of our steam cleaner.  I’ve found the essential oils + gentle cleansers work just as well to remove the surface & ground in dirt & dust while leaving the air fresh-smelling, and no chemical residue in the carpets!

Speaking of chemical cleaners, we use only all-natural chemical-free cleaners inside the house. I do, unfortunately make an exception for bleach – as I’ve yet to find a reliable way to remove mildew in the bathroom.  Tea Tree Oil does a good job at keeping the mildew & mold at bay once the bleach kills it, but it doesn’t get rid of it when its already there.  If anyone knows a more natural solution for bathroom mildew, please let me know!

Next, lets talk about the HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) air purifier, and why I believe its important to sleep with one. The bedroom is the place in your home where you spend the most time.  You breathe & re-breathe the same air for hours on end.  The ease of your breathing is linked with good sleep, and good sleep is linked with good health.  It makes sense to me that keeping that air clean, circulating, free of dust, mold, animal dander, and dust mites (yuck) helps insure that we sleep better, keep our lungs clearer, and our bodies healthier overall!  So why HEPA? Because its proven to remove the tiniest sized particulate from the air – from large dust down to tiny viruses. For info on how a HEPA works, read here.

One drawback to HEPA purifiers is that they require a fan to operate – because in order to trap the particles, they need to pass through the filter. So you have to get used to the white noise while sleeping.  However, we’ve embraced the sound of the fan over the last 15 years – and find we can’t sleep without it! 

Note: Not all air purifiers are the same.  Some, actually, can be detrimental to your health. Please stay away from air purifiers that use ozone to clean the air, or have an ozone feature.  They have been shown to create unhealthy levels of ozone in the indoor air which can lead to decrease in lung function, aggravation of asthma, etc. You can read the EPA’s report on ozone generators.  

Next up, the house heater filter. We’re currently using a 1” pleated allergen filter in our heater/air conditioner to filter the whole house air as it goes through our furnace. The drawback with this, as opposed to the standard flat fiberglass filter, is that it reduces air flow – so it does reduce the efficiency of the heating system overall.  This does likely lead to a slightly higher heating bill because the heat has to run more often.  But, I think the benefit of particulate reduction far outweighs the negative of slightly increased electricity bill in the winter. I recommend checking for a high MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) rating (the one we use is a 12) as well as a high MPR (microparticle performance rating).  The higher the number, the smaller the particle the filter can capture.

Now those last two items CAN be rather pricey, and not everyone has a blown air heating system, or wants to sleep with white noise. So, the third idea thing I recommend for clean indoor air is houseplants! Houseplants are proven air cleaners. They add oxygen, regulate humidity, filter out toxins, and beautify your space.  I believe they add positive life energy to a home, and help children learn about caring for living things. They also are relatively inexpensive if you purchase from a bigger nursery, but particularly if you can obtain cuttings from friends who already have established plants.  Schools & other non-profits tend to have houseplant sales as fundraisers. We’ve also had some luck with obtaining houseplants through garage sales (and the benefit to this is that they already come potted!).  For a list of best air-cleaning houseplants, see my post on Houseplants as Natural Air Purifiers.

Thanks for reading.  Please feel free post your comments & ideas! I’m always open to suggestions, and continually working towards a more natural toxic-free home.

We’re in the midst of our busiest season & so excited to be here!

Our extended hours are en force, holiday decorations are up, and everyone is in good spirits. The warehouse crew is super busy packing & shipping… just a few short weeks left until Christmas! 

We took some photos on Monday of this week - enjoy!

SeriousShops.com front office:

Monday's outgoing packages:

Monday's afternoon warehouse crew (nice job guys!):



SeriousShops.com holiday season outgoing packages in 2003!
(Why yes, that was our garage, and yes, we have grown!):

When the Plasma Car arrived here at Serious Shops, we felt the need to actively test it out before offering it for sale.

This was of course, solely to be certain our customers would be happy with their purchase.  Okay, who am I kidding? We couldn’t resist racing a futuristic looking muscle-powered scootmobile around the warehouse!  We don’t think you’ll be able to resist either… one ride on the Plasma Car, and you’ll be hooked!

We all gave it a good number of tries out in the warehouse – from the smallest weighing in around 40 lbs to the biggest weighing in around 180 lbs. Adam currently holds the record for fastest trip around the warehouse at 26.2 seconds!

The best part of the Plasma Car is the adaptability to different riders.  Little to big can ride; no matter how short (or long!) your legs are – with no adjustment required.  The Plasma Car holds up to 200 lbs; so Mom, Dad, and kids can enjoy – you just need to be able to turn the wheel! The ride is smooth and super-easy to control – just lean to turn & put your feet down to stop!  Exercise has never been this fun!

It’s cooler than a big wheel, safer than a scooter, and more fun than both combined! We’re sure you’ll love it as much as we do!