Random Musings of a Midwest Redhead

Daily Yoga FTW!

2012-01-12T12:52:00.003-06:00

I made a promise to myself at the end of 2011 that I'd make sure I didn't let my yoga practice get pushed aside by life. I vowed to practice yoga for at least 20 min per day, and I even set up a special space just for yoga in my basement!

I wasn't as good as I would have liked in the last couple of months of 2011, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I was just getting my life back in order after the kitty debacle and the holidays were upon me. But those are just excuses, of course. I've accepted that I could have done better in November and December and prepared to really kick ass and stay on track beginning in January 2012.

I'm proud to report that I've done at least 20 min of yoga every day since the first of the year! You can see by the screenshot below that in the first 11 days of January I practiced yoga for 470 minutes! If you average it out, it's closer to 45 min per day, but who's counting! :)

Calendar Tracker Lite iPhone App

I downloaded this handy (free) iPhone application called Calendar Tracker Lite and it's worked perfectly. Since I'm only tracking my yoga practice I only need one calendar. However, if you need to track more than one thing and need more calendars you can buy the full version for $0.99. I simply told it how many minutes of yoga I wanted to shoot for per week and it will show me how I'm progressing toward that goal. You can track time, money, distance, etc. It's quite handy! And It will show you your history so I can see my entries with a note indicating where I practiced (home, gym, etc). It's been great!

I have to say, setting up my yoga space in my basement and really sticking to my goal of practicing daily has made a huge difference! It's dark, cozy, quiet...perfect! I tried to capture a picture for you but it turned out kind of grainy. I wanted to show how cozy it can be, but I failed. :) I just turn off the lights, use that colorful lamp on the table and light a candle and I'm set! I have a little JBL iPhone speaker dock to listen to music or play podcasts without blasting them through my iPhone speakers. I also have a space heater down there in case it happens to get chilly or I want to do a little hot yoga. I absolutely love it! I guess it's not totally perfect. The carpet is thick and I'm using my old thick Jade Fusion mat, so balance can be a challenge if I'm overtired or just off my game. But I figure it'll only improve my already pretty awesome balance over time, so I deal with it.

Mentally, doing yoga every day has been fabulous. No matter how tired I am or how late I get home I always take time to at least get on the mat every day. It's a nice way to wind down before bed or kick off my day. Also, I feel less guilty when I'm not able to make it to my classes. I know that I can always take some time at home to do yoga even if I miss that class at the gym. Stress and guilt be gone!. :) Daily yoga for the win (FTW)!

My basement yoga space. Sorry it's grainy, I was trying to capture the dim lighting!

So, like I said, I've done yoga every day for 11 days. When I started this I was sad that my yoga muscle tone had diminished during my brief fall off the wagon. I'm happy to say that it's coming back quickly! I can definitely see that my arms and legs are more toned and if you catch me at the right angle I have abs! I just need to shed some of the extra padding around the muscles and I'll be good to go. :) I'm not terribly overweight, but I do have some to lose. Thankfully I'm back to my yoga and my Thyroid meds seem to be making a difference as well. Hopefully it's only a matter of time before I'm mentally and physically where I want to be.

If you're looking to form a yoga habit, I recommend getting in on Yoga Journal's 21 Day Yoga Challenge. It started on January 9th, but you can join up whenever! The point isn't to see how much you can do, but to form a habit of doing yoga every day. It's great and has classes and meditations for every level. Enjoy!

Hooray for yoga!

So You Think You Can Tweet

2011-11-29T13:11:00.001-06:00

Let me begin by saying that I'm by no means an expert in the world of Twitter. There are people that have been doing it longer and more successfully than I have. However, I think I've got a good handle (haha) on it and have had some great success in using it. I've had a few people ask me for Twitter pointers lately or for help in getting started with it so I thought I'd just compile all my tips and throw them onto this blog post. Again, I'm no pro so take it or leave it. But know that I've met some wonderful people and have won quite a bit of shit by using Twitter effectively, so I can't be all wrong! :) Oh, and this was a brain dump I did over lunch so if I babbled or make no sense I'm sorry!

So you want to use Twitter? Okay, but it's not for everyone! I tried it once for the Iowa Caucuses in 2008 and fizzled out afterward because I just didn't see a benefit. I tried a year later and took a different approach and now I'm an addict. Here are some tips that might help as you venture into the Wild West that is Twitter.

Decide in advance what your purpose for using Twitter will be. Are you trying to reach consumers? Trying to build a professional network? Want to be clued in on social and entertainment events in your community? Want another way to keep in touch with friends? All of the above? Knowing your target audience will help a lot. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to keep your social Twitter side separate from your business side, unless they are tightly coupled. For example, your customers probably don't want to see your tweets from the Santa bar crawl you were on over the weekend. Unless, of course, your business is a bar. This is just a guideline. Obviously, you know your customers best (hopefully) and will know what they can tolerate. Just keep it in mind. Also, while you're at it, decide if you want a public or private account. Having a private account can greatly reduce the number of interactions you have because if you dont approve them to follow you then you don't exist to them. Nothing wrong with having two Twitter accounts to keep business and personal separate. In fact, most smartphone Twitter clients support having multiple accounts making it easy to keep up and tweet from both.
Put some thought into your name. It can be tempting to just make something up really fast with the idea that you can always change it later. This is true, but once you have a name and people get used to it it can be confusing for followers. Especially if your followers ever manually type your name instead of letting an app or website populate it for them. If you do change it, your followers will remain and you won't have to refollow people either.
Also related to choosing a name, make sure your name is short and sweet if possible. Remember, tweets are limited to 140 characters. So, if someone wants to retweet something you've posted but wishes to include a comment they'll have less space to do so if your name is super long. For example, if your Twitter name is @somehandle, to retweet you, people may append "RT @somehandle your awesome tweet here." That means that your tweet can only be 126 characters to be fully retweeted. People may end up modifying your tweets to fit the 140 characters if they have to. The native Twitter RT function makes this a non-issue by simply reposting the Tweet you wanted to RT with a special notation that it's a RT without you having to actually type RT, but both work. Also, a pain for those people that type names manually (however rare they may be). Make it easy for people.
Twitter will seem pointless and dull to you until you follow some people and start interacting with followers of your own. Finding your community can be hard. I suggest that you start by seeking out the Twitter accounts of people, businesses, etc that you enjoy and that are related to the identity you wish to have on Twitter. Follow those people. Also, look at who they follow and follow some of them too, if applicable. When watching tweets from these people come across your timeline, notice who they tweet at and explore their profiles. If they're interesting, follow them. Interact with the people you follow and your followers but don't barrage them with tweets. Keep it relevant and interesting. You don't want to come across as a spammer. Once you find a few people that you click with you'll start expanding your network simply by association. One thing to note, just because you follow someone doesn't mean they have to follow you back. Some people have a "follow back" rule. I personally don't feel the need to follow back unless I know their content will interest me. Otherwise, it's just timeline clutter.
Learn the jargon. RT, MT, CC, OH, WTF? Of course, texting type shorthand also applies such as "LOL,WTF and OMG" but there are some very specific Twitter acronyms and abbreviations that will help as you read the tweets coming across your timeline. The following are only a few, but they'll come in handy. Google is always available to help you decipher others you may come across.

RT - Retweet. This is a way to promote someone else's tweet. Most Twitter clients have a built in RT function. You can choose to simply RT someone's tweet as is or you can choose to add commentary. Depending on the Twitter client you're using, your ability to tweet with commentary may be limited.
MT - Modified Tweet. If you want to retweet something but want to cut off or modify part of it you can use the MT instead of RT. This one isn't as widespread, but it's a nice way to show that what you're tweeting isn't an exact quote.
DM - Direct Message. If you type "d somehandle" it will send a private message to @somehandle that only they can see. If you're having a back and forth conversation on Twitter it may be best to move it to a DM. You cannot DM a person unless they follow you.
OH - Overheard. This is used to capture (usually humorous or insightful) one liners that people hear in real life and want to share on Twitter without attributing an author. For example, "OH: I can't stop touching these balls!". Likely, it means something like fuzzy Santa hat cotton balls, but it's funny when taken out of context, so it's quoted. The point is not to give any indication who said it and to just let your followers figure it out.
CC - Carbon Copy. This functions just like email. You can use CC in a tweet to make sure it goes to people that might be interested. It's not necessary, however. You could just include their handle.
#FF - Follow Friday. On Fridays, you'll see a ton of tweets with a list of twitter handles and a #FF. This is the hash tag for "Follow Fridays" which is basically a way to tell the world who you think would be good to follow. This is a good way for you to find new people to follow as you're building your Twitter identity.

Speaking of hash tags, a hash tag is a way to label your tweet so that it can grouped with other tweets about the same thing. Of course, this requires that you either pick a hash tag out of a list that your client provides of currently active tags, or that you use the exact same tag as someone else. That's the only way it'll be effective. For example, most TV shows now have Twitter hash tags to give their fans a way to tweet about the show and be hopefully noticed by other fans and people affiliated with the show. #Glee is the hash tag you'd use if you wanted to tweet about the show Glee (i.e. "#Glee is amazing this week!" or "I really need this plot line to end. #Glee"). The hash tag doesn't need to be incorporated into the tweet as in the first example, it can be added after as a simple label of sorts. If a hash tag is used by many people you can set up a search filter on most Twitter clients to display a special timeline of only tweets with that hash tag whether you follow the people tweeting them or not. Again, it's a good way to find people with common interests. This feature is also very handy for festivals or concerts where you want to see what people are saying about it. Hash tags are an imperfect thing. Not all of them are useful. You'll notice many tweets that just have random hash tags that may or may not be used by anyone else. For example, "This class is never going to end. #killmenow".
Replying to someone on Twitter is easy, but it can confuse people sometimes. To reply to a person or send them a public message, you simply have to use their handle with the @ symbol. Replying to a user using their handle ensures that they see the tweets you write to or about them. Please note that if you start a tweet with a user's handle, it will only show up in the timeline for people that follow you both. So, if you tweet "@myfriend That show was amazing!", it will only show up in the timeline for users that follow both you and @myfriend. However, if you tweet, "That show was amazing, @myfriend." The tweet will show up for anyone that's following you whether they follow @myfriend or not. So, if you want to keep a conversation or tweets out of the timeline of people that don't know or care about @myfriend it's polite to include the recipient's handle as the first thing in your tweet. Please note, just because the tweet doesn't show up in all of your followers' timelines if they don't follow @myfriend doesn't mean they can't see it. If they go and look at your overall timeline it will still be visible. If you want the message to be private, use DM.
Spam is a pain in the ass. Sometimes, simply posting a tweet with a particular word can cause a flood of spambot tweets to come your way. For example, if you tweet something with the word "diet" you're almost guaranteed to get spam reply tweets related to weight loss gimmicks. When you see a tweet that's sent to you using your handle, it's best not to click on links as they can lead to sites that will give you viruses, phish your twitter account, etc. A quick way to know if the account is spammy is to look at their followers. Do they have any? If they have none or just a couple and the tweet smells spammy, block the account and report it as spam. EVERY time. If you don't report it you're dooming others to your same fate.
People post pictures to Twitter all the time. Recently Twitter built in default support for uploading pictures so no special accounts are needed. Some clients have support built in for other twitter photo sharing tools as well. Just play with it and see what happens.
Shortening your tweets can be hard. 140 characters really isn't much, especially when you include a link. Using a link shortener like bit.ly can help a lot. Again, many Twitter clients have some sort of link shortener built in.

So, now that you've read all that, if you're not totally scared get out there and make an account! Oh, and follow me. I'm @yogagirl. :)

Thyroid Take 2: Take Control of Your Health

2011-11-29T09:13:00.001-06:00

Disclaimer: As with all of my health related posts, I'm only posting this stuff in order to hopefully help other people with similar issues. If you don't wanna read it, don't. :) I'm not sharing any amount of detail that makes me uncomfortable, just general info and experiences that may ring true for others. Okay, that is all.
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So, remember that whole debacle with the endocrinologist where she told me that there wasn't anything wrong with me and asked me why I was seeing her? Yeah. That was fun. Well, I had my annual appointment with my GP in September and I complained about it. I told him that I was still dealing with the symptoms that I was having before and lamented that there HAD to be something going on with my thyroid or something. Otherwise, why would my test results be borderline (leaning hypothyroid) in addition to my hypothyroid symptoms?

He agreed. After all, he was the one that referred me to the endocrinologist in the first place! He did say he was between a bit of a rock and a hard place, however, because he saw problems but the specialist didn't. So, if things got to a severe point for me he'd potentially have some problems referring me again. But he didn't care, he wanted me to feel better. Not only did he sympathize with my concerns and my frustration, he agreed it was worth it to try and treat it to see if there was an improvement. And he agreed with me that a generic version of Armour, the more bio-identical/natural thyroid treatment, was a better fit for me than Synthroid, the one that freaked me out. Fewer side effects, more in line with my holistic/natural treatment preferences, etc. He gave me a three month prescription for a low dosage of the generic Armour and wanted me to come back in two months for a retest and to see how I'm feeling. The low dose would be enough to hopefully start moving my levels in the right direction, but not so high as to cause issues if I didn't need treatment. Based on the followup we'd be able to determine if I needed a higher dose, if the current dose was working, or if I didn't need treatment at all.

I had my followup on November 18th, and I was pleased to report progress. A couple of my symptoms had definitely started to improve, and I didn't feel any spazziness that could indicate too much thyroid hormone. He said based on how I'd been feeling alone he was fairly certain that the treatment was making a difference and that I should stay on the medicine, but that the blood test would be our true indicator. Also, as I continue taking the medication, I'm likely to start seeing improvements in some of the other symptom areas where I haven't as of yet. It's a process. And it can take some tinkering to get the right levels. As long as there's progress, I'll be patient! Anyway, I got my results today and my numbers were clearly moving more toward normal so he wants me to stay on the current dosage and possibly adjust up a bit on the dosage later if I'm not seeing additional improvement.

...Take Control of YOUR Health...

What's the moral of this story? YOU know your body better than anyone. If you feel like something is wrong, and you're not a hypochondriac that's spent too much time on WebMD, fight until someone listens to you. It can be frustrating, time consuming, sometimes expensive, and downright maddening but once you get someone to listen it'll be worth it. Of course, the key is not insisting you know for sure exactly what's wrong with you...that's their job and hopefully they'll do it. Be able to articulate your issues. Be specific. Be cooperative and open minded. Basically, help them help you.

I'm so glad that my GP that has known me for years was willing to ignore the specialist's findings and do what he felt was best. So far, my weight issues and another one or two frustrating symptoms haven't improved but I'm going to be patient and hope that with time and possibly a dosage change I'll start to see progress. Unfortunately, my GP is retiring in January so I'll have to go to a different one. Luckily, a nurse friend was able to point me to another doctor in the same practice that she felt would be most compatible with me and most like my current doctor.

Fingers crossed that I'm on the right path! I'm excited about it and have high hopes, but not so high that I'll be devastated if things don't continue as I hope they will. :)

Time to Re-Energize My Yoga Practice

2011-11-09T20:37:00.000-06:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge yoga fan. Unfortunately, I let life derail my practice sometimes. I've been doing yoga for almost ten years but I've had more than one multi-month gap in my practice and that definitely does not help me continue my growth as a yoga practitioner. The last few years I've been solidly on track going to at least three classes a week and during the summer five to six classes a week. Then, I recently had a furbaby emergency that ended up taking my attention off of myself for about two months. Instead of four classes a week I made it to four classes in two months! I was miserable mentally and physically and my stress level was through the roof.

Now, I'm back to a normal routine and am able to make it to all of my classes and my mental state has greatly improved. Yoga is my stress management miracle. I do a pretty good job of managing it even without making it to yoga, but my practice keeps me centered and puts everything into perspective in a way that nothing else I've tried can. So, now that I'm back to my classes I'm in much better spirits. It doesn't hurt that my kitty situation has greatly improved, too. As far as my physical abilities, luckily I have been doing yoga long enough that I have muscle memory that keeps me from losing too much ground when I miss classes.

Yes, I realize I can do yoga at home. I've never been a fan of home practice. I always have a lot to do when I'm home and once that's done I take advantage of some downtime with a book or a DVR'd TV show. A bigger reason I don't do yoga at home is my two kitties. It's not fun doing downward facing dog with a kitty tail in your face. Those have always been my excuses. Stuff to do and cats in the way. It's all nonsense. I realized that today. I've been making excuses that are just stupid. Certainly I can find some time in my evening schedule or before work to do a little yoga and I have a basement with a door so I could do yoga down there.

So why after nearly 8 years in this house have I just now realized that my basement would be a good place for yoga? I dunno. I think it's because my friend changed her Facebook profile photo to a picture of her doing Tittibhasana or Firefly Pose and I got extremely jealous. I'll link to the Yoga Journal photo of this pose rather than showing you her picture for privacy's sake. :)

Tittbhasana - photo from Yoga Journal

I don't have the core or arm strength to do this. Not even close. My friend recently started taking yoga teacher certification classes and other advanced classes to enhance her practice and it's worked miracles. But she says the biggest difference has been adding a self practice. So, it got me thinking. What if I did more than my mixed level classes at the gym and the occasional studio class? What if I really pushed myself to my edge. The classes at the gym are mixed level, so we don't really go into many of the intensive advanced poses and we don't do many inversions. I've been to a few workshops and yoga festivals and I never feel limited to the point where I can't keep up, but if ever inversions come up I shy away. I need to fix this. This brings me to my new yoga goal.

Today, I promise myself that I will practice for at least 20 minutes per day, but preferably an hour per day. If I don't have a class, I'll do it at home.

I want to push myself to the edges of my ability and comfort zone so that I can get into poses that currently seem impossible. Notice I didn't say that I'm going to start taking yoga teacher training classes. I'm too selfish for that. My favorite instructor and friend has told me how becoming a teacher has limited her personal practice and I'm too selfish to let that happen. Maybe someday when I've reached some personal yoga goals I'll have an awakening of my selfless side and I'll do the training. But for now, yoga is the one thing that's all mine. I often put everyone else ahead of myself and let my needs fall to the back. With yoga, I'm able to tune out the rest of the world and just focus on myself. I'm not ready to let others in right now. Maybe someday!

