guava jelly

Coyote Two Moon

2010-03-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

I want to run 100 miles. Let's see the furthest I have ever ran is 16 miles. But, I want to do 100. My favorite place in the whole world (well, what I have seen of it) to run is Horn Canyon. I swear, I feel like I am in child's pose whenever I am up there....just so at home and at ease. I love love love to run that trail. Like I could marry that trail!

I went to buy a new pair of running shoes and the lady who worked there told me about a run she was doing called the Coyote Two Moon in the Los Padres National Forest. It is 100 miles and starts and ends at Horn Canyon. The 2010 race was this weekend. They start at 6pm on Friday and run until about 10am on Sunday (today), hence the two moons: ) I could not sleep the last couple of nights thinking about people running in the dark, in the rain and possibly in the snow. I am fascinated and I want to do it BAD!!! I am going to do it in 2011!!

Okay, yes, I do need to be realistic : ) There is a difference of 84 miles between the Coyote Two Moon and my heavy pavement pounding knee jerking 16 mile run. I completely lack skill, form and gracefulness, but I have a new pair of shoes and I am going to try!

Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-03-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

I am doing WAY too many things all at one time. Too many classes to teach, too many peeps to help, too many folks to listen to and just too much stuff in general. I feel like my life has turned into Thanksgiving dinner, just way too many things on my plate! My thoughts are larger than my time. I have come terms and accepted the fact the I am an enabler. Oh and it is sooo annoying! I load up my plate with tons of mashed potatoes and gravy and butter and all kinds of crap (figuratively of course) when in reality I NEED to throw my plate in the trash, grab an apple and say "sorry I'm full", wait, no, I need to say "I'm full", no need to be sorry.

When my father died, I took on the duty of making sure that my mother was okay. I never wanted her to be sad ever again. So, I "made" everything okay (in my mind) by never being unhappy or sad. Never saying "I miss him", because I did not want her to feel bad or sad. I just wanted her to be okay and happy. I have carried this lovely habit over into my 30's. I am a classic enabler and I am trying so hard to break my habit. I am trying to say "no" more and "I'm sorry" less. BUT it is SOOOOO difficult!!

Since January, I have loaded my "plate" with sooo many things to do and people to help that my plate broke. I realized it last weekend. I started to feel like I wanted to run away. So, I am taking a week off of work to relax. I have not had any alcohol for a few months now, and I think that helped me realize how much I was doing. I was not a very big drinker to begin with. I was back in the day, but that's a different blog : ) Anyway, I wasn't a big drinker to begin with. One day, I woke up and realized I did not want to drink alcohol. No reason, no time limit, no nothing, just did not want it. I would out of habit, come home after a long day and pour myself a glass of wine. Now, without it, it has forced me to "scan" my day and deal with my exhaustion. This has been a really good experience.

One thing that was bugging me was that I have noticed that I am seriously slacking on my Tivo in real life commitment I made! I have found myself saying (in my head of course) I wish I could rewind what that person just said. There have been many moments where, if asked, I could not repeat what you just said to me. I don't know where my mind has gone. It is pretty incredible how thin we can actually stretch ourselves! How much I can cram into one day or week is astonishing.

So, this week, I am putting an end to my Thanksgiving dinner syndrome madness!

Thank you for not speaking (so loud)

2009-06-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

So I have been on this listening kick. I get on these "kicks" sometimes; like, I will not drink beer, I will run 8 miles a day, I will TRY to clean up my vocabulary..etc. Just for the record, unfortunately I cuss like a sailor. I think it is because of my working environment. When men get together and are doing physical work outdoors and chewing and spitting(tobacco), they tend to cuss more and so I have developed an eclectic array of ways to incorporate the F word into everyday sentences.

Anyway. I have been listening. Because of this, I have noticed so many new things about people I have known for years. People, it seems, have a need to fill the silence between two people. Almost as if silence is uncomfortable or unaccepted.

Because of my drivers license issue, I have been kind of working solo lately. Which, by the way, please do not feel sorry for me, I love it! I like the silence.

I went to a grass fire the other day. It was small, 10-15 acres. Four engines that I knew very well responded with me along with a bunch of other folks. As I made way around the fireline, I would stop to simply say hello, hug or smile at someone I knew.

