Costa Rica

How lucky was I to take a vacation in December when temperatures here in Utah were ZERO DEGREES? Paul and I went to Costa Rica with his firm. I’m a little behind (a whole month) in posting this, but nobody reads anyway. This is just my journal.

This is the hotel we stayed at, nice huh?

With views out to the Pacific ocean.

We went on a Crocodile tour…….

Saw cool birds and animals…….

Ate in cool restaurants in the tree tops….don’t I look happy and well rested? That’s what a week of no dishes and angry children will do for ya.

OH the food. Beans and rice cooked in the most delicious ways. Of course I bought a Costa Rican cookbook. Mmm.

Zip lined through the jungle with Paul. Ok, I can’t lie. He did the zipline, I took the photos. I wasn’t gonna sign that waiver stating that I won’t sue if I plunge to my imminent death. One of us has to raise the kids.

What a wonderfully relaxing vacation!

Dinner’s in cantinas. We don’t drink, so yea, we had delicious tropical smoothies every night.

The best part? This says a lot about me: The hotel will bring food to your lazy butt by the poolside! (This ‘meal’ cost me $20 bucks, but hey, it’s vacation!)

Now Paul looks well rested too.

Tracy Anderson Method

I never heard of Tracy Anderson until a few months ago. Where have I been? But at the beginning of October I called my sister-in-law Ilene to ask her what exercise videos she liked. I knew she had a firm testimony of a certain fitness guru out there and I wanted to know just who it was.  With winter approaching I knew my regular routine of running the trails near my house would be impossible very soon. I needed a new plan to get me through the dismal Utah winters—enter the Tracy Anderson Method (TAM).

I started with Precision Toning. Hard, hard stuff. It’s a good toning workout that I wouldn’t describe as cardio (like the package does) although your heart will be pumping. Once I got used to her ‘method’  and decided this lady is onto something I moved on to her Metamorphosis series which is a 90-day workout that changes every 10 days. After a couple months I got bored with just the Metamorphosis cardio so I recently added the video you see on the right—Dance+Cardio. (It’s easier than the cardio from Meta so usually I can do a full hour of cardio if I choose her Dance+Cardio DVD that day.)

I just finished day 50 of Metamorphosis, so I’m more than half way there. From October 15th through today, January10th, I have been exercising 6 days a week with TAM DVDs for a full hour. Thirty minutes of toning, 30+ minutes of incredibly difficult cardio.  Have I seen a difference in my body? Yes, big differences, probably only noticeable to me, but still, big differences. I’m sorry if you found this blog post by doing a search for “Tracy Anderson results” and were expecting to see selfies of me in a bikini or sports bra, but this isn’t that kind of blog. (There are plenty out there—just google it.) I am a middle-aged woman who turns 40 in a 3 days. I’ve never worn a bikini in my entire life and I’m sure not about to start now—especially putting a bikini photo on the internet.  But my arms are toned, but boo-tay is lifted, and the scale is a few pounds lighter.

But more importantly—I feel great and I haven’t had a bit of insomnia so far this winter. I usually suffer from horrible insomnia in these dark winter months, but I discovered a couple of years ago if I exercise hard, and I mean dripping-in-sweat hard, everyday, then I’m exhausted by night and therefore sleep all through the night. That alone motivates me to work this hard every single day with TAM. I hesitate to say I look forward to her workouts everyday, but let’s say that I don’t dread them. And believe it or not, most days I actually do look forward to her workouts.

What’s genius about the TAM is that her ‘muscular structure’ (strength training) workouts change every 10 days so I’m never getting too bored. And trust me, usually by the 7th day of a routine I am hating each set of 40 reps and wanna chew rocks rather than kick my dang legs to the side one more time (as seen above). But then I tell myself, only 3 more days of this insanity and then I can move on to something else equally insane. But at least it will be different. Whereas with any other workout DVDs I’d quit once I get bored.  Her cardio work is dancey and I really think that is fun. I am not a dancer, I’ve never taken a dance class, but I am Latina, so I figure it’s in my blood somewhere. Somewhere deep.

Also genius—she doesn’t talk much. I hate peppy videos where the gals make dumb jokes and talk constantly. Shut up, can’t you see I’m in pain?! Tracy appreciates that I’d rather be eating cookies so she stays quiet. This allows me to play my own playlist of alternative music by angry people from the 90s. It really does make kicking my legs and dancing my butt off go faster.

So here’s to Tracy and her really unique approach to fitness. I’ll post a follow-up review when I’m done with the 90 days but I’m sure I’ll be moving on to her Metamorphosis Continuity series. I hear she’s taped through year three now so maybe this 90-day program will turn into a 900 day program. Stay tuned.

P.S. This post is only a review of her exercise—not her food plan mentioned in Meta and her book. Let’s just say, I have no desire to live on 800 calories a day. I am so against dieting—just eat healthy everyday of your life. Well, almost everyday.

Thanksgiving 2013

This year it was just our family. Nobody came over, nobody invited us over.  We live in Utah but most of our family does not—and if they do live here they had other plans. This might sound sad to you—but I actually love it. No pressure. I can make peanut butter sandwiches for all I care. I would never do that—but it’s nice to know it’s an option. I like options.

