Giving Thanks for a California Thanksgiving!

Happy Saturday after Black Friday after Thanksgiving!

Haven't been around as I have been posting lots of leftovers recipes and "stay smaller than a bus" posts over at ZenPulseBlog!

Was in a bit of a funk as I had hoped to go home this year for Turkey Day as we are FINALLY close enough, but it didn't work out for a bunch of reasons. It's been an OK week, though!

Started with a new client, spent lots of time working on my business plan and had a great Thanksgiving with friends.

Oh. And have done LOTS of power yoga. $40 for 30 days unlimited at Yoga Belly in Mountain View. Between the power yoga and the power drills I've been doing at the gym I feel...well... powerful! Success of the week: NAILED side crow today.

Thanksgiving Morning, I led a family hike at Lexington Dam in Los Gatos. We had two families plus B and Me. It was chilly but beautiful!


Dinner was at Lori's! I am a horrible blogger and took NO. PICTURES. of Thanksgiving Dinner. I was too overwhelmed by the goodness!

On the menu:

• Rosemary + Lemon Cornish Game Hen
• Mashed White + Sweet Potatoes
• Sprouted Grain Cranberry-Apple Stuffing (Vegan)
• Caramelized Pecan Sweet Potatoes (Vegan)
• Orange Date-Cranberry Sauce (Vegan)
• Grandma's Cranberry Dressing (Raw+Vegan)
• Pumpkin Garlic Knots (Vegan)
• "Almost Raw" Pumpkin Pie on a Raw Date-Pecan Crust (Vegan)

Photos should be up over at What Runs Lori soon. She and the boyfriend saved Thanksgiving! (B and I were thiiiiis close to making spelt-crust pizza and playing Wii...)

Today's hike was not so good.

It was a bit grey and chilly here, but bundled and drove 30 minute to the trail head... where it was pouring rain. Turned around and drove the 30 min home. grrr...

SO. I hit up a KICK. ASS. hot yoga class at my new favorite place to be and sweated my mat too slippery to stand on. Have been pretty antsy-in-my-stretchy-pants the rest of the day.

• Grocery run to Sprouts.
• Changed clothes.
• Made Mollie Katzen's Peanut Noodles.
• Ate Peanut Noodles.
• Changed clothes again.
• Paced around for a while.
• Started bread in bread maker.
• Did Dishes.
• Made almond milk.
• Did more dishes.
• Paced around some more.

Could be an interesting evening if this keeps up. May need to crack my $3 bottle of wine from Sprouts a day early...

A Spirited Vegetarian Weekend!

It's chilly in here! :) If this is winter though, kids... I'll take it! A little hot tea and some fuzzy socks is the perfect remedy for grey skies and a little rain.

(Given that I'm still slightly traumatized by Snowmageddon 2010, I could not be more grateful for our new climate...)

Aside from waiting by the phone for the day's picture of a teensy kitten, I have been digging back in to yoga, learning raw foods (new to me and SO. AWESOME.) hanging with friends and building ZenPulse.

Rewinding...

1. Yoga: Joined up at Yoga Belly in Mountain View for a trial months and I'm hooked! Heated power yoga taught by warm, welcoming, energetic instructors. SOLD.

2. Raw Foods: Just when I think food couldn't get any more exciting - Lori walks in! Briefly considered kidnapping her and keeping her in my kitchen after she dropped a raw tuna salad recipe on me, used the words "spirulina" and "dulse" in the same sentence and "threw together" a batch of chocolate macaroons following a kettlebell ladder drill with me yesterday.

Also - the Cafe Gratitude desert cookbook is now temporarily in my possession. I either need to make a lot of friends who like cake or start running distance or my jeans are in trouble...

3. Zen Pulse: If you are ever looking for a way to learn internal validation - start your own business. This has been the biggest challenge and biggest blessing I have every tackled!

I'm planning a hike for Thanksgiving Day, training clients and working on starting boot camps in 2011 while I build a decent website from scratch and blog a few times a day!

4. Friends: Happy Birthday, Emily! Had an awesome time eating yummy food, drinking wine and playing board games with new friends on Saturday. Brian and I can't stop talking about what a blessing it is to have met such great people in such a short time.

Sunday was spent working out with Lori, cooking from my new fave cookbook, eating and cracking my head open on the "ceiling" that slants underneath our staircase. I have a giant lump in my noggin and I was actually unable to read properly for about 20 minutes after impact. 1 point stair case.

SO. Hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving week! Things here are nuts - but would expect anything different from me and the B??

Holy Crap...

...My mom found a litter of kittens in her garage! It is all I can do not to go get a) my cat and b) at least two more teensy little mewing balls of fluff and bring them back here.

(That's not her kitten. Picturemail refuses to give up the photo of her with an armload of fluff. Adorable.)

...I do not have ONE NIGHT this week that is free. HOORAY! I am teaching and training and playing and partying and selling all week! It's such a cool feeling to have a life that is so full and rich.

