Let’s Have A Catch Up!

Posted on September 18, 2013 by flamidwyfe

Well thank you, Mona, for the kick in the butt to write a blog 🙂

Where to start? The radio show I talked about in my last blog was so much fun! I had nausea all day that day, for nothing! The hosts made me feel like we were sitting in a comfy den, chatting over coffee. If you missed it you can click here: Sandi on Maternally Yours radio

The first weekend in September I traveled to our nation’s capital to visit my friend Rana, her husband Mohammed and their son Azooz. They were here visiting from Abu Dhabi. So wonderful seeing Rana. She is like a sister to me and I cherish our friendship!

I can’t believe how big Azooz has gotten!

On Monday morning my dear friend Danielle came visiting!

We had a wonderful breakfast with Rana and then she dropped us off…

We visited The Mall, the Lincoln Memorial at one end, and the new Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial. We even saw President Obama when his helicopter flew just above our heads at the MLK Memorial.

Oh, and this happened first thing Monday morning! I didn’t let it prevent me from walking all over DC!

I just did this…

And continued on.

On Tuesday I spent about 5 hours walking around Arlington National Cemetery. What an amazing experience.

The servicemen and women in this section were born in the 80’s and 90’s very sobering. I found myself whispering, “thank you”, over and over.

Then it was time to fly home. Wednesday morning I drove to work and then went to my chiropractor Ian Schtulman’s office for an X-ray. Diagnosis… Fractured 5th metatarsal. That’s a fancy word for broken foot. So I am now wearing this gorgeous fashion accessory…

That night was girls night out… Nothing like hanging with the girlies! I met some new friends who are just as awesome as the old gang!

Friday brought me to the International Institute for Health Care Professionals where I have the honor to teach student midwives. I have to say its the highlight of my week… Here are some of my girls at lunch with me…

Saturday I was suppose to run the 9/11 Heroes Run, but broken foot wouldn’t allow me. So I got up early to support my friends who were running it and took pics!

Saturday night was my friend Lorie’s 50th birthday party… It was a wear all white party, which I thought was an awesome concept… Then I found out why…

Yes, that’s me, all did up!

I was spared the color fun due to my broken foot 😀

Sunday morning spent with family at Life Church Jensen Beach… The part of the week I really look forward to! I stopped for a sunrise coffee…

Sunday afternoon spent having a BBQ with my friends Ed and Elizabeth… Watched my Dolphins win their season opener and the Serena win the US Open… Phone call from midwife colleague Tammy to GO NOW to an address she texted me… She had three births going at the same time! What an honor to assist one of my former assistants and be present at beautiful beginnings…
This is me charting on the electronic medical record on my iPhone (technology rocks!!) and assisting the baby with breastfeeding at the same time 🙂

At midnight the birth workers, having been present at 5 births total this beautiful Sunday, gathered at the Irish pub for libations and to exchange birth stories… I love these beautiful women!

Poured down the rain on the 70 mile commute on Monday morning. Cranky from the rain or lack of sleep? Nope… Thankful for the busyness of my life and for the rain to nourish my space here on Earth. I was rewarded with this, just as I pulled into work…

Busy, busy week working all my jobs… Monday & Wednesday the Birth House, Tuesday & Thursday SLB Billing (my midwife billing service), also did a ton of paperwork to help a sister midwife get caught up. Thursday night, Life Groups (another highlight of my week), Friday teaching in Boca at the midwife college.

Wednesday, September 11 was my baby Tiffany’s 28th birthday. We also buried my Uncle Russell at the So. Florida Veteran’s Memorial Park. Uncle Russ was my mom’s little brother and Tiffany’s Godfather. He will be missed. He was quite the jokester!

And then off on another travel adventure to catch a baby in the Virgin Islands…

I missed baggage check in by TWO MINUTES, so had to change flight to 8 hours later… Not a big deal. Had a yummy breakfast…

And hung out in the Admirals Lounge for the day. Even got to watch my Dolphins win the 2nd game of the season! I “checked-in” on Four Square from the Admirals Lounge and American Airlines TWEETED about me on their Twitter account… How cool is that???

