Not really.  But sort of.

I’ve had the flu for six days.  Six.  And counting. So nothing wonderful is happening in my life (unless you count the RX I got for codeine yesterday, that was pretty wonderful).  Food has been not my priority or interest.  This is showing up on the scale and I am ashamed to say I see it as a bit of a silver lining.

For the most part, I’m subsisting on coconut water, smoothies (only one green monster), and almond butter and wheat toast.  My stomach is just not into food right now.

Blogging will hopefully resume when I return to the land of the living.  Which I hope happens soon.

Peace.

E.

K, I know I’ve been remiss.  A lot has been happening… getting ready to go to Miami for TurboKick training (aiii… wha???) and I’ve been like trying to learn to kickbox this week!  Sort of like cramming for finals.  I have been bouncing off the WALLS at work and home.  I burned nearly 3,000 calories the other day.  I am so excited that I get to be trained by Ms. Chalene Johnson herself.

Also, I missed winning some of Gina la Fitnessista’s macaroons by 1 measly point!  Bummer!  Goes to show you, always give it your all, cuz you never know when your slacking can cost you some tasty treats.  I had a blast doing Gina’s Summer Shape Up challenge.  It was so worth it!  If you’re looking for a training program, I really recommend hers (she’s leaving all 12 weeks of the challenge up on her blog, so get to it if you haven’t tried it yet!).  It’s great for all levels of fitness.  And I’m not just saying that because I hope she’ll take pity on me and send me macaroons.

OKAY!  Ya’ll readers who have stuck with me deserve BETTER yo.  So I am taking my camera with my to MIA and taking PICTURES and I will actually POST said pictures on this here blog.  I swear.

I do have eats pics to post… and I have discovered I gotta take it easy on TJ’s canned soup.  It’s fairly clean and so I eat it on days when I cannot bear to chop and cut veggies or cook beans which has been quite frequently of late and it is messing with my tummy.  Maybe the salt?  Anyway, something in Elizabeth does not like something in the TJ soups.

Also, everything they said about beans and broccoli?  Yeah, it’s true.  Don’t mix them.  It hurts.

Everyone here sing some Will Smith for me while I party it up this weekend!  I have a SWEET rental waiting for me — a car I’ve ALWAYS WANTED TO DRIVE!  Stay tuned!

Party in the city where the heat is on… all night in the club till the break of day…

Welcome to Miami (Benvenidos a Miami!)

Peace!

E.

I am totally wiped after an amazing day with my friend Kristen in the city.  We went to the Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto exhibit at the MFA before heading over to Addis Red Sea for Ethiopian food.  I’d never had it before and it was INCREDIBLE.  I ordered 4 veg dishes to try (collard greens, cabbage, lentils and split peas).  Seriously delicious.  I liked it a lot more than Indian food.  The spice level was similar without the gloppy sauce.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Indian too, but Ethiopian was super light and delicious.  I will be going back again!

We also had 2 glasses of wine with our lunch and planned to go back to the MFA to see the regular collection, but realized we only had about 45 minutes until the museum closed.

So instead, we shopped around on Boylston and hit up Anthro.  I got a dress for $88!!!  I’ve never paid less than a $100 for an Anthro dress in my life (except for that knock-off abomination already discussed elsewhere which I cannot even discuss without becoming rageful).

Pics hopefully coming soon, Kris was responsible and brought her camera.  Husband needed ours to document fishing this afternoon.

I need a nap.

Salaamata,

E.

That was my time for my 5k.  I paced myself better in the beginning (thanks largely to turning off the shuffle on my iPod playlist — last week it offered up a really fast song too early and I tired myself out).

It was a tough run and I’m dead on my feet.  Traffic was awful so I got there literally with 5 minutes before the race started so I had to warm up during the race!  It was so awesome running with my buddies — they’re so much better than I am at running but they were so excited to see if I met my goal and came in under 30:00.  It meant a lot and it was a huge encouragement.

The anthem for today’s run is Britney Spears’ Stronger. I made some changes below… check it out!

Hush, just stop
There’s nothing you can do or say, baby
I’ve had enough
I’m not your property as from today, baby
You might think that I won’t make it on my own
But now I’m

Chorus
Stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way (YEAH MAN!!!)
My loneliness tendons ain’t killing me no more
I Am stronger

Now i’m Stronger than yesterday
Now it’s nothing but my way
My loneliness feet and hams ain’t killing me no more(me no more)
I am stronger

Well, it’s not raining today, so I’m going to see if I can shave those pesky 6 seconds off my time and run another 5k today.  Ahhh!  Running races stresses me out a little, I so don’t belong there.  Oh well, it’s probably a good idea to get used to the atmosphere now.  At least these are small races, so there’s less of a crowd of runners.