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on about this. I figured if I didn't put it in writing I wouldn't stick to it. So there it is. Yoga every day. I have some followup goals to this one, but I'll get into this routine for a few months first before I start adding on. I'm hoping I start seeing some great growth in my practice as a result of dedicating extra time and trying poses I don't get to do in class. At the very least I'll have at least 20 minutes per day where I can tune out the world and any stress in my life and just breathe. In fact, just taking that time to breathe and let it all go is reason enough to get on the mat every day.

Costa Rica 2011 Travelogue

2011-10-16T12:05:00.003-05:00

A summary of my amazing first trip to Costa Rica in July/Aug 2011. I don't think I did any part of my trip justice, but I tried! Enjoy!

Preparing for My Adventure

My Adventure

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 12 - Final Day

2011-10-16T11:49:00.003-05:00

On our final full day in Costa Rica, I woke up in my room at Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo early so I could try and capture a sunrise. I had the entire beach to myself except for a friendly dog from the hotel that walked beside me, and it was incredibly relaxing. Seemed like a perfect way to start my final day on the coast.

The purples and oranges of the sunrise have to be some of my colors in the world.

Sunrise at Playa Negra.

Sunrise and waves.

Gorgeous.

Later in the morning we had breakfast at the hotel and said our final farewells to the hotel pets.

Fat doggy.

More animals!

I really enjoyed our stay at the hotel and would recommend it to anyone looking for a convenient location with a good atmosphere and friendly staff (and pets). :)

After the hotel breakfast we headed to another local restaurant that came highly recommended by friends and guidebooks called Bread and Chocolate. They're known for their brownies but their breakfasts are also very popular. We had a tasty breakfast that was more filling than we really needed and a delicious brownie and we got back on the road to San Jose.

Bread and Chocolate.

The famous dark chocolate brownie with walnuts.

I slept for a couple of hours on the way back to San Jose but woke up just in time to witness Tony's dad driving faster than he should be on the curvy, foggy roads of the rain forest. We survived. :)

Back in San Jose we spent the rest of our time on last minute errands and preparing to head home. We hit the local grocery store where we loaded up on more coffee and treats for friends and family back home and also got supplies for one of Tony's favorite meals when at home.

Tony is a cheese fiend. I'm pretty sure he could eat it for every meal as the ONLY component of the meal. I love cheese, but I'm not sure how he does it! Our final meal at his mom's was cheese fondue. She made a tasty cheese sauce with cheeses from the dairy in Monteverde (awesome cheese!) and we had a variety of breads to dip. I honestly didn't think I had any more room for food in my stomach, but I managed to eat my share. :)

Our flight out the next morning was at 7:30am so we had yet another early morning ahead of us so that we could get to the airport on time. After some creative packing and making good use of my baggage scale we were prepared to depart paradise. I just hoped all of my baggage made it home and made it there in one piece! Luckily, it did.

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What a wonderful trip! I look forward to my next visit. I want to spend more time at the beaches next time but I don't regret any of the choices we made for our visit. I'm glad I got to see beaches, cloud forest, volcano, both coasts, the pineapples, etc, etc. Now that I've had a broad view of the things that Costa Rica has to offer I look forward to spending time getting to know some of them even better. And of course experiencing new things! There's just so much to do and see it's hard to narrow it down. :)

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 11 - Puerto Viejo

2011-10-16T11:30:00.002-05:00

There's something about those ocean breezes coming in your room window that makes you sleep like a rock. That and mass quantities of pasta and wine. :) Regardless, Tony and I slept beautifully in our Red Frog room and were ready to start our final full day of fun in Costa Rica.

A stay at the Hotel Banana Azul includes breakfast which was a different fresh fruit juice offering daily, coffee, cereal, pastries, fruit and a special hot breakfast item made to order. Breakfast was delicious both days and the staff was wonderful.

After breakfast we headed out in search of a beach. Tony's dad thought he had an idea of where we were going but we couldn't seem to find a good swimming beach in the areas he was looking. I had mentioned to him that the Cahuita National Park beach but he wasn't sure where that was. We eventually found it and it was heaven.

Cahuita National Park beach.

The beach was pristine and I'm not sure if it was high tide or what but we could walk out forever and still not be deeper than out chests.

Tony and his dad and Johanna about 100ft from shore.

We once again, found a perfect shade tree and set up our towels for a lovely day at the beach. I could have stayed there forever. I knew better than to be out in the water for long periods of time given the sun and my ability to instantaneously burn, but I couldn't help it! It was so lovely!

My natural sunscreen...the shady spot.

It wasn't as calm as Manuel Antonio but it was still amazing. Being able to walk out to where the waves were just coming over top of themselves and having them come over you versus having them crash into you closer to shore was cool. Just a different feeling. I really didn't want to leave. At all.

Standing in the water, taking a picture of heaven.

Look how clear the water is! I was out about 25ft from shore.

Beauty in every direction. And soccer on the beach!

Our shady spot form the water.

Eventually, we had to leave. :( But on the way out of the park Tony's dad bought me a coconut so I could drink my beloved coconut water straight from the source! Best coconut water ever! And it was like a dollar. What a deal!

Fresh coconut + straw = Happy Kim. And look, no sunburn!
Side note, under that bridge is a little river. And there are crocs!

All that swimming and relaxing made us hungry. :) Our next stop was another restaurant that came highly recommended by the guidebook and was just down the road from the beach. Restaurante La Fe Bombata is a Caribbean restaurant that looks deceptively simple but it's clean and welcoming. Take a risk! Go in and you'll be SO glad you did!

Restaurante La Fe Bombata

We were the only ones eating there in the middle of the afternoon and they let us bring in the beers we'd been drinking. They were incredibly friendly and were happy to recommend dishes for us. I'm fairly certain I couldn't go wrong with anything on the menu, however. I got the shrimp coconut curry-ish dish. They're famous for their coconut sauce and for good reason. I wanted to stick my face in the bowl. It came with a huge bowl of the shrimp and sauce and a plate of rice, salad and BREAD FRUIT. OMG. Can someone please tell me where in the hell to find bread fruit here? It's literally a fruit that has the consistency of a dense bread. I used it to mop up the sauce instead of licking the bowl clean. :) Of course, I had a tasty blended, boozy drink to go with it. Look at the table, Pepsi in a glass bottle with real sugar, Imperial, blended tropical drink, coconut shrimp (mine), coconut chicken (Tony's), and of course sunscreen. Can't get much better than that! :)

Caribbean meal to die for.

Not only was the staff okay with us bringing in our own beer, but they were actually excited for us when we went and bought patí from a guy selling them in the street. I had to go buy one from this guy. He'd ring his bell on his bike and people came from all over the place to buy his patí. Patí is a very specific kind of empanada type thing that is specific to Limón. A random dude on the street outside the restaurant saw me looking from the table and he told me they're the best patí I'll ever have and I needed to buy one. Johanna and I went and bought some for our table for a total of four dollars and the hype was totally worth it. They were filled with spicy meat and were freaking amazing. The waiter of the restaurant told us that he's glad we got some because they're the best in the region and we'd be missing out if we didn't. All of the people raving about them were locals that waited for him to come out and ring his bell every day. So, not only did we bring beer into the restaurant but food, too! And they were happy to let us! Pura Vida indeed. :)

The patí from the street vendor. I'm drooling.

After our meal we headed back to the hotel to relax in the pool and clean up a bit. We also had our free drinks from checkin that we needed to use! Tony and I grabbed some beers and headed to the pool! We had plans to go to dinner at a famous seafood restaurant called Maxi's, but first we tried to find a sunset (again). Tony's dad had "borrowed" a bottle of the nice Argentinian wine that we'd had during our dinner at Tony's grandpa's, so we took that to a table on Manzanillo beach on the way to the restaurant.

Fancy wine out of thermal mugs.

While not as pretty, it gave us a chance to chill and hope for the sunset in relative seclusion. There was even a tree with a branch perfect for photos!

Me and Tony at Playa Manzanillo.

Again, no "real" sunset. Oh well, it was still pretty!

After our time at the beach we headed to Maxi's for a seafood feast! As soon as we got out of the car you could smell the wood oven they used for the fish, and I swear there was some pot smoke mixed in there. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me! :)

Maxi's is famous for it's seafood so I had high expectations.

Maxi's at Playa Manzanillo.

We were pretty much exhausted before, during and after this meal. Instead of beer I opted for coke in a glass bottle with real sugar. MMM. Hoped it'd help me perk up, but no...caffeine does nothing to me. :)
Also, it was hot like fire in that upstairs dining area so that didn't help.

Sleepy. And sweaty.

The food was good, but it was no Café Viejo! The meal started with a special appetizer of little plantain bowls loaded with guacamole and bacon. The lighting was bad so I apologize for the unflattering pictures.

Plantain appetizer.

I went with a mixed dish of whole red snapper and lobster. Hey, if they're going to be known for lobster and the red snapper is also very popular I'm gonna try both!

My lobster and red snapper.

The red snapper was the highlight of my meal. It had a great crust on it and a nice smokey flavor from the wood grill. They're also supposed to be known for their rice and beans but I wasn't a fan. There were far better rice and beans dishes at other places we visited during the trip.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep for our drive back to San Jose the next day. I'm so glad that Tony agreed to take me to the Limón province and that his dad was willing to drive us. That part of the country is truly unique and I had an awesome time. And I think the food that we had was some of the best of the entire trip! It's definitely worth the time to get there.

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 10 - Puerto Viejo

2011-10-16T09:20:00.002-05:00

I broke this day into multiple posts since we did a lot and I had a lot of photographs to post. The rest of the trip will be more condensed. :)

Puerto Viejo is a cool city. Very laid back and Caribbean. Tons of Jamaican flags and Bob Marley stuff everywhere! Tony's dad did all of the hotel booking for the trip to Límon and originally had chosen a hotel that was more resort like. A few days before we were supposed to go to Límon news broke that the government had forcibly shut down the resort for having been built illegally in a nature preserve. Apparently, 18 years ago an injunction was in place to stop the builders (foreign) but they ignored it and built anyway. It took 18 years before the government was able to enforce the ruling and boot them out. Well, the hotel was large and employed many people so when the staff and guests were evicted there was rioting in the streets. Seeing that in the papers a few days before we were supposed to head that way was definitely not a highlight of the trip. :) But, Tony's dad was able to book us into a different hotel and it worked out perfectly. We checked into Hotel Banana Azul and headed to our rooms to get ready to check out Puerto Viejo.

Our room key and free drink tokens made of local seeds.

The hotel is situated on Playa Negra and it's a very comfortable and welcoming place. Lots of seating in the common area, books and sunscreen to borrow, friendly kitties and doggies living there and a lovely pool. The hot tub is the same temp as the rest of the pool, which is the same for most hotels in Costa Rica, but it was still nice!

Pool area at Hotel Banana Azul.

Lobby/Lounge area at the hotel.

A huge pond surrounding the lobby area with giant koi and turtles everywhere!

There were several regular rooms and a few themed rooms. Tony and I got the "Red Frog" room which is named after it's super cool open air shower with an intricate tiled red frog wall. Yup, open air means wide open windows all around. Anyone could have come up to take a peek while I was showering. Thankfully, no one did. :)

The Red Frog bathroom.

Private patio of the Red Frog room.

Sleeping area of the Red Frog room.

The room had no AC but had fans and wide open windows which, at night, provided plenty of comfortable breezes. The bed also had a mosquito net which I made sure was securely tucked around our bed at night. Mosquitoes love me! During the day it was a little toasty, but we didn't spend much time in there anyway. There was also a private patio with a little water feature, a table, and a hammock. And a resident kitty. :)

We headed into town to grab a quick bite to eat at Amimodo, but we tried to keep it light since we knew we'd be hitting a recommended restaurant later that night. I had a delicious frozen Limoncello drink that went down way too easily.

Limoncello drink!

The view from the beaches was, of course, lovely. But again, no freaking sunset! I need to go a different time of year next time and actually see the sun set into the ocean. Don't get me wrong, it was still beautiful, but I want to see colors!

Playa Negra

After our snack, which turned out to be a mini-meal, we browsed the shops and then headed back to the hotel to the hotel to relax and clean up a bit. Tony and I hit the pool and then fell asleep unexpectedly in the room. We were supposed to meet his dad at 8:30 to head to dinner but instead we woke up at 9:30 and headed to the restaurant. Luckily, they were one of the only restaurants open until 10:30pm. I'm SO glad we made it to the restaurant because it was easily one of my favorite meals on the trip.

Tony's friends and my guidebook both recommended Café Viejo so we had to make a point to eat there. It's an Italian restaurant operated by two brothers that moved to Puerto Viejo from Italy. One of the brothers came to our table and made several recommendations based on our taste preferences. He said we absolutely had to try the pasta and he recommended a wine for Tony's dad and I to share (we like sharing bottles of wine...tho he says I drink them all) and a dish that picky Tony would enjoy as well. Their speciality is a traditional handmade pasta from their region of Italy called strozzapreti. It's kind of a thick squiggly noodle that's absolutely delicious. I was sold. I got the stozzapreti pasta with prosciutto, asparagus and a cream sauce. I literally used my finger to get every drop of sauce out of my bowl. Writing this blog makes me want to go back there immediately for more. The picture doesn't do the dish justice, but I blame the lighting and having to use a flash.

Stozzapreti with prosciutto, asparagus and cream sauce.

Oh, before we got our meals they also brought out bruschetta on the house and it was some of the best I'd had. But that's not all, folks. Dessert! The Tiramisu! *drool* It was layered into a large martini glass and topped with tons of high quality chocolate shavings. I had a perfectly created cappuccino with it and while you had to practically roll me out the door, it was worth every pound gained.

Tiramisu!

Of course, what Costa Rican restaurant would be complete without a kitty wandering about?

El gato de Café Viejo.

One other thing to mention is the "Watchy Man" that "guarded" Tony's Dad's car while we ate. We sat in full view of the car (which is a very nice BMW, btw) to make sure no one messed with it. I felt perfectly safe in Puerto Viejo, but there is still crime...especially involving nice cars. I can't remember if I talked about the "Watchy Man" in Jaco or not, but this is a very common thing. Men will guard your car for you, without being asked to do so, and when you get back to your car it is expected that you pay them something. Basically, they keep other people from messing with your car but if you don't pay them they'll damage you or your car. So, it's best to pay them.

After a magical meal that I hope to repeat some day, we headed to the hotel and crashed hard. We had a big day of sitting at the beach and eating planned for the next day so we needed our rest. I'm happy to say the mosquito net worked like a charm!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 10 - Sloth Sanctuary!

2011-10-15T16:12:00.000-05:00

Sloths! I had one goal for this tour, and it was to hug a sloth. I didn't get to do that. Boo. But I got to see awesome sloths of all sizes and that made me happy. :)

The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica is a wonderful facility. Here they take in orphaned and injured sloths and nurse them back to health with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. There are many reasons that baby sloths are abandoned but the reason that adults end up in the sanctuary is usually more heart breaking. Roads, power lines and other man made death traps are invading their forests. Many are hit by cars or mistake live power lines for vines or tree branches and get electrocuted and severely burned. Good samaritans often bring the injured and abandoned sloths to the rescue or call the staff to come and pick them up. The rescue began when a an orphaned three fingered sloth was brought to the owners of what was then a hotel. Knowing little about sloths, they began to research and found themselves drawn to the mission of helping preserve these amazing creatures. That very first sloth was unable to be released into the wild and has been with them ever since. Her name is Buttercup and she's awesome.

Buttercup in her swing greeting the visitors.

They have several adult sloths that are recuperating from injuries and some that will be permanent residents of the sanctuary like Buttercup.

No one knows if sloths are actually happy or not, but they're always smiling! That's just how their faces are shaped!

These two were hanging out together in the little sloth condos.

He had an itchy tummy, and a stuffed animal!

And of course there was a sloth nursery for the babies! There were several cages with a variety of species in them. Some were paired or grouped because they got along well and comforted each other and others had to be in cages alone.

Baby sloths!

There were even teeny tiny babies in a laundry bucket! These photos are all a little blurry because we couldn't use flashes.

Babies in a bucket, eating some leaves.

Our guide was the son of the owner and was very knowledgeable about the sloths. He held one of the young sloths and I was so very jealous!

Our guide and the young sloth.

This was probably my favorite baby sloth tho. He had a broken arm and is healing with a little purple cast. Look at that adorable face! He was getting around really well in his cage and hanging from the branches so he's well on his way to recovery!

I want to boop his nose!

Our tour included a boat ride in their canals as well and there we saw a large male sloth climb all the way down to the ground and back up another tree. It was incredible! Just a sloth in the wild near a sloth rescue. I was afraid he was going to poop because they apparently only come down to the ground to poop or change trees. Luckily, this was a tree change. :) Unfortunately my camera battery was dying and my spare was in the car so I couldn't get many photos of this.

Large male sloth. You can tell by the markings on his back.

Climbing down the tree.

There was also an education center with a video and some interesting skeletal models and informative displays.

Skeletal displays.

Oh, and this sloth head cutout thingie.

I need more eyeliner to be a proper sloth.

The sloth sanctuary is well worth the visit and was an awesome experience. They do great work there and I was touched by their obvious affection for the sloths. It was $25 for the tour and worth every penny!

We got a little hot during our boat ride so we got some tasty beverages for the drive into Puerto Viejo!

Cheers to cold beer and AC!

Next post, Puerto Viejo!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 10 - Limón Province

2011-10-15T11:22:00.001-05:00

Oh my, did 3:15am come way too early that morning! We got home from being out with Tony's friends after 1am and I insisted on showering in preparation for the next day (and to wash off the smoke) and I had to pack for Limon. So, I didn't get to sleep until probably 2am and that damn alarm went off at 3:15. Shockingly, Tony's dad was there at 4am on the dot rather than being late as usual. :) We loaded into the car and I promptly curled up in the back seat and fell asleep on Tony. We both slept for three hours and woke up in the city of Limón. It was right around 7am and the city was just waking up. We stopped at a little quick serve diner on the corner and got some coffee and breakfast cake to wake us up. It was here that I got my first taste of the culture differences between Limón and other parts of Costa Rica.

