Listen-to-Your-Heart Week.

Photo credit: Seyed Mostafa Zamani



Earlier today, I read an article about the book 'The Heart Speaks' by cardiologist Mimi Guarneri. It deals with the effect of our emotional state on our heart's health. Coming from a family in which heart disease is quite common, heart health is a big topic for me.

More and more scientific discoveries confirm what we instinctively already know and feel: anger, anxiety, grief and stress aren't good for us. Negative feelings trigger stress hormones that cause changes in our heart rhythm. They create a chaotic pattern that has a negative effect on our entire body.

In a similar way, positive emotions such as love and appreciation can make our heartbeat more stable and regular, which helps other organs function better.

So, for many reasons, I pronounce this my 'Listen-to-my-heart week'. For the next 7 days, I am going to take extra care of my heart, in its entirety.

I plan to concentrate on all that is good and positive in my life. There is so much to be grateful for! I will focus on hope, serenity, beauty and abundance. I pledge to love, laugh, treasure and enjoy. I promise to create, build, share and... write.

Are you with me? VC53HJQ52JP7

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(Inter)national Rumtopf Day!

I declare today... Rumtopf Day.

After six months of gathering, cutting, adding, pouring and most of all waiting, this is the day the rumtopf will be opened. A happy and much anticipated occasion indeed.

It's a bit too early in the day to have a go at it already, so it's still safely stacked away in its little corner in the cellar.

Stay tuned for more news about the Official Opening later today.

(Recipe and more pictures here.)

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Warning: Contains the Word 'Vagina'.

If this post's title puzzles you, go read this article. If it doesn't, I'd still recommend you go read it. It was quite an eye opener for me.

As far as I can tell, the 'tricky words' situation is not nearly as bad here in Europe as it seems to be in the US, but it's good to be aware, and alert.

Some time ago, I wrote about the 'save the words' campaign. Wouldn't it be a shame if the word 'vagina' would become extinct and we'd be forced to use elaborate flowery descriptions instead?

I don't think 'vagina' is a particularly nice or beautiful word, but it's quite adequate for what it's supposed to do: describe a part of our bodies I for one wouldn't like to live without. And the reasons why it's considered a problem word annoy me.

Therefore, to do my bit (no pun intended), I now adopt 'vagina' as my second word, sibling to my other adoptee: 'buffoonery'. I hereby promise I will try to use it more often, in conversation as well as in writing. Providing it fits. No pun intended here either.

If we put in some effort, I'm sure we'll find that, like with most words, the word's connotations are flexible. Maybe we can even turn it into poetry. Almost a hundred years after Gertrude Stein's 'A Rose is a Rose is a Rose', we can write our 2010 tribute.

Say it with me: 'A Vagina is a Vagina is a Vagina.' You see? Easy. The word is becoming more beautiful as we speak.

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Soundscapes, Stories and an Ode to Sweetness.

Apart from scents, sounds are probably the next best triggers for our imagination. Music can be a great way to spark ideas, but any type of background sounds can work, especially when you combine different ones.

That's why I was glad when I discovered http://naturesoundsfor.me/. It's a simple online application that allows you to mix up to 4 different sound samples into a composition of your own.

The first thing I want to do here is fulfil the promise I made in a previous article, that whoever guessed first which word I had adopted, would get a special feature in one of my next blog posts.

My sister Lieve was the winner (no cheating involved, I swear!), and in her honour I have made a special mix of soothing nature sounds that will hopefully help her to relax (or put the kids to sleep) in these taxing and strenuous days of combining early motherhood-of-two with daily life and going back to her fulltime job soon.
I have titled the piece 'Ode to Lieve' and while I tip my hat to her, I want to wish her a lot of strength and all the peace and joy in the world. You can listen to it here.

I have also concocted a few other mixes that all tell a different story. What do you think, are the stories 'readable'?

You can use the titles as a clue:

1. http://naturesoundsfor.me/If_they_only_knew

2. http://naturesoundsfor.me/Approaching

3. http://naturesoundsfor.me/The_Wreck

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Wine, Wine, Wine.

I've been quiet on the blog all weekend, but I've got the best excuse in the world: I was in Lille at the 'Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants', known in short as 'the Lille Wine Fair'.

The 'Salon des Vins' is an annual event that takes place in different cities all over France. The fair is organised - as you can guess from its name - by the association of the French independent wineries. We've been going there for several years now, and I love it, in spite of the fact that it seems to attract more visitors every year and it's gradually getting a bit too crowded. Not so good for the visitors, but great for the wineries, of course.

