Inside The Polished Apple

It was so timely-I had a call with my coaches this week about prioritizing the things in life.  What is urgent, non-urgent, important and non-important?   Calgary is in the midst of a cleanup from the recent flooding-an amazing recovery is in progress from this disaster that has affected thousands of families, the town of High River, the Calgary downtown core and more.  (Including my little incredible and wonderful community of Bowness.) It all was and is urgent. Urgent to pack bags and get out of your house by 7pm. Urgent to watch the news and Facebook updates all day and all night. Urgent to fill bathtubs or jugs of tap water. Urgent to feel as though you should drop everything and start shoveling out basements. Urgent to purge your house of anything unnecessary and donate to families in need.  Urgent to give food, clothes, money, anything you can scrape together.   The urgency makes it difficult to see what is the most important thing to do at ...

Hello Elan community! We hope you are safe and dry. Our apologies for our on-line absence during the floods. Many of our office team were in various degrees of evacuation, or evacuation alert, although it now looks like our homes are safe. We know that we have practice members who are still evacuated and you are in our thoughts. Please let us know if there is any way that we can help and s pread the word within our community. The generosity of this entire city has been amazing. If anyone still needs a place to stay, food, clothing, household or children's items, please ask. We may not be able to personally provide, but we can put the request out. Our office is open regular hours. We know that it may be difficult for some of you to reach us and please be safe if you are considering coming in. As odd as it may sound, it was very calming to be at work yesterday and have a little piece of normalcy and serenity. Take care! From all of us at Elan.

We all disappear at some point don't we? While I haven't been away from the office TOO much, time seems to have disappeared.  I've had a busy month with practice members and squeezing training into every spare moment.  This is exciting information to come!  But out of the office... in the past 5 weeks I have had 3 birthday parties (out of town that is, and I think there were one or two additional ones here), an upcoming wedding, a training seminar in Ottawa, a community garage sale, end of year picnics and dinner, and will have spent an estimated 40 hours of highway driving.   So patience with me at the moment!  I am well aware of the lure of being busy, and have to say it has not been only busy but productive time as well.  I am dreaming of staying put for a bit and having a weekend with much space.     That or perhaps find a log cabin in the woods with some wifi?   The good news, the garden is up and flowers are blooming; our fami...

June is our Nature and Nourish Month!  Here's a Guest Post from our Health Coach Janis, with a challenge for you.   As you are already seeking a holistic approach to health with your work with Elan Family Wellness, you probably already have good or excellent eating habits.  You’re up for some challenges, such as the Raw Food Challenge.  But what about seeking nourishment beyond food?  So often, our focus is on the external factors in our life: work, caring for loved ones, the self re-filling to-do list…. Summer is a natural time to slow down and enjoy a more relaxed pace of life, so I’d like to encourage you to do a Nourishment Challenge.  Perhaps this challenge involves food and exercise (I’m never going to argue with that), but I’d like you to focus on self-care: ·           Dance ·           Sing ·      ...

As part of Elan Family Wellness Centre's Brain Month, we're happy to have this guest blog post from our Reflexologist Sandra Catania. This fun read was previously published in our May Newsletter. When I first heard the topic for this month, I had to laugh. After spending the past five years either pregnant and/or caring for babies (read: not getting much sleep), I definitely subscribe to the idea that "pregnancy brain" can last a very long time. This condition is described with words like "brain fog", "absentmindedness", "forgetful", "short term memory loss". New moms and moms-to-be may even experience spelling and grammatical errors. After consulting with my friend google, it would appear that there are just as many articles disproving the fact that "Momnesia" exists as there are proving it. And what does it matter? I say if you are experiencing any of these symptoms, pregnant or not, it probably means that you...

We came home from Prague with a bit of an obsession.... MARIONETTES! It started when we bought tickets to see the marionette version of Don Giovanni when we were in Prague. Real theatre with four foot tall marionettes! Then it grew as every path from our apartment to any attraction walked us right by a marionette shop. Some were made in Czech Republic, some were probably made in China. Soccer players, presidents, princesses and witches-all with strings attached to animate them. The first marionette we bought was the momento "doll" to add to the collection. But then she became the daily entertainment back at the apartment. Next there was a request for a marionette for dad. No. But we did buy a couple more for gifts to take back home. Of course, we bought them from a little old stooped over lady from some tucked away shop. Czech language only of course. The dolls all travelled well home and found themselves in their respective homes. One string repai...

It does not get easier than this. Unless you dump a can of soup in the pan. What do you make when your food coop order comes into the house and your pantry is exploding? Never mind that we don't actually have a pantry. You want a fast and easy dinner, veggies are good, healthy fats are good, and some ginger thrown in to kick the nausea that may have arrived with eating out yesterday is excellent. And yes, it's 26 degrees out in May and half of the neighborhood is BBQing, but doesn't all of that scream for soup? From Cans in the Pantry... Easy easy soup recipe: 1 Onion 3 tsp butter (or other oil) Melt butter, throw in onion for 3-5 minutes. And add: Can of coconut milk Can of pumpkin purée 2 cups vegetable broth 1/2 tsp EACH cumin, curry, ginger Dash of salt. Simmer for 20 minutes and you are ready to serve up a lavish picnic of pumpkin soup. To a Soupy May Picnic. Did I mention that coconut oil is good brain food? Happy Brain month!