I noticed an instant verbal tap-dancing for pennies of affirmation! Gossiping, lying, speculating, spot-light hogging and conversation dominating. Whew! I was exhausted! I have worked with this same group of guys for years and I guess I just never really listened to verbal production these guys put on. I also noticed how loud everyone speaks as if almost trying to outspeak the one next to them.

People were getting worked up and looking to me for approval on the subject. I never once felt the need to participate. I kept moving on to the next little clique; same thing, different topic.

This made me start to think about what comes out of my own mouth. Do I speak that loud? Do I have the same diarrhea of the mouth with nothing positive to say? I often say things only to cringe the next second thinking why did I say that? It was a great reminder to think before I speak.

That night as I sat in my bubble bath re-playing the day over in my mind( I always like to wash the "Hulk Hogan" mist off me before I go to sleep), I realised that today, there was never a moment when I was waiting to speak.

This is REALLY weird; for some strange reason (I swear this is true), since I have been on this listening kick, I have had to sleep with ear plugs! So weird! All the little noises at night have been waking me. How's that for a conscious effort!

Tivo in real life

2009-06-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

I remember when Tivo first came out, well let me rephrase that; I remember when I first heard of Tivo. I thought "Oh great! Just what Americans need...MORE TV. More overweight teens, even more kids glued to their TVs than catching lizards or reading books." Then of course, I got one.

I was vacuuming the other day (cleaning the house is where I get the big ideas!) and I was thinking how cool it is that I can rewind instead of always saying "what did he say?". So I thought, "Damn it would be cool if I could have Tivo in real life".

Have you ever noticed (I highly doubt that it's just me here) that we wait to speak? I mean really, WE all do! I have been (trying) to bring consciousness to this habit. When someone is telling you a story you can't wait to jump in and say "me too" or "oh my god that happened to me once". Me, me, me, me, me, me. Geez!

This waiting speak thing is so odd and so predictable of us human folks. Very often I find myself throwing out a comment only to find that the other person was not even finished with their story. I have had so many arguments (we really don't fight that often) with my boyfriend when I wish I could just rewind what he said and play it back it to him. But, that is when I am the worst. I don't listen to anything! I am seriously just waiting to speak and as soon as I can get a word in there, I fire off.

I have discovered that I DO have Tivo in real life. If I just slow my mind and really listen to what people are saying, I would need to rewind all of the time. We miss so much because we are in such a hurry. What are we late for? Why are we rushing all the time?

I am turning my Tivo in real life off. I don't need it anymore. All I have to do is stop waiting to speak and just listen : )

Boogie Body!

2009-04-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Food for thought....and a cold

2009-04-15T11:55:00.001-07:00

I have been home sick with a cold since Sunday night. I spent the day with my God children. Laurel warned me "we have all been sick you know, I haven't left the couch in a week". "It's cool I said, I'm not worried about it". I am healthy, I eat right (sometimes), I take vitamins, I excersize regularly and I am happy....not worried about it at all.

Around 8p.m., I feel that hard to swallow, sore, itchy feeling in my throught. "No way", I thought. Monday morning, yup, I'm sick.

So I have been thinking. Amongst the madness in my head has been my favorite foods

Papa Lennon's in Meiners Oaks has FANTASTIC pizza! I love the Margharetia pizza, the house salad, the ceaser salad, the tomatoe, basil, garlic pizza and the peperoni pizza. They also have one of my favorite wines Opollo.....yum! Oh if your going to have wine, make sure you have a driver : )

Azu used to make a portabelo mushroom that was out of this world! They also used to make the best grilled artichoke, it's still there, just not as good. They have a great candied walnut salad and a decnent Caprese Salad. They too have one of my favorite wines, I can't remember off the top of my sick head but it's from the Marlborough region of New Zealand.

Farmer and The Cook has EVERYTHING I want! I could go on forever but I'll just mention the Creamy Feta salad dressing (OH MY GOD) and their Scones are super bomb!

Los Copareles makes the very best Original Margarita on the rocks, a delicious Nector De Los Dioses and they are the only place around that I know of that makes a fresh Chili Relleno with out the egg batter(I don't like the fluffy egg stuff).

Palermo in Ventura makes the best Vanilla Latte

World Flavor cafe has the most perfectly concocted orange lemonade!!!!!!

Cafe Fiore has a pumpkin squash ravioli that literally makes your eyes close when you taste it!