The fair is absolutely huge. There were over 500 wineries present this year, and they all bring a number of their available wines for the visitors to taste and possibly buy.
You can meet wine makers from the different wine regions all over France, each with their own personal style and flair, in their wines as well as in how they present themselves to you. And to me that's one of the great advantages here: you get to see the people behind the wines and the pride they have in their products and their businesses that often go back several generations.

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Ideas for the Holidays.

Amazing how time flies... we're nearly halfway into November! Less than a month from now, many of us will be preparing for the holidays and thinking about presents to put under the Christmas / Yule / Hanukkah tree.
In order to get myself in the right mindset, in the next couple of weeks I'm going to try and post a bunch of party, decoration, food & drink and gift ideas.

(c) christmasstockimages.com

First of all: the tree. I have to admit: I love the smell of a real tree. Still, I hate the thought of slaying it just to decorate the house for a while.
Therefore, many years ago, I decided to buy a tree with roots and plant it out in the garden afterwards for reuse the next year. Unfortunately that didn't work out. By the time I got around to putting it outside, it was too far gone.

After three years of miserable failure, I finally succeeded to save one. I planted it in my herb garden (where it really didn't fit in), didn't dig it out for the following holiday seasons and eventually moved it to another part of the garden where it died anyway. In my defense, I did cut it up and compost it.

In the meantime I've found a compromise: I wait until a couple of days before Christmas, when all normal people have long got their tree and the only ones left are the poor little ugly trees nobody wanted. That's when I come in, a superhero with wool mittens, offering that little, despairing, cut-down tree an opportunity to fulfil its final purpose: to bring beauty and joy to a living room. And every year I'm surprised what a bit of careful pruning, lots of sparkly lights and lavish gold-coloured decoration can achieve.

But as perceivers go (another not-so-covert MBTI reference), I'm always open to consider alternatives for the classic tree, and a few of these certainly hold potential:

Last year, on a champagne tasting trip to France, I saw this at the Mercier house:

Wouldn't that make a brilliant, bubbling Christmas tree? I swear, if anyone wants to get me one of those, I'll take good care of it! I might even share.

Just in case you're not a millionaire, here are a few other, more budget friendly suggestions:

A tree made with your favourite chocolates:

Or your best-loved books:

And I just love these:

• My absolute favourite from All the luck in the world.
• Actually, this sushi tree might be even better, if you don't mind having to make a new one each day. Great idea for a seasonal party though!
• Clever Karen's vintage card tree.
• The wooden possibiliTree®: a frame you can decorate any which way you like.
• Get creative with the content of your bookshelves and see how observant your visitors are.
• Got a hammer and nails? Find a couple of pieces of wood to recycle and make one of these, or get one at Wood & Wool Stool.

And now for something completely different, but not entirely: if you'd consider getting someone a pet for a present, see how to wrap it below. Buffoonery, I say!

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Don't be a foppotee, adopt a word now!

Have you ever given birth to a new word? Or considered adopting an old one?

All languages evolve, which is a good thing. Unfortunately that also means that older words that are perhaps no longer relevant fade away and die. It makes perfect sense, and yet it's a shame. Those old words are often rich in connotation. They talk to us about times long gone and places we've never visited.

Oxford Fajar, a subsidiary of Oxford University Press and one of the oldest publishing houses in Malaysia, has started a campaign to 'save the words'. Their website - even though a bit too busy for my taste - is full of words that are literally screaming to be rescued from the dreary pits of oblivion.

Every single word in their collection represents a story, a setting, an era, a character or any inspiration you could possibly need. On top of that, knowing some of these words has to come in handy one day, be it to characterise a person in a novel or story or as a random interjection into casual conversation. And I haven't even touched on the insult potential! Your cocktail parties will never be the same again.
Here are a few suggestions:

• 'odynometer': an instrument for measuring pain. As in: 'I had to stop talking to him because my odynometer overloaded.'
• 'frutescent': having the habit or appearance of a shrub. For example: 'You, Sir, are without any doubt the most frutescent person at this party.'
• 'tortiloquy': dishonest or immoral speech. E.g. : 'I applaud the crafty tortiloquy in your inauguration address.'

Okay, your turn now:

• 'foppotee': a simple-minded person.
• 'aquabib': a water-drinker.
• 'theomeny': the fury of God.
• 'recineration': the second time a thing or place is burnt down.
• 'agonyclite': a member of a heretical sect that stood rather than kneeled. (I'm not kidding...)
• 'rhodologist': a person who studies and classifies roses.
• 'stiricide': the falling of icicles from a house.
• 'dodrantal': being 9 inches in length.

Don't miss this opportunity. Adopt your word today and help it to a new and meaningful life.

What do you think mine is, by the way? The first one to guess right will get a star role in one of my next posts.

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