It's been two years since I last blogged. Since then, I've had a book tour, worked steadily, and had a (second) baby. But I'm still trying to take advice from my book, Women in Overdrive, about keeping snippets of unscheduled time to relax. Doesn't leave much time for blogging.

I just finished a project writing and editing
the website for Essential
Parenting, founded by Chris White. He's been studying
medicine, psychology, and eastern religions for 15 years, and has
synthesized his parenting philosophy into what he calls Essential
Parenting. The basic idea is that in order to be the best parent you
can, you need to work on your own issues before you pass them along to
your child.

The project was fun because Chris has a wild, brilliant and sometimes
meandering mind, and it was my job to craft his ideas into a coherent
message. I'll sign off with a quote from his site, by Martha Graham.

There
is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through
you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This
expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have
it.

What Keeps us from Slowing Down?

It's the holidays again, and I often think about slowing down at this time. It's this odd juxtaposition of everything speeding up around me-- shopping, parties, and traffic—while at the same time other things are slowing down: Less work comes my way between Christmas and New Year, and my husband and friends take off from work, giving the time a special feelig. This year, I experimented with making the holidays less stressful, and it worked! Here's what I did:

1. Ordered all of my presents online
2. When I went to visit family, I made sure that I got some exercise andnapped every day, even if it meant opting out of some activities.
3. Didn't check my email for a week.
4. Only went to holiday parties that I really wanted to go to.
5. Took an afternoon off to write meaningful cards to certain people in my life.

That's it. Pretty simple, but I feel relaxed and happy!

Nora on View From the Bay: January 10th on ABC7

Tune in for a segment on Women in Overdrive on January 10th; I'll be talking about slowing down and giving a few reasonable tips.

Go Slow essay/Diablo magazine

Keep an eye out for my essay called Go Slow in this month's Diablo magazine. It was fun to write, since it's written in the first-person and I tell the story of how I realized I had to slow down. I'll leave a little for the suspense factor, and then post it on my website. Happy New Year!

Media Bistro Seminar: Writing about Health and Wellness for Magazines/ April 26, 7-10

This is a great 3-hour class for people interested in either breaking into magazines or those who want to take their writing up a notch. It takes place in downtown SF, and it's also a great way to make contacts with other people with the same interests. You never know who might become an editor one day!

You can sign up, or find out more info, at www.mediabistro.com

Here's the description:
With business, cooking, and travel magazines publishing alternative health stories, it's easy to see that interest from the mainstream is at an all-time high. Newsstands are filled with titles like Spirituality & Health, Body & Soul, Organic Style, Alternative Medicine, Luxury Spa Finder, and Breathe. As interest in health and spirituality explodes, titles are looking to fill their pages with stories on yoga, health, spirituality, and complementary medicine.

Articles about yoga, meditation, acupuncture, and fitness are being published in all kinds of magazines. To break into this growing market, you must learn where to find stories, how to pursue interesting holistic topics, and how to present them to a mainstream editor as essential for publication.
In this seminar, you will learn:

What editors at health and spirituality magazines are looking for
*How to break into new magazines
*How to pitch mainstream magazines health and spirituality stories
*Where to find the latest research for story ideas
*Hot topics: spas, hybrid fitness, eastern and western approaches

Qigong article in the NYTimes on April 5

Look for it in the THursday Styles section!

Back Page essay in the SF Chronicle Sunday Magazine/APril 1

In the throes of my book launch, I wrote a humorous essay about how I was totally stressed out promoting my book about not getting stressed out. The piece will appear in the SF Chronicle's Sunday magazine on April 1. I enjoyed writing it, because it's very personal and talks about how I used my techniques in the book to get my head on straight. Keep an eye out for it.