I need to go grocery shopping, I am out of everything.  Almond milk, avocados, Zeke muffins (!!!!), bananas… what the heck am I gonna eat!?!?!  I leave you with pics from my hike to Mt. Monadnock last Friday.  It was a slightly hazy day, but it was perfect hiking weather.  I sweated like a donkey the whole time and was completely soaked at the end of it.  Next time, bringing a change of clothes. Gotta run, more later!  I still have to review Grezzo, complain about my recent Amazing Grass experience (I know I do a fair amount of kvetching on this blog) and many more things!   So much to do/see/eat/read (I finished Marriage to a Difficult Man and Jane and the Man of the Cloth earlier this week, by the way. Excellent reads both.   So little time!

This weekend, I had to make a meal to bring for a church potluck.  I wanted to do anything but lasagna (that’s a common potluck guest star).  I thought enchiladas would be nice, and if I did them right, I could actually eat something at the potluck.

Here’s what I made:

First, I used Gina’s recipe for calabacitas and used that to stuff the corn tortillas.  I also added beans.  I foolishly did not buy enough corn tortillas to roll each individual enchilada, but I think it worked out better to do the tortillas flat.  That way, there were more veggies/beans per serving.

I ended up making extra servings of this dish.  The second time, I roasted the veggies on a cookie sheet with a lip.  I recommend that method rather than using a deep Pyrex-type dish because the water evaporates better.  Water enchiladas = no bueno.

For a dress rehearsal, I made the enchiladas for dinner to make sure they’d be good.  I sometimes take a chance and try out new recipes on guests, but I’ve been burned a few times.  Above are cheeseless enchiladas.

Cheesey enchiladas for the church peeps.  I had plenty of corn tortillas the night before, so my dish looked like this:

I amped up the amount of veggies and added some homemade guacamole to the mix.  I used Gina’s guacamole recipe.  Good thing I have you bloggers or I couldn’t cook!  I got a lot of compliments on this.

I also made my own enchilada sauce using this recipe:

It was disappointing at first.  It tasted exactly like slightly spicy Campbell’s Tomato Soup.  Ew.  I simmered some dry chilis in the sauce, caramelized some onions and garlic to add… I even added some dashes of spicy pepper sauce (like Tabasco, but TJ’s version).  It was all very meh until the next morning.  I was trying to decide if I should throw it out and just go by some sauce filled with hydrolized corn protein or whatever else they dump in there.  By the morning, it tasted like enchilada sauce!  So if you use that recipe to make homemade sauce, you really need to make it the night before.  Unless you like tomato soup enchiladas, in which case… I really can’t help you.

Then I made ANOTHER blogger recipe… Jena’s Vegan Carrot Cake.  I thought I took a pic of the finished product, but I don’t see it on my camera.  Maybe my camera got hungry and ate it?  All I have is a pic of one (of many) piece of cake:

I pretty much ate nothing but carrot cake all day yesterday.  It was SO good.  The frosting was a little runny because I’m using a new brand of coconut milk that just isn’t as thick as other brands I’ve used that have been almost like butter.  Somewhere else on my site I mention makeing Polly’s Oaty Cakes with thickened coconut milk (I’m too lazy to search for it).  I think you have to make sure you have very fatty, thick and creamy coconut milk if you’re using it in frosting-y or yogurt-y type ways.  Just be warned, it’s one of the consternations of cooking with coconut.

I got a lot of compliments on the carrot cake as well, but there were so many desserts that I had a lot left over (there were a lot of the other desserts left over too, so it wasn’t a slight on the carrot cake).  This is a problem as it is seriously addicting.  I will only be making it if people promise to eat lots of it or take the leftovers home.

Now for some random dinners I never got around to posting:

That’s raw pasta (spiralized beets, squash and zucchini) with marinara, nutritional yeast and grilled portobella mushrooms.

Breakfast tostada:  Black beans, salsa, tofu and nutritional yeast on a ‘zeke tortilla.  Unfortunately, adding nutritional yeast tends to make all my meals look the same.

Tonight’s din will be baked tofu marinated in this delicious sauce with salad:

Shalom,

E.

Awhile back, I mentioned I planned to review a video that helped unwind my concrete sides.  And I just never got around to it.  I have so many half-started posts!  So I’m going to focus on one thing at a time.

First, as I mentioned before, Turbo Jam is an awesome workout.  I def. felt it in my sides/ obliques the next day.  As an aside, I love Turbo Jam SO MUCH that I am going to fly my cookies to Miami, Florida from New Hampshire to take an instructor training course with Ms. Chalene Johnson herself.  I am SO STOKED.  Why on earth this cubicle-dwelling little lawyer is leaving the comfort of her freezing office to go do this is beyond me, I guess I just… have to.

