Yoga - hurts so good

*disqualifier - none of the people in these pictures is me.*

I am not a gym person. I have spent more time in gyms than I care to remember, and whether working on the weight machines, running on the treadmill, or climbing endless flights of imaginary stairs, I was always bored, exhausted, and ready to go home. I know that you're supposed to exercise to, like, live longer and junk, but if one hour of gym time gives you one more hour of life, that doesn't exactly seem worth it to me.

Trade one hour of bad times for one hour of good times! Or you could just skip the bad times and get the good times anyway! See what I mean?

Gym kitteh.

Plus gym people kind of freak me out. I love the little gym that I currently belong to, and everyone who works there and works out there is really nice, including the owner. But he is ALWAYS EXCITED in the manner of gym people. I do not understand having that much energy. Take a seat, read a book, at least blink once in a while. You do not seem to be blinking as much as you should be. (The parking lot of this gym is shared with a dentist, and the dentist has a Hummer with the personalized license plate NOVOCN. Leland thinks this is awesome. I think this is terrifying.)

Luckily for me, there is one gym thing that I not only enjoy, I crave. Yoga. And not just because Yoga teachers are rarely of the Jack Russell Terrier / Small Child on a Sugar Rush energy level. Yoga is like exercise, stress release, and therapy all rolled up into one.

I've had a sad break of almost six months in my yoga practice, but in late December I returned (with a vengance - dum dum dummmm) when I used some Christmas money for a gym membership. Currently the gym offers classes only twice a week, but there is an enthusiastic yoga community there and the gym owner promised me that they were at least moving up to three times a week. When I lived in Minnesota I belonged to a gym with classes every day, and I did usually go 5-6 times per week.

The instructor at my new gym, A, is probably the best instructor I've ever had. She's my age, tiny, blond, pretty, and from California, and she speaks in this calm, husky voice. It's a waste of time to hate, but you know, when A first came into the room, I thought, "I hate her". I can't help it! My culture has programmed me to constantly evaluate my own body in comparison to other women! But you can't hate A, even though she is better at everything than you. She's too awesome, and too great of a teacher.

This brings me to one of the Great Rules of Yoga, something you hear over and over when you practice. "Yoga is not a competition." This is something I often have problems with. I am very competitive, so competitive that competition isn't even fun for me because I take losing so hard. Most people don't realize that I'm competitive because I try not to place myself in situations where I need to compete. If I'm not competing with the person next to me, I try to compete with myself. This is very stupid in yoga, because then I get annoyed when the person next to me seems to have no connective tissue. I fail to realize how well I'm doing with what I've been given in my own body, and I push too hard.

No amount of over-competitiveness will ever make me able to do this.

If I would try, I'd look like this.

Being over-competitive makes me miss all of the great results. And yoga gives you great results.

I am extremely inflexible - or I was, especially in my hips and legs. I took ballet for ten years as a child, and I remember my teacher pushing on my back in frustration, trying to get me to set my forehead on my stretched out legs. I remember her saying, "you're not trying!" when in fact I was in a lot of pain. When I began yoga, I hated doing any kind of forward bend because I was so stiff. I could sit at a 90 degree angle, and that was it. Now, while I still can't rest my forehead on my knees, it is a manageable goal that I know I will reach within the next few months. Just the other day, a yoga newbie in my class told me that I was "very flexible". False, but I will take your praise!

Once I could only do this.

Now I can do this!

Yoga is a whole body workout, and there are naturally some things that we are better at and some things that we need to work on. Of course, I always want to do the things I'm already awesome at, but according to my teacher, that's not a good idea. I did get an immediate boost in yoga from my wonderfully flexible back. I also have broad shoulders and am easily able to build muscle in my arms and back. I was inordinately pleased the other day when Leland said, "I can see new definition in your forearms". Forget this stupid trope that girls shouldn't have muscles. I want Michelle Obama arms!

I can do this. Because I am awesome.

When I started yoga, I didn't really like it. I kept going because I had already paid for several classes and I was going with a friend. While doing yoga, I felt (in no particular order) weak, fat, confused, frustrated, uncoordinated, and uncomfortable.