...I have FRIENDS! I had green juice with www.whatrunslori.com at Whole Foods last night, I am partying it up with E&C for a birthday on Saturday and attending a big ol' girlfriends potluck on Sunday.

...My hips are frozen. Again. Pretty much the only downside to this week is that SOMEONE who knows better neglected her mobility drills and shot her flexors. Again. Lots of foam rolling for me and king pidgeon for me... OUCH.

...I love my hubby SO STINKIN' MUCH.

...It's almost Thanksgiving!


...I have a lot of work to do! I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed with business/marketing "stuff." Which I'm taking as a good thing, because it means I have lots of good ideas. Now: R.O.I.

(Shameless Plug: Know someone who wants Personal Training? Call me!
Also - I'm starting up a new hiking group soon. Call me!)

...My kitchen is a mess. Because there's awesome soup cooling on the stove!

...I need a nap.

***

Go check out www.myzenpulse.com/blog!
Today's rather paradoxical postings: Sleep More. Sit Less.

Day Trip to San Francisco!

Made an oh-so-quick trip up to San Francisco with the in-laws today!


First stop: The Ferry Building for Blue Bottle Coffee and my usual take-home souvenir: Sharffen Berger Blueberry Lavender Tasting Squares!


Then we took the cable cars up to Fisherman's Wharf. I love the creaky, vintage cars with glowing wooden interiors and Air-Stream RV shape.

(I also love men who sport waxed handlebar mustaches, wear hats and carry a cane!)


Made a quick stop at Boudin's for a sourdough fix - the J family loves their bread!


Had just a little taste of the world-famous crusty bread, and spent most of my time wandering around, craving the fun odds-and-ends for the kitchen.


Then we went to Ghiradelli Square before taking the trolley back to Market Street for dinner. The Ghiradelli ladies were giving away Peppermint Bark - I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

A quick dinner at California Pizza Kitchen off Market Street (Split Pea + Barley Soup and White Bean Hummus + Whole Wheat Pita), a decaf coffee + steamed soy milk at Starbucks to ward off the chill while we walked (THANKS, MOM!) and I headed back home to San Jose via BART/Corolla.

Leading a hike tomorrow morning, coffee with a new friend tomorrow afternoon and a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a friend tomorrow night!

Don't forget to check out www.myzenpulse.com/blog - Great post about rest and recovery!

The Insanity Continues...

SO.

• I got back Saturday night - felt like death.
  
• Cleaned like a maniac and hosted Book Club Sunday - felt like death
• Played Catch-Up on Monday + back/lunge workout - felt a little less like death.
  
• Crashed Tuesday - NAP ATTACK! + shoulder/squat workout + yoga class -less like death but insanely Sore.
  

So that brings us to Wednesday. B's parents get in tonight for a 5-day visit. Can I throw in here how happy I am that I'm not doing 40 hours a week right now?

Random Thoughts This Morning:

1. My living room is still missing a bookcase but I have picture frames hanging over where the bookcase should be. It looks like someone stole the whole thing and left a gaping hole in my feng shui.

2. Can BioFreeze go bad? I'm missing that icy burn...... except for the finger I just stuck in my eye. F*!!!

3. I desperately need my foam roller... It is in the van in the parking lot that is at least 500 steps away. That's 500 reasons to flex my hips and a flight of stairs on the way back. Tangential thought: I had better be a least *this much* closer to those damn pull ups. My lats are so sore it aches to breathe!

4. Steel cut oats with soy milk and walnuts is the bomb.

Congrats to a certain dear friend on some amazing job opportunities/life changes opening up! WOO HOO!

--

Be sure to check out and sign up for the RSS feed at www.myzenpulse.com/blog - today is all about motivation!

shameless plug.

www.myzenpulse.com/blog

alive. barely.

Hello, good and faithful readers!

I have emerged from the deep end of the continuing education pool, dripping with all sorts of good information and ready to go collapse on my deck chair in the sun and drink a margarita.

My allegory makes no sense you say?

Reasons this could be the case:

1. I have been in driving rental cars, sleeping in strange beds and eating from the not-so-easily found vegetarian resources of restaurants and/or Target for going-on 8 days.

2. My brain is so full of new smarts and places to find other new smarts that other neural pathways (e.g. literary) seem to have gummed up a bit.

3. I haven't seen my hubby in going-on 8 days.

4. In my quest for new (I just typed "knew") knowledge, I picked 8 hours of "smarts" classes and no hours of "sweats" classes and haven't gotten in a really dirty workout in a few days.
5. I just used the word "dirty" for a workout. A consequence, not an antecedent, but it seems like an appropriate bullet point.


I would like to thank: ACE for an amazing conference, the Baxter family for a place to stay during said conference, and the San Diego Airport for having free WiFi.

