Gish Picks: Weekend of September 21, 2012

Click here to visit Miller Outdoor Theatre's website

WHAT'S YOUR PICK THIS WEEKEND?

Greetings and welcome to GISH PICKS: A GUIDE TO CULTURAL ACTIVITIES FOR FAMILIES, a free weekly e-newsletter/blog I created as a service to the Houston community in 2003. Please enjoy and please share!

It’s a busy week! Kids can see owls up close and personal this Sunday at the Heritage Society and, ahoy, mateys, it’s that time ‘o the year again: it’s the 10th annual “National Talk Like a Pirate Day”. Tell your kids to shiver their timbers and start talking Pirate-ese! Speaking of pirates, head over to pirate Jean Lafitte’s former stomping grounds, Galveston Island, for the annual “Adopt-a-Beach Clean-Up Day” this Saturday, September 22. The weather should be glorious and you’ll be doing good all day long.

Congrats to new GISH PICKS Facebook page LIKE-er Magen Pastor, who won a free copy of the cd I co-produced with family recording artist Leah White, OUR ROOTS ARE STRONG. This week’s goody is in honor of International Peace Day: the first GISH PICKS LIKE-er will get a free massage (guaranteed to increase your personal peace!) courtesy Liz Keels, LMT. Good luck!

My friend and super cool mama and hometown girl Brené Brown has just released her new book, Daring Greatly, and is criss-crossing the country spreading the word that vulnerability and imperfection are IN. “Raising children who are hopeful and who have the courage to be vulnerable means stepping back and letting them experience disappointment, deal with conflict, learn how to assert themselves, and have the opportunity to fail. If we’re always following our children into the arena, hushing the critics, and assuring their victory, they’ll never learn that they have the ability to dare greatly on their own,” she writes. Halleluiah! Thank you, Brené for those wise words. If you want first-hand help with letting children dare greatly on their own, join me and several others this weekend for a day-long workshop about moving beyond child-focused living.

I have a lot of projects I’m involved with in the next several months so I hope you’ll join me somewhere along the way. On Thursday, October 4, 7-9pm, I’m hosting an opening of my “Mod Mandalas: The Chakra Series” show at 14 Pews – I’ll have healthy treats and chakra-inspired happenings. The show will close on Sunday, November 11, 1-5pm, with mandala yoga led by Simplicity Love at 1:30pm (check out her kid yoga “Flash Mob”!. We’ll end the afternoon with a screening of the fab new film “I Am” by Tom Shadyac (“Nutty Professor”, “Ace Ventura”, “Bruce Almighty”) which asks the questions “What’s wrong with the world?” and “What can we do about it?” It’s inspiring and funny and will absolutely make your day. Tickets are $10/adults, kids 12 and under free. Women artists are the focus of the Interfaith Ministries one-night-only show of women’s art on Thursday, October 18 called “Heart Anthology”. And if you need some extra help in your personal life, join me for “What’s Your Purpose?” or “Transitions and Transformations” next month at Body Mind & Soul.

Have a great week and GO.FIND.FUN.

THEY’LL OWL FOR YOU.

The Heritage Society and Rice University have teamed up to celebrate the 100th birthday of Rice with this Sunday’s free “Heritage Family Day” from 1-4pm. They’ve already been celebrating Rice University's Centennial with their exhibition “William Marsh Rice: The Man and His Legacy,” but they wanted to bring the story to life! Children can meet the owls from the Wildlife Center of Texas and learn how we can best share the environment in which we live with these amazing wild creatures that enrich our lives. Illustrator Bill Megenhardt will help kids create their own personal owl drawing and there will be fun fall children’s crafts and refreshments. Heritage Family Days are made possible by a generous grant from the John P. McGovern Foundation. The Heritage Society is funded in part by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

The Heritage Society Museum has a lot of other programs for kids, including their Children’s Story Time on Fridays from 9-10am as well as school and scout tours. The Museum is located at 1100 Bagby Street in Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston. Founded in 1954, The Heritage Society is a nonprofit organization which strives to preserve the history of the community through preservation, restoration of historic structures, exhibition and educational programs. Through permanent and rotating museum exhibits, daily historic structure tours, special lectures, events and trips, children and adults are able to understand and experience life in early Houston. The museum and historic structures are open for tours Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 4pm. There is an admission charge for the historic structure tours with special rates for seniors, students and children. (Image courtesy Kathy Adams Clark).

THINK PEACE.

