Check back next week for Women and Business.

colorful foods+antitoxidants=heathy body

It's important to eat colorful fruits and veggies everyday.

Here's the breakdown on why colors are good for you from the Eating Well site.  Make sure to check it our for more great info! (click on each of the links in brown for each of the great recipes)

Antioxidant Rich Recipes

Red/pink: Great source of lycopene, which may protect against prostate cancer as well as heart and lung disease. Tomatoes and watermelon are two sources.

• Quinoa & Smoked Tofu Salad
• Strawberry Bruschetta
• Sugar Snap Pea & Cherry Tomato Pasta Salad
• Watermelon Gazpacho
• Watermelon Slush

Orange: It’s easy to remember carotenoids, the class of antioxidant found in this color: just think “carrot-enoids.” Fruit and vegetables, such as carrots, mangoes and sweet potatoes, store beta carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A.

• Curried Chicken with Sweet Potatoes & Cauliflower
• Fresh Mango Chutney
• Mango-Lime Sorbet
• Moroccan-Rubbed Grilled Steak & Sweet Potatoes
• Sichuan Carrot Soup

Yellow/green: Get your lutein and zeaxanthin—two antioxidants linked with reducing the risk of cataracts and atherosclerosis—in honeydew, avocados and yellow corn. Many green cruciferous vegetables also contain indoles, another antioxidant, which help fight cancer.

• Avocado-Grapefruit Relish
• Broccoli with Caramelized Onions & Pine Nuts
• Calabacitas
• Chipotle Cheddar Chard
• White Sangria

Purple/blue: This color, common to summer treats like blackberries and eggplant, comes from a very powerful kind of phytonutrient: anthocyanidins, which may protect against heart disease by preventing inflammation. Since different foods contain different anthocyanidins, try to eat a range of purple and blue foods to benefit the most.

• Blueberry Ketchup
• Grilled Eggplant Panini
• Quick Pork Saute with Blackberries
• Roasted Eggplant Dip
• Rustic Berry Tart

And don't forget about the challenge this month to get more sleep.  To see what the prize is click here for more info.

colorful. LIFE.

***All images in this post are copyright Patience Salgado unless otherwise noted***

NEXT WEEK:  Bambi Cantrell

{To nominate women you'd like to see in this series please list them in the comments-or if you have a question you'd like to see in the interviews--make sure to include your info in the comment fields so that I can get in touch with you- or write to me at: davina at davinafear dot com }

As always make sure to leave comments for the women who are featured. They like comments as much as I do I'm sure...let them know if you have questions or just to say thanks! for their insight and wisdom...

Make sure to check out the rest of the series by clicking here. Tell a friend!

Patience sent me a little piece she wrote about being a birth photographer. I've included it here as the first part of her interview.

Shooting From Your Soul

It’s 9:30pm and the phone rings. “Tonight?” He says. My husband knows this means we all are in for a long one. I nod my head and smile wondering how I got us into this crazy life. This man knows what words like dilate, effacement and placenta mean. He also knows we are all in this together because it just doesn’t work any other way. I am a birth photographer.

After years of working with young families in various roles, it was my kindness work that lead me to this love of capturing birth. Being a young mom myself, it seemed I was always gathering kids in car seats to go deliver a meal to a new mom or dropping flowers on a door of some kind soul in postpartum hell. I knew these places myself and these tiny acts brought me joy in a way nothing else did. This way of life evolved over time and became known as my kindness work.

My trusty Rebel XT landed on my lap for an anniversary present and the little camera found its way into my kindness world of babies, kids and moms just trying to make it. My camera became permanently attached to my body. I felt like I was carrying around a magic machine that could show you a secret or something you had never seen or noticed before. In about 2 more seconds, I knew birth was where I was headed. It is a place that can show women’s power and beauty like no other. I am humbled and in awe every time.

In today’s lifestyle photography world, it is a completely untapped market. We are taking pictures of everything else, why not this? Truth be told, marketing, management and business were all secondary, it was just a call from that small place inside. A call that has grown every day since. My first birth session came, my husband was out of town and 2 of my 4 children were sick. I had a momentary freak out and then like every working mother, I found a way to make it work. The birth was dreamy, the photography challenging, my kids were fine and I was hooked.

I have to tell you though, nothing is easy and I found I’m kind of having my own re-birth. Each day I’m learning and finding my way on so many levels. There are moments of sheer panic that the most important shot will be blurry, hours of questioning my skill and the lack of a fine arts degree on my resume, days spent lamenting over other people’s amazing processing. And then there are times my eye saw the perfect angle, knowing I held space for hope in the room, or seeing the quiet moment of love no one else caught. I realize I’ve been preparing my soul for this work long before I ever picked up a camera.