Phoenix (or, why my sister is the best)

I fell asleep last night in a wine/candy corn-induced coma after watching How to Train Your Dragon, cozily ensconced in my sister's bed with a teensy little dog curled up in my lap.

The refined sugar almost sent me into tachycardia, I almost peed myself during an attack of the giggles and the quote of the day is: "Trolls exist. They steal your socks!" I love coming to visit my baby sister!

Backing up...

Got up in Austin at 3:00 am yesterday morning (alarm set for 4:00, but mother-nature sent me an earlier call in the form of a raging thunderstorm...) and was on a flight to Phoenix by 6:00.

Sis picked me up. We went back to sleep for 3 hours.

She headed to work and I headed to the gym once I managed to get up. Had a great upper body/intervals workout and finished up with lunch at Chakra4 - a 100% Organic/ 100% Vegan Cafe I stumbled across on my walk to LA Fitness.

Chakra4 was amazing! It was the sweet little tea house with really cool energy and a menu chock-full of raw/vegan options. I opted out of the raw route as I needed some high-quality/bio-available protein after a heavy lift and nuts weren't going to cut it. Quinoa pilaf and hummus to the rescue!

Had a hummus and veggie "wrap" but substituted Tuscan Kale leaves for the tortilla. Anyplace that will give me kale instead of gluten is a win in my book! (Tirzah agrees.)

A little laundry. A little Law and Order. A debate on which theater to patronize... and we walked to:

1. PetSmart to look at discount Halloween Costumes for my niece.

2. Fry's/Redbox to procure How to Train Your Dragon.

3. Traders Joe's to get wine and frozen edamame (read: dinner)

4. Yogurtology to get Pumpkin Spice and Oatmeal Cookie fro-yo

5. Home to make edamame, drink wine and watch movie

(Sidebar: sugar and I have a love-hate relationship. dairy and I have a hate-hate relationship. I was up at 6 am, paying for the yogurt, wine and wine-induced candy corns with what still feels like a college-grade hangover. It was worth it. )

I love sister time!

Hiked Camelback this morning, then headed to True Foods for lunch! If I had unlimited resources and a few spare hours, I would use a giant "claw" (you know, like the arcade game) to uproot this restaurant from the Biltmore, helicopter it to Mountain View and plop it down .25 miles from my house... staff and all.

On my way to San Diego for the ACE Fitness Symposium now! Am staying with some truly generous friends of my dad while I'm here and am so grateful for their hospitality. Meetings tonight and my 12-hour day of volunteering tomorrow!

Austin: Fin

Today was beautiful.

It started with a treasure I found yesterday while driving around

I love the little green guy!

Daily Juice! It was perfection in a little wooden shack. Raw foods/snacks, fresh juice, great music and a really amazing energy of compassionate and clean living.

Barton Springs: Organic carrot, Organic Beet, Organic Celery,
Organic Spinach, Organic Kale, Organic Parsley, Organic Wheatgrass- on the side

Which I took to Zilker Park. I spent some time drinking/digesting my juice along with a beautiful passage of my book on the "messy" stuff in life. It's a life-rocking thought, embracing the "ugly" and sending out to those we love... and even those we don't know...those things that bless us most.

Continued digesting the thoughts and juice with a park workout!

• 20 min run
  

• 2 sets: 15 prisoner squats + 10 pushups
• 2 sets: 20 traveling curtsy squats + 15 bench dips
• 2 sets: 20 walking lunges + 20 naked renegade rows
• 1 set: all of the above back-to-back

• Nice Long Stretch.

Sweaty Beast.

I walked around the Zilker Park Botanical Gardens for a while. It was really beautiful - all outdoors and there were SO may butterflies!

Then... something I had been looking forward to since I started researching Austin.

BEETS CAFE!

I don't consider myself a food photographer/food blogger. But please. please. please. eat at Beet's Cafe if you are in the Austin area. Raw/Vegan menu that was totally world-rocking.

I was given a little taste of their sunshine burger on raw onion flatbread and was so grateful as it was my 2nd choice to my lunch. So glad I got to taste it! and then there was lunch...

E.L.T.
(Eggplant "bacon", Lettuce and Tomato: with cashew "mayo" and avocado + raw veggies chips)

This. Was. Epic.

If you haven't tried raw food - don't knock it until you hit up a Raw Foods Cafe like this.

I also ordered a piece of raw, chocolate cheesecake on a date/almond crust. It disappeared very. slowly. and I still didn't manage a picture as I was completely smitten. And full.

It's 6 hours later and I'm just now munching some Tom's Tabooley (their spelling, not mine) and an apple from a great little organic market on South Congress while I work on business website and networking stuff.

Headed out of Austin tomorrow at 6:15 am (*groan*) and then on to Phoenix for a day to hang with sis before the ACE Conference!

Austin has been a much-needed respite of loving friends and personal time (and raw foods and juice!) I feel totally re-charged and ready to take on the next phase of ZenPulse!