Shake it, baby

I haven't put a post up since the Chile earthquake, nearly two weeks ago. I think it was the chaos and confusion and stress of having family in a devastating situation like the earthquake was emotionally exhausting!
Tara hasn't posted yet either - so here is the update: they were in their Santiago apartment when the initial Concepcion earthquake hit and were able to safely leave their apartment immediately. Their apartment sustained permanent damage which makes it unsafe to live in right now. Luckily, Gonzalo's parents have an apartment nearby that is completely earthquake safe.
Tara has been able to get online for short periods of time - but is now in the process of filing paperwork for Gonzalo to move to the U.S., cleaning out and packing up her apartment and in the meantime, living with her in laws and experiencing over 100+ aftershocks, the biggest yesterday which was over 7.2!
I think the worst is over - and certainly they were / are very lucky in terms of not sustaining any physical harm and thank god - were not in Concepcion or the beach towns nearby when this happened.
Just an gentle reminder that despite all we do to create the perfect, happy world in which we live on a day to day basis - we are merely inhabitants of a much larger space! Most of which we have little to no control over!
So - here's to being grateful for where we are and what we have and really keeping it all in perspective!
Love, Katie

Pretty Table and Fabulous Requested Recipes

As I am sitting here waiting for two kids to fall asleep, I am trawling my favorite sites. I love to get design inspiration and lucky for us, there are so many amazing blogs out there with great ideas.


I found this picture of a side table on Absolutelybeautifulthings.blogspot.com - one of my favorites.

The pretty table vignette is taken from here (I can't figure out how to post pictures from either blog):

www.kimficaro.com

I love the idea of this little side table with pretty objects and empty frames. We are so bombarded with catalogs and the big box stores selling us a 'lifestyle' that many of us have forgotten (or never found!) our own style. I love the casual idea of making a pretty table in our house. I am going to make my own pretty table (when Liam wakes up - he is sleeping in my room) on an antique secretary desk that I bought from Craigslist a couple years ago. It will be the perfect setting for some pretty objects and frames.

More importantly, I have recipes to share:

Shelby's Restaurant Soy Vinaigrette Dressing (Orinda, California)
This recipe was borrowed by our brother Rich over 10 years ago when he was a waiter at Shelby's. A fantastic basic soy vinaigrette for your own greenleaf salad. Shelby's served this with shredded chicken, almonds and fried wontons. This is the jumbo size recipe - you will need to scale accordingly:

Shelby's Soy Vinaigrette
4 cups Vegetable Oil
1 cup Soy Sauce
2 1/2 cups Rice Wine Vinegar
touch of Cayenne Pepper
Pinch of Salt
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons chopped Garlic

Next recipe to come ... Healthy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies ...

Foam Roller

Hi all! Have any of you ever done Pilates and used the foam roller? It's amazing! I'm a huge foam roller fan. Currently I do Pilates at home with or without a video guiding my exercise but I did invest in a foam roller which I learned how to use when I attended classes. We used the roller in a variety of ways. One of my least favorite things to do in the beginning was to roll out my IT Band. The Illiotibial band is a tough group of fibers that run along the outside of the thigh connected by the butt muscles and knee. It can get irritated from overuse (especially for runners) and needs to be stretched out, that's where the foam roller comes in! Basically you lie sideways with the roller under the side of your thigh and you roll back and forth. For some (for me!) it can be quite painful in the beginning if you have never or rarely target the IT band. But after a few roller sessions you will notice that it no longer hurts and you feel loosened up.
In addition, the roller can be used to massage your shoulders and back by laying on it and rolling certain ways (see websites with examples).
Definitely check out the foam roller! You can find it for $20 or less. I bet if you did more internet research you could find a lot of uses for it too. Then share them with us!