The province of Limón is heavily populated by people of Jamaican descent. Jamaicans were brought over to work on the railroad that was built to serve the busy port in Limón, and many stayed. There are now a couple of generations that have been born in Costa Rica, but many blend their ancestors' language with English and Spanish to create kind of a hybrid. It's sort of Creole, English, Spanish, French, etc. I can't describe it, but it's definitely different! I'm sure I'm explaining it completely incorrectly, but you get the idea.

While we were in Limón, Tony's dad took us to take a canal tour. A man on a bike made us a deal and led us to his boat for the tour. I was a little skeptical because the boat wasn't as nice as the others docked there (he had a hard time getting it started) and c'mon, he approached us on a BIKE! Anyway, we loaded our cooler and some snacks onto the boat and headed into the canals. The canals cut through living jungle that stretches over the narrow canals, formed by the rivers born in the high mountains, making their way to the sea.

Our tour boat.

Tony and Me on the tour.

Tony's dad and his girlfriend on the tour.

My concerns about our guide were quickly dispelled as we cruised through the canals. The man has an incredible eye for spotting wildlife! He'd be like, "Look! A sloth!" and we'd have to hunt around before we finally spotted one at the top of the trees. After a while though we all became quite skilled. Here's a sampling of some of the things we saw during the early parts of our cruise. Snakes, sloths, crabs, lizards, birds, and crocs, oh my! :)

That's a sloth waaaay up there in the tree.

Holy shit, that's a big snake!

The female Jesus lizard.

Well hello little crab!

Stop eyeballing me, croc!

The male Jesus lizard.

Pretty bird!

Up until nearly the end of the tour we didn't get any close up views of the animal I was most excited to see, the sloth! He pointed out TONS of them up in the tops of trees, which was cool, but I wanted to see their cute little faces! Then, my dreams came true! We came across a mom and baby sloth that were in a tree just a few feet above the water. Our guide pulled the boat right up next to it so we could get a good view and take as many pictures as we wanted. We were the only people on the boat so we could stay as long as we wanted. The baby was probably just a few weeks old and was kind of hidden by leaves eating dinner, but mama was in full view!

Yay! Sloth!

Just hanging out, waiting for my kid.

We didn't get a great view of the baby, but you can see it's little fuzzy body a bit through the leaves.

I begged this baby sloth to come out of hiding, but no.

We all had a great time on the tour and I was thrilled to have seen a sloth that close up out in the wild! We left all smiles and onto our next big adventure.

Our guide, Tony, and his dad. And our booze cooler.

After our canal tour we headed off toward Puerto Viejo. There was one stop before we headed to our hotel and I was SO EXCITED about it! The Sloth Sanctuary! I'm going to start a totally new post for that since this one is getting long and it deserves it! :)

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 9 - San Jose Family and Friends

2011-10-15T10:15:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I know. I've had a helluva gap between posts. Sorry about that. I had a kitty emergency at the end of August and I've been dealing with it ever since (I'll maybe talk about that in a different post), so I've been distracted. However, I have a trip to Vegas coming up next week so I figured I better finish up Costa Rica blogs before I have to start on the Vegas ones! Now, back to Costa Rica!

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On our last day we hit the local artisan market in the park in Montezuma and I bought that sweet macrame necklace that I mentioned in the post about day 7. I was so happy with my purchase and it was starting to rain again, so we headed out to drive to the airport. I must have been in a hurry because I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice how slick the moss on the sidewalk got with the rain. Tom's Shoes aren't known for traction and when they meet wet moss you're pretty much screwed. I wiped out. Hard. I got moss and other mystery substances on my skirt and skinned the hell out of my ankle. It was no bueno. We used hand sanitizer and tissues to disinfect the wound since who knows what kind of stuff was growing on that playground sidewalk and off we went to the airport. I'm sure I looked a mess while we waited given my bleeding ankle and very dirty skirt. Oh well, scars make memories...or something. :)

We had planned a pretty full ninth day after our return from Montezuma since we had more of Tony's friends and family to see. We were in high demand during our trip and it was hard to fit everyone in sometimes. It's even harder to fit everyone in when your flight home takes longer than expected. Remember how I said that we shrank a several hour trip into one 25 minute flight? Well, that's all true as long as the flight is on time and it doesn't have to make extra stops. Our return flight apparently never took off, so another flight that was dropping people off in Tambor and then going on to Nosara picked us up. That added about an hour onto our flight that was already delayed by an hour and a half or so. We tried to enjoy the flight though because we got to see even more of the Nicoya Peninsula during that flight. We had 6 of the 18 seats taken up by surf boards on the way to Nosara as it's a very popular surfing location. Really made you feel like you were somewhere tropical. :)

As we were flying into San Jose the clouds were very dense. The pilot told us we were going to have to land at the major airport in San Jose rather than our domestic airport due to fog, and we did. But we taxied around for a bit and I thought, "Um, are we going to stop or are we going to take off again?" We took off again....and landed 3 minutes 49 seconds later. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as the shortest flight ever. :) We're convinced the pilot just said "screw it, my car is at the other airport" and took us there anyway. So, with all of our stops and "just kidding!" landings I had lots of experience with the take-off and landings of a tiny plane. All of them were perfectly smooth and the flights were great. It was totally worth it to do the tiny planes versus driving, even with the delays.

Tony and I had to rush around at his mom's house to get ready to head to a dinner at the home of his dad's best friend, Jorge. I desperately wanted a shower to wash off the moss and blood but didn't have time so I settled for a quick spot cleaning, changed my clothes and off we went. One thing of note, there are no addresses to use in Costa Rica. So, we had to tell the cab driver how to get there based on landmarks like Wal-Mart. I'm not sure how anyone gets anywhere, honestly.

Jorge had arranged for a feast of traditional Costa Rican cuisine at his house. OMG. It was amazing! There was SO much food! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera or my phone on me because we were headed out to the bars to meet his friends after dinner and Tony wouldn't let me bring them for fear of the gringa getting mugged. We had tamales, pejivalles, braised pork, guaro sours (a drink with local liquor...I had MANY), and much more. I was stuffed! They were all worried that I was just telling them I loved the food, but I really did! I REALLY wish I had pictures, but alas, the links I provided will have to do.

After dinner, Tony and I went to Wal-Mart (a brand new one, first in Costa Rica I believe....uugh, I hate Wal-Mart) with his Dad and his Dad's girlfriend to get supplies for our trip to Limon the next day. My main goals: Imperial and lots of it, Britt chocolate candies, and coconut water. Oh how I envy their coconut water supplies. I was able to get a gallon jug of awesome coconut water for about $5. I figured it'd help me recover from the bar outing with Tony's friends and all of the Imperial I'd be drinking later. :)

After Wal-Mart his dad dropped us off at a bar to meet Tony's best friends from High School. First thing I noticed was the smoke. Nasty. C'mon, Costa Rica! Pass that smoking law! Second thing I noticed was that I was easily one of the taller people in the bar with my 1.5" heels on. I'm only 5'6". I guess Tony wasn't lying when he said he was tall for a Costa Rican at 5'8". :) His friends were great and the bar did something with beer bottles that I wish bars here did. They opened the bottles for you and then they wiped off the mouth of them and wrapped a napkin around the mouth of the bottle. This is so you know no one has slipped anything in the drink as it makes its way to your table or back to your group. I loved this idea. Gives you a little more confidence in your safety. That and the guy frisking people at the door. :) After we hung out at that bar for a while we went walking to the next bar. Tony's friend Pozo had a bar in mind so we headed off. During the walk there, Tony was all freaked out because last he could recall it wasn't exactly safe to be walking around downtown San Jose. He hadn't done that for a while, so he wasn't up to date I guess. Pozo assured him that it was safe as can be and things had changed significantly. I didn't feel unsafe at all. We decided to skip that bar because the line was super long and we headed to a gay bar that Pozo really liked. Before we left he said, "Now, THIS is an area where you want to stick together in a tight group." So, there are definitely some parts of downtown that are more unsavory than others just blocks apart. When we got to the gay bar there was a bouncer at the door letting one in, one out. It was packed in there and the door was closed. It was about 65 degrees outside but inside that bar it was easily 85 degrees and smokey. Why that doorman insisted on closing the door instead of leaving it open is beyond me. The bar was actually really cool with an old industrial feel but with bookshelves lined with books and awesome lighting. I had a hard time enjoying myself though for two reasons. 1) It was so goddamn hot and smokey in there I thought I was going to die. We positioned ourselves by the door so that every time it opened we got a burst of beautiful brisk air, but those were few and far between. 2) I knew we had to be up and ready to leave the next day by 4am.

All in all it was a great day and night and I had a lot of fun meeting more of Tony's friends and family. I wish we could have spent more time but we had a tight schedule. Perhaps next time! And maybe by then smoking will be outlawed in the bars and I'll be able to not feel like shit. I've gotten so used to smoke free bars here that anytime I'm in one that's not I pretty much immediately feel awful. I'm delicate!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 8 - Montezuma

2011-08-19T16:21:00.002-05:00

Our last full day in Montezuma started out splendidly with yoga in the open air pavilion with the sounds of the ocean outside. It was a great class, but not all that different than what I was used to in terms of the things that we did. I did notice I was breathing harder and sweating more than usual, though. The sweating I got because it was very humid out there but the breathing confused me. It's not like we were at a higher altitude or anything. Perhaps it was due to being away from yoga for almost two weeks at that point. :) Anyway, it was great class and it was packed! Nice to see so many people getting up for yoga in this sleepy town.

After yoga I cooled my toes in the pool for a bit and then headed to the room to get ready to head to Santa Teresa, a beach 30 minutes or so away. The only thing wrong with this pool is that there are power lines in your view of the ocean but I won't complain. Ocean to the front, yoga pavilion to the back, and monkeys in trees throwing mangoes on the ground in between.

Marie Claire had told us that Santa Teresa was a lovely beach and more suited for actually getting in the water so we headed there for another day of relaxation. This town is also packed full of surfers but the beaches were a bit less intense. The water was still pretty rough when we got there but again I was hypnotized by waves.

We had situated ourselves on a nice part of the beach where the waves came crashing hard on the rocks off shore. Further down the beach there were more people in the water, mostly surfers, and it looked like it would have probably been okay to swim as long as you knew how to get out of rip tides (swim to the left or right, FYI). I'm too much of a chicken-shit and was afraid I'd drown so I just relaxed and watched the surfers.

You can see from the picture below that it was pretty windy and the surfers were hitting the waves.

Lucy was hanging onto her dress to keep it from blowing all over the place. I thought it was a cute mother/daughter picture, myself!

There's just something about relaxing on the beach with a book and listening to the waves that sucks all the stress right out of you. In Tony's case, it puts him right to sleep.

I was worried about having such a low key trip to a place so far away. I figured his sister would get bored or someone would want more to do, but as it turns out we all loved it. It was nice to just relax and let the tide dictate your schedule. Or the monkeys. The monkeys did their best to keep us from getting too relaxed. There were a couple of howler monkeys in the trees behind us that were drawing a crowd. They were LOUD. I know howler monkeys aren't that big but damn are they loud and they sound ANGRY. After a while I got used to it and was able to zone out staring at the water some more.

Once the tide went down our rocks were exposed and it turns out it was a cool little tide pool. Lucy and I went on a shell hunting mission and found some very colorful shell bits. I just wish we could have found something more substantial but with all the rocks at the shore there's no way a shell could survive crashing into that with the waves. In the tide pool we found a few whole shells and millions of tiny snails stuck to the rocks. It was fun walking around on the rocks looking in nooks and crannies for hidden treasure all the while hoping you don't slip on a rock and crack your head open. :)

We had hoped for a sunset but, like almost everywhere else we went, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I really need to visit in December when the position of the sun is perfect and it produces brilliant sunsets...or so I've heard.

By the time we left I had a bag full of shell bits and rocks and was incredibly relaxed. I wish I could sit and just stare at something for a few hours in Iowa and not get bored but instead feel refreshed and happy. But no, I get distracted and want to "do" something. Maybe I need to rethink what I need in order to be entertained. In Montezuma and Santa Teresa all it took was waves, a blanket, and a breeze and I was content.

Oooh, deep thoughts. Anyway.

We headed back to Montezuma and got cleaned up for dinner. This time we decided to try a place called Puggo's. It's owned by Israeli's and is known for it's fresh focaccia bread and lemon mint slushies. And, of course, it has a kitty.:) When we got there we sat at a table and immediately I was bitten by a HUGE fire ant. Lucky us, we had sat down in a table where a parade of ants was crossing the restaurant. After it rains they move to higher ground and the shortest path was apparently right through this outdoor dining room. It hurt like hell. The poor waitress kept getting bit every time she'd go out to wait tables. We had moved tables out of the path of ants but it was like a game watching people sit down and waiting to see how long before they got up and moved. That ant bite itched for a week after I got back to Iowa and I still have a spot where it bit me! Little bastard.

I'm glad we stuck around though because the food was delicious. The focaccia bread was served with pesto and was piping hot out of the oven. The hummus was wonderful and you got a huge bowl of it with your order and more focaccia bread for dipping. Oh and the lemon mint slushies were super refreshing. I've since made those at home and plan on adding vodka, of course. :)

One thing to note is that most places in Montezuma only take cash. I'm the cashless wonder so this could have been an issue, but we made it work. El Sano Banano is not only one of the only places to have wifi but they also are one of the few to take credit cards. So, if you visit, have cash (colones or dollars).

Once again, after dinner we fell into a deep Montezuma sleep by 9pm. Another successful day! The next day we planned on visiting Marie Claire at the weekly market in the park so I could buy that necklace and then we had to head back to the "airport" in Tambor.

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 7 - Montezuma

2011-08-19T15:39:00.003-05:00

Time to check out yet another part of the country! I had heard good things about Montezuma but it's such a long drive to get there that we weren't sure we wanted to make the trip. Tony hadn't really spent any time that he recalled in that part of the country either so it was a chance to go somewhere new for him, too. It's on the Nicoya Peninsula and the drive, depending on weather and traffic, can be anywhere from 6.5-10 hours each way. That's an entire day of vacation lost in the car. Not a fan of that. So, we booked a baby plane ride to get there!

NatureAir is the first carbon neutral airline in Costa Rica and it seems to be run very well! The check-in process was super efficient (even though we had to climb on a scale with our carry on and get weighed) and the planes are clean. The pilot is the one that walks you to your plane and the cockpit is open so you can see what they see if you want.

There was room for 18 passengers on the plane and we were all a little nervous about riding in such a tiny plane over the mountains and water!

No need to worry, however! Our 25 minute flight (yes, 25 min vs HOURS) was nice and smooth and we had a nice aerial tour of the country on the way! The windows were nice and big so we could see out easily and we were low enough that we could see the waves crashing on the shores and all kinds of other cool stuff. Just look at the colors!

Just look at the colors!

As we came in for a landing we got our first glance of the Tambor "airport". The landing strip was most of it and the rest was a bench to wait on and a scale. Oh and a security guard. No Starbucks to blow my money on waiting for a flight here!

After our flight we picked up our rental and were off to Montezuma! Thankfully we picked a 4x4 because the roads were not good. When we rolled into Montezuma we found ourselves in a cute little surfer town!

Surfing is the thing to do in Montezuma. The water was scary looking and I'm not a strong swimmer so I opted out of surfing! We wandered around for a bit and headed to the beach. On the way we found what I'd been waiting for in terms of shopping. Local, hand-made jewelry. These two vendors were set up on car hoods and one guy had his "office" on a table perched by a rock right as you enter the beach. Really nice and talented people. I didn't get anything from them, but I did buy something from a family friend later that I'll show you.

The weather was getting a little rough looking and the water was stirred up to match it. There's something hypnotic about these rough waters and ominous looking sky, though.

I could have stared at it for hours.

We tried to hike to a calmer beach but the path to it was closed due to high tide so instead we hurried back to town and had a snack at a restaurant called El Sano Banano. They were the only place with wireless in the whole town so I used it to upload a couple of quick pics to make people at home jealous. :)

Then we got settled in our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Los Mangoes since they have a yoga studio that came highly recommended to me by one of my favorite yogalebrities, Sadie Nardini. The main instructor, Dagmar, is apparently amazing and I was hoping to catch one of her classes. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to catch a class on the first day and the second day was her partner. It was a great class regardless given the ocean sounds and the monkeys outside!

The hotel is situated right across the road from a rocky patch in the ocean and the sounds are amazing. The hotel itself was very simple and had no A/C, only windows and a fan but it turned out to be perfect.

I liked the view from the rocking chairs outside of our room!

Later that day we met up with Marie Claire who is the daughter of one of Tony's mom's good friends. She lives in Montezuma with her husband and little boy and she makes the most amazing macrame jewlery. She models them after species of butterflies that are found in the area and combines them with local stones as well. It takes her six hours to make these after she's designed them. I couldn't decide what I wanted but knew I had to have one. We met up with her the next day and I made my choice.

Marie Claire also introduced us to some other local artisans and showed us some of the work her husband has done in the town. Lots of talent in one small place!

That night we went to dinner at a restaurant that I'd heard only amazing things about. It's called Playa de los Artistas and it's easy to miss. What a find. I'm so glad that I did my research before going to Montezuma because this one is tucked away enough that you might just miss it if you aren't looking for it. This rustic, outdoor dining area is next to the ocean and is beautiful. The tables are made of huge slices of polished tree trunk and there are lamps and candles on the tables to provide light but they're dim enough to keep the atmosphere cozy.