There are lots more but I'm getting full.

tight spot

2009-02-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

i love the "magic" of yoga! i love how you can walk away and just come right back to it. i love how it magically makes you come face to face with those "tight spots" that you just stuff away so that you don't have to look at them.

i did some major talking the other night. that was big for me. i'm great at listening, i'd rather listen than have to talk about my issues..."what issues?" "i don't have any issues!". ha! so i spoke. i didn't want to, it just came out of nowhere. literally! i just burst into tears after one comment and it all came spilling sloppily out of my mouth. i spoke about somethings for the first time. it was heavy and i felt lighter the next day.

i developed a sore throat the next day. i paid no attention though, i even said "it's from sleeping with the window open". the next day it hurt more. i gargled with warm salt water and shut the window. the next day it got worse. i was not sick at all just a very sore throat. while i was at a yoga class it dawned on me...duh it's from speaking! i had finally cleared my throat. i had found and opened my tight spot. that afternoon, i was back to normal and felt great : )

shorty

2009-02-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

only recently have i begun to wear shoes without a heel. growing up in hawaii, all i ever wore were rubber slippers. during the day of school, sometimes your rubber slipper would break and it was cool to walk around for the rest of the day barefoot. no one would look at you weird or make fun of you, they just knew your slipper broke.

when i went off to college i was floored. i spent the first month simply staring. the other girls have fake boobs, fake hair, fake nails, fake tans and HUGE shoes! i was so amazed. i decided i was going to be sophisticated and wear big shoes too. so i did. for the last 10 years it has been rare to see without semi-platforms or slippers with a heel.

about 6 months ago i decided i don't like heels anymore. i have packed the majority of them away into the back of closet. it feels so good to just be short again!

why are YOU sorry?

2009-02-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

uhhhh. i have always known, not admitted but known, that i have the tendency to try to "fix" people. i think i adopted this "disorder" when my father died. i decided at 7 that i did not want my mom to be sad. i made myself be happy and smile and let her grieve. i did not want her to worry about me.

throughout my life i have fixed things. i forced myself be tough. i developed this large back and broad shoulders on my 5'2" frame. i had to be strong to hold everyone around me, so i thought. looking back, no wonder i have a hypothyroid and i am exhausted. funny, so many times i have said "gee my throat chakra is blinding me in meditations". ding ding ding. but i was still deaf, i could not hear myself.

i dated an alcoholic for a few years, my first real adult relationship. we bought house together and i thought that he was the one. then i saw what alcoholism was. it was a really really hard time. he came out a very long and intense rehab facility only to blame me. he said that i was an enabler and that i should have stopped him. i should have made him stay home more, i should not have let him drink. so, i fixed everything for him. i took the blame and walked away. i walked away from our 3 bedroom home in ojai empty handed. i was so filled with sadness for about a month. then one morning i woke up and smiled. i woke up every morning and was so happy. it was unreal how happy i felt. i felt free. i could do and say anything i wanted. i could eat pasta and bread and drink wine and not feel guilty. leaving the house and my invested money and time was so worth my freedom.

i was happy being single. i was single for years...years. people would say "don't you want a boyfriend?" and i would say honestly "no, i'm happy just the way things are" and i was! i felt a little lonely and longed for something but it wasn't a boyfriend.

i woke up and got on line. "yellow lab puppies, 5 weeks old, parents on sight, $700". i did not have $700 and i could in no way take care of a puppy, especially with my job. so i drove to bakersfield just to look. oh my god! i fell so in love. i found him..the one. he was the runt and he came right to me. "oh..you can have him for $200, the white spot makes him hard to sell"

sequoia spent every single night in bed with me for years! i took him everywhere and i would cry in my sleeping on fires because i missed him soo much. i know..i'm a pathetic dog lover. we were very very happy being single. then we met andy. now, i cant imagine that we were ever without him.

apparently, i never really processed what happened with my ex. andy and i would share stories of our past relationships. he is divorced and has a 4 year old daughter and is constantly going to court with his ex wife...so he always has drama to talk about. i thought i was over those hurtful feelings because they never really came out when i tried to speak about them. i tried to process them, i wanted to but they would never really surface. then tonight andy said "i think i might have a problem with alcohol".

oh my god! i cried so hard. i haven't cried like this in years. i started to talk about how i didn't think that i could stand to go through this again. when he said "what do you mean?". i realized i never told him what really happened.