Isn’t this the exact place where we all are, still learning? Whether you have been shooting events for 20 years, or your first small wedding in someone’s backyard, everything gets better when we let our souls look through the lens. I am grateful to be part of a greater tribe of women in this work, claiming and seeing beauty, joy and power everyday.

Interview

I found you through the shutter sisters blog because of your birth photography work. What drew you to birth photography?

 I had been involved with young families in a variety of ways in my professional career over the years, but there is something so magical about the beginning of being. The challenge of event photography mixed with a certain level of personal and intimate connection was a great fit for me. Mostly, I believe in the power of women and birth and feel honored to be able to be present to capture it.

You have a family, how does birth photography fit into your family life?

I have four kids so it’s definitely tricky, but every mother working is probably in the same boat. Dependable babysitters, back-up babysitters, back-ups to the back-ups. I have to have a multitude of options since my work is so unpredictable. I think this might be the hardest part of my job.

What do you do to help your clients be so comfortable with you during such an intimate time?

We meet at least once face-to-face for tea or coffee usually before the birth to talk and come up with a birth photo plan. I am a trained doula so I think it helps that I am familiar with women in this stage of life and birth in general. If she is having a rough time at the end of pregnancy, I might ding-dong-ditch her. I’ll leave flowers or a note on her doorstep, ring the doorbell and run away. Its very fun and an unobtrusive way to connect. I know what it is like to be 3 days overdue and feel like a cooked turkey. My work tends to be more personal due to the nature of this particular photography and my personality.

What would you say is your best way of bringing in new clients aside from word of mouth?

Social media can be a powerful tool. Facebook, Twitter and blogs allow people to be involved in your everyday work and life. People are interested in what we do and what we capture, they enjoy knowing us as part of a large community. It is an easy way to spread the word on who you are and what you do.

Many photographers have multiple streams of income. Do you have other streams of income in addition to photographing births? What do you do?

I am a writer and kindness worker. One pays my bank account, the other fills my soul.

I write for a PBS blog with my three sisters called the Supersisters. (Link-http://www.pbs.org/parents/supersisters/) My husband and I also write on parenting for a local hip online news source in Richmond, VA called RVANews. (Link- www.rvanews.com)

What do you do to keep from feeling overwhelmed?

Oh, I must tell you I still often feel overwhelmed. It reminds me to live in the moment before me, just like birth. One contraction at a time, one shoot at a time. Knowing that what we are doing is really special and important helps me to keep going. My kind partner and friend calls me from the edge when I need it most and countless girlfriends listen to my dribble on a day to day basis.

Thank you Davina, for including me among such amazing women doing such wonderful work. I still feel so small and humbled by the whole thing. May kindness and perfect lighting meet you at every turn.

To see Patience's work:

Blog

SuperSisters (I love all of the entry's by Patience!  awesome for moms...)

More

Updated to add:

website

***All images in this post are copyright Patience Salgado unless otherwise noted***

get some sleep.

Sleep is an important part of good health.  In an article here it lists all of the details about why you should get a good night's sleep.  The short version of the list I've put below.  To read more click here.

1.  Sleep keeps your heart healthy.

2.  Sleep may help prevent cancer.

3.  Sleep reduces stress.

4.  Sleep reduces inflammation.

5.  Sleep makes you more alert.

6.  Sleep bolsters your memory.

7.  Sleep may help you lose weight.

8.  Naps make you smarter.

9.  Sleep may reduce your risk for depression.

10.  Sleep helps the body make repairs.

July winner!

Laura!  You're the  July winner!  You gave some awesome tips every day of the month except one day.  Way to go!  Thank you so much for being part of our little Move it Monday community.  Send me a quick email and tell me where you'd like to have your $50 gift card from.  Have a wonderful Artist's Day out!

August Contest:

So...the contest for this month is on your honor.  Come to the Move it Monday post for the week everyday of the month and tell us how many hours of sleep you got and if you went to bed before midnight.  The person who goes to bed the most often before midnight and gets at least 7 hours of sleep per night will be our winner for the month.  The winner will get a $50 gift card to their local spa toward a massage or some other pampering treatment.  It's time to stop staying up so late and to start getting more than four hours of sleep a night!  You deserve it...and need it!

invigorated. LIFE.

Hello Blog Friends and my dear Love Affair Ladies,

I have to come on here and say I'm so sorry for completely neglecting my posts this week!  I've been at our Love Affair Workshop and had an amazing time that included every day being about a 17 hour day.  I would come back to my room and fall into bed...and promptly forget what day it was and even that there was a world moving on outside of the Love Affair Workshop.

It was a fantastic week filled with beautiful women and life changing moments that I'm very blessed to have been apart of...thank you to all of the women who attended Love Affair.  It was so difficult to see you leave our safe little haven and at the same time I felt like a proud parent watching my child walk out into the world and do beautiful, blessed, sweet things...without fear.

I miss you all...

sweet. LIFE.