There are hundreds of hermit crabs crawling around the base of trees and there are six resident kitties that roam the dining area and will come and visit if they think you're feeling generous. This one sat behind Lucy for a while. It's pretty much a mainstay of Costa Rican dining, I've found, to have a resident cat or dog and I love it! :)

We all raved about this restaurant for the food but the atmosphere contributed to our lovely dining experience. Hearing the waves crash on the rocks and actually watching the water until the sun sets is pretty great dinner entertainment. The menu changes daily so we could have gone back, but had to hit another restaurant with good reviews the next night.

After dinner we went back to our room which was right across the road from the restaurant. We were all just kind of lounging around chatting about dinner and before you knew it we were all fast asleep. At 8:30pm. And we slept clear through until 8am when the howler monkeys woke us up. I've decided that Montezuma is like Ambien. It's a laid back town that gets super dark at night and the waves lull you to sleep. It was really quite nice to have a relaxing day without a whole lot planned. We'd been running around so much already that it felt good to just sit back and take it all in.

Luckily I had set an alarm on my phone because I had yoga the next morning! Not that I needed it, the howlers are an excellent alarm clock. :)

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 6 - Family Stuff

2011-08-11T13:38:00.004-05:00

This is a short post and I don't have any photos because the fog really hated me. We went to Jaco on the way back from Manuel Antonio as I mentioned in the last post and we had the rest of the day for family stuff. Tony's not back home very often so we had to mix in time with family and friends in our (rare) spare time.

We had dinner with Tony's Grandpa that night and I was hoping for a heck of a view. You see, he lives at the top of Monte de la Cruz South of San Jose. This mountain is known for it's huge cross at the top which you can see from San Jose. It's called La Cruz de Alajuelita and he lives pretty much underneath that. So, I was expecting a breathtaking view of the city at night but instead I got pea soup. Well, mostly pea soup. :) It was a mostly blind drive up to his house thanks to the fog and his four story, all glass house was like standing in a steamed up bathroom. The fog did eventually clear and I got to see (what they tell me) 75% of the Costa Rican population all lit up! Of course, I didn't get a picture so you'll have to take my word for that!

Not to be forgotten were the other family dinners we also had during the trip! We had lunch at his Grandma's house one day as well and the food was delicious! Her maid has been with her for 40 years and cooks a meal meal, I must say! His Grandma had loved the Peach Mimosas that we had when they were visiting and we went to Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis so she tried to recreate them for me for lunch. How cute! :) We also had a family birthday/Tony's home party with his Mom's side of the family one night with lots of delicious snacks.

All in all, great people and great food! :)

Okay, just had to mention that! Honestly, it was kind of nice to have a less busy day here and there to recuperate.

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 5 - Manuel Antonio

2011-08-10T15:31:00.004-05:00

I was SO looking forward to my visit to Manuel Antonio. Tony had spoken so highly of it and it's his family's beach of choice so he goes whenever he's home and the family goes regularly. It was also listed, in addition to many other places we visited, in my Lonely Planet guide as a not to be missed natural beauty. So, when we were at The Springs resort at Arenal and overheard a group of 20 something girls whining that Manuel Antonio was not at all what they expected and the water wasn't as clear as they were told and so on, I was confused. I'd heard and read only amazing things about Manuel Antonio and could only assume they didn't go into the actual national park beaches. But having not been there I tucked their words into my back pocket and figured I'd know soon enough if they were nuts or not.

Thanks to a new highway (that was recently completed 32 years late) the trip to Manuel Antonio from San Jose is only about 2.5 hours. Not bad at all! Oh, and no 4x4 required.:) Tony's mom had packed us some sandwiches, snacks and drinks for the beach so we loaded up the car and got on the road right after an early breakfast so we could be there close to 8am when the park opens. The park is only open from 7am-4pm and not on Mondays so you want to make sure to get there as early as possible and get in line. The word "line" to get into a beach isn't a good sign usually, right? Well, the line is actually for the entire Manuel Antonio National Park. They moved the ticket booth to this entrance a year ago or so and so now you're standing in line with people that want to get to the beach as well as those that want to see the park itself and take a tour. The line was a bit long but it was made worse by the fact that the park rangers only let in a certain number of people every 20 minutes. I felt like a prisoner smashed up against the wrought iron gate hoping to get let in. As a non-resident I paid $10 and residents paid $3. Not bad. We got our tickets and immediately turned back around and went out the way we came so we could re-enter at the "exit" since we didn't really have time to go through the park itself and we were eager to get to the beach.

The exit/back entrance to the beaches is just off the main street in Manuel Antonio and at high tide you take a little canoe across the flooded path to get to the park. The canoe service is tip based so it's not a bad deal. At low tide you can just wade across. The picture below is as we were leaving when the tide was lower and we could just wade. When we came in we had to take a little boat.

The fourth beach is THE beach to go to. Not that I spent any time at the other ones but Tony's family has scoped it all out in the past. I didn't argue. We walked from the path into the clearing on the beach and all you can do is smile and take it all in. It's lovely!

It's in a cove so most of the waves break long before the beach making for a very safe and relaxing swim. Heck, I could float on my back undisturbed for quite a while whereas at most beaches that'd be impossible! The water is turquoise blue and clear as a bell. It's hard to capture how clear the water is in a photo. All I can really do is describe it as best I can. Basically, you'll be able to see your feet as far out as you can go before your eyeballs are submerged. I have no idea how far our you could actually go where it'd still be clear but I assume it's that way all the way out to the open ocean. The temperature is like a luke warm bath. Perfect, really.

I don't know who these girls are but it's the best photo I've got showing how clear it is!

I wanted to be in this water all day long, which explains why I don't really have as many photos as I'd like. I just wanted to be in the water!

The sand under your feet is a golden brown and there aren't a lot of shells or sharp things to worry about as you hang out in the water or stroll along the beach. There are some bigger rocks in the sand that do get exposed as the tide goes out so watch out for those, but overall this beach is perfect. The surrounding landscape itself is breathtaking with large juttings of rocks and preserved jungle all around.

Anyway, we settled in immediately under a perfect shade tree where we could be protected from the sun, hang our stuff, and have a front row show if the stars of Manuel Antonio decided to show up! Who are these stars, you ask? Monkeys! White faced, adorable, thieving little monkeys! And raccoons, and hermit crabs, and iguanas, and an animal that looks like a rat kangaroo called an agouti. But back to the monkeys! It's a national park so these animals are living in the wild but are accustomed to people. The monkeys in particular will not hesitate to steal whatever you don't bother keeping an eye on. Over Christmas they stole Tony's cold meds from his mom's purse! This visit we were very vigilant and nothing was swiped by monkeys but boy was it a show! First comes one hopping through the trees followed shortly by the rest of his gang. I have no idea how many monkeys were around us at one time but it was a lot including a mommy with a baby on her back that I couldn't catch on film. And these monkeys aren't in the distance. They are right above you or in front of you or even next to your hats in some cases. :)

These little guys were right by me, and these photos are not zoomed in!

This one is slightly zoomed but he was only about 10ft away!

I desperately wanted him to steal one of those hats!

I loved the monkeys! They made many appearances during our day at the beach and every time they attracted a crowd. Well, what crowd there was anyway. The beach was not full at all. The people settled in closest to us were probably 25ft away. Just how I like it!

The sound of the water and the perfect temps in the shade were super relaxing. When not awakened by monkeys or in the water this is how Tony spent his day at the beach. :)

I slept some too, I have to admit. Usually that's a no-no for my pale ass but the tree provided enough shade to keep me comfortable and protected from the sun.

I choose to go and do some random yoga poses on the rocks when the tide receded a bit! I couldn't resist. It's not as easy to do Natarajasana (Dancer pose) on a rock as it is on a yoga mat, that's for sure! It was kind of slippery from the water that had been on it not long ago, my feed were sandy, and it was uneven (of course). But hey, I've got balance! So, don't judge if the technique isn't perfect...I was trying not to face plant onto the rocks! :)

I honestly have no idea what those chicks at The Springs resort were talking about. I can only assume they visited the public beach and not the national park beaches. The public beach is not as nice and the water is rougher and so it stirs up more sand as it comes to shore. The views are still incredible with the rocks and jungle, but I can see where they'd be confused if they were expecting what I saw inside of the park itself. So there's your lesson. Do your research! :)

I loved this beach. Everything about it. I want to go back there RIGHT. NOW. *sigh* Maybe someday!

As we were leaving the park at closing time we got another show! A whole gang (What do you call a group of monkeys? I call these gangs because they steal shit.) of white faced monkeys ran back and forth across the trail and were fighting with each other in the trees. There were also giant iguanas and a very upset sounding Howler monkey. It was 4:05pm, so perhaps he was pissed we were still there after his shift was supposed to be over. :) Oh, and here's that rat-aroo thing. The agouti. Now, the facts say it's the size of a cat. This one was probably about knee height...way bigger than a cat thank you very much!

After the beach we went to a place called El Avion to try and catch the sunset. It's got a great view and a C-123 Cargo plane in it! And the story around it is really cool, too. Basically, it's an Iran-Contra relic that was abandoned at the San Jose airport after cargo missions were suspended. It's now known as Olly's Folly (Olly being Oliver North, of course!). Take a look at the story, it's pretty cool!

Unfortunately, during rainy season the sunset isn't in viewable from the lovely open-air bar with a stellar view at El Avion. I learned on this trip it's damn hard to catch it anywhere either due to placement or clouds. Boo to you rainy season but I thank you for smaller crowds and better temps! :)

So, we finished our delightful sangria and headed to our hotel to shower off the sand and freshen up for dinner. We decided to follow the guidebook's advice and splurge at Kapi Kapi. Good idea! It was a very nice restaurant with great food. But the highlight of the dinner was dessert. Thank you foursquare users for posting tips about the Mandarin Lime Pie! I was totally full but had to order it based on tips and I practically inhaled it. It had a macadamia nut crust, mandarin lime magic filling, topped with fresh strawberries and a drizzle of homemade raspberry sauce and whipped cream, garnished with star fruit. OMG. Just trust me and try it if you get the chance. This photo will be going on my TripAdvisor review for sure!

Now about our hotel. I had chosen the Hotel Plaza Yara based on TripAdvisor reviews. Admittedly, it wasn't my first choice but I loved it! It's an all suites hotel/art gallery. AND it had A/C and I could flush the TP. *angels singing* The room was MASSIVE and had a little kitchenette, full balcony with lots of seating and a fan, two queen beds, and a giant bathroom.

Also, since the hotel is an art gallery there are pieces of art all over the hotel that you can buy to take home. I bought one of these frogs since they were in all of the rooms and hotel and I fell in love with them. $40 isn't so bad!

Oh, and this hotel has a kitty! I can't remember his name because I couldn't pronounce it but I loved him! He was so affectionate! I sat on the floor and did the international sign for pettings (if you have a pet you may know what that is!), and he crawled into my lap and started kneading. I loved it and he made me miss my kitties! We cuddled for a bit and then I had to go get my stuff ready to checkout.

After checking out we headed to Jaco which is between Manuel Antonio and San Jose and is also home to Tony's favorite pizza in the whole world. Apparently, it used to be this tiny shack were a couple of surfers made pizza. It got purchased by some guy and the recipes went with it since the popularity lied with the pizza. Well, it didn't taste the same and the guy was pissed because the recipes were part of the deal! The surfer dudes had no idea why the guy's pizzas didn't taste like theirs, but then everyone figured it out. The surfers made the pizzas after surfing. Salt fell out of their HAIR and onto the pies as a sneaky seasoning. To this, I say "eew!" But, the new guy started adding sea salt to the pies and lo and behold they tasted right again. This place used to be called Killer Munchies but is now Rioasis and it's been expanded. I thought it was certainly decent pizza and the cheese bread had blue cheese which was cool, but it wasn't the "world's best pizza" as Tony claimed. He threatened to break up with me. ;)

I had intended to take a yoga class in Jaco as well but the studio had changed the schedule but hadn't updated the info available online. I was initially irritated because I usually do yoga several times a week and without this class I'd be down to only one class in the entire two week trip! Oh well, I chose to enjoy beer and pizza instead. :)

Have I mentioned I love Imperial beer? And it's a government run beer company. Go figure.

After lunch we headed back to San Jose. We had another early morning the next day as we had booked a flight on a tiny plane to go to the Nicoya Peninsula!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 4 -- Arenal Volcano

2011-08-09T15:52:00.008-05:00

The trip back to San Jose from Monteverde usually takes about 6 hours by car but instead of heading back we went to check out Arenal Volcano instead. This was always part of the plan, but I assumed we'd have to go most of the way back to San Jose and then back over to Arenal making for a long drive. Nope, the nice folks at our hotel in Monteverde gave us a back route which afforded us some great views and a much shorter drive.

We didn't all the way to Arenal itself since there wasn't a ton to do once you were on the volcano itself besides hiking and zip lining and stuff and I've done that. :) So, we headed for my request which was hot springs! I've always heard of the benefits of hot springs but haven't had the chance to try them before.

Arenal has a variety of hot springs location, each offering varying amenities but based on recommendation from some of Tony's family we went to the new The Springs Resort and Spa. This place is gorgeous. And at about $420 per night it should be! Fortunately we were able to just pay the $40 daily rate to use the springs and didn't have to shell out the nightly fee. However, we did wish we could stay because it was truly lovely. That and the drive back to San Jose that night would take a while. I didn't know it would also be scary as hell. More on that later in the post!

The resort had limitless excellent views of Arenal Volcano. In fact, CNN has declared it to have one of the seven resorts with the most spectacular views in the world! Hmm, the website says it was also the location for an episode of The Bachelor. Meh, I won't hold that against the resort. :)

The swim-up bar at the pool was just begging for photos to be taken with a tasty beverage and the volcano in the background.

Apparently the volcano had been covered with clouds for about four days but started to clear as we arrived at the resort. I like to think it's because the volcano tweeted me on Twitter asking if I was going to come visit it during my trip. I told it what day I'd be there so I'm thinking it cleared up just for me. ;) Of course, it hadn't erupted in the last few months so I didn't get that show, but there's always next time (hopefully), right? You can see it smoking in the first picture below. By mid afternoon it had totally cleared and I got to see Arenal in all of its glory...sans eruption.

Anyway, the resort had 18 different hot springs of varying temperatures. The hottest one we found was in the Perdido Springs (Lost Springs) portion which is away from the busier hot springs and the pool with the swim up bar. Unfortunately, the pool bar isn't in the hot springs but really, you don't want people passing out and they serve food so a chlorinated pool is a much better idea!

After soaking in the springs a bit I ended up falling asleep on a pool chair. That hot water takes it out of you! Luckily it was in the shade or I'd have been fried. Tony found me as they were getting ready to clean up and go to the tour that was included in our daily admission fee. We weren't sure what the tour was but thought it'd have more hot springs. Nope! Turns out the owner, who's from Florida, has a soft spot for animals. There's a problem in Costa Rica of people taking exotic animals like cats and monkeys from the wild and raising them as pets when they're babies. Then they grow up or they get in trouble and they have to get rid of them. Instead of putting the animals down or trying to send them out into the wild where they'll be killed or die on their own he takes in many of these animals and cares for them. Some he's been able to release but many are so unaccustomed to how to live in the wild that they just don't have the survival skills to be released.

He's got a couple different kinds of monkeys (one of them likes toes and he had us stick our feet by the cage and let the little guy grab them!), and lots of big (and some little) cats.

Beautiful creatures. The caretaker giving the tour was very good with the animals and many of the behaved like house cats around him. They have a pretty great set up there. It's just too bad people ruined the animals for the wild.

After the tour we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up and decided to stay for dinner at one of the hotel restaurants. Of course, another awesome view of the volcano.

The clouds started to form again and kind of looked like the volcano was poking into a pillow of them, making a dent. And the sun started to set and it was lovely. We didn't get a full on sunset because we were facing the wrong direction, but it was still super nice and relaxing to have a nice meal and just stare out at the volcano. It's strangely hypnotic. You can just watch it for hours.

Yes, it's a non-erupting volcano but it's presence is so awesome that you're captivated by it. I told the gift shop worker she had a helluva view at her job and she told me that when she's having a bad day she'll just go sit on one of the balcony chairs that looks out at the Volcano and in minutes she'll be relaxed and in a better mood. I can see how that would happen. :)

Eventually we got on the road. It was about a 3.5 hour drive back and it was already dark when we left. I had no idea what I was in for. We had two SUVs caravanning back to San Jose and at times it was hard to see anything but fuzzy taillights right in front of you on the road. The fog is INTENSE. I couldn't even get a picture because all that came out was dashboard and fuzz. Totally creepy since you couldn't even see the sides of the road in some cases and you knew for a fact there was nothing but the valley of a mountain just a few feet from that at certain points. We probably went 15mph if that most of the way through the fog. And I guess it's that way EVERY NIGHT. So you should just not plan on driving that horrible stretch of road in the dark. Period. There's actually one stretch of road that crosses the Cerro de la Muerte, or Death Hill, and Tony mentioned this while we were driving. We didn't cross that, but it sure felt like it. And the locals are crazy drivers there. We're creeping along and they're passing us when you can barely see one car length ahead on a curve. Nuts. But we made it home safe and sound!

The next day we were finally heading to a beach! I couldn't wait!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Sorry, I'm on vacation. :)

2011-08-01T01:55:00.001-05:00

So, I'm totally aware that I've been a huge slacker on the blog. Between getting up at 5am to drive across the country and being without wireless it's been hard to keep up. I'll get everything uploaded and blogged about when I get home. For now, I'm sitting on my patio in Puerto Viejo, listening to the waves, blissed out from a delicious Italian dinner at Café Viejo (OMG), and generally super relaxed. This part of the country is full of people of Jamaican descent and it deems like it. I love it.

Okay, off to sleep in a food induced coma under my mosquito net. Our room has no real windows or A/C and the bathroom is a peeping Tom's dream. But more on that later.