The International Day of Peace is celebrated annually around the world on September 21 and this year on that night (this Friday), there will be a special celebration for children from 6:30-9pm. The University Museum at Texas Southern University in collaboration with Think Peace International celebrates “Riding the Peace Cranes: Ending Violence Against Our Children”. The event features the Houston Children's Chorus along with a wonderful bevy of children from around the Houston Community. Face painting, singing, dancing, and spoken word will complete the evening and children from every community are invited to participate in this evening of the celebration of the value of young people through music, dance, and spoken word. There will be a special tribute to Sadako Sasaki, who was little more than 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Ten years later, on October 25, 1955, Sadako died from leukemia, a result of that bomb. Before succumbing to the disease, Sadako heard a legend that if she made 1,000 origami cranes, that she would be granted a wish. Her wish: World Peace. Since then, Sadako is remembered not only as a symbol of innocent victims of war (in all of its forms), but also as a symbol of hope. Sadako died before she finished her cranes, but the community she lived in rallied to finish the cranes and buried them with her.

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY FOR ART.

The Menil Park is one of my favorite spots in Houston so I recommend grabbing a picnic and some blankets and heading over there this Saturday, September 22 at 3pm sharp for fun in the sun celebrating the Menil Collection’s 25th birthday. There will be a super yummy cake, a performance by the renowned Kashmere Reunion Stage Band (did you see the amazing documentary on them, “Thunder Soul”?), a scavenger hunt for the whole family, cake and ice cream on the Menil lawn, and then more fabulous music provided by the TSU Jazz Ensemble.

The event is free and open to the public and takes place at 1533 Sul Ross.


INCREASE YOUR PERSONAL PEACE WITH A MASSAGE. Give yourself a break from stress and get an awesome massage from Liz Keels, LMT. Liz is great at working with your needs, whatever they are. For example, I need deep tissue work on a regular basis because I swim a lot – and her massages heal me. Regular massages are perfect for we parents with busy lifestyles, as they offer so many benefits, including stress reduction, improving circulation and flexibility, improving posture (our mamas would like that one!), strengthening the immune system, relieving headaches, and much more. Liz draws on her knowledge of various therapeutic modalities to create a customized and effective massage treatment plan. And she’s all natural – she uses Zen Organics, non-toxic massage products, and Young Living Essential Oils. Her office is centrally located at 1911 W. Alabama but she also provides on-site massage services throughout the greater Houston area (additional travel fees may apply, depending on location) as well as chair massages for offices or special events. She has 60- or 90-minute massages that can be purchased as packages to save money. Her services are available Mondays through Saturdays from 10am-8pm by appointment. Gift certificates are available upon request. For more information or to book an appointment, contact Liz at LizKeelsLMT@gmail.com or 713.504.3081. I promise you’ll leave her office a relaxed and happy camper!

GISH PICKS is a free weekly email in which I highlight family-oriented cultural events, products or services. Please note that I "highlight" events, but I don't know if they are appropriate for your particular children, so choose wisely based on age, maturity and interests. I know many of you go to events based on GISH PICKS recommendations; PLEASE remember to tell the organization that you are there because of us. Word-of-mouth like yours helps our business to grow. In the same spirit, please also feel free to share GISH PICKS with friends and families.

Do you have something you would like to promote on Gish Picks? You can promote family-friendly events, products or services to Houstonians all over the city and the surrounding area who are active parents, involved citizens and great shoppers. We love doing this community service and want to keep it free for our readers but in order to justify the hours spent researching, writing and designing this newsletter, we need advertising support. If you'd like to learn more, please click below.

The purpose of GISH PICKS is to help parents become aware of all the fun things they can do with their children in Houston and the surrounding area, so GO FIND FUN! Please do give me feedback and ideas, as you are out there in the trenches also looking for interesting things for your family and I want to hear what you find.

If you are having trouble getting to a website listed here, try hitting the "Ctrl" button and left-clicking on the web address, which should make it "live".

For more about my personal, business, and family enrichment company, Gish Creative, and the services we offer, please click here. You are on this list because I thought this e-newsletter would be helpful to you or because you signed up for it. Please feel free to tell your friends to subscribe by clicking here. My goal is to serve as an information resource for Houston parents through my various endeavors, including:

GISH PICKS, which is online and emailed out to thousands of parents and caregivers;

THE SUMMER BOOK®: A GUIDE TO HOUSTON DAY CAMPS AND CLASSES FOR KIDS AND TEENS which comes out annually in March and is sold at bookstores all over Houston, including Barnes and Noble; and

OTHER SERVICES including SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS, PRIVATE CONSULTATIONS, and ART PROGRAMS that cover topics such as summertime fun, passion-finding (for adults, children and families), marketing, historic preservation, art classes, and activism. All of these services can be tailored for any audience and budget.


Sarah Gish GISH CREATIVE 1940-A Fountainview, PMB 116 Houston, Texas 77057 phone/fax: 713.482.7065 artist.mama.connector.changemaker. © 2012 Sarah Gish Designed by West of the World