Ill post an update from St. John in a couple of days… Need to make breakfast and get ready for the beach 🙂 Here’s a couple teaser photos…

Sunset

View from the flat I’m staying in.

I hope everyone is having an amazing September!

Ciao!

Travel – Australia

Posted on February 21, 2013 by flamidwyfe

G’day Mates!
So I’ve been in Australia, on business, for 10 days and thought I’d share some of my pictures with you. I can’t express the happiness I have strolling through a park and seeing koalas hanging out in the tree. Not a zoo, just a national park. And the kangaroos and cockatoos and kookaburras and Galahs. Pretty awesome 🙂

The family I’m staying with eat all organic and mostly gluten-free which is wonderful. Good healthy eating, lots of hiking and fresh air! I met some people from Meet-Up here and have hiked a couple of times with them.

Here’s the pics…

Three koalas in a tree 🙂

Magpie… You lookin’ at me?

I made yummy gluten-free coconut muffins…

And another sunset…

So, that’s the first ten days… I’ve got a few recipes to post, hopefully in the next couple of days!

Ciao!

Happy 2013!

Posted on December 31, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wow… what a CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY year! 42 Take offs and Landings… 91,000 air miles logged. From huge airplanes (Boeing A380) to a small 9 seater. China, Hong Kong, U.S., Japan and the Bahamas.

I completed the Dukan diet in May, having lost 111 pounds! And for the most part have kept it off. I bounce up a few pounds, readjust and it comes back off.

I went from not being able to run for 45 seconds to running 5K and completed one. I am now training for a triathlon next August with bloggy friends Cindy, Sandra and Anna and can’t wait!!!

I’ve also done yoga and a program called D.I.R.T. regularly… D.I.R.T. kicks my ass!

Last year I brought New Years in with my dear friend Lucy in Hong Kong…

New Years Eve in Hong Kong Dec 31, 2011. With Lucy Rowney.

Crazy how much has happened in the past 12 months! Crazy how blessed and fortunate I am to have the people in my life that I do. Crazy how lucky I am to have an amazing job with two crazy women that I adore and love working with!!

December 2012
Lorie, Me and Miri

The next adventure? Planning a conference for birth workers in Ecuador for July this year and planning my own little trip into Peru to visit Machu Picchu afterwards. It’s going to be an amazing trip!

What are your plans for 2013?

I hope all of you have a blessed, amazing, healthy and prosperous 2013!

Ciao!
Sandi 🙂

Strep Throat – Ugh!

Posted on November 9, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Yuck! I’ve come down with strep throat and it ain’t fun! Started with a sore throat on Monday evening, but when I woke up on Tuesday I seemed fine. I took some Vitamin C before going to bed and then again in the morning.

Tuesday at noon I headed north to go to a meeting in Tallahassee (7.5 hour drive) and felt pretty good all day until around 700 p.m. just before I arrived in Tallahassee I started getting chills and felt warm 😦 It progressed on to a sore throat by the time I went to bed. I took MORE Vitamin C and had some tea.

Wednesday morning up early to go to the pre-meeting breakfast meeting with midwives and birth center administrators from around the state. Oh boy did my throat hurt! Had some tea with honey with breakfast and tried not to think of how many carbohydrates were in the friggin’ honey… sigh. By the time I got in the car at noon to drive back to south Florida I had a full on fever, chills, body aches and major sore throat 😦

Met my mom in Gainesville to pick up BeBe (she babysat her overnight)…

Doesn’t my mom look fantastic for 81?!?

And by the time I reached South Florida at 800 p.m. last night my throat was so sore I had to take Ibuprofen…

Not much better today… although I think the staff is happy that the boss has no voice! It was awfully quiet around here today. I’ve officially consumed a half bottle of honey 😦 Not getting on the scale for DAYS! 😀

How are all my friends in the North East U.S. doing with the second yucky storm in a week? Check in and let me know how y’all are doing!

Ciao!

Dukan – Sunday Celebration and weekly wrap-up!

Posted on September 17, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Consolidation Phase Day 128 of 500!
Weekly Weight: 146-149
Goal Weight: 155
So Consolidation DOES work 🙂 I can’t believe it’s been 128 days since I met my goal weight! This summer has flown by! I am very consistent with my weight, still weighing every morning and still VERY happy with the results!