Goodnight and Pura Vida!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 3 - Monteverde

2011-07-25T22:58:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty sure mother nature was trying to freak me out before my Canopy Tour. After breakfast we had an hour or so to kill before the Canopy Tour so we were relaxing in our room. Tony jumped off the bed where he'd been reading and shouted "Temblor!" I just looked at him like he was nuts and asked what he was talking about. He said he felt an earthquake. I told him that it was wicked windy outside and since our building was standalone and not terribly well built that it was probably just the wind. Nope, Tony is a walking seismograph. It was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake that probably felt more like a 3.5 by the time it got up to us. That's imperceptible to many, but apparently not Tony. So, add to the super terrible, walk at an angle to get anywhere wind from hell the chance that there'd be an aftershock and you have one freaked out zip line virgin. They don't cancel the zip line canopy tours unless the wind is at 100mph and, while it felt that strong, it wasn't even close.
We headed to the Sky Trek location and my confidence was improving since it didn't feel as windy when we got there. I was feeling confident in my lovely helmet and harness and was ready to dangle from a wire over the cloud forest.

The wind was a sneaky bastard though because he kicked back up right when it would scare me the most. We were about halfway up the tram line to our first zip line location when it really started gusting. After I caught my breath I turned around to try and take some photos of the amazing view. I could see the Gulf of Nicoya, Arenal Volcano, and obviously the cloud forest all at the same time. It's a little hard to see in the photo below but it was the best I could get in the 10 seconds I was willing to let go of my seat to take a photo. Look to the right under a wire and you'll see Arenal. To the left is where you'll most easily see the gulf and the general haze is thanks to the little cloud we were going through at the moment.

When we got to the top we had to climb a tall tower to get to our first zip line. We had to wait a while for all of the people in our group to get up and off the tram. During that time the wind was trying to kill me. We had to hunch down on the wet tower otherwise we literally felt like we were being blown across the metal platform. This first zip line took us to a hight of 200ft and a speed of approximately 30mph. Probably faster because the wind was behind us. On a few zips we had to double up because we were going against the wind and the extra weight would increase our speed. Even then it was possible to get stuck. Below is a picture of Luis Guillermo and his zipping buddy pulling themselves into the landing area since they got stuck about 30 ft out. Luckily it wasn't in the middle!

After about the third line I started to feel a little better but the wind was still brutal. You can see the line blowing to the right a bit in this picture below. Imagine it with a person on it to actually catch the wind!

I'm glad it didn't take me long to relax a bit because when you're on the zip and look to your left or right the view is truly breathtaking. Seeing the gulf, the volcano, the forest, etc all without anything in the way is pretty awesome. Now, I'm not saying I could handle the zip lines where you ride like superman but I'd at least consider it. :)
Luis Guillermo and Lucy had both done zip line tours more than once before and enjoyed my nerves. I'm glad they were there with me, it made it easier to just jump in and do it when you see your boyfriend's 13 year old sister heading to the front of the line. But even they admitted the wind was crazy and Luis Guillermo said that it was probably the strongest wind he'd ever experienced on a zip tour and that it was quite the sensation to feel it blowing you as you went on the line. The picture below was taken as we got ready to go on the 5th line, which is the highest of them all.

There were supposed to be 9 lines total but the longest and fastest was under repair so we did a couple extra lines that seemed to me to be "backup" lines because we had to hike to get to them through the forest and across a very tiny and seemingly flimsy suspension bridge that wasn't even wide enough to walk straight on with our gear.
It's hard to get good pictures as you're doing the real lines, but at least they took one on the practice line at the very beginning. Granted, it was only about 20ft off the ground and not nearly as fast but you still get the idea. I, of course, had to buy that one for $15 after the tour but it was worth it. :) I did have Lucy try to take a couple of pics of me as I went on the lines and got a couple short video clips as well.

After it was all over I was so glad that I didn't chicken out like a couple of people on the tour. After the zip tour I only had a little bit of time to explore the suspension bridges but it was wroth it! And even Tony is okay with the bridges (he hates zip lines and will never go on one again, I guess). :)

I wish I could have checked out all of the bridges but we had a coffee tour to get to! And let me tell you, after that zip line tour and the cold, wet weather I really wanted a cup of coffee!
Monteverde is known for its coffee (and general awesomeness). There are a ton of places in Costa Rica to do coffee tours but knowing that Tony's mom's favorite coffee comes from Monteverde it seemed like the best place to do it. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with the tour but it turned out to be awesome. They picked us up and took us to one of many small farmers that grows coffee in the region. The farm is only about 3 hectares (or a bit under 8 acres) and is run by a man and his three sons. Not only do they grow coffee but they grow pretty much everything else they need as well! They have chickens, cows, herbs, vegetables, honey, bananas, etc!

Of course, coffee is their primary crop and we got the grand tour of the operation. The explained the entire process from planting to harvest and beyond. Victor was one of the few farmers in his particular area (the little town was even sort of named after Tony's family - Cañitas) that was smart enough to leave the forest surrounding his crop. Over the years it's proven to be great protection and nutrition for his crop...and it looks pretty.

We saw the various stages of the coffee beans. The green isn't ready to harvest yet. Once it turns red it's ready to be picked. Each one of these berry like things can hold one to three actual beans. Two is ideal.

Once the beans are harvested and shelled they are set out to dry. Some are sun dried which gives them the darker color.

After the tour at the farm we were brough to a cafe and roasterie for a mini roasting demo and our free treats! They were in the procces of setting up a smaller farm tour behind the cafe for those that didn't have time to do the on-site tour like we did. They even had some corn but that wasn't too exciting for me. :)

The payoff was at the end, of course. We got any cafe item we wanted and I got a huge piece of chocolate cake which served as my lunch since I didn't have time to get anything after this zip line tour. And we tried the various roasts of coffee. I learned that for a high quality coffee you should always get a medium roast. Also, there's only about 30 seconds between each stage of roasting (light to medium to dark). All of it was delicious but the most interesting was their special blend that is made by roasting the beans in their parchment shell. This is a method of roasting that practically no one uses anymore because it takes so much longer than traditional shell-less roasting. But the flavor is totally unique. I made sure to pick up a bag for myself and for a few other people that I know would appreciate it. This is half of the coffee that I ended up buying on the trip for myself and for others in the states. The ones in the brown bag are the special roast that I mentioned.

After the tour we stopped by a little yoga studio/shop that I had spotted called Rio Shanti which was in the very first quaker house from 1949. I browsed around a bit, longed for some expensive jewelry, and then we headed back to the hotel to clean up for dinner. We also got treated to a lovely sunset with the gulf tucked into the background.

Dinner was at a fusion place called Trio that had some really good food. Tony was particularly smitten with the Coco Trio drink. They messed up my order but didn't charge me for it and gave me a free drink so I can't hate too much. :)
Another great day! The trek to Arenal volcano awaited us in the morning so we all made sure to get a good night's sleep for the early departure.

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 2 - Monteverde

2011-07-25T11:46:00.005-05:00

You want to go to here. This region in the cloud forest of Costa Rica is simply amazing. It was settled by draft-dodging Quakers in 1949 or so and they've worked hard to keep it from getting too populated or highly trafficked. In fact, the last 12 miles or so are uphill, unpaved and barely maintained roads that require a 4x4 vehicle. The road up to Monteverde, while crappy, affords a lovely view of the lush, green, mountainous landscape. Since those last 12 miles are not paved it does take about 1.5-2hrs to cover the distance.

At the end of that road is a charming area that has so much to offer there's no way to do it in one trip. Monteverde is Tony's mom's favorite place in Costa Rica, possibly anywhere. She would love to retire there someday and I understand why! Monteverde is actually the region and it's made up of several little towns and has a very relaxed vibe about it and it's quaint as can be. The mix of building is eclectic and the population diverse. I'm not sure I can do it justice with this post or photos but I hope to give you an idea of what it has to offer.
First of all, a primer. Monteverde is in the Cloud Forest. Only 1% of the woodland in the world is considered Cloud Forest so that in itself makes Monteverde special. It's set on top of Costa Rica's Continental Divide which, if you hike about an hour you can stand at the divide and if you go 3ft in either direction you can feel air from the Pacific on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do that this time but I MUST do it next time! When we were planning this trip we originally planned for one day to do the zip lines and coffee tour. His mom insisted on at least two days and she was totally right. There's so much to see and do there I could easily spend a week and not be satisfied. I'll definitely go back as soon as I get the chance.
Our first day was a nice little intro to the area. We got into town around noon and headed to the cheese factory for a light lunch and some delicious milkshakes. The area was chosen by the Quakers partly for it's conduciveness to dairy farming so it's no surprise that they make wonderful cheeses and ice creams. There's nothing quite like having a milkshake where they turn a spigot in the wall and fresh milk gets added to it directly from the holding tank.
After that we went to the Hummingbird Cafe. OMG. This was amazing. There are several Hummingbird feeders hanging around a small cafe and gift shop and countless colorful hummingbirds flitting about. They'll buzz right by your head and the sound of their wings is incredible. It's like a giant bee or a spoke card in the wheel of a bicycle that's going 100mph. You can get right up next to them and I've heard they'll even land on you. All types of hummingbirds come here to eatand I could watch them for hours. I took a video to try and capture the sounds and sights since it was just so cool to be there and I wanted to share it. I'll try to get it edited and uploaded eventually.

After the Hummingbird Cafe we headed to the chocolate chop and had delicious chocolates in the European style. There are a lot of Europeans that run hotels and shops in Monteverde so finding good quality European chocolates wasn't a surprise at all.

We then headed back to our Hotel, Poco a Poco, to swim and relax a bit before his mom's birthday dinner. She visits the area often and has some favorite restaurants. Tramonti is one of those. It's an Italian restaurant that is known for it's wood oven pizzas and cozy atmosphere. The food was delicious. Dinner took a couple of hours and we had a big day ahead of us so we all headed to bed after dinner, thus why I didn't blog right away. :) I did have WiFi in the room, however, so I tried to get pics posted via Twitter and Facebook when possible.
Day two coming up in the next post!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 1 - Finca Corsicana Pineapple Tour

2011-07-21T18:18:00.005-05:00

PINEAPPLES!

I'm pretty much obsessed with pineapples. I love them. I hate cutting them, but I love them. I used trusty Google to find a pineapple tour during my research for this trip and in our planning it sure looked close to Braulio Carrillo so we put it on the same day. As it turns out it's about 1-1.5 hours away but still not terrible. We got to see a much flatter area than the mountainous valley that we had been in previously. Once we were sure we were in the right area we stopped at a random restaurant called Restaurante Rancho Magallanes for lunch and it was awesome. We saw a whole chicken on a spit in the walk up bar area outside of the restaurant so I figured it was going to be tasty and simple. But then we walked into the actual restaurant, which was open air, and we found that it was located next to a pretty river!

There was a lemon tree next to our table and the breezes made little wind chimes tinkle while we ate. Tony's mom ordered me a frozen drink made with a fruit called a guanavana. OMG. Give me these every day. I had two.

The staff were super friendly and helped me decide what to get. I was in the mood for seafood and so I ordered a mixed seafood platter called Mariscada. It came with a whole crab, tilapia, shrimp, mussels, and some other kind of fish cooked in a garlic butter sauce. The sides were mixed veggies, rice, and a heart of palm salad. It was all delicious.

The seafood was so incredibly fresh and perfectly prepared. The sauce they prepared for it was simple and I know I should be able to make it at home but no garlic butter sauce I've ever made has tasted like that! Tony had fajitas and his mom and sister had kind of a mixed plate that's common to Costa Rica. It includes a little bit of everything and his mom said it was all very, very good. I tried a couple bites of hers and could do nothing but agree. So far this so-called "disappointing" typical Costa Rican food has been anything but disappointing!

After lunch we headed to the plantation which was only about 3km away. I was sure that I'd have amazing pineapples here but I got more than I bargained for on our tour of the Finca Corsicana pineapple plantation. It's actually owned by Collin Street Bakery in Texas, which is known for their pineapple cakes. They decided they were importing enough they should probably just grown their own.

Now, they have the largest organic pineapple plantation in the world. They used to be 100% organic but they had to decrease to 70% organic when demand for organic pineapples didn't meet supply. The place is really quite lovely. Considering the website looks like crap I wasn't sure what to expect! They really need to re-do it to match the quality of the operation.

The tour was cheap. For residents it was $12 and for the gringa it was $27. This included a tour of the packing operation first. We saw how the pineapples were washed and sorted on the line into keepers and rejects. The pineapples are also washed with a solution of water and chlorine and then rinsed with just water and then hit with high pressure air to make sure all the nooks and crannies are free of dirt and mosquitos.

The pineapples that are deemed imperfect are sold locally while the perfect ones are packaged for distribution by Dole, typically.

While we watched the process, our guide Michael chopped up some fresh pineapple for us with his handy machete.

We went through two pineapples during this part of the tour (keep count). Tony, who doesn't love pineapple, declared it to be "freaking delicious" and I agreed.

Tony's mom loves pineapple, too, and she had never been to a plantation so she was excited to take the tour as well. Also, when she was growing up her dad would buy the Collin Street Bakery cakes for her and her sisters and they all love them. So, when she found out that we got to have cake at the end of the tour and she could buy some to take with she was thrilled.

Anyway, back to the tour. After we saw the packaging operation which, by the way, is immaculate and runs like a well oiled machine, we got on our pineapple tour wagon and were off to the fields. Acres of pineapples with a mountain in the distance is a lovely sight.

Oh, and papayas! They're currently growing a test crop of a newly developed type of papaya that was developed in Costa Rica. They have been a success and are currently exporting only to Holland. We didn't get to try those. While we were in the field Michael grabbed another pineapple straight off the plant and explained how to tell when it had started to ferment and when it was at peak ripeness and then chopped it up for us to eat. The first pineapple we had was overripe (but still delicious) so when we'd eaten some of that he grabbed a perfect one off of a plant, sliced it up, and showed us the differences. The colors and texture of the fruit itself was noticeably different and tasted better than the first pineapple.

It was at that point he told us we could eat as much as we wanted until we bankrupt the place. :) Of course, pineapple will tear your mouth up if you eat a lot so there's only so much you can eat. I pushed those limits!

He then explained to us how to pick the perfect pineapple. Of course, the pineapples we were eating truly were perfect and were no older than 30 minutes off the plant, so nothing I get in Iowa will ever compare. In fact, the pineapples I get in Iowa will be at least 3 weeks old, possibly close to 40 days. Sadface. To pick the best pineapple you look for a round, symmetrical shape. Preferably green with just a touch of yellow at the very bottom. It should also have a healthy green colored crown. But most importantly it should have big eyes. Those "scale" type shapes in the skin of the pineapple should be big. The bigger the eyes the better the pineapple. So there you go, go forth and find the perfect pineapple. Oh! And store it in the fridge. :)

After we talked about the organic farming practices in the field and how the whole operation works we were taken back to the restaurant for pineapple treats. Keep in mind, we'd already shared four pineapples (of which I think I ate the most). He handed us two fresh pineapples to take home and then led us to a table with a pineapple spread for our enjoyment. Fresh pina coladas, sliced pineapple, and the famous Deluxe Fruit Cake awaited us. So amazing. Fruitcake has a bad rep and it's not this cake's fault. It was tasty! The pina colada out of the pineapple was delicious, and the fresh pineapple slices were just as tasty as the last ones we had. I pretty much ate half of the fresh pineapple at the table because I couldn't bear to waste it despite my tongue almost falling off by this point.

Obviously, I loved this tour. I can't say enough about it. It's not easy to get to but it's highly educational and above all else it's delicious! I'm certain I got my $27 dollars worth. :) Tony's mom walked away with three of the cakes. One that Tony bought her for her birthday (tomorrow) and two she bought for her sisters. I'm SO happy that I happened upon this tour on Google and that it worked out so well. With a website like they have and being so far away it could have really bombed.

I'm happy to report that I didn't get a sunburn on the first day. Yay for diligent sunscreen application. But considering we were in the shade for a good part of the time I can't be too proud of myself. :) I also took 242 photos on the first day. I'm sure I'm bound to have some good ones in there!

Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Monteverde. It's Tony's mom's favorite place and we'll be there for two days. Apparently we have some logistics challenges to get there since there are strikes closing some roads and limitations on vehicles with certain license plate numbers driving on certain days (to limit congestion). We'll figure it out. :) We had to rent a 4x4 for this trip or we wouldn't make it up the mountain. It should be absolutely beautiful. We'll be taking a Cloud Forest canopy tour with zip lining and a coffee tour there. More excellent experiences await me!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Day 1 - Braulio Carrillo

2011-07-21T17:21:00.012-05:00

We started our day off super early today with a 7am Rainforest Tram tour in Braulio Carrillo National Park. The park was about an hour drive from Tony's mom's house so we had to hit the road by 6am. Now, one thing I didn't realize is that this time of year Costa Rica is on Mountain Time so I was up and on the road at 5am CST. After a long day of traveling and only 5 hours of sleep morning came too soon. But with the breakfast of fruits and Costa Rican coffee that his mom had ready for me and the day full of fun things ahead I had no problem waking up. :)

When we arrived, we told them we had a reservation and they immediately knew it was ours because no one else makes reservations apparently. But because we were so early we had the tour to ourselves so we got a private tour and more attention from the guide which was great. Before the tram, we had a little walking tour to explain some of the trees, plants and animals that we'd be seeing. Our guide, Kenneth, was very knowledgeable and got us up close and personal to bullet ants, an adorable poison frog, and a giant spider. The rest of the wildlife decided to hide most of the morning. Once on the tram, however, he did point out a sloth and its baby up in the top of a tree. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a photo of the sloths. The other thing I wasn't able to photograph was the Morfo butterfly. HUGE and bright blue and too darn fast to photograph.

The rainforest tram is an open gondola that takes you from the rain forest floor up a small mountain and into the canopy so that you can see the various levels of growth of the forest and the wildlife that occupies it. In order to preserve the rain forest, Nicaraguan military helicopters were used to bring in the posts for the tram in order to disturb as little of the landscape as possible. There are 12 posts and 24 cars on the tram with a pit stop in the middle of the ride in case anyone gets sick from the height or needs a break.

The tram system.

They appear to take great effort to keep things in natural condition. The ride itself is about an hour long, so you're going slow enough to actually take in what you're seeing. Kenneth did a great job of pointing out orchids, centipedes, cicadas, and other stuff that I'm not sure any of us would have noticed had he not been with us. His English was really good, too, which helped out the gringa (that's me). :)

Tony, Lucy, Tony's mom Marlene, and me on the tram.