After the class was over, I kept going mostly out of stubbornness and the fact that it was still better than the treadmill (where I felt weak, fat, and about to die). I had several DVDs, which I used without any real conviction. I briefly went to classes in England, which was a horrible experience. The teacher called out the poses like a drill instructor, then actually yelled at me for modifying a pose because I was uncomfortable, and called me a wimp in front of about 30 other people in the class.

I can't imagine any one of the other teachers I've had being so cruel. Or ineffectual! One of the other Great Rules of Yoga is that you need to listen to your own body and move at your own pace. I am stubborn and determined and I push myself harder than I probably should. If the teacher says, "you can stay here or..." I'm going to shoot for the "or" option if it kills me. If I am modifying a pose, it's for a reason.

So I was disenchanted with yoga. Then I met Shiva Rea. Well, I didn't meet her, I bought her DVD. And she taught me to love yoga. The DVD is neat in that there are many different little segments which you can stitch together in any order you want to create probably 50 different "classes" depending on what you're interested in working on. No DVD is as good as a real-life instructor, but doing this DVD everyday built up my strength and convinced me to return to an actual class.

Shiva Rea, Yogi extraordinaire

Day to day, yoga is about listening really hard to what the teacher is saying and being mindful of every inch of your body. Where is your weight centered? What are your toes doing? Is your hip tucked enough? Is your face relaxed? And, for me, Are you hyperextending your joints? It's when you have this control and mindfulness that you are able to make those wonderful connections. With the simplest shift, a pose moves from unimaginable to possible, from uncomfortable to natural.

I still remember the first breakthrough I ever had. It came in the transition between plank pose and chaturanga, where you slowly and with control lower your body with your arms, like a very slow reverse push-up. I plopped right from plank to the ground, every time. I thought, this is impossible. I saw everyone around me doing it and I just couldn't. Then the teacher said, "tuck your elbows tightly against your chest."

From plank...

TA-DA!! My arms were strong enough! Instant self-esteem booster! And every time I do this transition, lowering myself slowly into chaturanga, I feel like He-man.

... to chaturanga.

A few months later I had another success when I worked out that crow pose is mostly about where your weight is centered over your body, and less about your arm strength. Suddenly I was balancing my legs on my own arms.

I still can't believe that I can do this. It just seems so unlikely.

Another great moment was the first time I lifted myself into wheel pose (which on the playground we used to call bridge, but that's another yoga pose - confusing. Also A hates calling it wheel pose and always uses the Sanskrit name but I can't remember it). A went through the set-up for the pose with me about ten times, but I couldn't make the final push into the position. Finally, I moved my hands just a bit closer to my ears, and then lifted myself right off the ground.

Further evidence of my awesomeness.

Every day in class I see the disbelieving faces of new students when they encounter certain poses. There is no way, they think, that my body will ever do that. I always try and tell new students to stick with yoga until they begin to see results, because I know how many great things await them if they are patient and persistent. I know they don't believe me yet, but soon they'll understand.

Namaste.

How to Make Smiley Cookies

I started this blog because we were mobile and constantly doing interesting(ish) new things and being in new places. Now we're sedentary, at least for a couple years, so I've been thinking about the directions I want to take the blog in. I'd like to add more of the things that I actually do for fun - movie and book critiques, posts about yoga and dance, restaurant reviews, and posts about recipes and food we make at home. Hopefully this will get us away from the all-animals-all-the-time rut.

Hey Trust!

Who, me?

They are super cute though. In one brief bit of animal news, our former foster Butternut AND the orange kitten Thistle have been adopted. Trust's sister Hope has also been adopted. Big virtual high-fives for all of them!

Less happy news is that our dog Nova had a seizure on Thursday. It was terrifying, I think the world actually sort of collapsed around her like that special effect in horror movies. I picked her up while she was still seizing and drove to the vet. The episode ended during the drive and she was suddenly fine and super-excited to be in the car. She may have epilepsy, she may need medication, or she might never have a seizure again. Epilepsy is a common condition in dogs, so I've learned, and usually very controllable.

But onward to the meat of the post: it's Super Bowl Sunday! And the Steelers are playing the Packers. Not only am I required by marital law to support the Steelers, as a Minnesota native I must root for whoever is playing against the Packers.

