I Heart Faces

Ok I've been a bad blogger. I promise I'll try harder this coming year! Now that I have a good camera I'm hoping to get more inspired to blog! I recently discovered I Heart Faces and am learning a lot. One day I might be brave enough to enter one of their photo contests! For today though I'm just entering a couple of photos as a green green newbie in the "Holiday Bokeh" un-contest. Don't know what that is? Check out these examples

Here are my submissions








And for the life of me I cannot remember how to link the photo to the page so I hope this is acceptable

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com

Bloggity

I say bloggity in real life...like some people say "shucks" is that weird? Been a bad blogger this week; BF came down with a wicked bad flu and has been home on the couch or in bed for 3 days now. Kids are out of school. Days off; what's that? We did spend a little time down at Riverside Park for Canada Day in the afternoon but it was quite cloudy and chilly so we didn't stay long. We bundled up at home and watched the fireworks from the deck-and were so glad we didn't have to drive 5km/h to get home an hour after the fireworks!

I've been cooking up some good stuff lately; I often don't think to take a photo till we've eaten half though so I need to remember to be more attentive. We've been loving this vegan creation rice a roni that I swear I got from a particular vegan blog and cannot find now...grrr...I do have the recipe written down so I'll post it here but if you are the creator of this recipe I am happy to link to you!

Vegan/Vegetarian Rice-a-Roni

1/2c orzo
1/2c white rice
2c prepared vegetable or vegan chicken stock
3 green onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, pressed or chopped small (I use more)
2T soy sauce
1T olive or vegetable oil

In a saucepan heat oil and add orzo, tossing to coat. Heat until orzo begins to brown on all sides, add remaining ingredients, stir and cook covered on medium heat for 25-30 minutes, until all the water is absorbed and the rice and orzo are cooked. You can substitute an equal amount of broken vermicelli for the orzo as well, following the same directions as above.
The only pic I have is it just about done cooking - but it looks amazing!



And tonight we had BBQ garlic, mushrooms and asparagus with olive oil, sea salt and lemon, mmm sooo good!!

P90X Yoga is the bomb

Ok so my bf is doing the P90X program He's on day 43 and doing AMAZING! Part of the program is an almost 2 hr yoga X (X for extreme of course) dvd. On his yoga days I usually join in and the kids often do too. This program KICKS my ASS every time! It's SO good for you!! So right now I'm doing that 1-2 times a week as well as the hot yoga 5-7 times a week, and home yoga for an hour or so about twice a week. I can feel shape taking place under my skin. I feel myself walking taller, feeling more at home in my body even though its changing daily. I feel definition at every curve. When I flex my arms at work, people don't believe that all I do is yoga....and they think I'm crazy to do so much yoga-I work the best shifts next week (11-3) so I can drop my bf at work, go to the 9am 90 minute hot yoga class, shower, work, then go to the 60 minute hot yoga class at 3:30, and be done by the time he's finished work at 5. (His studio is above the hot yoga studio). What do you consider "too much" yoga? Is there such a thing? Now...how do I get rid of this last stubborn 20ish pounds??

Kids Grounded Yoga

My 8yr old son is enrolled in a kids yoga program called Go Grounded and in the fall I am going to Vancouver for the teacher trainer to be able to run the program. I am friends with his current teacher and with her inspiration and guidance am excited to move into a teacher position. You can visit her website here: Marcia Wilson Yoga This morning I was her assistant and really loved the way the kids respond to yoga! Go Grounded is such a great program, I highly recommend it to all kids and teens! It reinforced to me that this is what I want to do, I want to lead others to be their best yogi! Noah has his red bandana and is working on his orange, and 3 students tested for their red today and all three passed! Over the summer they will work on developing a flow from their pose chart and be able to teach it to their fellow students. So exciting!

Todays lunch was a vegan pizza panini and a wasabi arugula salad with a raspberry vinaigrette; check it out!

So delish!

Back to blogging....

It's been a while since I bloggered. Blogged? Either way, it's been a long time. I wont bore you with the details of why, but lets start with where I am right now. I'm 31. Live with my boyfriend of 2 years and my boys (15 and 8). Getting divorced if I can ever track down my ex husband. We have a cat. We often work crazy hours and sometimes only see each other for 5 minutes at a time. I currently work in a Supermarket and have for 5 years and hate it so much right now. I think of us often as a typical suburban family. We work, play, transport kids here and there, wish we had more time to take vacations, and can't stand to be apart. I never knew true love until I met my wonderful man. I'm so grateful to have him in mine and my children's lives!

Right now; I'm currently into a fairly intense weight loss challenge for myself; ultimately I'd love to lose another 20 pounds to be 100% at my "correct" weight for my height, but I'm at the point right now where that's all hard hard work and I have to struggle for each and every pound but thats ok and I'm up for it! But it takes time. I have a regular yoga practice for close to a year now, and regularly attend hot yoga classes. In October I am going for the Go Grounded kids yoga teacher training. I am hoping to carry on and train to teach all age groups and eventually open my own yoga studio. My 8 yr old loves yoga and takes regular classes as well, and my boyfriend and oldest son also do yoga. We truly believe it is the fountain of youth. I also go through spurts of running a lot, and then not at all.

We are eating mostly vegetarian these days, and from time to time I may share photos and or recipes of what we're eating. Some of my inlaw-family is vegan/allergy issues so we do often cook and bake that way as well. We work around all of our allergies and try not to run into bad allergic reactions! So I welcome you all on this journey back to blogging as a "new" person :)