I learned quite a bit, but am embarrassed to admit one thing that I learned. Cashews come from fruits. Yup, they're the tops of fruits. I had no idea. He showed us a picture and Tony's mom vowed to find me some to eat. I can admit when I don't know something, and apparently when it comes to fruit I don't know much! When I was researching our pineapple tour that's when I learned that they came from plants, not trees. So at least I got that out of the way before our tour so I didn't feel like a huge idiot. :) I'll talk about that tour in the next post.

The trip back on the tram gives you some really pretty views of not only the rain forest canopy but also the mountains in the distance. I'm not sure any of my pictures will do it justice. The "broccoli trees" are the ones that stretch far above all of the rest. Oh, as a side note, this was my first time in a rain forest and on a mountain! Good start to the vacation, I'd say!

Lots of rain forest.

Rain forest canopy with mountain in background.

After the tour we hit the gift shop and I was confronted with a huge selection of delicious Britt coffees and candies including samples. I didn't get any coffees at the gift shop since it'll be cheaper in the stores but I did get a couple of baby sized Britt dark chocolate covered treats: coconut and cocoa nibs. Happiness in the palm of my hand. :)

Delicious Britt candies for the drive to the pineapple plantation.

If you're ever in Costa Rica and you are looking for a good way to kick off your vacation with an easy to get to tram tour that gives a nice intro to the area this would be a good option. For non-residents it's $50 for the pre-tour walk and tram ride.

Happy after my Braulio Carrillo tram tour.

We then had to figure out how in the hell to get to our Pineapple tour and set off in that direction. I was literally bouncing in my seat I was so excited to get there!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Welcome to Costa Rica!

2011-07-21T01:14:00.004-05:00

First let me say thanks to Delta for not sucking like Continental. All flights were on time, smooth, and well staffed. Maybe I've broken my streak of bad airline luck!

Tony's mom and sister picked us up at the airport and we headed to his aunt's for dinner. Tony had picked up a MacBook for his cousin's boyfriend and he's a chef so he made us a delicious meal to say thanks for being mules. Electronics are taxed at 100% so it's a lot cheaper to have someone bring you stuff from the states.

In addition to the family I'd already met, I've so far met his mom's boyfriend, his aunt and uncle, two cousins and one of their boyfriends, and his maternal grandma. Oh, and Roxy the sweetest dog in all of Costa Rica. She was stuck to me immediately because she could tell I love animals. Well, she was stuck to me until her mom, Paula (Tony's cousin) got there then I was second choice. :)

Now I'm in bed about to sleep with 55 degree breezes blowing in the open window. OMG, the weather is beautiful. Literally half as hot as at home! Yes, when we get to the beaches or generally out of the valley in which San Jose lies it'll be hot, but I'll enjoy the cool when I can!

I should probably sleep now. We have to get up at 5am tomorrow so we can head out to our first excursions: a rainforest tram tour followed by the pineapple plantation tour! So excited! I'll take out the real camera and include more photos in my next post. :)

Until later, ciao!

{Costa Rica 2011} - Packing

2011-07-17T22:24:00.005-05:00

I tend to pack too much. But I feel that my overpacking on this trip isn't entirely my fault. Costa Rica has roughly a million climates and so I have to pack for Fall, Spring and Summer, basically. No, this doesn't explain why I feel the need to bring five swim suits, but it does explain why I have everything from sweatshirts to sundresses. Oh well. Be prepared, right? I hope my bag isn't overweight. I bought one of those portable luggage scales so I don't have to look for 5lbs of stuff to throw in my carryon at the last second when I check in, so I think I'll be okay.

Oh, just an FYI. Tony tells me that I probably shouldn't take my iPhone or iPad with me to some places even if I plan on leaving them locked up in the room. So, I may only get to post stuff every 2-3 days. Not that I planned on being a constant blogger while I'm on vacation, but I just wanted to mention it so no one thinks I fell in a volcano or drowned in the ocean.

Okay, back to my packing list!

{Costa Rica 2011} - One Week to Go!

2011-07-13T16:39:00.003-05:00

Yes, just ONE WEEK until we take off for Costa Rica!

We have all of our planned excursions booked and most of the hotels as well so I'm feeling better about that. Now I just have to finish buying stuff I need (like a rain coat) and then start my packing pile and I'll be set. Oh, and I have to clean my house so that I can come back to a home that needs no attention. I can't handle coming back from trips to a messy house. I'll have one last briefing with the neighbors that are house/kitty sitting for me while I'm away and I think I'll finally be able to say I'm ready to go.

I'm going to do my best to keep this up to date but I'm not sure how much access to WiFi I'll have so it may be spotty.

Okay, off I go to find more supplies and make a packing list. :)

Good Stuff

2011-07-13T15:00:00.003-05:00

I'm finally taking some time to read books in my "to-read" pile and I thought I'd mention a couple that I enjoyed.

The Kitchen House

Such a good book. I heard about it on a blog post by Jenna at Eat, Live, Run and she's 100% right about it being impossible to put down. I'm not done yet but I'm loving it so much I felt it worthy of a mention anyway! It's about a little, Irish, white girl that is brought to live and work as a slave after her family dies during the trip to America. It will suck you in immediately, I promise. I'm kind of sad I didn't get it on the Kindle to read on my trip because it would have been perfect, but I'm loving my old fashioned book. Only drawback is that it's keeping me up WAY past my bedtime!

Devil in the White City

An incredibly interesting bit of historical non-fiction that reads like a novel. It describes the efforts and people involved with the 1893 Chicago World's Fair as well as the serial killer hunting his prey in the crowds that filled the city for the event. All kinds of interesting tidbits in this book! And I learned why PBR got its name, which I'm sure will come in handy some day. :) This book won't be for everyone but if you're a history, crime or architecture buff you'll enjoy it.

{Costa Rica 2011} - Countdown to Costa Rica!

2011-06-15T09:36:00.006-05:00

Just over a month until I blow this joint for two weeks in Costa Rica! I'm excited! I've told a few people I'd do my best to keep a travelogue of my adventure so consider this my first entry.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.countdownr.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Countdownr&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;;gt;</p>
As I write this, I have just over 35 days left before my trip! The handy counter above shows exactly how much longer I have to wait and my anticipation grows with every second that ticks down.

For the most part the trip is all planned out, nearly to the day, in terms of activities and day trips. There are some free days in there, too, of course. Now, all we have left is to actually book the hotels and charter plane for a few of the adventures and we'll be good to go! It's great having a "home base" in San Jose that doesn't cost us anything (Tony's Mom's house). We don't have to stress about cost of booking a hotel or whatever since we're saving so much on lodging overall.

After my issues with Continental Airlines last week on my return flight from Orlando I'm so very happy I have Delta for this trip. I've never had issues with Delta and I hope that trend continues!

I've created a Google Map to give a visual of all of the areas I want to be sure and visit while I'm there. If you go to the larger map you can see what those little icons represent. :)

View Costa Rica July 2011 in a larger map

I'll add more details and photos (of course) as I visit each of these places but here are a few highlights:

Zip lining through the Cloud Forest
Rain Forest Tram
Coffee Tour (Costa Rican coffee is the best. coffee. ever.)
Arenal Volcano (no, I won't be sacrificed to it.)
Pineapple Tour (my mouth is watering just thinking about it.)
Beaches, beaches, and more beaches!
And more!

I'm planning on hitting both coasts of the country so that I can see two oceans! I mean, when you're in a country small enough to see both oceans in one trip you really should make the effort! Besides, on the Caribbean/Atlantic side the food is more interesting and that appeals to my foodie side in a big way!

Anyway, just wanted to give a quick preview of my trip! I'll do my best to post stuff during my trip as well. :)

Can't wait to be here...soaking in the sun (after dipping myself in SPF 400). :)

Photo by Prezz

Back to the drawing board.

2011-04-18T14:06:00.003-05:00

Remember when I said that it may not be my fault that I've had so much trouble with my weight for so many years? Yeah, so much for that.

I finally got my meeting with the Endocrinologist after waiting two months for a female doctor due to some female issues that could also be related to the thyroid. It didn't go well. First of all, she had a trainee with her, a 25 year old male trainee, and I didn't feel like I should say no to letting him be there so there he stayed. Then she starts off by saying, "so why are you here?" Now, keep in mind she had to review my chart to even decide whether she'd see me as a patient so if she didn't see a reason to see me then why bother?? Anyway, without going into details I basically left feeling stupid, carrying around drugs that I didn't want (synthetic vs. bio-identical), feeling like my preferred approach of natural wellness was poo-poo'd, and waiting for results of more tests that she was sure would prove I had no issues anyway. We clearly weren't a good fit for each other.

By the end of the appointment I was blinking back tears, had my stress blotches on my chest, and wanted to get out as quickly as possible. Oh, and she said my nurse was an idiot for assuming that my increase of my TSH levels from 1.648 to 3.305 was a sign of an issue. I did end up getting blood drawn to test for Hashimotos which is basically a disease where there are antibodies that end up causing hypothyroidism. Got a call back today telling me that I'm normal. In fact, my TSH numbers are now 1.3. W.T.F. WTF, I say! Apparently weight loss and diet changes can make the number change a lot and that's what she thinks happened to me since I lost 15lbs between when I took the test and now and I changed elements of my diet.

So, now I'm back to the drawing board. She said she could test me for PCOS since that tends to show itself in similar symptoms to what I am experiencing, but based on my body shape and other factors she's pretty sure it would come back negative. Also, PCOS doesn't explain some of my more frustrating symptoms besides the weight management one so I didn't want to bother if it didn't seem to cover all the bases and she didn't think it was likely. That, and I just plain didn't like the woman. Instead, I'm going to go to my general doctor and start over. He's been my doctor since I moved to Iowa and I feel he and his nurses know me well. Which is one reason why I was so irritated that the specialist would dismiss my nurse's opinion so easily given the woman has been my nurse for nearly 10 years! If she sees something that stands out why should it be so easily dismissed?

I'm frustrated and tired of being frustrated. Maybe I'll check with my acupuncturist to see if there's anything for my issues. I had great luck with acupuncture before!

Blah.

Monkey Off My Back

2011-03-30T16:39:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted much about this particular goal because there really wasn't much to say. I wanted to be credit card debt free, and now I am! I can't tell you how good it feels to say that.

The stars seemed to align despite still not earning the same as I did in 2008 when my salary was cut due to the economic turmoil. No, I'm not happy that my salary hasn't been restored but I'm still glad that I have a job and that my salary is increasing gradually.

Anyway! I saved, managed my spending, and dumped most of my tax refund and bonus onto my balance and it went away! I've been using Mint.com for a while to keep track of my finances and it was great to see the $0 next to my credit debt. If you don't use Mint, you should! It's free and fantastic!

So, I was able to say I had no credit debt at all for a day or so. Well, that is until I used the card again for daily expenses. :) But that's the point! I'm going to use my trusty Discover card, earn a butt load of cash back, and pay it off every month. I think it's something I can stick with and I'm happy about that! Sure, there may be a few occasions where I need to break up the payments after large purchases but that can be managed. The most important thing is that I won't be carrying debt that is accruing interest. Pay it off as I go and it's interest free!

Check one goal off of my list for 2011! Yay!

Final Ultra Metabolism Numbers

2011-03-08T17:02:00.003-06:00

Sunday was the final day of my Ultra Metabolism prescription and I think that it went well, overall. I have to be honest and say that I didn't totally avoid the refined flours and sugars during the 2nd phase as I was supposed to but I'm still pleased with the final results. I've mentioned before that I ate pretty well in general before trying this plan so I didn't expect the full potential weight loss that was advertised in the book to come true for me. I was pretty much right in the middle of the potential loss ranges each week, however. My grand total during the 2 months I did the Ultra Metabolism plan was 13lbs. I'm happy with that! I hope to continue to see a pound fall off here and there, though.

I feel I most benefited from the education and insight that I gained from reading the book. I would have never gone to get my thyroid checked out if not for this book and now I've got an appointment with an Endocrinologist to discuss hypothyroid issues. That's a win in my book. I also feel much more aware of the things that I should and shouldn't eat and I know I have the willpower to be really strict with myself for long periods of time.

That being said, the experience overall has been great! I'm going to try and avoid, as best I can, the things on the "don't eat" list going forward as well. No need to go back to crappy fake foods or foods lacking in nutritional value when I know better!

Also, several friends have been interested in how I lost my weight and have purchased the books as well. I hope that it works as well for them! The positive feedback I've received about my appearance and my increased self confidence has been wonderful! I'm only a few pounds away from the goal I set on my programmable scale 3 years ago and it's a great feeling. I know that if I stick to my good habits and also work with the Endocrinologist I'll be at that goal (or lower!) in no time.

Thanks to everyone for the support!

It may not be my fault...

2011-02-15T12:25:00.005-06:00

I apologize, this is gonna be a long post with no pictures. But, if even one other person with similar issues to mine reads it and decides to learn more about the thyriod then it's worth it.

One thing I found very interesting when reading Ultra Metabolism was his focus on addressing the whole problem. That includes eating habits, exercise, supplements, liver function, thyroid function, etc. There is a self-assessment at the end of each section that allows you to gauge how your body is doing in various areas. If you score over a certain threshold he recommends going to a doctor for further testing and even gives you guidance as to what tests to make sure to get, the right questions to ask, and what to expect for treatment.

I've always been a little uncomfortable going to a doctor and telling them, "Hey, this is what I think is wrong with me." After all, that's their job isn't it? However, after reading the book and taking the self-assessments, I really do feel that I'm a more educated patient. It's not the same as watching a pharmaceutical commercial on TV and saying, "hey, I think I have that!" I think prescription drug ads should be outlawed. But, educating yourself and learning how your body could be responding to certain deficiencies is acceptable and encouraged if you ask me. So, after reading the section about thyroid issues a light bulb went off. Actually, more like a big, Vegas-style neon sign turned on.

I've often felt that something wasn't right. It seemed like it was way harder than it should be for me to lose weight and keep it off considering my activity level and how well I eat. It's been a battle for many years and I would have loved to been able to look at my habits and realize I was eating crap or that I was a couch potato so that I would have a clear cause and effect situation. But even nutritionists couldn't help me. Having regular well-rounded workout with cardio and weight training didn't help me. If I slacked off on the eating or exercise I'd balloon up so quickly it was unbelievable. And that's just with a little bit of slacking off. It's not like I went from eating quinoa and steamed veggies to a bucket of KFC for every meal. So frustrating!

For the last two years I've been very diligent about my eating and exercise. I've lost about 40lbs in those two years and it's been just by kicking my own ass. But now, as always, I've hit that point where I've got 15-25 more to lose and I'm stuck. I never make it past this point. In fact, after losing 8.5lbs last month I'm stuck again. And have gained some back. I want to scream.

After I read the book I already knew that I wanted to look into my thyroid. I knew that in 2006 I had it tested and it came back normal so despite having a laundry list of associated symptoms I wasn't hopeful. I signed up for a screening offered by Iowa Health Systems. I had my vitamin D and my thyroid checked. As a side note, did you know most people are deficient in vitamin D because we don't get enough sun exposure? I take 7500iu a day of vitamin D supplements and my levels are at 66 which is perfect (range is 33-100). So, I take a lot per day but that's what's required for me to be right where I need to be. Take vitamin D! There's so much research now indicating vitamin D deficiencies could be responsible for many ailments. Why risk it? Anyway, back to the thyroid.

As I mentioned, I match up on many of the symptoms that are common for hypothyroidism. When I got my results my TSH was 3.305 which is "normal" according to the ranges used by the lab. However, I called BS on that and did some digging and found that the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists updated their recommendation a few years ago to say that anything over 3.0 was actually hypothyroid or should be examined more closely. So, it just depends on which range the doctor/lab wishes to use. How annoying. Consistency, people! The thyroid is a pretty important little part of the body, can't we agree on how to measure proper function? I decided that I'd take my results straight to a specialists after many of my friends said to skip the middle man. I did need a referral, however, so I asked my family doctor to send in the referral and he agreed without me coming in simply based on my history with him and my struggles with weight. It pays to use the same doctor! One bit of info that came as a surprise to me while talking to his nurse was just how much my thyroid levels had changed since I last had the test. I was tested by my doctor in 2006 and at that time it was 1.648, totally normal. And now it's 3.305? That is very much no bueno. Not only is it now in the hypo range, it's a significant change from before. That is definitely something to address before it can decline further, as it likely will without treatment.

Something is clearly going on and I need to get it under control before I drive myself crazy trying to battle my weight and my body really starts to suffer. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be waiting until April or May before I can get into to see one of the specialists (I prefer a female for this). I was hoping to get started treating this sooner rather than later so that I can be used to the drugs or whatever it is I get before I go on vacation. I don't want to be adjusting to new meds while in a different country. I guess lucky for me Tony's mom is a doctor. :)

Thanks for listening. I'm frustrated and, like I said, others may unknowingly be battling the same demons so I thought I'd share. Hope I didn't scare my three readers away! :)

A Gift from the Greek (yogurt) Gods

2011-02-10T11:48:00.004-06:00

I don't have an addictive personality which is good because if I did I'd probably eat Chobani Greek Yogurt for every meal.

I recently won a sampler pack of the new Chobani flavors (mango, lemon, black cherry) by commenting on their website. We had to tell them where we'd be taken as we tasted the new flavors. I, of course, said that they would take me away to Costa Rica! The mango and lemon just scream warm weather and beaches to me and since I'm planning a trip there it only seemed natural. Anyway, I won! I never win anything, but it doesn't stop me from trying! It paid off in spades this time for sure.

Yesterday an insulated box arrived on my front step. I wasn't sure if I'd get one of each flavor or if it'd be a 12 pack or something. It was a 12 pack. Woot! I got 4 of each flavor and I had to photograph the box of deliciousness. :) I did a little dance in my living room I was so happy. The packing peanuts made the kitties happy, too, so I guess we all win!