andy made me realize tonight that i try to fix things that i didn't break. i'd see a broken bowl and i'd buy it and then i feel soo sad and sorry that i broke it that i'd focus all my energy on trying to fix it. wow. hmm, that's weird. i forgot how mean my ex was to me and how i would lie about him all the time so people would think he was great and that i wasn't stupid for staying with him. i finally cried for the right reason. jesus christ that was 7 years ago and tonight i finally processed it.

i always thought i was the bull in the china shop, breaking beautiful things. i thought there would never be enough glue to fix what i had broke. i am thankful to andy for allowing me to lift the weight of trying to constantly "fix". all he said was "why are YOU sorry? YOU did not do anything" and it all made sense after all these years! i was still emotional after we had completed our "talk", so i went to lay on sequoia's nasty dog bed with him to share my thoughts. he of course did not care nor even seem to notice that i was pathetically draped over him.

people come into our lives for different reasons. sometimes in odd shapes, colors and sizes. sometimes we never find out why or how they came to us. andy always says that i am his angel and that i saved him. little does he know that he saved me.

babies smell like poop

2009-01-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

i think i want to teach kids. i don't know why, but over the past 3 years, i have fallen in love with kids. its really weird!! i guess it could be my internal clock ticking, i am turning 30 in july! my best friends laurel and banyan conceived a little girl while we were partying it up one new years eve. they named this precious sweet thing malina. so, i have a niece named malina, she's not related by blood, but by spirit and past lives for sure! she is the apple of my eye.

when i was 14, my friend maren had a baby. she named that little girl maeve, after me. it was so surreal to me. today, i'm so happy for her! maren now has 3 kids maeve, laird and ilona. little maeve is the coolest kid. she is now 14, the age that i was when maren got prego with her! they just came to visit and now little laird ahs stolen my heart, dammit!

i have told my mom so many times, "i f-ing hate kids!". "i hate screaming, crying, pooping, barfing, yelling stupid kids!". my mother says she hated kids as well until she had me. she said "it's different when you have your own. you fall in love all over again and cant think about anything but them." i always said "whatever, i hate em!"

miss malina and her parents along with her younger baby 1 year old brother kapono moved in with me a few years ago. everyone said, "wow, you're going to live with kids". i never even tripped on it for some reason. i guess just because i loved malina and kapono so much. it was a dream having them live with me. i loved every minute of it. i could fill them up with sugar and give them super annoying toys and never have to deal with the results! i spoil malina rotten, its so bad!

they moved out about a year ago and my boyfriend and his little girl moved in. but its not the same. i miss my malina. she is tough 7 year old tom boy with a great little sense of humor and she is way to keen to the way that we adults live! while i was training for a marathon, she would do squats and luges with me everyday. she crashed a quad with no helmet going about 20 mph and didn't cry; she laughed and said "that was fun". her and kapono have given me the ability to love kids.

for some reason lately, i have been wanting to teach kids. not educationally, because i'm dumb as a doorknob! i want to teach them yoga and i want to take them on hikes and teach them about plants and the outdoors. i want them to know what their bodies can do and i want them to know how to heal. i want malina and mia to know that they can do absolutely anything they want, if they just try. i want them to know how cool it is to just be you, the way you are, you are perfect. i want to tell them what my grandma always says to me when i think something is a big deal and i'm stressing; "oh sweetie, 10 years from who is gonna remember anyway? it doesn't matter"

god help me, but i think i might even want to have my own kid. that feels so weird to say. some people know they want kids their whole lives. like all my friends, they always say "ohh, how cute, can i hold your baby". "BARF!" that thing is not soo cute, it looks like an alien! i DO NOT want to hold your baby, please dot ask me! i don't know what to do with that thing and it will most likely barf some white gross smelling liquid that probably just came out of your boobs. why on earth did you have a baby???" of course i would never verbalise these thoughts! i would play the societal game and say things like "ohh, he is adorable, he smells just like a baby" what the hell does a baby smell like? POOP, that's what babies smell like! now puppy breath, now that's what i'm talking about! YES, i totally want to hold and love your puppy!

but somewhere along road to almost 30, i kinda fell in love with kids. why? why me? i don't really want to like them but i do. i hate that my mother was right, again!