Moving on.

So the antidote to my sore sides was Shiva Rea’s Surf Yoga Soul video (as you prolly guessed from my blog title?)  I instantly ordered it when I heard the title because I like yoga (I don’t love it, but I like it) and my dream one day is to learn to surf.  And not get eaten by a shark.  This video was really incredible.  Yoga videos are generally not my favorite thing to do.  I’ve done a bunch by Patrica Whatsername (too lazy to google, but everyone know who I’m talking about) and the dude with the ponytail.  Shiva’s are totally different.

First, her body is truly inspirational.  She’s in great shape and is so strong and flexible.  Also, her series are very unique and creative.  She lets you use your own movement on quite a few of the sequences.  I never felt bored by her routine.

Another cool thing, and one that is becoming more common, is that the DVD is split into several segments so you can do them all at once or a few at a time depending on your body (and time) dictates.  This is great for yogini’s with short attention spans like me, but I honestly couldn’t think of a single sequence I’d want to take out of the practice.  They were all so beneficial and I felt fantastic after each one.

Here are the elements of the practice:

1. Wave Meditation – This has the creative arm movement and you can practice “popping up” on your surf board.  I felt like a cool surfer chick.

2. Mandala Namaskar – This is more lower-body work, with warriors, squats (I’ve never done squats like these) and the up/down dogs.

3. Agni Namaskar – These are 9 rounds of pushups with some other poses.  I’ve done these push-ups with Shiva on her “Creative Core” DVD (another good one, but not as good as “Surf Yoga Soul.”  I admit that in the last 4 or 5 sets of push-ups, I did plank work.

4. Breath Wave – Yogic breathing to build up the lungs (always my least fav. part of yoga because I have piddly little lungs thanks to marinating in second-hand smoke for half my life).  This wasn’t bad, actually.

5. Balance Flow – This was my absolute favorite part of the DVD, and the most challenging.  I can’t name all of the twisty, bendy, hold-y poses, but it definitely wrings your muscles out of any tension.

6. Flexibility Flow- This really is what got a lot of the soreness out of my body.  It opens up the shoulders and a lot of the joints that you carry stress in without realizing it.  This was another one of the best parts of the DVD.

7. Shavasana – Ahhhh, after all that work, Shavasana felt great.

I ran 6 miles today, the farthest I’ve ever run, in training for my 10k in October.  I just finished week 1 of the FIRST program and it is ramping up very quickly.  Today we had a church luncheon and met some friends just to hang out after… I haven’t really eaten very balanced meals today.  1/2 an Ezekiel muffin here, carrot cake there, some veggies and guac and TJ’s soy and flax seed chips (awesome, btw, remind me of Dorritos)… Some more cake… then some more…

Luckily, Husband’s little brother came and took the rest of my carrot cake away.  He is accommodating in eating my baked goods and is blessed with the metabolism typical of your average, active, 20-something year old boy.  I don’t know what I’ll do when he goes back to college.  Ship him my half-eaten baked goods?

Paz,

E.

Somehow I made it throo-oooughhh…

Finished the 5k today in 30:05.  This is my personal best time, but a bit of a disappointment because I really wanted to get under 30 minutes.  Oh well!  I don’t have far to go.  It was a hard run — a lot of it takes place up hills and slight inclines.  I really need to make myself run these on the treadmill because it KILLS ME when I see them in real life.  The first hill came up just as “Welcome to the Jungle” started on my iPod.  As soon as I saw the hill, Axl said, “Oh my Go[sh].”  That’s what I thought.  Then the next hill came up just as he shrieked “Welcome to the jungle baby!  You’re gonna die!”

Way to encourage me Ax… I appreciate it man.

I was so blessed that my friend and her husband came to run this (of course, they dusted me… my friend ran it in 24:50 with a slight injury).  I will miss them when they have to go home at the end of the summer.  Sniff.

I made energy pudding based on the recipe on Brendan Brazier’s site (does he remind you of Luke Wilson?  I totally expect someone to call him “The Godfather”).  Today’s meal looked like this:

Breakfast:

TJ’s high fiber oats with almond milk

Ezekiel Muffin with Almond Butter

Coffee

Snack:

Green Monster w/ spinach, almond milk, flax seed, Amazing Grass Superfood, Amazing Meal, banana, and strawberries

Lunch:

Soy-free veggie burger with avo, sprouts, lettuce, tomato from a local deli.  A side of tabouleh salad over romaine lettuce (came with feta on top, alas)

Pre-race snack:

water, water, water glugged 2 hours before hand, The Godfather’s energy pudding with chia seeds and hemp nuts tossed in.  Delish!

Post-race snack:

Polar seltzer water

Dinner:

Banana, cheese-less pizza, 2 glasses smoking loon Cabernet (The Godfather would be so proud how I’m not stressing my body during recovery), a banana, water, and 1.5 sardines on a Carr’s table water cracker.

I know, I was a bad little vegan today, but I do worry about those Omega-3′s for the ol’ noggin.

I think a bath and bed is on my agenda for tonight… I’ve been sleeping very poorly of late.  I wake up (according to my Body Buddy) repeatedly and of the 8 hours I spend laying down, only 6-ish are actually spent sleeping.  Part of my wonders if wearing this thing on my arm while I sleep is partly to blame?

Maybe I’ll read a little too.  :-)

Pace,

E.

I know, I’ve been gone without explanation.  We’ve had a bunch of busy days… Saturday we took a tour of key sites of the Great Awakening (highly recommend!  my history nerds out there, this was so cool).  I might be in the newspaper, we’ll see.  I was acting pretty dorky, which pretty much guarantees they’ll put me in the newspaper, right?  After our tour we had dinner with friends, then Sunday was church, a girlie dress-up birthday party (I didn’t take pictures of myself in the get up… I didn’t want to be too self-centered) and then after we went to Kimball’s farm, THE COOLEST place for ice cream and burgers.  There was nothing like this in Cali and I love it so.  I was able to stay vegan at Kimball’s and the girlie girl party (hey, wine is vegan, right?), though not so much at our friends’ dinner.  I just concentrated on being a good guest and enjoying the company.

Does anyone else love to look at other people’s bookshelves and do you get really excited when you find that you have books in common with someone else?  I do.  Super excited.  The people who hosted us for dinner had the absolute cutest, sweetest little boy and had great books.  I scored a couple to borrow, which also accounts for my absenteeism.  Right now I’m reading “Marriage to a Difficult Man:  The Uncommon Union between Jonathan & Sarah Edwards” and I borrowed “Sex and the Supremacy of Christ.”  I now have about 22,465 books in my “to-read” stack, most of them borrowed.

Today, I experimented with some energy pudding inspired by Miss Gina’s efforts over at her blog and also going from memory from Brendan Brazier’s Thrive. I lent my copy of Thrive to a kick-ass tri-athlete friend of mine (she’s the one who got me into running and she rocks.  And makes the best chocolate chip cookies ever) and vaguely remembered maca being a good thing for training recovery.  As a practice for my 5k run tomorrow (oh yeah, I’m also running a 5k!  How about that?) I made some pudding for my pre-Zumba snack with chia seeds, hemp nuts and coconut milk.  I also dumped in a scoop of maca for good measure.

NEVER, ever, EVER do that.  It will make you gag.  Possibly barf.  This is the strong taste I sometimes catch in Amazing Grass or Vega products.  I never knew what it was before, but now that I have the taste isolated, I know.

I googled around for it to make sure maca really does taste that awful and I didn’t buy a bad batch.  Kristen over at Kristen’s Raw thinks maca usually taste like feet.  I think that’s an insult to feet — I think it tastes like dirt in a sweaty butt crack.  Sorry to be graphic, but that’s the only way you can understand the horror.  Blended with 32 ounces of smoothie, the pudding was tolerable.

That globby stuff in the middle is the pudding. I would totally make this again WITHOUT maca. It's kinda tapioca like.

I have a lot of catching up to do on the ol’ blog! I mentioned last week about a hip-releasing yoga vid I wanted to review, I took a step that might will change my life, I bought one of those Body Bugg things (I call it my Body Buddy) and I wanted to tell ya’ll about my experience with it this past week (hint:  my boss is about to buy one now!) and there’s more to come!!  Sheesh!

Peace (and thanks for sticking around!)

E.

Alas, because I was a bum for the past few days

scratch that, let’s talk more nicely…

Because I had a very busy schedule these last few days, I didn’t get a chance to link to Ange’s Amazing Grass give away!!!  Hurry hurry hurry, it ends in like 2 hours.

All you have to do is go and post 2 positive changes you made in the last two months.  Here are mine:

1. Eating more! I didn’t realize it until I got one of those calorie calculators you wear all day (like on the Biggest Loser) but those girlie mags that tell us to eat 1200 -1500 cals a day ARE STARVING US. I am eating like 2,000 calories a day and it’s nutritious stuff — fruit and nuts and avocados and, um, wine. 

2. Became a vegan!

What are yours?  Go comment!

Peace!

E.