This past week has been busy! I am moving back to the States on Thursday after living abroad for 4 years. I have been packed for over a month 🙂 I know, a bit OCD, but what to say. I’ve got 2 large suitcases and a large box as checked luggage (things I didn’t want to risk never seeing again if my shipped boxes disappear into the stratosphere or something.) It’ll be worth paying extra for the peace of mind.

Exercise this past week included running 4-5K 3 times. Walking 4-5K the other 4 nights. I also did 30-45 minutes of yoga 4 times the past week. I hiked the mountain 1 time this past week and hope to do it Tuesday morning as one last hurrah 🙂

I met Hanna and Diana and Jacob (next photo) on the street a couple of weeks ago. They are from Sweden and here to attend the University just down the block from my flat. Jacob had on a Miami Dolphins hat, so of course I stopped them 🙂 They’ve been to dinner a few times and I wish I had met them sooner!

Jacob

The weather in Hangzhou has been PERFECT this past 4 days. Sunny and a cool breeze. I’ve had the flat windows opened and the whole place is fresh. The summer heat was oppressive! So it’s a nice break.

Let’s see… what did I eat this week. Lots of tea eggs, as per usual. Lunches consisted of leftover roasts (both pork and beef), salad, cheddar cheese and almonds. Dinners were steak stir fry, pork roast, beef roast, shrimp stir fry and my new favorite way to cook veggies; veggies (broccoli, asparagus, carrots and garlic stems) steamed in coconut milk… OH MY you have no idea how good THAT is… a must try! I also had a dinner out with friends at a local sushi restaurant and a hot pot dinner… guests for dinner almost nightly, trying to cook up all the food in the freezer AND say good bye to friends, new and not so new.

Pork roast… Mmm!

Out for sushi with Baby Milva!

Out for dinner with Joe, Chiara and baby Nunu!

You throw in the meat and veggies and it cooks in the hot pot… the liquid on the left is spicy, spicy!!! Mmmmmm!

And I did my last water birth lecture in front of a hundred people or so in a nearby town. I hope my message got across to some folks and they have gentler births!

Me and Liang… on our way to my last water birth lecture. She’s the lead midwife supporting water birth at Hangzhou AIMA.

So, that’s my wrap up! How did your week go? Is it cooling down where you live?

Ciao!

Recipe – Low Carb – Roast Dinner

Posted on September 10, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Last week I met 3 Swedish students that are here in Hangzhou to study a semester at the local university. I’m an extrovert (I’m sure most of you figured THAT out by now!) and the young man in the group was wearing a Miami Dolphins cap, so of course, being the Dolfan that I am, I said hello! By the end of the conversation I had invited Jacob, Diana and Hanna to my flat for dinner on Friday. Tatiana, one of my colleagues, also joined us.

On the menu:
Roast (this one was a prime rib hunk of love!)
Spaghetti squash (that turned out to be pumpkin, lol!)
Roasted vegetables – Onions, yam (which ended up being Taro) and carrots **TARO IS *NOT* LOW CARB… just so you know.
Fresh salad

I cooked the roast for 3.5 hours in the toaster oven and it was PERFECT… I had to fight the urge to not consume it before the guests arrived! The meat fell apart with the fork. In the container with the roast I added the onions, taro and carrots.

I also put the “spaghetti” squash I cut in half, cut size down in a different pan and added the balance of the onions, taro and carrots and baked in the toaster oven (after the roast was done) for 50 minutes. This is when I realized that the “spaghetti” squash wasn’t and went to plan B 😀

Plan B was removing the flesh from the pumpkin, mashing it, adding in 4 pkts of Splenda, a Tbs of ghee and a tsp of cinnamon… OH MY GOODNESS was this yummy!

I threw the salad together and welcomed my guests… we had a lovely dinner! Here’s the pics!

After everyone left I did a quick clean up and then went for a short 3 km run around the block… perfect way to end the evening!

Hunk of prime rib love… Mmm! You should always brown each side of the meat before roasting in the oven.