i could be a yoga teacher

2009-01-22T11:33:00.000-08:00

my mom has always been my shinning star. she is so smart, strong, caring, just everything i could ever want to be. she is very active and as a child i remember her making me exercise (thank god!). she would walk like 8 miles on the beach everyday after work. in fact she was still running 5 miles a day while she was big ol prego with me in her belly, until my dad finally made her stop. she was my first yoga teacher, well along with raquel welch. she has been incredibly busy over the past 10 years. moving from hawaii to california, changing careers twice and just trying to support herself in the crazy life we have all been living. therefore, she hasn't been to a yoga class in YEARS!

she was really excited about my teacher training. so, last week i brought her with me to alana's yoga basics @ lulu's. she loved it! it was hilarious for me. seeing my very first yogi totally confused, saying "what? you mean like this?". it was awesome. i remember saying the same thing to her when i was about 7! i found myself adjusting her strap and covering her in savasana, because i know she gets cold easily (this woman would surf in a wetsuit in the summer in hawaii!). i even gave her my favorite spot in the studio! i try to always arrive at class early so i can snag my spot (so un yoga like!).

the funny thing is, i never thought about, i just naturally went over to her to help. it was so fun. it was one of the most "fun" times that i have had in a "class" setting. for the very first time i actually thought "huh, i COULD be a yoga teacher. dang, i kinda really do wanna teach yoga". he he, don't tell anyone :)

bulbs, not bombs!

2009-01-15T08:17:00.000-08:00

i have been traveling around the world solo for years. working for the forest service is some what of an odd job. i work really really hard and basically have no life for 7 months. then, between november and january i have to use my stored up annual leave or they simply take it away. i earn large sums of money and stash it away for winter. the only problem is most people in my life have normal jobs, which means they cant just take off for 3 months around the holidays. so, alas, this is why i travel all by my lonesome. im not complaining, though. i must say, i've had many many crazy, funny, scary moments and i would not trade any of them for the world.

so, a few years ago, i didn't make as much money as previous years and hadn't really planned a super bithchin trip. my aunt angela asked me to come stay with her and my cousin kufassi at their home in switzerland. angela is amazing! she seriously needs to be her own blog, and i will do one on her one day. she works for unicef and is in charge of the all western euorpean countries and had to do some traveling for work. she hoped that while visiting, i could "babysit" kufassi.

during my stay, i toured through italy a bit, cruised all around switzerland and france. for my last week, i wanted to make one last stop. my choices in order of preference were 1. prague 2. spain 3. amsterdam. the trip to prague was way to expensive. checking the weather, it was pouring all week in barcelona. the flight to amsterdam, cost $60! okay, sweet, easy choice!

i book my flight and of course my flight was delayed about 6 hours and i arrive at midnight. i walk out of the airport and locate the trolley, which run until 3.a.m. and find my way to my hotel which of course is locked up for the night! i manage to find another hotel in the same neighborhood which was open, had a vacancy and unfortunatly super expensive. i awake on my first day there and glance over what i had researched on line. i attend the anne frank house in the pouring pouring freezing rain, with no umbrella. it was really emotional. i went to the van gogh museum, i checked out the red light district, ate the most amazing thai food and of course checked out the smoke shops...duh!

amsterdam is full of tulips! big bright beautiful tulips everywhere. there are kiosk on every street selling bulbs. they are all "usda approved for export", "approved export to united states" , "approved export for france", "basically approved for wheverever the fuck you are going next". i would be home for christmas this year so i bought tons of bulbs for gifts.

i had a very early flight back to switzerland the next morning so i packed everything that night. i get to the airport at 0400. of course the damn counter doesn't open until 0500 and my flight is at 0530. i stand in the super confusing check-in line for about 15 minutes and then it's my turn.

i hand the lady behind the counter my ticket and passport and i ask, just to clarify, if it is okay that i packed my bulbs in my carry-on. being that i work for the usda, it would be very embarrassing to get arrested for smuggling bulbs!

so, i say "i'm just making sure that it is okay that i have bulbs in my carry-on". she gives a complete blank stare and after about one minute she says 'BOMBS?!" super fuckin loud! "no. no bombs on the plane!" she says. (um no shit!) "NO! not bombs BULBS"i shout back looking around. meanwhile everyone in the airport is staring. i start to pull one of the bag o' bulbs out of my backpack and she yells "no, no, no bombs"! (again, no shit!) "NO. bulbs not bombs, god damn it stop saying that!" i shout, as security makes their way towards us.