Then there is the obligatory Super Bowl party with the friends and other nice people, and of course we need to bring something. So on a whim, I decided to make smiley cookies, beloved dessert of the chain restaurant Eat n' Park, which began in Pittsburgh and has locations throughout the area. They are a true icon of the region and Eat n' Park always makes Steelers Smiley Cookies during football season.

This is our goal, people.

To begin, you need cooled sugar cookies, lots of powdered sugar, milk, and food coloring. I'm not going to include my sugar cookie recipe because I think that would break some copyright laws, but it's the sugar cookie recipe from Baking Illustrated by America's Test Kitchen. I'm pretty lazy and I usually don't do anything that seems slightly optional in recipes (like rotating the cookie sheets halfway through cooking), but I slavishly do everything in an America's Test Kitchen recipe because they are The. Best. Ever.

They will tell you how to do everything and why you should do it that way. It's great!

Making the Cookies:

Two years ago I tried a Smiley Cookies recipe I found online that was supposed to mimic the Eat n Park recipe. Don't do that. It was tremendously disappointing. Just use your favorite sugar cookies recipe. Your sugar cookies should be large and soft in the middle. Probably you will need to make a double batch of whatever recipe you use, because most cookies are not intended to be as large as SCs. If you're like me, you always make cookies too large anyway. I'm always having this conversation with myself: "this recipe is supposed to make 30 cookies?! It only made six (om nom nom), uh, five!"

Cooking time and temperature needs to be adjusted accordingly. I found I needed to put the temp about 10 degrees lower than the recipe called for and needed to bake 2 minutes less.

Dip your hands in cool water, then take a fistful of dough (literally). Roll the dough into a ball then press gently down into a circle. The water will keep the dough from sticking to your hands.

Scale! With slight perspective problems because I was trying to hold the camera with one hand!

That thing the cookies are on is called a silpat and they are freaking sweet. You lay them over your cookie sheets and nothing sticks to them - no greasing or spraying required. Your dough may spread or rise or not spread or not rise depending on the recipe. Cookies will spread more if the dough has been sitting out, so put the dough in the fridge while the first batch is baking.

Tower of cookies!

(By the way, if anyone is thinking about birthday or Christmas presents for me, you can get me cooling racks. I have one. This is insufficient.)

Cookies must be cool before you ice them. Don't be a jerk and start icing too early!

Making the Icing

This is a very simple, utilitarian icing. Put some powdered sugar in a bowl. You know, some. A cup or so. Then put in a slosh of milk. A little slosh. Start with a tablespoon or thereabouts. Stir it in with a fork. I'm warning you to start with just a tiny bit of milk because you only need a little bit. The icing shouldn't be too runny, it should be a bit difficult to stir. You can add more sugar or more water as needed. If you want to get all crazy put in a drop of vanilla, almond extract, peppermint extract, or anything really. (But don't you do this if you're making Smiley Cookies! Unless you are not a Smiley Cookie Purist!)

Then comes the fun part, making the colors. The traditional SC has a white background with colored features. For our Steelers and Packers cookies we need four colors: Steelers yellow, Packers yellow, Packers green, and black.

Steelers yellow: lots of yellow food coloring. One SINGLE drop of red. I mean it, just one. And then add more yellow to keep it from going too orange.

Packers yellow: lots of yellow food coloring and that's it.

Packers green: lots of green food coloring. Two drops of red, two drops of blue. This will give you a nice dark green that is still bright.

black: the hardest color to screw up. Just keep adding colors! Start out with equal parts green, blue, and red. If it looks too green, add more red. Too blue, add more green. Just keep going. If you're desperate, add yellow. If the icing gets too runny from all the liquid, add more sugar and then more of all the other colors. If it's too gray, double all the colors. It's hard to get a true-looking black, but you can come close.

Ok, now it's time to run out to the store, because you didn't believe me when I told you you'd need a lot of powdered sugar. A LOT. Maybe your roommate or significant other will go for you, but probably they'll just whine about how you never go to the store for them when they run out of something. You could try threatening this person by telling them you'll withhold cookies from them, but this is a largely empty threat unless you're a true jerk.

Woo-hoo, icing time!

Oh crap, icing is harder than it looks.