Just browning this made the house smell delish!

Carrots, celery, taro and onion… perfect compliments to a roast!

Seasonings… keep it simple!

Taro in all it’s purply glory… It’s quite starchy, but has a lot of bang for it’s buck… it’s full of fiber and tastes a bit nutty.

Ready for the toaster oven!

My Un-spaghetti squash… it was yummy anyways!

Falling apart with a fork!

The veggies after I removed from the roasting pan… Nom!

Making Mashed Pumpkin

Mixed Salad… I love adding purple cabbage for color and taste!

Dinner ready for the guests!

Hanna, Tatiana, Diana and Me… Lovely dinner companions!

One of the awesome things about living abroad is the people you meet. We have choices in life. We can go about our business and walk around with our eyes averted or we can keep our eyes open and look for new friendships. I choose the latter. I have met so many amazing people from all over the world these past 4 years living abroad… treasures, every one of them and lots of stories I have of my journey, as I head back home for good in 10 days.

Do you extend yourself to strangers?

Ciao!

p.s. added a pic of my Blue Sparkly Notebook to the last post 🙂

Dukan – Celebration Sunday & Mountain Hike

Posted on September 3, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was Consolidation Day 114 of 500.
Today’s Weight: 145
Goal Weight: 155

Sunday is my Celebration Sunday day on Dukan. When you enter the third phase of Dukan, the Consolidation Phase, you get one celebration meal a week. You can eat whatever you want. This is in the first half of Consolidation (mine is 500 days long and the rule applies until I hit day 250). In the second half you can have 2 celebration meals a week.

I’ve chosen to remain wheat, gluten and sugar free, so my celebration meals usually include something like french fries (i’m not eating white potatoes) or lots of fruit! That was the case today.

I started the morning out with a 2 egg omelet with onion, asparagus and garlic. I then went on a 5.59 km mountain hike with my friend Tatiana. This is the trail that I try to hike every Sunday morning when I’m in Hangzhou. I have to say that during yesterday’s hike up I realized that I was really going to miss this part of living in China. Moving back to Florida (which I love more than any place in the world) won’t include mountain hiking!

Burned off breakfast and then some!

runkeeper, mountain hike, hangzhou, china

286 meter = 938 feet… not a bad climb 🙂

Tatiana

mountain hike, west lake, hangzhou, china

And I wore shorts… in public. You can see West Lake in the background. It’s a beautiful view from the top of this mountain!

And this was my reward… a fruit salad for lunch, along with a iced cafe latte with Splenda and a TON of water… like 2 liters.

I shared this delicious fruit platter with Tatiana. So fresh and cool after a long hike in the heat.

My driver Jerry met us at the restaurant and took us to the wet market. I’m going to have to go back and get pictures… I’m always so busy picking out my stuff that I don’t pull out the iPhone and take pics! The wet market has the freshest veggies, fruits, meats and live poultry and fish to choose from. I get my veggies, pork and beef there. The stands that I purchase my pork and beef from both have range free farms. The meat is butchered the day before and I can pick my cuts. Tatiana picked out a 1/2 kilo of live jumbo shrimp to make us a late afternoon snack.

We got home, I separated out all the meat and spent time reading for a while. Around 4 Tatiana simmered the shrimp with fresh ginger, sea salt and pepper corns. I made a wasabi & tamari mix and we had some yummy shrimp!!!

Didn’t have dinner, as I was stuffed. I had a couple of bites of cheese and a handful of almonds to round out my evening.

What did you do on Sunday? Were you active?

Ciao!

Running, blog stats and random stuff

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personal perspective. I set two personal records running in the past 3 days. The first was my fastest run at 8:26 avg. min/km or 13:34 avg. min/mile. This is a full 1 minute per mile LESS than before I had my surgery in May! The second was that I ran more miles in July than any previous month! Below is my RunKeeper stats…

The brick color is walking, the green is running and the purple is hiking.

I’ve either walked, ran or hiked 544 kilometers since March. That’s 338 miles 🙂 Woot!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! And I’ve logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many people have stopped by. I started regularly writing this blog in August to share my journey with family and friends and it has become so much more and that makes my heart swell with happiness!

