Happenings

Is there anything more festive than tissue paper hearts that accordian out?  The girls watched me unfurl it like it was some sort of magic. Love is in the air. I think Valentines Day is the biggest school holiday, so much preparation is involved, and the excitement is un real. Or possibly any holiday celebrated in February would be a big deal- it's so wintery- and the novelty is wearing off slightly.

My studio however has been seeing a bit more use- My easel is set up- the paints are laid out- the brushes are wet- and today- Canvases stretched- I haven't stretched a canvas in a few years- but it really is like riding a bike- and so satisfying to methodically staple it all down so that it's drum tight and utterly transformed into a surface worthy of paint. Lovely.

These books were my latest Amazon scores (does anyone elses recommended reading list from amazon scare them- it's like some sort of alternate universe in which you are an extreme version of yourself), I loved "Steal like an artist"- it's small and short- I read it in one night- but full of good wisdom. You know how sometimes you know something- but you don't really act on it- or people tell it to you all the time but it doesn't make a difference and then someone says it and it just clicks- either you're ready for it- or something about the delivery makes you take notice- or whatever and suddeenly it becomes a big truth. This book has lots of moments like that in it. It's good. (I also love it when advice books give me the advice that I'm already acting on from my own intuition- makes me feel like I'm awesome, even when the advice is pretty basic).

Happy Valentines my dears! hope you're all enjoying some slightly sticky kisses (or is that just me- the kids are pretty much coated in a film of chocolate of sugar these days...)

The devotee

trying to get a handle on those toddler mood swings I suppose!

On my Bookshelf

Epi-genetics

Last week we stumbled across a documentary on t.v. about epigenetics- I'm far from understanding all the molecular biology aspects- but the gist of it is that environmental factors can affect your genes in such a way so that they have an effect on your grandchildren. Which seems far fetched until you really think about it. In the show they were talking about the eating habits of grandparents at the time that they were producing sperm or eggs, and how that caused the quality of their sperm or eggs to be altered which causes the effect in their children (they were linking nutritional defences to diabetes in later generations)

In the Hundered Year Lie by Randall Fitzgerald- he's talking about the same type of thing except he's focusing on chemical exposure and their lasting effect on the human species. Any chemicals that I was exposed to while pregnant with N will affect her- but also since she is a girl- any chemical I was exposed to while pregnant will affect her eggs because the exposure occurred while they were being formed, and therefore it will affect my grandchildren too. For men the prime time for exposure is before puberty, when they develop sperm.

The really scary thing that the documentary pointed out was that the changes that they noticed in the offspring of lab animals who were exposed to chemicals weren't limited to one generation- the effects were passed on in different ways, indefinitely. Which means any exposure to chemicals is not only affecting us, but our entire line of descendants. Frightening stuff, it kind of puts a new impact on our attitude towards drugs and synthetics, because in a way we don't really own our genes- we just lease them. I know lots of people who expose themselvs to harmful things (myself included) with the mind-set that they're only hurting themselves, but apparantly that just isn't so.

Guilty Pleasures

I've been picking up books at the local value village for a little while now- it's a bit of a routine- I buy some kind of light trash-esque paperbacks (or sorry- did I say trash-esque? I meant Chick Lit. Oh how I hate that phrase, but guiltily love the genre.), then I also buy some proper literature books- Edith Wharton, Timothy Findlay, Margaret Atwood etc.- to ease the guilt a bit. (I'll take turns reading 'fun' books and 'serious' books- though truthfully I think they're all fun)

Lately though I've been running into another genre- food literature- I've picked up Micheal Pollan's The omnivore's Dilemma, Last chance to Eat by Gina Mallet and some other frightening books about chemicals and organics and food. All of the books are in top shape and have highlighted selections- so I can only assume that they are textbooks. The other day I confirmed it when I saw two bonafide textbooks about food politics. I've been enjoying these books immensely, and they've been really reinforcing just how important it is to re-vamp the way we eat.

I'll be sure to keep you posted on my reactions to the latest such book- The Hundred Year Lie- It focuses on chemicals and drugs, and toxins, and it's my punishment for reading(and enjoying) a book by Sophia Kinsella of the Shop-aholic book series.

What's your 'guilty' book genre?