So far, I've only tried the mango and it was quite good. It reminded me a smidge of the peach but maybe that's because it's orange. I don't know. But I did like it more than the peach for sure. Peach has always been that flavor that comes in my Club pack from Costco that I wish would be replaced with something else. The other flavors are strawberry and blueberry. If they'd throw pomegranate in there I'd be thrilled!

I brought the black cherry to eat with lunch today and I'm so excited to try it!

If you haven't tried Greek yogurt, you should. It's loaded with protein and is so versatile. Not just for breakfast anymore! Heck, just check out the recipes on the Chobani site. So many things you can do with it! I do recommend the Chobani though if you're new to Greek yogurt. The texture of Greek yogurt is a bit...different. Chobani is the one that I like the best for both texture and flavor.

Costa Rica Planning

2011-02-07T15:59:00.005-06:00

Just a hair over 5 months and I'll be off to visit Costa Rica with Tony! For being such a small country there's SO much to see and do there! There's no way I'll get it in during the 13 days we'll have there (15 if you include travel days...uugh). Hopefully I'll have another trip there after this one and I can keep checking things off the list!

After we booked the trip Tony bought me the Lonely Planet Costa Rica guide (photo courtesy of Lonely Planet) so I could try and plan out our adventures. He's pretty much having me pick out all the stuff I think looks interesting and then we'll consult his family for input. Most likely multiple family members will be coming with us on our excursions so it's good to get their opinions. And for some of these things you have to really plan out the agenda since it can take forever to get anywhere! We'll be having a few side trips where we'll stay for a day or two somewhere just to get the most out of our time.

I'm well aware that I will be like a unicorn in Costa Rica being that I'm a red head and all. Costa Ricans aren't as dark skinned as those in Mexico, however so hopefully my pastiness won't stick out quite as much as I did there! :) I will need a huge stash of potent sunscreen again, however, since Costa Rica is even closer to the equator. I'm sure I'll survive!

People ask why in the world I'd go in July when I could go in mid-winter here and have a break from snow. Well, it's significantly cheaper to go off peak. Tony paid something like $1000 for his Christmas ticket and that's how much we paid for 2 to go in July. Seems worth it to me! That and the fact that the temp in San Jose (where his family lives) is the same temperature all year, pretty much. The beaches will be hotter, but I can deal with that.

So far, I've only gotten as far as determining that I want to see both the Caribbean side and the Pacific side in one trip...because I can. And I want to make sure I visit an active volcano and as many gorgeous beaches as possible. I also know I want to take a tour of a coffee plantation and eat as much fresh fruit and seafood as possible. And I enjoy their Imperial beer as well so I'll want that...mmm. Oh, we're planning on hitting up a Cloud Forest Canopy Tour at Monteverde. So cool! Yeah, the canopy tour is the only thing I know for sure we're doing besides one or two "must see" beaches. I'm still researching and am open to suggestions!

I do plan on having an active travelogue on this blog for friends and family to see my adventures in semi-real time. Check back for updates!

Phase II

2011-02-07T15:30:00.004-06:00

Well, I survived Phase I! And you know, it really wasn't so terrible. Sure, the gluten free bit was quite the challenge and I wanted my customary glass (bottle) of wine with my blizzards but I survived! And I lost a total of 8.5 pounds out of the deal, too! Considering I was a pretty health conscious eater before this I think that's doing pretty well! 5-ll pounds is the expected for the first phase so I'm square in the middle of that. Also, I feel significantly less "puffy" now. My stomach is flatter, my arms leaner, and my legs are losing that nice padding I had around my yoga muscles! I posted my weight loss totals online today for the world to see and I had a great response! A couple of friends have ordered the books for themselves and are hoping to have similar results. My results aren't shocking by any means, but they're healthy and sustainable and that's what's important.

The next phase I get to reintroduce eggs, diary, and gluten as well as a whole bunch of other stuff in order to "rebalance" my metabolism. I'm intrigued that I'm still supposed to lose another 5-10 pounds in this second 4 week period despite adding back sugars and stuff but I guess if you're eating things your body knows how to process there's no reason it's not doable. I have to continue to stay away from the refined flours and fake crap and that's fine by me. Except for the fact that very few pizza places offer whole wheat pizza crust and I would really like a pizza!

Hmm, today was my "reintroduce eggs" day and I've had no eggs. Perhaps tonight is a breakfast for dinner night!

Phase I

2011-01-20T11:34:00.002-06:00

I'm on day three of my three week Ultra Metabolism Phase I. What have I learned so far? Gluten free is expensive. In addition to my previous limitations, I now also must eliminate gluten, dairy and eggs. Those three things are common food allergens, so by eliminating them I will be able to do a little self test for sensitivity when I add them back. The eggs and dairy, while missed, aren't that difficult. Gluten is another story. I think I spent 45 minutes at the store staring at grains trying to decide what to buy that was within my rules. I had a list of items I wanted that were part of the shopping list in my book, but I wanted a few other options as well. Gluten free items must be a cash cow. I can't imagine it's that much more expensive to produce them in the long run, but they have a captive audience so they can charge out the ass apparently.

Other than the initial shock of shopping for Phase I and trying to decide what to cook, it's going okay so far. But then I got my bottom braces on yesterday and I'm in pain. When you can't chew and you have a very limited diet, eating becomes rather complicated. Lucky for me my Google Reader food blog addiction paid off again yesterday and dropped in my lap an delicious winter soup that fit all my rules and didn't require chewing. Thank goodness.

Oh! I forgot to mention, I'm down 4 pounds! I hope it's the eating and not a fluke. :)

Ouch.

2011-01-20T11:12:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I got my bottom braces put on and also got my top ones tightened. When I got my top braces I happened to have an acupuncture appointment that afternoon and he was able to do magical things to make the throbbing in my head stop. This time, I had no such thing. I didn't expect it to be as bad since the bands were already on so I wouldn't have to suffer through that completely unpleasant experience. Thing is, the bottom ones aren't terrible at the moment. They're throbby and uncomfortable and I feel like I have popcorn hulls shoved between all of my bottom teeth, but they're not super bad. The real pain at the moment is from my upper left incisor. It wasn't wanting to turn quite right so yesterday as part of my adjustment my wire got a little notch bent into it that, when it's straightening itself out, will pull that tooth right where it needs to be. That tooth is hurting some kind of terrible right now. Apparently some long hidden tooth surface has been exposed to air for the first time and it's incredibly sensitive. Water, air, breathing...yeah, it all hurts. My coworkers are getting a rare treat....I'm silent. Hopefully that doesn't last for long.

On a mission for pizza

2011-01-14T12:03:00.005-06:00

All I wanted was pizza. Finding pizza that fit my current eating rules was not an easy thing to find on short notice, however. I've actually been doing really well in my prep week for my Ultra Metabolism prescription. The caffeine, alcohol, HFCS, hydrogenated oils, and bad-for-you processed foods have pretty much been a breeze to eliminate. I wasn't even having a hard time with the white and wheat flour limitations. Sugar is the hardest. I'm not craving cookies or sweets at all, it's just that sugar is in EVERYTHING. So, while I haven't been able to fully eliminate sugar from my diet simply because I haven't prepared all of my food from scratch myself, I am keeping the sugar amounts down to what I feel is acceptable. A gram here or there is better than a Coke and a piece of chocolate layer cake, I figure.

Anyway, like I said, eliminating the stuff I had to for my prep week wasn't hard. Until I wanted a pizza. I have a couple of Trader Joe's pizzas in my freezer and I adore them. Best frozen pizza out there, I swear. The wood fired crust is to die for. But, alas, it has wheat flour. Not whole wheat flour. Just wheat flour. That's a no-no at the moment. I scoured the internet for delivery places that sell whole wheat crust pizzas to no avail. Did you know Papa John's used to have a whole wheat crust and they discontinued it? Sad. So, I decided I'd have to go and find me a pizza some way, some how. Thing is, starting Monday I won't be getting a pizza for like 5 weeks so I figured I had to take care of my cravings or else my cravings would win the war later. Off to Trader Joe's Tony and I go to read all of the labels on the frozen pizza there. All organic wheat flour, which is great, but not something I could eat at the moment. Luckily, they do sell pre-made dough that you bake at home. They have regular and whole wheat versions and they're cheap. Only $.99 for a package that you could use to make 2 small pizza crusts. I also picked up some of their refrigerated pizza sauce despite its sugar contents. It really wasn't too bad as far as sugar content goes, especially since I didn't use an entire serving on my pizza. I'm allowing myself a few grams of sugar to save my sanity in this whole plan, it's worth it. Again, not because of an addiction to sweets but instead because I haven't had time to make my own sauces. I planned to top off my pizza with cheese so I decided to go big or go home and got some Swiss and Gruyère shredded cheese as well. I also decided I needed more of the Fiberful Fruit Leather and some other dried fruit options without added sugar. Pitted prunes to the rescue! This bag is substantial and the prunes sweet, soft, and delicious. A perfect "pop anytime" snack to tide me over if I ever do crave sweets.

At home, the pizza took just a few minutes to put together including time to stretch out the dough. 12 minutes in the oven and I had a meal mostly within my rules (darn sugar) that satisfied my very intense pizza craving. I'm planning on making this again for myself on Saturday at a friend's house in Kansas City. She's having a birthday get together and I'm fairly certain very little will be available for me to eat that fits the rules. To make it easier on myself I'm making that pizza and I'm also making some Guacamole from the Ultra Metabolism Cookbook. I'll let you know how that goes and maybe even have some pictures. This blog needs more photos!

This way of eating is actually kind of refreshing. Sure, it has limitations that make things somewhat difficult and it'll get even more difficult next week, but overall it's pretty easy. I don't have to calorie count and worry about fat or any of that. When I read the label I look at the ingredients list first and foremost. I'll glance at the sugar and sodium content as well, especially since I'm salt-sensitive. But in total, it's a pretty easy thing to do. I'm a little scared of the next 3 weeks in particular but even longer since I don't get to add stuff back all at once. I just need to get better at planning/preparing my meals ahead and I think I'll be fine. The recipes in the book and the cookbook actually look really delicious and I'm excited to try them! Now if only I could get my anti-veg, super picky boyfriend to eat this well! It'd be much easier if he wasn't snacking on Chilean 1000 Layer Cake that he brought back from Costa Rica while I'm avoiding sugar, but he's supportive and holds me accountable and that's all that matters! I appreciate it a great deal!

Oh, one quick note. On Wednesday night I wasn't terribly hungry so I decided to have a slice of whole wheat bread with some hummus for dinner. I know, not balanced...but it worked. I hadn't really had any wheat products in almost 2 weeks until that piece of bread. At 3am I woke up with the worst sinus headache! I'm prone to those, but I thought it was interesting that I got one the night after I ate something with gluten. Sinus congestion is a common symptom of food allergy apparently. So, I'm going to keep an eye on that and see if I have fewer sinus headaches without gluten and if I get them more when I reintroduce it. I'll be heartbroken if I have a gluten sensitivity given my love affair with all things bread, but I'll manage I'm sure.

Let the fun begin!

2011-01-10T10:51:00.005-06:00

Okay, so "fun" may not be the right word. Let the test of willpower and dedication begin!

Today I start my Ultra Metabolism prescription. The title sounds gimmicky, but it's really pretty simple and not full of hooey. Essentially, it's getting back to a real foods diet and getting rid of all the fake crap that our bodies don't know how to process. So why do I need an eating plan to do that? Well, the elimination of fake foods is only part of it. Lots of people have undiagnosed food allergies to things like gluten, eggs, dairy, etc and the plan gives you a way to do an at-home check for those sensitivities.

Today I began week 1, which is a prep week for the plan. Last night I made sure to do it up right and eat a bunch of stuff I won't be able to have for a few weeks. :)

Things I can't eat in week 1:

Caffeine - Shouldn't be too bad as I don't really drink it often anyway.
Processed and refined carbs (white or wheat flour) and sugar - I eat mostly whole wheat stuff when possible so this will just mean I need to be more diligent about that. The sugar thing will be tough tho. It's amazing how many things have added sugar in them! My freaking cranberries for my salad have extra sugar for crying out loud! I'm going to do my best to eliminate it completely for as long as I'm told, but I have no doubts a bit will slip in there despite my best efforts.
High-fructose corn syrup - No problem. Despite this shit being in nearly everything we buy I've managed to avoid it for the most part. I found I had very little purging to do in my fridge and pantry due to my earlier efforts to avoid buying stuff with HFCS.
Hydrogenated fats and oils - Same as HFCS. I've done a pretty good job of avoiding it up to now, but there are a few items still lingering in my house with these in them. Mostly related to baking. I'll just not do that for a while.
Processed and packaged foods - This all depends on the types of processed and packaged foods. The goal is to get as close to the natural form of the food as possible. Often the packaged stuff has bonus badness added to the ingredient list so that is what I intend to avoid. By shopping at Trader Joe's I should be able to still get some processed and packaged stuff without an extra negative ingredients. Of course, another reason to avoid it is that your body has to work harder to break down food in its whole form so processed stuff is burned faster. For this reason I will try to stick with as much whole stuff as possible, but give myself a bit of leeway by buying good stuff from Trader Joe's. I wish I could find the rumored three page, single spaced, list of ingredients that Trader Joe's won't allow in food with the TJ's label but my searches have been futile. I'll post the link if I ever find it!
Alcohol - I don't drink very often, but as soon as I'm told I can't (antibiotics, this plan...) I want a glass of wine. I especially enjoy wine with a nice dinner so this may be tough. Oh, and during days when I'm snowed in which I may be this evening. *sigh* At least I get to reintroduce that in week 5 as long as I don't determine I have a sensitivity to it!

Last night I tried to prepare by putting things together for my lunch way ahead of time instead of the morning of. This is when I discovered that my champagne vinaigrette dressing and dried cranberries for my salad even had added sugar. Grr. I figured the amount was mostly negligible so I used it anyway. I also made some baked oatmeal with dried apricots (no added sugar!) and pecans that I could reheat in the morning. And then this morning I prepared some wild Alaskan salmon for my lunch and for upcoming dinners. I portioned a 1lb frozen package into 4 individual servings. Not bad for ~$8 worth of good salmon! I think I'm doing pretty well so far for my plan for today.

Breakfast: Baked oatmeal with dried apricots and pecans. Protein shake.

Snack: Trader Joe's Fiberful Fruit Leather (all real ingredients!).

Lunch: Salmon fillet and a mixed green salad with champagne vinaigrette dressing, dried Cranberries and walnuts inspired by the magical salads at Proof and Flour here in Des Moines. I dream of those salads for real.

I'm not sure what I'll do for dinner tonight yet, maybe more of that delicious salmon I prepared this morning. We'll see! I plan to keep lots of almonds and other nuts around for snacking throughout the day as well.

Wish me luck!

2010 Recap

2011-01-05T13:53:00.002-06:00

2010 was a pretty good year for me! It was probably one of the more eventful years in recent memory, and not in a bad way. If I can continue the trend of good things happening then 2011 should be excellent! Consider this a very belated holiday letter detailing my year. :)

Two Mexican Vacations

The last post I made in this blog was about my trip to Cancun in February. Originally, I wanted to write the post so that others out there that are as anal retentive as myself when it comes to researching vacations would be able to find the blog and have another bit of input regarding the resort, location, etc. But I also wanted it to serve as a mini-travel diary for myself. It's not loaded with detail or chock full of pictures to make it a true travelouge but it serves the purpose. Maybe for future trips I'll try to do a better job of that. I may have a trip to Costa Rica coming up in July! More on that later.

In addition to my Cancun trip February, I took a trip to Playa del Carmen in June! As much as I loved my trip to Cancun, the Playa trip blew it out of the water. I was there for a wedding and the resort was beautiful! We stayed at The Royal Playa del Carmen and had a blast. Check the view from our room!

I won't go into a full review of the vacation here since it's been several months, but overall we had a wonderful time. Well, except for when I tore my shoulder riding a dolphin...or something...not really sure how it happened. I just know I couldn't lift my arm. After a house call from a wonderful Mexican doctor http://www.playadoctor.com/, Dr. Bernardo Diaz, two anti-inflammatory shots in the ass, and some muscle relaxants I was free to enjoy what was left of my last full day in Playa.

Thankfully I had good friends there to help me all of the things that aren't so easy with one arm like putting my hair in a pony tail or hauling my shit through customs. :) Oh, and if you're wandering down 5th Ave with a sling and looking pathetic you'll get a lot of offers for cheap drugs.

And yes, I managed not one but TWO Mexican vacations without a sunburn. I'm a sunscreen ninja.

House Mini-Makeover

At some point you just get bored with the decor you've picked for your house. I think I did pretty well by not changing my mind and preferences sooner than 6 years after I bought the house! My mini-makeover for my house involved new colors for the kitchen, livingroom, and stairway which I hired out since I'm not gonna rent scaffolding just so I can paint the walls to go with my 20ft ceilings in my dining room and I'm afraid I'll die painting stairs. Also, my time is valuable! I knew it'd take me forever to paint over the red walls in my kitchen and to do a good job in the other areas so I hired it out. I'm loving the new colors and the house has a completely different feel to it. Much cozier and suited to my personality.

Of course, one change leads to another and I decided to tackle my bedroom and master bathroom. I had painted a stripe around my master bathroom and that was a huge mistake. Covering that thing up was a nightmare. A slightly raised edge is still visible where I gave up sanding it down, but oh well. It's now kind of ocean themed in terms of the colors. No starfish shower curtains or anything. :) My bedroom is HUGE and I have never been totally satisfied with the decorating I had done. I quickly grew out of it (unlike the other areas of the house), but I never wanted to paint that room again. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do with it but once I had it, I went for it. I wanted to do a gray, green, and white theme. Very clean and modern. Relaxing. My sanctuary. I started by removing the head/footboards from my bed and getting rid of the attached mirror on my large dresser. I eventually want to replace my bedroom furniture but I'm not ready for that yet. Removing the parts with embellishment like head/footboard and mirror made a HUGE difference in the room. Then I painted it a magical color called Forde Abbey by Ralph Lauren (but mixed into Behr paint), got some white Ikea shelving, put up floor to ceiling curtains, and am working on a white padded headboard to tie it all together. I'm *really* loving it and am so glad I did it. Walking into my bedroom I feel myself sigh with contentment now, rather than grumble at the terrible wall color choice I had before. Once I get the headboard done I'll post a before and after photo because I'm super pleased with it. Stay tuned on that one! And, as expected, now I want to freshed up my 2nd bathroom and my second bedroom/cat room. You know, like get a bed for the guest room. Figure out where else I could put the cat box. Those kinds of things. :) All in good time!