i managed to pull the bag of bulbs out of my bag and the lady behind the counter says "ohh, bulbs!" and then everything seems to return to normal in the airport. what the fuck just happened??? i was so perplexed, i mean i know people fly out of this airport all day long with bulbs. is that just a joke that they pull on tourists to scare them? little blonde girls traveling by themselves at awkward hours? who the hell would ask if they could take a bomb on the plane? i made it threw security with no problem after that. if that had been lax, i would have been arrested and held in custody until i had a psychiatric evaluation. in amsterdam, i guess it is the norm.

butternut squash soup in a box

2008-12-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

every holiday season my family gathers at one of the members homes. usually my grandmothers or my uncles, just because of the size of their homes. the last couple of years i really wanted to have everyone over to my house for one of the meals, thanksgiving, christmas eve or christmas night. i have always had roommates so it was kind of hard to coordinate, enough room and a clean house to host the group. this year my boyfriend and i live together so i knew this was my chance. i decided to do thanksgiving dinner. while i was figuring out in mind whether i could pull it of or not, my uncle told everyone he was doing t-day. never mind! "christmas eve will be at my house this year" i announced over thanksgiving dinner, after a bottle of pino grigio. "are you sure?" everyone asked. "yes!"

my family is full of chefs, i am not one of them, like at all!! i cant hard boil an egg to save my life, one of my favorite meals is top ramen and all of the people at the thai food restaurant know me by my first name. when my great grandparents first moved to ojai, my great grandad pat met up bill baker. pat and bill worked together and shared recipes. back in vermont, the other side of the family was running the family candy business, which my mother later took over. these genes ran through the family forcefully. my uncle scott is an awesome chef. my grandma makes the very best comfort food you could ever ask for. then there is my mother. my mother flew to vermont when i was about 6 and apprenticed with my great aunt marie. marie and dick were running the carsner's candy company. there getting old and didn't want to do it anymore. my mother brought the family business out to california, and later to hawaii with us as hanley's candy. my mother made everything by hand in our massive kitchen. day and night she would work making caramel, chocolate, peanut brittle, turtles etc. i would go to sleep and awake to the smell of chocolate and caramel. everyone always says, "wow, your so lucky", actually because of that, neither my mom or i really like chocolate all that much any more.

about five years ago, my mother was working at a job in LA that she hated. she decided to get a student loan and go to culinary school. she worked her ass of. working 45+ hours a week at her job and then going to school all night and all day saturdays. not to mention the commute both to and from work and then to and from school! my mother is insane, i don't know how the woman functions. she finished school. quit her job, sold her house and moved to ojai, after a job offer. she now works in montecito as a pastry chef. she is amazing! she makes the most fantastic deserts ever! all of the guys at the fire station are in love with my mom and her food.

so, needless to say, i was nervous about making dinner. my family knows how i cook. we have alot of family dinners. during this time, everyone will talk about food and wine and marinades, soups, dressings and roues. i always sit and say "ohh yeah i like that stuff" or "what does that mean?" i remember being really young, making cookies and fucking them up. my family would say, "how do you mess up chocolate chip cookies"?. my mother always said they were great, but they were horrid. still to this day, i cant believe i'm going to admit this right now, but i buy the pre-made cookie dough from vons, bake them and then all i say is, "i made cookies".

i was getting nervous about my christmas eve dinner menu. i surfed the internet, looked in magazines and cookbooks. then one day i got a flyer from trader joes. he he he! butternut squash in box. oh yeah, i've had that before and it was good. sweet! i bought a fully cooked ham, 5 boxes of organic butternut squash soup, parmesean croutons, sour cream, chives and salad stuff. i stole my mom's glaze recipe and i was off the hook. the ham only needed to be in the oven for an hour and a half and i poured the soup in the crock pot just heat it. it was so easy. everyone was very impressed and thought i worked really hard! i set the table all fancy and served the soup with garnishments (just like the picture on the box) and it looked really nice. at the end of the night everyone praised me and said "wow, you've really grown up", ha! again i fooled everyone. i even got calls on christmas asking for recipes! "oh, um, it was so easy, you just throw a bunch of stuff in the crock pot!", i said. ha ha! thanks trader joe's.

haulk hogan

2008-12-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

i am so thankful for this teacher training. i envisioned the journey to be something sooo radically different. i pictured lazy days, days off of work that is. riding my bike into town and slowly cruising to lulu's for some super sweet kira time.