And that leads to the awesomest things that have happened this week. Actually it happened today… 4 people that I personally know, all of us on 4 different continents, contacted me today (yesterday for some of you) to tell me they are starting the Dukan because they want to be healthier and they’ve seen my success. All 4 have read my blog and I only knew that one of them was. I wish all 4 of you luck!!! I know you will succeed because I know all of you put your mind to something and accomplish it! 4 amazing women… starting on this journey… Good luck and remember that I’m here if you need anything!

I’ll finish by saying that August brings in the last month of summer. It also signals that I have 51 days left in China. I can’t believe I’ve been here nearly a year already! I get one more trip to Guangzhou where I get to hang with my Int’l crew down there, Rose, Jenny, Liza and Dianna. And get to mentor a friend from the Middle East, Aisha! And then back to Hangzhou to finish out my contract… I’m going to miss my ViviMokaLaka so much! She’s the one that brought me here in the first place. I’m going to try to take as many photos as possible in the next 7 weeks.

But I miss home and my kids and my grandkids and my mom and my family and my friends and the beautiful sunrise over the Roosevelt Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home. I’ve had a fun 4 years living abroad 🙂 But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!

Ciao!

Rock You Like A Hurricane

Posted on July 24, 2012 by flamidwyfe

So, exciting couple of days I’ve had! That little tropical storm that I blogged about yesterday morning turned into a full on Category 4 Typhoon (known as a hurricane in the Atlantic) and headed to come on land just a smidge west of Hong Kong in the middle of the night.

Yesterday afternoon, when it started heading north towards HK and became a slow moving Category 1 storm, I decided to ditch the free night I earned at Best Western and pack up. I then headed out in the torrential rain, that no umbrella would have protected me from, to see if I could get a train back to Guangzhou.

Category 1 in the afternoon, local HK time…

There were two reasons I wanted out of HK… 1. I was staying on the top floor (37th) of a hotel on a small island and 2. I had an interview to do in the morning and didn’t want to let the hospital down.
I got to the train ticket office, soaking wet, only to be told, “NO” 😦

The good thing about the typhoon was that I was forced to actually relax and I never lost my Internet connection! I chatted with Miri for awhile and her wit kept me distracted. Then, around 930 pm I thought I was having vertigo because the room was moving… Well the room WAS moving, the wind was howling and a peek at http://www.wunderground.com told me this…

Yes, a Category FOUR hurricane with winds that were shaking the building!
I took this shot of the outside…

So, while I’m Facebooking updates and pretending all is well with the world I’m freaking out and scared… Thank God my friend Teri popped up to chat…. Teri, you calmed me down and distracted me and I’m so grateful 🙂 I took a Lunesta and decided to sleep it away… Gently rocked (literally) to sleep by the winds!

I woke up at 515 to get ready to go to the train. The winds were still quite high and it was pouring rain. The concierge said that the subways were working and that my train was delayed because of trees on the track. I thought I’d risk it and go anyway. My train left just 13 minutes late!

My trusty personal assistant, Rose, met me at the station in Guangzhou and off to the interview we went. The interview was for a company called qq and it was about my passion, water birth. Here we are during the interview…

And the storm has followed me north… Downgraded to a Cat 3 typhoon now. Very odd that I had no idea about this storm until I was in the middle of it. At home, in Florida, everyone would be broadcasting around the clock if there was a storm brewing like that! No storefronts boarded up this morning and the street pork guy was opening his shop while I made my way to the subway! Different perspectives, different countries… Ahhhh, what an interesting life I lead 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 55

Posted on July 5, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I am really missing my daily blog posts! I still don’t feel like I’ve caught up from my vacation!

Daily weight: 147 lbs/66.8 kgs
Goal weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

Things weight and goal wise are going very well. I have to remind myself often that I am no longer in the Cruise Phase and can add a few things into my diet! Today (Thursday) is a PP day and so far I’ve stuck to that. On the Consolidation Phase (which for me will be 500 days long) you get to add some stuff back in to your diet, you get to have one celebration MEAL (not day) a week and you still have one PP day a week. Dr. Dukan suggests Thursday as that day, and I’m going to stick with that.

