UnHurry Up

Beginner's Guide to Slowing Down

2008-06-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Good stuff! Hurry up and slow down.

Cry "Enough!" to the frenzied tempo of modern life

2008-01-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

This great article is a couple years old. We've only just discovered it and it's too good not to pass along.

A Museum Dedicated to Slowing Down

2008-01-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

The world's first museum dedicated to slowing down has just opened in Bogotá, Colombia. Visitors lounge in hammocks, on sofas and in beds. The goal of the musuem is to challenge the modern-day obsession with too-much work. The museum emphasizes purposeful slowness and challenges the thinking that slowness means avoidance of work.

Let's go!

The Virtues of Homemade Yogurt

2007-11-28T04:15:00.000-08:00

This letter is reprinted from an email we received from Simple Living's Janet Luhrs.
Some excellent encouragement for simple, healthy eating.

Dear Friend,

Simple living is very much about slowing down and living sensually—touching, tasting, hearing, and smelling our way through life. And simple cooking is about eating and serving food in its natural, beautiful state.

When I was young, my favorite after-school snack was fresh yogurt. Oh, how I loved farm-fresh yogurt with cream and berries on top—nothing tasted better!

Nowadays, small dairy farmers have been replaced by huge mega-farms, where cows are likely injected with hormones and antibiotics. Milk and butter just don't taste the same. And yogurt…well, it just isn't the yogurt I remember. It's processed, artificially flavored, produced months before it even arrives in your grocery store, and is usually shipped from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

But the worst part is, by the time most yogurt has arrived in your home, it has very few active cultures left. Active cultures are what make yogurt really healthy and good for you. These cultures contain the lactic acid-producing “friendly” bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, which your body needs for proper digestion and a healthy GI system.

Like all real, natural food, these live and “active” cultures are at the peak of potency and freshness when the yogurt is made. But by the time the yogurt (even organic yogurt!) is packaged, shipped, and placed on your grocery store shelf, some of the potency and effectiveness of the cultures has been lost.

Fresh yogurt gives you all of the cultures and friendly bacteria, with none of the junk.

Fresh yogurt contains an abundance of the friendly bacteria your body needs to produce lactic acid, which balances the production of acid in your stomach, protecting it and your intestinal lining, making it easier for you to digest your food. And because lactic acid makes your digestive tract slightly more acidic, it also helps promote flora balance, which supports proper bowel habits, eliminates gas, and prevents diarrhea.

I'm such a big believer in the health benefits of fresh yogurt that I've found a way to make it at home.

At my house, we use a simple,easy-to-use yogurt maker.

A couple years ago, I came across an appliance—the Euro-Cuisine Yogurt Maker. It is extremely simple to use and makes delicious, healthy yogurt. I usually whip up a batch on Saturday or Sunday and enjoy it all week—that is, if my kids don't finish it off by Wednesday!

I'm usually not one to advocate adding another appliance to your kitchen, unless it can help you prepare exceptionally healthy foods easily. I've found that the Euro-Cuisine is easy to use, easy to clean, and makes incredibly delicious, healthy yogurt with little effort. In short, it meets all of my criteria. It even includes a timer with automatic shut-off—so it couldn't be simpler. I just turn it on and go on with my day!

The quality of your yogurt depends,in large part, on the cultures you use.

Finding a really good yogurt culture can be tricky. And for some reason I don't really understand, the best ones are not readily available in the United States. Luckily, I've arranged to have both the Euro-Cuisine and an excellent strain of living cultures from a German company—Vital-Fermente—available to my readers. Click here to learn more.

I love to tinker with my fresh yogurt, adding fruits, nuts and grains to kick up the flavor and nutrition even more. One of my favorite things to add is granola. Recently, I found a fantastic organic granola that I’ve been putting in my yogurt every day. It comes in three amazing flavors: Cranberry Cashew Pecan, Pistachio Mulberry, and Triple Berry. Click here to learn more.

Simple eating and cooking is about celebrating, not fooling with, what is right there.

Food is meant to be enjoyed, not simply scarfed down absent-mindedly. And this yogurt you'll want to savor. It has all the full flavor that I remember from the yogurt of my childhood—with none of the chemical taste and flatness of store-bought yogurt.

If you are like me and like the idea of eating food you made, your way, I think you'll appreciate this yogurt maker as much as I do.

Yours in simplicity,

Janet Luhrs

P.S. Eating a cup of delicious, homemade yogurt with live, active cultures every day is one of the best things you can do for your digestive system, to maintain a healthy GI tract, and help support your immune system. To read more about fresh yogurt and the Euro-Cuisine Yogurt Maker, click here

Could your city be a slow city?

2007-10-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

October 8, 2007
Slow cities

How do you make a city livable? City planners, development specialists and urban residents debate and struggle with this issue — particularly in North America. Meanwhile in Europe, a solution taken from the past is gaining momentum — slow cities.

A great article in Der Spiegel (found via Planetizen) details how the slow city movement works.

“Slow City” advocates argue that small cities should preserve their traditional structures by observing strict rules: cars should be banned from city centers; people should eat only local products and use sustainable energy. In these cities, there’s not much point in looking for a supermarket chain or McDonald’s.

For such a plan to work, citizens have to support it. In a large city, it would be difficult to ban automobiles in the downtown and still have a viable business and retail district — many people simply wouldn’t go there. Indeed, to belong to the official slow city movement in Europe, a city must have fewer than 50,000 residents. Most cities joining the slow city network have histories dating as far back as medieval times and residents are proud of this heritage.

No North American city dates back that far (even those few places with settlements dating to the 15th century or before like Mexico City or Santa Fe, Taos, etc. no longer have the same roads and buildings). Unlike in the European slow cities, downtowns in North American cities (whether large or small) were typically built either for automobiles or at least for a combination of streetcars and horse carriages which required wide roadways.

So could larger North American cities (or larger European cities) learn anything from the slow city movement in terms of livability. I think they could at the neighborhood level. Some neighborhoods have community spirit, and are small enough to continue fostering that camaraderie.

While banning automobiles might be challenging as a 24X7 policy, it might be doable in a busy pedestrian area on weekend afternoons, for example. Encouraging residents to support local family owned businesses can inherently discourage large chains from setting up (if the locals won’t shop there, they don’t last).

Could it work? Are there any “slow neighborhoods” in big cities? If you know of one, please leave a comment.

From http://allaboutcities.ca/slow-cities/

Wise Words

2007-08-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.......

Henry David Thoreau

Wow! The Soup Peddler!

2007-07-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

2007-06-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

To help you unwind, use this Slow Down Checklist throughout your stay at Country Ridge. Explore our place of refuge, make yourself at home, & discover your own perfect space to reconnect & restore.

Rest. Relax. Repeat. Is there really anywhere that you HAVE to be?

Slide into the hot tub at sunrise
Take a nap on the porch swing
Photograph something in nature that you wouldn’t normally notice (ants
building a home, a leaf travelling through a brook, ladybugs, etc.)
Sneak off with irresistible book to a favorite spot
Take a cup of tea to your favorite balcony & listen to the crickets,
birds & frogs
Play hide ‘n seek
Find a spot anywhere on the mountain to lay on your back & look at the sky for 5 minutes
_____________________________________

The view to Country Ridge from across the scenic ridge

2007-06-21T11:29:00.000-07:00