Lay down parchment paper first, cause things are about to get MESSY. Put the foundation color (white for standard, Steelers yellow, or Packers yellow) into a sandwich baggie and cut off a SMALL corner to make your own icing bag. To get down the foundation color, put a bunch in the very center of the cookie and use an angled spatula to spread out to the edges.

Now is when you'll find out if your icing is too runny. If it is, oh well. Your friends are going to eat them anyway.

After you're done spreading the base layer, WAIT. I mean it, take a nap, clean the kitchen, go do something else for at least a half an hour. You're giving the bottom layer time to set up a bit and get a little hard so that the eyes, nose, and smile will sit on top of the icing instead of sinking into it.

See? This looks dumb! I told you to wait.

Now you may proceed. Don't worry, you'll finally get the hang of it by the last cookie.

The single good-looking one.

Look, he has a head injury. Two differently sized pupils. And some kind of skin condition (those are just cookie crumbs, I SWEAR).

90% of the cookies will look like a kindergartner's craft project. Whatever. They're still cookies. How often does someone make and decorate homemade cookies for you? Not very often. Your friends will still eat them, and they'll think its adorable that you brought them all your stupid looking cookies.


And that's it!

Go Steelers!

A Few Words on Bicycle Repair & Diddling

Hello Everyone! This is Leland and I'm doing a little guest posting. This blog has become less about the Adventures of Anna and Leland and more about the Emotions of Anna in Regards to Cute Animals. So I'm going to talk a little about my recent forays into the world of bicycle repair and diddling.

Like most people my age, I grew up riding bikes of the great age of generic mountain bikes, often referred to as MTBs. I believe it was in the 1980's when the movement started and continued throughout the 1990's. I think most people my age (and their parents) would easily recognize something like this as a very standard bike (this, by the way, is not mine, but something from the interwebs):

And so my life was not all that different and somewhere around the age of 14 I acquired a red Schwinn Clear Creek mountain bike. It served well enough for any suburbanite child and lasted into the college years where I found going down the steps in front of Stapleton Library at IUP was a rather enjoyable activity. Though, that really is as far as my adventurousness on a bicycle would go (I'm no daredevil). But in my heart of hearts, I always wanted a road bike. I've always felt that road bikes look like they're moving fast even when they're standing still. Plus, and let's be honest, they're sexy. In fact, for the sexiest bikes around, check out these babies.

Well, life goes on and in the later years of college, bike riding went by the wayside and it wasn't until Anna and I were living with her parents that I pursued the road bike dream. Anna's parents are pretty avid cyclists and Jim had a crusty old machine hanging from the rafters in his garage. After some discussion, we went through the effort of bringing it down and assessing its viability. It turns out this bicycle was bought second-hand by Jim in the 1980's and he rode it until the early-mid 2000's at which point he got himself a shiny new machine. Anyway, he said I was welcome to have it. So I had it. I took it to the local bike shop (a pretty sweet place) and had them do a little sprucing up. I was thrilled and as soon as most of the snow melted, Jim and I hit the trails and had a good time.

I was interested in the history of the bike and did some checking out. Though I haven't nailed down an exact year, it is a late 1970's Lotus Excelle, of Japanese origins. Originally built as a racing bike, it certainly seems outdated compared to modern speedsters the likes of which the Manx Missile rides:

Anyway, as close as I can tell, my Lotus originally looked a little bit like the following. Unfortunately, I never took any pictures of it before I started tinkering, so I have to show another internet-begotten picture:

Those of you out there interested enough, my Lotus has a sweet set of components. It's got Shimano 600 series downtube friction shifters and derailleurs, 500 series brakes, a sweet crank, chainrings, and cassette. Well, all of that was a great bike, but it needed some care and I was in the mood for tinkering.....and badness ensued. After moving here to flat eastern North Carolina, I noticed that I rarely shifted gears and so it occurred to me that turning it into a single speed was a very real option. So I went about doing this and it proved very difficult, challenging and ultimately a pretty rewarding and interesting experience. Here's a few shots of my makeshift bike shop. Wine always helps:

So just this morning I finally finished the transformation and I'm very excited to use it. I striped off the old paint and repainted it white; removed the rear brake; shortened and flipped the handlebars; added classic cork handlebar tape (in Bianchi celeste blue!); repositioned the front brake; and the most struggling of all, redid the chainrings and cassette to make a single speed. The Lotus has vertical dropouts, so the rear wheel is incapable of being moved horizontally. This is opposed to the horizontal dropouts that most purpose-built single speeds employ in order to obtain proper chain tension. Since I did not have this luxury, there was much messing with different gear ratios, chain lengths, swearing and throwing. Finally, Jim suggested that I file the dropouts a bit to the rear in order to gain the proper distance between chainrings and cassette. What do you know, it worked! Worked beautifully. So, I present to you the new Lotus, loving christened Indefatigable (in honor of the Royal Navy frigate and the fact that this bike just keeps going):

I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out. It certainly could have been better, and it could have been a little more professional. But this was my first attempt, and I don't think things turned out too badly. I will use Indy as a runabout/commuter type of deal that I'll use mostly for going back and forth to school. This brings me to my next project, the aforementioned Schwinn. She will become, what I hope, a touring bike. I've taken every single piece apart from this guy and am in the process of stripping the paint. It's not too hard of a task, but time consuming. This project will also be one of length because it will be more costly than the Lotus. But, the steel frame is a great start. Once I'm done, it will look mostly like a road bike, but have little larger tires and be capable of carrying me and my gear as I drink my way through Belgium (muhahahaha!). I've got the new handle bar and will slowly bring this guy back to life. Here's a shot of the not-yet-totally-stipped-of-paint frame:

I hopefully will have the constitution to kept everyone updated as this project continues.

Which, brings me to my next project. The Miyata. This beautiful bike I acquired FREE OF CHARGE from my department at ECU. It had been in the basement literally for decades and a professor knowledgeable of my interests suggested I ask the director (who just happens to be the father of the owner of the bike shop I frequent) if I could have it. Well, things went swimmingly and I now am the owner of what I think is an early 1980's Japanese made Miyata. My plan for this bike to do as minimal sprucing up as possible, mostly cleaning and replacing a few bits like cables, breaks and maybe a new set of ergonomic handlebars and turn this thing into my distance bike. I'm really excited about this one because it doesn't seem like it will take a lot to fix it up. It certainly needs help, but even if it only lasts for a few years, it was free! Check it out:

I love the smell of Chromoly in the morning!

Kittens: A Retrospective in Cuteness

We took the kittens home in November, and now in January they are old enough to be up for adoption. They went back to the shelter last week and I think I handled it pretty well. I didn't cry, though I was a bit upset when little Thistle had to be in a cage by himself (lucky Poppy and Chicory got to share a cage). But it's ok, because soon someone will adopt each of them and love them tons and Thistle won't even remember that for a few days he had to be in a cage by himself.

We got to see them change from little babies with fat baked-potato bodies and wobbly legs into animals that could play and jump and climb up legs with their clever claws.

So here they are, from beginning to end... the Kittens: A Retrospective in Cuteness.

Poppy:

~2 weeks

~5 weeks

~9 weeks

Chicory:

~3 weeks

~5 weeks

~9 weeks*

Thistle:

~3 weeks

~5 weeks

~9 weeks

We were lucky to have them and I can't wait to have more!


*Chicory has his third eyelid pulled up in this pictures, which can be a sign of illness. He was eating and behaving normally and the proper people have been informed of the symptom, so don't be alarmed!

Christmas fun

OMG you guys it's Christmas!!!


Well, it was Christmas. Several weeks ago. Ahem.

Before Christmas, it was a complete lunar eclipse!


I am rather proud of this picture I took with my little digital camera of an object 200,000 miles away. Although naturally the camera ran out of battery just before the total eclipse actually happened. But I couldn't get too worked up over that since at least I could see the eclipse, unlike a lot of you. We had a beautiful clear night and hot chocolate with marshmallows in it. Leland did whine quite a bit about getting up in the middle of the night, but I bullied him until he was semi-awake.

A full lunar eclipse of the full moon on the winter solstice? Now that is something worth getting up to see.

Later in the week, Leland's parents Mark and Phyllis showed up and they brought Christmas with them. Literally, they pulled bags of presents and food and booze from their car. It was like the Cratchits being visited by Scrooge. You know, at the end of the story when he brings them the goose.