its actually been kind of a stressful exhausting 8 days. i started the class straight from a week teaching in lompoc not teaching yoga..ha, teaching new employees the "ropes" of being a federal wild land firefighter apprentice...ugh so lame! i raced home down the 101 to try to make it to a restorative class in hopes of landing before class. thanks to the amazingly soothing Alana, i landed as i had hoped.

as the week continued, so did my stress level. this is odd, because i rarely really stress. because i had taken 2 weeks off of work, people freaked a little bit. I've been bombarded with phone calls and emails. literally, filing my cell phone voice mailbox 2 times last week. i had 3 totally random people STOP bye my house asking for help with resumes. my best friend broke up with her boyfriend of 5 years an needed me to help her move from San Diego to OJ. she has also needed emotional support, of course! not to mention all of my other friends who rarely get to see me during summer months have been vying for attention during my "vacation".

I'm not even going to go into the financial burden of lawyers and vehicles and what not that Andy and i have been dealing with. lets just say that in 2008 alone, we have spent almost $20,000 in attorney fees! with another court date just around the corner.

the funny thing is this class has actually just MADE me drop everything around 12:00 everyday, because i have to be downtown. i can worry for the first 10 minutes of class, then i simply forget. when class is over, its dark and time to go home! it's amazing! for the first time this morning, i realized that this class is what has kept me sane on my vacation! ha!

i am so thankful for Lisa, Celine and Kira for being so loving and supportive. this really has been a great experience for me. it's SO nice to chill with chicks! my everyday life is so full of masculinity all day long, which is not necessarily bad, but its exhausting sometimes. i take a bath almost every night, just to unwind. often have the sound of hulk hogan like voices in my head from the replaying the work day.

I'm really happy that Lisa feels comfortable to share with us. she spoke about her breast cancer last night. she so lovely, she has perfect teeth. I'm thankful that i have these really strong lovely ladies to spend my last few days off with. no flexing, yelling, spitting, farting (well maybe a bit) going on , just breathing.

Zen is not a scrabble word

2008-12-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

i grew up very poor! my mom was a single momma and worked really, really, really hard to make things work. she worked 3 jobs while i was growing up, day and night! I'm not saying any of this out of sorrow, i swear, i LOVE my life and i admire my mother for everything and i am actually thankful that i grew up this way.

okay, so because we were so f-ing poor, we did not have television, or a telephone..he he, it's funny now! it was just erin (our golden retriever), my mom and i. my mother, who is very intelligent, would make me play scrabble ALL the time! we played every weekend and during the week, it seemed like we played everyday. we also played boggle. at the time, growing up, i was like "dang mom this is soooo lame, cant we just get a tv or something?" i would say, "lets play something else" and she would say "we can play scrabble, boggle, uno or we can walk the dog". "ugggg, scrabble it is"

so there i was 7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,and so on. playing with the big girls, my mom and her best friends. They would drink wine, eat cheese, sing their hearts out to bonnie rait, tina turner and smokey robinson. they would make words like hexapla, hexosan, teocalli(these are actually in the official scrabble dictionary). "what the hell is hexapla, are you serious?" i would protest. "when six texts are in parallel columns, silly girl", one of them would remark. "ohh okay, yeah, sweat, thanks this is awesome", i would complain, never getting the reaction i was hoping for. every once in a while, i would win. really i would! so whenever i actually won a game, i would write the date and the score in my mom's dictionary (she still has it).

so throughout the years, i have made the people in my life play with me. i purchased a travel scrabble a few years ago and i make the boys play with me on fires, when of course were not saving babies and churches and all that good stuff that the movies portray! really, i've never saved a baby or a church! anyway, if you work for me, you HAVE to play!

now, andy and i play all the time! it's so funny, he LOVES to play. i'm not bragging, i promise, but i always beat him, by like 50, 60 points. then, the other night we played, like we always do. i kind of have a "bank" of words i always fall back on, like words with the letter Z. zen, is one of these words. sometimes you are not sure if a word is REALLY a word, like dude, shit, shat etc. i made zen, this amounted to 22 points and moved on. i didn't bother to look it up because it's a word, i use it all the time. this was our closest game EVER, i won by only 10 points. i say "good job babe, your getting so good!, im proud of you". we laugh, kiss and go to sleep.

about midnight andy says "babe are you awake?"

"i am now, why?", i said

"there is something that wanted to tell you earlier but couldn't"

oh great i think, i knew it, this was just too good to be true! he has an STD or he has another child somewhere, or he cheated or lied or looked at porn on my million $ lap top and now it has a virus!

