family Archives - Pura Vida Sometimes

Cornerstone, family, Lymphedema, wellness

Loving Someone With Lymphedema

March 5, 2018 3 Comments

As many as 200 million people worldwide suffer from Lymphedema, but diagnosis can often leave patients feeling alone and stranded. If you love someone with Lymphedema (LE), there are a few regular habits you can establish to help them feel comfortable, understood, and loved. LE is a dysfunction of the Lymphatic System – the body’s network of filters that helps the Circulatory System clear bacteria, infection, and by-products of blood circulation. Lymphedema can be primary (genetic) or secondary, as the result of trauma or damage to lymph nodes, often as a result of cancer treatment. Fluid back-up in the limbs makes […]

family

Big Mexican Wedding on a Budget

August 20, 2017 2 Comments

Big Mexican Wedding DIY - Pura Vida Sometimes

Your wedding should be one of the happiest days of your life, but the day’s debt should not follow you throughout your marriage. That said if you’re having a big Mexican (Greek, Indian, Korean, etc.) wedding, feeding and entertaining throngs of family and friends just isn’t cheap, but there are a few DIY options that will allow you to pull off the big Mexican wedding on a budget they’ll be talking about for years to come. My idea of an ideal wedding was to elope and get married on the beach with only our siblings, parents, and grandparents, followed by a great […]

family

A Love Affair With My Car & Saying Goodbye

March 25, 2017 No Comments

I love my car but am selling it because it’s time. With it, I’m bidding farewell to a carefree, unattached, adventurous version of me. But it’s time. In the early 2000s, with my own money from my first job, I bought my own car. I was a border-town photojournalist during the week (so you can imagine, I had to scrimp), but on the weekends, I went country. We rode horses, went off-roading, had bonfires, danced, and rabble-roused all weekend every weekend, and I needed a car that could keep up. While on vacation with my family on Coronado Island, California, […]

family, letter to my daughter

Letter to my Daughter: Be Patient with Your Old Mom

February 19, 2017 No Comments

Sweet Warrior Princess: Not too long ago, I was sitting on the bed with my mom and grandma – your great grandma – talking about how quickly time flies. “I still feel like I’m 16,” I said. “Me too!” said your grandma. “Me too!” said your great grandma. There are two funny things about time flying: 1. In spite of wisdom, experience, and maturity, you stay young inside. 2. Age is a sliding scale. No matter where you are on the continuum, you’ll perceive others’ age differently and you are the constant. When you’re a kid, you can’t wait to […]

family, wellness

2017: Scrap Resolutions & Live With Purpose

January 1, 2017 No Comments

2016 was hard. It wasn’t the worst, not the best, but in any case, it’s good to tie up loose ends and welcome a fresh, shiny new year. What are your plans to make the most of this new opportunity? My numerogically-gifted friend Shae will tell you 2016 was a 9 year – a time for endings and closure, however difficult or painful, and sometimes necessary. But today begins a 1 year – the beginning of a new nine-year cycle which will set the course for years to come. It’s a chance to evaluate where you are and where […]

family, wellness

Two Steps to Lasting Gratitude

November 22, 2016 No Comments

2 Steps to Lasting Gratitude on Pura Vida Sometimes

This Thanksgiving holiday, before we even begin preparing the feast or fine-tuning our bank accounts for the sales, set the intention for what you could do to make the holiday most meaningful and establish a pattern of thankfulness and lasting gratitude for the year to come. When did Thanksgiving become all about consumption? We eat a huge lunch of calorie-laden food and sugary desserts until the glycemic load ransacks us and we fall asleep watching football on the couch. We wake up long enough to eat ourselves back into a stupor, and sleep unit next day, when we shop ’till […]

children, family, parenting, toddler

Survive Those Toddler Tantrums

September 20, 2016 No Comments

Survive Toddler Tantrums - Pura Vida Sometimes

In the last few years, with lessons I learned from my very patient husband, seasoned parents, and trial and error, I’ve become a far more patient person, who is actually pretty good at negotiating with toddlers. I think back to a day sometime in my late 20s. I was standing in line at Victoria’s Secret about to spend loads of money on things I didn’t need, when a mother about my age and her toddler got in line behind me. Cue eyeroll. The kind started wailing like a police siren, and the exasperated mother who wanted to update her wardrobe with […]

family, travel

Learning to See Through a Child’s Eyes

September 8, 2016 No Comments

Over the long holiday weekend, we decided to escape the triple-digit heat in the Valley of the Sun and retreat to the pines, filling our lungs with clean air and disconnecting, if only for a few days. Excitedly anticipating a poor network connection, and being too Type A to not to have an agenda, my main business item was to clear out the photos in my iPhone. Easy enough – my idea of relaxing. I also had a list of attractions in the area to visit if the fancy struck us, to make the best use of our limited fun […]

Career, Cornerstone, family, letter to my daughter

Letter to My Daughter: On Being a Workaholic

August 25, 2016 5 Comments

Letter on being a workaholic Pura Vida Sometimes

To my beautiful Warrior Princess: One of my greatest fears is that you will look back on your childhood and think that your mom cared more about work than about you. I would understand if my actions gave you that impression, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d like to explain a few things with hopes you will view our life together with love and compassion and make good choices on how you want to live yours. Since I was 17, I’ve only ever not worked during three four-month spurts in my life. The first two were between […]

nutrition, wellness

Why You Can’t Afford Not to Go Clean

June 23, 2016 No Comments

You Can't Afford Not to Go Clean on Pura Vida Sometimes

When I graduated from business school, I decided I was going to make it big in the business of music and put my shiny new degree to good use, so I emptied my bank account and moved to LA where I was offered an (unpaid) marketing job working on a movie. When I wasn’t designing posters, conducting guerrilla marketing, or working screenings, I was interviewing for administrative jobs that I was “highly overqualified” for, and working on my tan. It was a great and very strange experience, and I made a really good friend out of it. One day as […]