Merry Christmas to us!

This is what they brought for a 6 day visit, mind you. And I think we had already opened one of the bottles by the time the picture was taken.

Phyllis sprang into action to fix us the traditional Italian Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes. In our case, squid, shrimp, smelts, clams, squid again, and shrimp again. Oh my goodness was it good. I forgot to take pictures of it all, it was so good.

Leland, weeping because he is physically incapable of eating more fish.

But Phyllis was not done yet, because she pulled out all the stops for Christmas Day.


Oh. Yes. Prime rib. Now, Leland and I don't eat a lot of meat normally. We try to get the meat we do eat from a local farm where the animals get to do things like, you know, walk around outside and eat grass. So when we do eat meat, it is a special thing. The holidays were several glorious days of meat consumption.

Phyllis finally gets to sit down and eat some of her wonderful food.

I wasn't a complete lazybones failure as a hostess. I set the table. Isn't it pretty?


Five minutes after I took this picture I spilled my red wine on my. Grandmother's. White. Linen. Tablecloth. The very first time ever that I had used it. But thanks to some more of Phyllis' instruction, the stain came out!

So I was a total failure as a hostess but at least the house was spotlessly clean when they arrived, for about five seconds before all of the animals caused little fur explosions and then we returned to our normal state of fur dust bunnies in every corner.

On December 26th we had big plans. We were going to check out the fancy Whole Foods knock-off in town, go to the coffee shop that Leland works at, take in a movie, and finish out the day with dinner at a nice restaurant that we haven't tried yet. But we woke up to this.

Snowpocalypse! 6 whole inches!

Some of you reading this live in areas where it snowed more like 20 inches. Well, six inches for Greenville is sort of like 20 inches for Minneapolis. Everyone commenced to freak out. Without any problems we drove through the unplowed roads to the grocery store, only to be informed that they were closing in 15 minutes "for the safety of the employees". At this point there was only about 3 inches and it was still snowing. We went to the coffee shop. Closed. We went to the movie theater. Closed. Flabbergasted, we headed home.

We did end up going out later to see "True Grit" when the theater finally opened at 2 in the afternoon (very good, by the way, and it was nice to see a little girl get to have the adventure for once). On the way home, our thoughts turned to dinner. Leland called every half-decent restaurant we could think of, and then moved desperately down the list to less and less decent restaurants. Everything was either closed or closing within the next hour. The pizza place was closed. The grocery stores were closed.

Luckily we had enough leftovers to choke a pig. And we spent the rest of the day doing things like this.

See Fletcher the cat cleverly camouflaged there? Fletcher lived with Mark and Phyllis for a year so he was excited to see them again and their relationship, as you can see, picked up right where it left off.

The snow-related comedy continued the next day. Things were open, including Super Mercado El Rancho (the best Mexican place I've ever eaten in, aka the most wonderful place in the world, more on that in a future post) where we ate lunch. The temperature warmed up and the roads were cleared with no snow on them at all. Yet the University was closed to all but "essential" staff. This is a University that will close pre-emptively the day before snow is forecast, after all.

My favorite thing that happened was a road closure just beyond our house. As far as we can make out, the road for about a block was closed because of a slight hill. We're talking about a 20 foot rise over 200 feet. Maybe a 5% grade? Too dangerous to drive on in the snow! The road was closed for three days.

Somehow we all survived. We bid a sad goodbye to Mark and Phyllis a few days later. But we did enjoy their Christmas gift on New Year's Day.

We have a shiny new grill! Isn't it cute? Note how all the snow is gone, just over a week after Snowpocalypse.

And after these delicious ribs it's back to meat once a week for us. We have to enjoy it while we can.

We're in the post-Christmas blahs now, and it's made even more blah by the fact that we have to give Mama and the kittens back to the Humane Society tomorrow. :( We had lots of fun with them, and it was neat to watch them grow. And now some lucky people get to adopt them and love them for life!

I asked Leland if we could get some more kittens. He said, "we'll see". I kind of want to do a post on the devastation the kittens caused our spare bedroom. How such little kittens can make so much noise I will never understand.