"what?", i ask, all bitchy

"zen, is not a scrabble word", he says in the most sympathetic voice

"WHAT!!!!!????? zen IS most certainly a word!", as i fly out of bed

"no, i promise, i looked it up"

"why didn't you tell me THEN?"

"because i know you like that word..............so actually i won"

so, alas my friends, zen is not a scrabble word :(

Circus Clowns

2008-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am so thankful that my mother made me do yoga at such a young age. Okay, let me clarify, she never made me do anything except clean my room and I made a pretty poor attempt at best. So I remember being oh about probably 5 years old and my mom would do the Raquel Welch Total Body and Fitness video. I remember watching my mothers beautiful Eagle Pose. For a long time I would just watch gazing a my mom and then at Raquel in her zebra print bathing suit. Then I wanted to try. I started to do the video even when my mom wasn't around. That video stayed with us for years.

When my father passed away, my mom and I moved to Maui, HI. Of course we took Raquel with us. We did the Total Body & Fitness quite often. I would show my friends this workout...."uh, well I think it's yoga" I would say. At that time yoga was not such a buzz word, especially for 6th graders. Over time, the video started to deteriorate, but we kept using it. I remember mastering my headstand in 7th grade showing all my friends, they really didn't give a shit!

I was a swimmer, that was my focus in life from 7th grade until my senior year when I decided to just be a kid again. I used to tell my friends (only the close ones) that I wanted to be in the circus. Ha ha, okay so growing up in Hawaii was a little tricky. Umm, I was a Haole Girl, a white girl, there were very few us in my high school. So already I was different, but it was never really an issue but it was always there. So when I would say that I wanted to be in the circus it was like, wow that must be a haole thing. I would say I want to be in the Circe De Soleil. You mean like a clown? My friends would say. You want to be a circus clown? No, like an an acrobat, I would reply. Again blank stares and confusion...the Cirque De what the hell is she talking about?!

I eventually moved to California for college. A few years later after realizing that we hated living so far away from each other, my mother moved here too. Unfortunately, Raquel did not make it in the move. We were both devastated. For years I googled, ebay'd and yahoo'd the video with no luck. About 2 months ago, I searched for it again on a whim. I found it! I found like 30 of them, what the hell? Of course it so old school that it dose not come on DVD, luckily unlike most people my mother still has a VCR. So, this her Christmas gift. I am soo excited to give it to her.

That video to me, reminds me of all the beautiful moments my mother and I have had. Throughout the years, yoga has been one of the many things that binds us. I am so thankful for this opportunity that I have with Lulu's to relish deeper into this love affair.

yum

2008-12-12T09:48:00.000-08:00

As I lay on the floor with my love Sequoia keeping me warm this morning, my mind is flooded with thoughts of growing up. Ha! I feel like I never really grew up. I've been think about guava's lately. Guava's remind me of ditching school to go up to Iao Valley to climb the waterfalls and pick guava's. That smell always makes me smile :) Ha, Ha..my mom always knew when I had ditched school because she could smell the guava's on me, or maybe she could just see it my face, I'm a TERRIBLE liar! I felt so free and fast and indestructible! The funny thing is, I still do. I never really grew up. Have you ever seen the movie Big, with Tom Hanks? That's me! I swear, there are so many moments throughout my day that I make these adult decisions and do adult things and then I think "holy shit, don't they know who I am?" I mean really I'm just a kid! Okay, granted I AM turning 30 in July. People come to me on a regular basis asking me important things.."ummm, yes", I say and in my mind I think "sure, I don't give a shit, why are you even asking ME?" This is why I like to lay on the floor with Sequoia. I tell him everything. I cry to him all the time, I tell him I'm scared, I don't understand, I hike really slow etc. He doesn't care! He thinks I'm sooo cool, smart, pretty..I think he thinks I'm an adult. He keeps me grounded and by the way, he does the most amazing downward dog! He loves to stretch in the sun and I love to watch. He inspires my practice. I am so thankful for what I have in my life. I cant even believe how blessed I am! My friends and family are amazing. Not to mention that I have a boyfriend who actually enjoys playing Scrabble with me! I started a new journey yesterday. I had my first day of my yoga teacher training with the most amazing little big group. This is just one more thing to be thankful for. Maybe I'll grow up :)