On Tuesday morning I got up early and went for a 2 mile run at sunrise. I then came back and did Chaz’s YOGAmazing 10 Minute Morning Flow workout. The combination of the two is a great way to start my day! Chaz has some amazing short yoga workouts that are easy to fit into your day and he also has workouts that focus on specific areas of your body, which I really love!

I then headed to work by walking and within the first hour was told I was being requested for a water birth. All day labor, difficult birth, as the baby was face up instead of face down, but this momma pulled energy from the universe and after nearly 3 hours of pushing had a gorgeous baby boy with a funny looking head… lol (it’s looking much better this morning!)

On Tuesday evening Alice came back for a night stay over. We went out to dinner with her son, Leon. Alice and I had the salmon with horseradish appetizer and we all three ordered mixed grill. The meat was DELICIOUS!

The waitress that took pics for us kept tilting all of our cameras… so none of us have a straight shot, lol!

Alice and I then headed back late to my flat and I was in bed at 1 a.m. (gasp!!! that is SO late for me!). And we were up at 6 a.m. to get a ride to the train station. Alice had a noon flight to Hong Kong.

Wearing Red, White & Blue on the train to Shanghai in honor of America’s birthday!

So off we went to Shanghai on Wednesday morning… the 4th of July. Not only is this America’s Independence Day, but it is also my little sister Nannette’s birthday!

Alice and I were suppose to be on the high speed train to Shanghai, which usually takes about 42 minutes, but we somehow got on the slow one… so between that and the subway ride on Line 2 from one end of Shanghai to the other to get to the airport, it was cutting it close… good Lord I was glad it was Alice traveling and not me, as we all know how bad my travel anxiety and time goes! We, of course, got there with plenty of time and from the pics that Alice posted on her Facebook wall of Hong Kong, she got there in one piece!

Bye Alice!!! It was fun hanging out!

I then got back on the subway and found my way to the grocery store that I shop at in Shanghai and found a restaurant that I hadn’t eaten in before. Sat down at a table with a lovely gentleman named Stern from New Jersey, in China teaching for a year, and had a wonderful conversation over lunch… we’re Facebook friends now 🙂 and then I got a little shopping done… mostly a backpack and sack full of groceries to sustain me through the week. I then took the subway back to the train station for the ride back to Hangzhou. I called Jerry, my driver (I love saying that… he’s a very cool dude!) and asked if he could pick me up… he said yes and told me to keep an eye out for the special way he was going to display my name at the train station…

You see MY driver uses an iPad instead of cheesy paper! 😀 Thank you, Jerry, for making me feel so special and important and for being environmentally friendly!

He then informed me that he was taking me to dinner to thank me for all the referrals that I gave him. He was taking me to the “best Chinese restaurant in town” and inquired about what foods I could and could not eat… the man pays attention! Too bad he’s married with a kid, lol! Just joking, his wife is one lucky lady!

So, he takes me to Nongtangli Restaurant near West Lake and he was not kidding… it was the best Chinese food I’ve had since I’ve been here! I decided right then and there that Wednesday, July 4th, was going to be my Celebration Meal of the week. Not that I ventured too far… I don’t do wheat, rice or potatoes… here’s what we had…

Spicy Black fungi and to die for pork… nommy, nommy pork, melt in your mouth, fall off the bone, better than sex pork 😀

And pumpkin with a creamed coconut sauce… now this was yummy!

And I had juice, which is something I haven’t had since August! It was fresh juiced green apple and grapefruit… cool and refreshing on this hot summer’s eve!

Awesome dinner, awesome dinner companion. Jerry then took me back to my flat and didn’t charge me for the pick up… such a great guy!

So my 4th of July food was:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee at train station
Lunch: Salad greens and a poached salmon steak
Snack on the train: about 2 ounces of aged cheddar that was crumbly and sharp!
Dinner: See above… Yum!!
Snack before bed: FF Greek Yogurt with Splenda and flax seed
Water: About 3 liters
Exercise: 1 mile walk after dinner and 20 minutes of meditation

So how was everyone else’s 4th of July??

Ciao!