Here's a site about using the roller with pilates:

http://www.healthnews.com/blogs/jennifer-gianni/fitness-exercise/exercise-equipment/pilates-foam-roller-2684.html

This site has more information about using the roller to stretch before or after exercise:
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=9911

Another interesting weekend in Vermont

It is snowing today. I love it!
We had a gorgeous weekend, and interesting too. I thought you might like to hear about it. This kind of stuff seems normal to me, but I know that we live a unique kind of life in the green mountains of Vermont. Here's a little glimpse into the lives of the Berkfields for all of you urbanites...

Friday night
My housemate Abi and her son Levi went with Birch and I down to Hampshire College in Amherst, MA (about an hour away)for a panel discussion by the Prison Birth Project. The Prison Birth Project provides doula services to women who are incarcerated and they also provide other services like prenatal and postnatal women's groups and mothering from prison women's groups. They do amazing work - check out their website. http://theprisonbirthproject.org/
We went because there was childcare provided. So our babies hung out with a bunch of older kids while we listened to four women talk. Two of the women were formerly incarcerated and told their stories of being pregnant in prison, and of mothering their children from prison. Their reasons for being incarcerated were ridiculous and caused so much trauma in their families. We need to seriously rethink our current prison system, which does not help people rehabilitate, but actually causes further societal damage. It is so great that an org like the Prison Birth Project is working to support women in prison and their children. Abi and I are trying to think how we can support a project like this. We might drive children to visit their parents in prison. I'll keep you updated. I know there are also good projects like this in California.

Saturday
We had an all day retreat at our farm for the organization that we work with - Post Oil Solutions. We spent time imagining what we want the organization to be like in 5 years and we all agreed that we wanted everyone in the area to be a part of the organization, even if they don't realize it. We want people to be working as a community to solve all kinds of issues that will come up in a post oil society... growing food, sharing resources, sharing skills, working together.

And then we spent a few hours doing an Anti-Class assessment. This was a follow-up to an Anti-Racist Assessment that we did a year ago. We are an org mostly made up of people who are white and middle class. We were working on recognizing the assumptions and values that we bring into our work. And then working on how to be more effective in working across classes. We feel that our movement towards a post oil society must be a cross class effort. And if we are working to make our world a better place we envision a world without classes, where there is equality, instead of people with money using their power over people who don't have money. We are setting our goals high. The woman who facilitated was from an organization called Class Action. Check it out http://www.classism.org/

While we were in the retreat Birch was in the greenhouse with our roommates - we planted onions, leeks, kale, chard and spinach this weekend!


Sunday
It is hard to believe, but it is the time to cut and split wood for next wintera. Our housemate Dan is a logger and he cut down about 6 trees on the property and on Sunday we split the wood. Here are a few photos of our work. It was a gorgeous day and it felt great to be working together and committing to next winter.

HI SISTERS! I MADE IT! 

Check me out (but don't read the comments.. yikes..)  http://www.elle.com/Fashion/Street-Chic 

NY Fashion week just ended... here's are some of my favorite looks... 

E xxx

Nightgowns

I love nightgowns. I was just perusing one of my favorite websites, Garnet Hill - and they happened to have my favorite nightgown on sale for $14. I paid wayyyy more a year or two ago. Here is the link to the smocked nightgown:
http://www.garnethill.com/jump.jsp?itemID=7409&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C2425%2C10714%2C10714&iProductID=7409

Buy it today, love it tomorrow.

Nighty night ...

Crocodile Attack!

One of my little obsessions over the past few years has been crocodile furniture and accessories. I am not talking real crocodile OF COURSE, but "mock crock". I had a headboard made for my king size bed out of a chocolate brown mock crock and its slightly tufted.  Here is my husband Gonzalo reading a book with my son Sebastian, and you can see our crock headboard.

 This gives my room a more masculine look, but then I have other feminine touches so it doesn't look like a bachelor pad. I very much love the look of crock tables. Here is one I saw in Santa Monica at the Jonathan Adler store - which I loved. I saw the one in white and it was gorgeous, but the brown one is equally nice:
http://www.jonathanadler.com/shop/product.php?productid=17563&cat=0&page=1&initial=4797#


And check out this side table  From Graham and Green- I love this!

 

I even love these croc placemats from Urban Barn - how cute are these: