Says my brain: Oh? You had a little trouble with memorizing the shoulder anatomy for your training? What, we haven’t had personal experience with those muscles to be able to best understand how they all work together as a group? Well then, let’s make sure to injure ourselves so we can become very familiar with that area!
Me: Fine. And, ouch.
The problem with reflection of events gone past is that reliving the painful days really sucks. I’m not enjoying this part of my teacher training at all.
Writing this in retrospect and I can recall is this day was so very, very long. Â First troop at Free Comic Book, then the recital. Â
Yoga: Â
Pranayama:
Writing this in retrospect. Â The day before the recital, got a massage. Â Not sure what else I did, but I’m fairly confident there was no yoga or pranayam involved.
Saucha
Yoga:
Pranayama:
Q: What should a vehicle driver trying to make a turn do when they encounter a pedestrian coming towards them in the crosswalk?
a) Allow the pedestrian to cross safely. After all, they do have the right of way and the vehicle is a death machine, especially on the icy streets of downtown Fairbanks.
b) Go ahead and try to make the turn in front of the pedestrian, making full eye contact with the pedestrian and challenging the pedestrian to move faster on the icy road, because after all, they are driving the death machine.
c) Wait until the pedestrian becomes angry and throws a hammer at them. Only then will they realize the error of their ways.
(if only had a hammer this morning!)
Last night I tried to make the green pumpkin seed mole that I learned at the cooking class I took last weekend. I think I ended up with less than half the tomatillos I was supposed to use, plus I don’t have a food processor yet (I ordered one !) so this was done with a blender. Which means I had to add some water to get it to blend! But the flavor was really, really good! I was most impressed with myself!
Mine is on the left, the one we made in class is on the right.
Tonight is my weekly violin lesson and studying for my yoga teacher training test. It’s a good thing since according to my heart rate monitor yesterday I burned 604 calories in Bhangra and another 300 during our level 3/prep class.
Today I’m feeling a bit tired and very, very happy that I get a day of rest from physical activity.
Breakfast cupcakes and waking to a dusting of snow on the lawn. My wants for an awesome birthday weekend are now complete!
For my birthday I gave myself the gift of a massage, aurora chasing, a cooking class, my annual haircut and two nights at home my my fella. I’m tired but inspired and now I _need_ a food processor!
Aurora chasing on my birthday. Â
I planned to meet a friend who goes out frequently aurora chasing, has a really nice camera and takes wicked awesome aurora photos on a regular basis, but I was really just wanting to tag along so I would not be out by myself in the dark. Â The hubby always say “please take a buddy” and I do try to respect those wishes! Â She invited me to bring my camera since I take so many pictures and have taken some fairly dark and obscure photos of the aurora from my house downtown, Â as well as a tripod, just to see if we could get something more out of my camera. Â It’s a point a click waterproof/drop-proof/Joyce-proof kind of digital camera so I really didn’t have much hope, but I brought it anyway since she is the expert and maybe she had some tricks up her sleeve she could share. Â As it turns out, there just was not much we could do, so I Â had a nice time chatting with her and a couple of friends that had come out to photograph the aurora, even though I could not see anyone.
The aurora was lighting up early and putting on quite the show as I was driving out to Chena Lakes, but quickly died down and was giving us some bands and green haze, but not a lot of spectacular sights, so around 1:00am I decided I should go home since I had plans to be at a cooking class at 10:00am the next morning.
As luck would have itl, on the way home the lights started up again straight overhead. I pulled over and got few shots, even a selfie! It’s grainy, but I have my birthday aurora photo! If you want to see some of the gorgeous  photos that my friend took, check out her facebook page and this is s photo from the night I was with her (taken after I left)Â
Cooking class
The day after my birthday, that is Saturday morning, I took a cooking class called “Stellar Super Sauces Class Taught ” taught by Phyllis Morrow at Breadline, Inc.’s Stone Soup Cafe.  I had no idea what I was going into and I’m not a stellar cook, but it touted that the sauces could be made “vegan, vegetarian or paleo” so I wanted to check it out.  I went in thinking maybe I was going to learn to make cashew alfredo sauce and that would would be also be helping with the cooking, but instead we got to sit and watch Phyllis make us not four, but five sauces using primarily a food processor.
Except for the aoili which had duck egg in it, I tried all of them and liked them. Â I was even planning on how to make two of the sauces right away, the Bazha with beets (the red one) for a curry side dish and the green pumpkin seed mole (the green one) as a topping for fish and veggies. Â And I decided I needed a food processor before the class was even over!
“Taming the Wookie”
It’s funny how one does not realize just how wild and out of control their hair is until after they finally get that annual haircut.
Maybe this should become more of a semi-annual event! Â (* “Taming the Wookie” was a comment on my facebook page that a friend made in reference to the “before” photo. Â I found this to be real-life laugh out loud funny!)
My Colombian Rainbow Boa, Aphrodite finally had a shed in one piece. Considering the shape she was in when I got her back in February of this year and the fact that her humidity requirements have been such a pain to get used to especially since she is still in a (albeit temporary) glass tank, I am really happy about this.
She may have been the one to shed, but I feel like I had a big part in it 🙂