All my recipe came from America’s Test Kitchen this year. There’s a shocker. If cookbook companies had groupies, I’d be one. I’d go to their concerts and throw pie on the stage. I’m totally mesmerized by cooks. (Once in Chicago I went to Rick Bayless’ restaurant and my eyes went all foggy and my throat dried up when I saw Mr. Bayless himself.) You can have your lame-o movie stars—I stalk chefs. Ok, I don’t stalk them, but I’d love to if it were legal.

First up—Mr. Turkey. He was brined the day before for six hours and then left overnight on a rack to dry out. America’s Test Kitchen says this will give a crackly crisp skin and moist meat. Boy did it ever. I’ve never had better turkey. I even overcooked it a bit (I blame the convection) and still the white meat was jui-cy!

Here’s Mr. Turkey taking a nice salty briney bath on Wednesday. My garage is plenty cold in November but I added plenty o’ ice to the cooler just in case.  Nobody’s getting food poisoning at my house. I did have to double the brine recipe to completely cover my 13 pound turkey.

Here’s Mr. Turkey resting after 2 hours in the oven. You give him that St. Tropaz tan by starting him on his tummy then flipping him to his back after an hour. Crispy goodness all around. He rested for half an hour after his tan so that I could make the gravy and so that all his juices would redistribute throughout the bird lest he be dry.

Next up: making pie dough on Wednesday afternoon so that Thanksgiving day I can get up early (like a bona fide baker) and cook my Lemon Meringue and Pumpkin pie.

All good desserts start with an inordinate amount butter. Gosh I wish I could eat like this everyday.

Pie dough ready for a chill in the refrigerator before rolling out.

Baking done by Thursday morning at 10am. Lemon Meringue Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and Crescent Rolls. Did I mention I only fed 5 people? Mmm, leftovers.

A simple orange cranberry sauce…..

And something new this year: Green Bean Casserole with a homemade mushroom cream sauce. This was my favorite dish this year. I will make it for Christmas too. Holy cow, so good. You won’t even miss the metallic-tasting mushroom canned soup.

Ilene is so happy to be trimming the green beans.

Here’s my son Nathan peeling sweet potatoes. I believe in manual labor before the feast for all involved.

Everybody had a job this year. Thank goodness the kids are old enough to help now. My husband Paul did the grunt work for the turkey but he’s not pictured because he stayed in his pajamas all day. I’m not kidding. You wear pajamas, you don’t make the blog cut.

I’ve broken with my childhood tradition and do not stuff the bird anymore. Just bake the stuffing  dressing on the side. (Sorry Mom.) Sausage, Cranberry and Bread stuffing. Good stuff.

I didn’t burn the crust—it kinda looks that way on the Pumpkin Pie though.

I served most everything on my mother’s fine China that my Dad bought her for a wedding gift in Japan during the Vietnam War. My kids said it shouldn’t be called China if he bought it in Japan. True.

Let the feast begin! The best part? We ate ate all the leftovers for three more days.

Gracious I love Thanksgiving. I can’t think of anything more fun than cooking for two days without needing to do anything else—to me that’s heaven.  God Bless America!

Pacifico Alphabet

When I came across this font I immediately loved it. I love cursive fonts that are not too fussy. And this one seemed “readable” to younger children who are just learning to read and write in cursive. Here’s how I made it work. (Can be purchased here.)

I knew it would look lovely embroidered on special items. I started out by making a pillow for a birthday party my daughter attended.

Perfect fill stitches. A good candidate to digitize.

I noticed the lowercase ‘k’ didn’t quite look exactly the way I wanted it to (green version). Nothing wrong, I just wanted the “k” to touch in the middle (red version). So I decided to override the computer’s stitching and change it a bit. Also, notice the black arrow pointing to a ‘cloudy’ spot on my new version of the letter k.  This size (3”) of the letter is stitched in satin stitches but larger parts of the letter can be really fragile and snag easily if stitched with such long stitches. So I had the computer take a few ‘fill’ stitches where the black arrow is pointing. You don’t really notice this once it is sewn but the resulting letter will be stronger and less prone to snag and rip on your grandkid’s backpack—or whatever you stitch it on.

Then came the uppercase letter “L”. Sheesh, didn’t love the defaulted version at all. But some might, so I left it as is and created another version of the capital “L”. You choose which you prefer.

I decided to include another version of the capital “V” and “W” in case some customers didn’t like the tail. The tail is great when spelling words but if you want to stitch the letter “V” all alone, the tail looks silly.

Lastly, I measured the letters on a sample and noticed they were not exactly as big as the computer said they should be. A bit too short so I included a 4th size (something I rarely do) so that customers could have  several sizes to choose from.

I liked Pacifico so much I used it on another design released the same day. This idea came from a customer—I’m always willing to listen to ideas from customers, just email me! She is obviously a big Bob Marley fan. (Who isn’t?) “Every Little Thing” can be purchased here.

A few weeks later and that’s how the alphabet Pacifico came to be! Available for purchase here.