I've found that now that I have a new look to all of my primary spaces in my house I'm keeping them clean and organized better. I want to keep them as awesome as they are now and not detract from them with clutter. I'm really happy with this unexpected side effect of painting some rooms!

Brace Face

I finally did it. After years of wanting to straighten my teeth I finally broke down and got braces. I'd always talked myself out of it for one reason or another. Whether it was that I was afraid of being the "26 year old single girl with braces" or the financial outlay, I avoided it. Well, at age 31, I finally did it. And you know what? It's not so bad! Don't get me wrong, it's not pleasant. But I've already seen results and I'm SO pleased! Only 2 months in and the changes are startling! I only have the top ones in right now so that my bite could adjust before putting the bottoms on, but those will go on in a couple of weeks. Not looking forward to the pain, but I'm eager to see results! The reaction from people has been great. I had no reason to worry at all about how people would see me. And the cost isn't terrible. The orthodontist splits the cost out over the duration of your braces with no interest. Definitely manageable and worth every cent! I'll have them for approximately two years and the time should fly by. If you're on the fence about doing it yourself just pull the trigger. You'll be so glad you did!

More Yoga!

I've been a huge fan of yoga since I started practicing it about 9 years ago. But, I often let life win the battle for my time and my yoga practice sufered. I've always known that I'm a giver. I want to make sure others are happy and taken care of and I'd often put everyone else before myself. I'm taking steps toward having a better balance in that area and making sure I'm taken care of, too. I made it a point this year to focus on me. To do what I needed to do to feel good. To that end I made sure that I fit yoga into my schedule 4-6 times a week. And by fitting it in, I really mean scheduling *around* yoga. Vary rarely to I allow my need to make others happy overpower my need to go to yoga. I figure I can show up an hour later to a gathering and we'll all be happier for it. Anyway, back to yoga! Increasing my yoga practice to the level that I have has done wonders for me. My body has become leaner and stronger. I haven't really lost weight, but I've been shrinking. I've been losing fat pounds and gaining muscle pounds and my pants size shrinks as a result. I have hit a bit of a plateau on the shrinking now, which I'll address in an upcoming 2011 goals post. Not only has it been good for my body, but it's good for my mind. I notice a difference in my tolerance for bullshit and patience in general when I don't get my yoga fix. Yoga keeps me calm and sane. You should all be glad I do yoga. :) Not only have I upped my practice but I was very involved with starting the West Des Moines Yoga on the Lawn as a western partner to the Des Moines Yoga in the Park. It went well for its first year and I hope it continues! Also, I attended the Iowa City Yoga Festival in November and it was wonderful. A weekend of yoga, friends, and self-care. I learned a lot and am so excited for next year!

New Relationship

All of the work I've been doing on myself over the last year has resulted in a happier, more content me. As a result, my multi-year dry spell in the relationship world has ended! I've now got a wonderful guy named Tony that puts up with me. :) We've been together almost five months now and things are great! He's from Costa Rica originally and we're planning on taking a trip there in July! I'm excited! I'm hoping to share the fun of that trip in future blog posts! I need to find a nice non-retreat yoga studio in the San Pedro, San Jose area so I can get my yoga on while I'm there. All part of the planning! Tony ordered me a Lonely Planet guide to Costa Rica to help plan...how thoughtful is he?:)

Hope you've all had as great of a year as I've had!

Thanks for holding...

2011-01-05T12:36:00.001-06:00

And we're back! Hey, at least this time I didn't wait an entire year (or two) before posting something again!

I'm going to try and use this blog as a means of keeping me honest when it comes to my fitness and healthy eating goals. I figure if I use this as a sort of log/journal it might be useful to someone else down the road. And, if I put things in words, in public, then I'm more easily held accountable! Not that anyone reads this, but someday someone might!

So, from now on, expect updates from me as I try to accomplish my 2011 goals mixed in with the usual randomness.

Let's begin!

Cancun Recap

2010-03-07T19:06:00.005-06:00

I'm back from Cancun and have survived my first week back to work. Thankfully, most people seemed to pay attention to the out of office message I had set up so I didn't have a huge pile of email to wade through, but I still had to play catch up. Now I can work on getting my crap put away from my trip!

Anyway, I promised a recap and here we go!

First and foremost, I did NOT get a sunburn! Diligence and good sunscreen served me well. I hope I'm as fortunate when I'm back in Mexico in June when it's much, much hotter. I actually had people at the resort on Thursday say to me, "oh dear, that sun is strong out there...be sure you wear sunscreen or you'll fry!" Then I told them I'd been there since Sunday and they were always a little shocked. I'm telling you, if you want to avoid a burn it's possible! Hooray!

Okay, back to the trip. The resort, the Golden Parnassus, was pretty much perfect for our group. We had 18 people that were all very different so it was important that we had a resort where everyone felt comfortable. It was kind of no-frills, but it was clean and the staff was great. We had a lagoon side room (329 to be exact) and while the view wasn't fantastic it was at least quiet. The pillows were a bit on the hard side but after a full day in the sun with booze I probably could have slept on a concrete slab.

The restaurants were just "meh" in my opinion. My favorite restaurant there for dinner was Sumo, the sushi place. But the buffet for breakfast and lunch wasn't bad either. The french toast with cinnamon and sugar with frosting and caramel were delicious! Also, the view from the buffet area was great.

We spent pretty much ever evening at the bar at the pool with the best bartender ever, Jose. Bringing the insulated mug was a good idea, too, because the heat melted drinks instantly and who wants to take a bunch of trips to the bar when you're comfy in a lounge chair? I spent most of my time people watching, reading, and just relaxing. That's exactly what I had intended to do with my time! The entertainment staff worked hard to get people involved and provide games and activities for the guests. We had some...interesting...experiences with them as I think we were the youngest group at the resort at the time. For the most part they realized when to try and involve people and when to leave them alone though.

We only took one off-resort excursion and we went to Tulum and Xel-Ha. Both were awesome! I'm super excited to see the photos from the waterproof camera that we took while snorkeling at Xel-Ha!

View of Tulum

Xel-Ha

So, this wasn't the most in depth recap ever, but it'll have to do cuz I'm spent! Feel free to ask me any questions at all!

Oh, btw, my camera was AWESOME! It did such a great job with all of the beach photos! I'm so happy I made that purchase!

Cancun Calling

2010-02-09T12:02:00.008-06:00

12 more days...I keep telling myself, "only 12 more days!" Seriously, I cannot take this winter anymore. Had I been in Gobblers Knob when good ol' Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow I may have led the crowd in a rush to strangle his furry little ass. This morning, my need to get out of this ever-growing snow drift of a state was made all the more clear by my iGoogle homepage. That's right...not only is it snowing here but it's 81 degrees colder than in Cancun. *sigh* 12. More. Days.

There is a sanity saver in my near future, however.

Cancun! Specifically a 5 night, 6 day adventure with 18 other people at the Golden Parnassus resort! Ahhh, I feel better just looking at the photo! It's apparently a smaller, older resort but very clean and smack in the middle of the hotel zone. That's fine by me!

This is my first rodeo when it comes to not only Mexico but an all-inclusive resort and I'm excited! I'm also worried that my pale ass will burst into flames that close to the Equator but that's why I loaded up on copious amounts of sunscreen for this trip. I even have my friends on "burn watch" so then can tell me to go hide inside for a while if I'm starting to look pink. Burn watch may be derailed by the free flowing booze, however, so I'm best to rely on my own paranoia when it comes to reapplying the SPF 100 (seriously).

I really didn't have to buy too many new things for this trip, but I got a few. I bought a new camera because mine just wasn't cutting it anymore. After lots of research and standing behind some dude at the U2360 show in Chicago that was taking sweet pictures I decided on the Canon SX200IS. I got it in plenty of time to practice, but I still think I have a lot to learn. I think it'll do a great job with the beach photos and the nighttime scenery photos that I've always had a hard time with before. And if my camera doesn't do a great job there will be 18 others in our group that will hopefully capture a few good ones! And probably some unflattering ones of me in swimwear so I hope we get veto power over each others photo sharing. :)

Aside from the camera I got a few assorted summery pieces of clothing, some camera accessories, and as mentioned before, copious amounts of sunscreen. Behold, the stash. I did some research and found that La Roche-Posay does a great job blocking both UVA/UVB and has a slower rate of breakdown in the sun. It's also kind of on the pricey side. So, I got a deal on two of those on Amazon and then got my old standby of various Neutrogena products. I've decided I'm only bringing one of the expensive ones and the other I'll save for Mexico trip #2 in June (more on that later)! I also have a bottle of biodegradable sunscreen on the way for a trip to Xel-Ha. Not exactly something you find at the pharmacy in Iowa in the dead of winter. I went with the BurnOut brand after reading several comparison reviews. Sounds like it'll do the trick without going on chalky and making me look even more pale than I already am!

Even if didn't have 5 sunscreen bottles I'm taking with me I doubt I'd be able to travel carry-on only, but it's always the sunscreen that does me in. I would rather not buy a new bottle every time I go somewhere and I most definitely need more than 3oz for more than a day of sun exposure so I'm always doomed to check bags on vacation. And anymore that means checked bag fees (bastard airlines). After having a lost luggage experience a while back I'm always paranoid I won't get my bags back once I hand them over to the person behind the desk.

Anyway, that's enough for now! I tend to ramble...I'm wordy, I can't help it! Stay tuned for the next post where I'll brag...ehm...share about my travel experiences as Mexico virgin!

Let's try this again...

2010-02-09T11:02:00.002-06:00

Clearly I have been slacking on the blog maintenance. I really have a hard time thinking that people will be that interested in what I have to say that they'd take the time to come read a blog. Most of my useful thoughts can be summed up in tweets or Facebook status updates (tho some would disagree on the usefulness of those!).

So, why start back up you may ask? Well, I'm taking a couple of awesome vacations in the next few months here and after doing my research for those trips I've found that trip reports on blogs and forums are the single most useful source of information for vacations! I figure, why not try and return the favor to the people of the interwebz and (hopefully) create a travelogue that will provide some helpful bits of info or just interesting photos and resort ratings!

I do intend to try and get better about posts in general, too. This won't turn into a travel blog! I mean, yeah I'm taking two trips to Mexico in four months but before that the only real trips I took were for work! I guess I did have a couple of fun trips to visit friends in there, but in general I don't take enough time off of work. Anyway, long story short...I don't travel enough to make this a travel blog.

Here's to yet another attempt to keep up on the blog, if only for the occasional useful post!

Freezer Meal Exchange

2008-11-13T18:38:00.002-06:00

I've always known that I spend too much money on my lunches because I buy my lunch everyday. I am not fond of bringing my lunch for two really stupid reasons: I don't like to eat the same thing all the time and I'm too lazy to prepare it everyday. This week as I watched the economy continue to tank and I started to fear for my job being that I work in the financial services industry I realized that perhaps I should be trying to save some of that money and start bringing my lunch. Every little bit helps, right? And hey, it'd probably be better for me, too!

So, here's what I did. I sent an email to my friends asking them if they'd be interested in starting a freezer meal exchange! What's that? To save some time, I'm just going to post the email that I wrote to my friends.

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Hey everyone!

So, economic times are tough and I know we're all looking for ways to save money and I know that I personally spend way too much money on lunches at work simply because I get bored too easily to pack sandwiches all the time. Also, I like to cook but cooking for one is so much harder! So, what I was thinking is that we should start a freezer meal exchange group!

Basically, we'd each make a certain number of meals (just entrees, no sides unless you're feeling ambitious). Then, we'd package them up into individual packages with some gladware or something and we'd exchange! Now, since we're mostly singles or couples there's no need to make multiple 6 serving casseroles and exchange the whole thing. I'm thinking more along the lines of lunch sized, not full family meal sized. Granted, usually 2 technical servings equal one real serving in our world so we'd make each portion a 2 serving portion. Ideally, we'd only have to cook for the exchange once a month and we'd still have meals for each work day for the entire month.

Here's an example if we had 5 people participating.

5 people
4 entree recipes each (each making 10 servings total)
Each entree divided into 5 individual frozen packages.
That means, each person would end up bringing 20 frozen packaged items to the exchange which is enough for 5 days a week for 4 weeks for each participant.
Make sense? If the interest is high enough we could work on the formula a bit to maybe spread out the work or something but this was my first stab at it and my brain isn't working as well as it should be.

I think it sounds pretty doable! I mean, how hard is it to whip together a casserole, or pasta, or a stew or some crockpot creation with 10 servings? I think I'd much rather spend a couple hours in the kitchen over the weekend making 4 entrees and packaging them up than making my lunch every morning.

What's cool, is that we could post the recipes that we each used on a blog or something along with the instructions for reheating and then we'd know how to make a dish on our own if we really enjoyed it. Also, there'd be feedback that way if a dish just bombed and we'd know not to make it again. As for recipes...I rely pretty heavily on http://www.allrecipes.com because you can pick any recipe and modify the number of servings and it'll adjust the ingredients for you, so it's super easy!

There'd be some rules of course.....
We should probably set a price per entree limit or something to keep people from going nuts.
We'd need to know of any allergy or food phobias.
Try to keep it healthyish....we don't want to turn into blimps cuz we suddenly have some good solid meals! :)
We'd need to agree on some freezer containers.
We'd have to make sure that everyone is committed to participating so we don't have some months where we have half a month's worth of lunches after the exchange....even tho that's better than nothing!
Anyway, I just thought I'd throw that out there and try to gauge interest. I know that I'm excited about it and would love to get started right away but I obviously can't do it alone. And heck, if anything it's a reason to get together each month!

Please let me know if this is of interest to you and pass it on to anyone else you can think of that'd like to participate. Also please let me know if I didn't make sense or if my calculations are wrong!

Kim
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So far I have one friend that's really excited and another that's interested but worries about having to double the effort because both she and her husband would be participating. Oh, and one that said no because she's too picky. I understand all of that for sure! :) I just hope I get enough people that are interested to give it a try. I think having a different meal every workday for a month would be awesome! AND I'd get to collect some new recipes!

If it works out, I'll have another blog to link to but it'll have multiple contributors. I think it'll be fun! I'll let you know how it works out.

YAY Obama!

2008-11-13T18:36:00.001-06:00

Yeah, this is late but I've been busy getting caught up on the rest of my life now that the election is over!

HOORAY PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA!

I'm proud to have been part of this amazing piece of history and I'm proud of our new President-Elect!

Running off track.....

2008-10-26T16:23:00.002-05:00

What happens when you set a goal to run a 5k on a specific date and everything is going well and you're feeling great? Something comes up to take you off off track and you don't make your goal...and it sucks.

Technically, I did meet my goal of running a 5k before I turned 30 when I ran the Beaverdash in September. But, I had always considered that a practice run and the 5k on Oct 19th was supposed to be my real run. Well, I somehow managed to severely jack up my hip and was unable to run for a few weeks. I just got the okay from my doctor to try running again and I intend to give it a go tomorrow. I'm going to start on the treadmill though to minimize the impact so I don't break myself immediately.

Just thought I'd throw out an update since I know a lot of people were wondering how I did in my goal race. The answer is, I did a great job cheering on my friends from the Injured Reserve bench that my friend Amy I created near the finish line. :)

I Just Voted for Barack Obama....

2008-09-30T13:20:00.006-05:00

I'm proud of the part that I've played this moment in history. I caucused for Obama in Iowa, I volunteered for the campaign, housed staffers and now I've sent in my absentee ballot for the general election.

Given the anticipated turnout for election day, I felt it'd be a good idea to vote absentee. Also, I'll be out knocking on doors or giving rides to the polling places so I made sure to get my own vote out of the way so that I'd be completely free to do whatever it takes on the big day.

Voting early or absentee is REALLY easy and you'll benefit in a few ways!

The campaigns won't call you anymore....seriously. They know when people have voted (not how you voted, but just that you've turned in a ballot) and your name is removed from the calling lists. So, if you're tired of being contacted by campaigns here's your way out!
You get your vote in when it's convenient for you and you won't have to worry about inclement weather or a late meeting keeping you from the polls. And given how crappy Iowa weather can be in November, it'll be nice not to wait in line outside. :)
You're free to help other people get to the polls or to help out the campaign in your area.

Whether you intend to vote early or not, go to www.voteforchange.com and at least make sure that you're registered to vote and that your address is correct. It's super easy to use and you'll be able to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, or find your polling place!

I did my part, now do yours. :)

Obama-Biden '08!

My First (practice) 5K Race

2008-09-20T09:54:00.005-05:00

As I've mentioned before, my goal for my training was to be able to complete (without walking) the Principal 5K that's part of the Des Moines Marathon on Oct 19. Today I ran my "practice" 5K to get used to the race environment so that come October I'm semi-prepared for the nerves, people, etc.

The BeaverDash 5K was the race that I chose as my "practice" race since it's almost exactly a month from my "real" one.

This is was my very first organized race ever. I was a nervous wreck before it started and my stomach was in a knot. I don't get nervous very easily but man, I was a freak this morning. There were 1000+ people there (we'll see the official numbers when the results are up later) and it was a flat course, as promised. Oh, here's a course map for anyone looking for it. I couldn't find one to save my life before the race until I checked in. It was a beautiful morning for a run, too.

Here's the thing though - and this isn't me making excuses...it's me trying to figure out what I need to do to improve for next time - I know I could have done better had I known better how to prepare for a run in the morning. This was the first time I've run any great distance in the morning and I wasn't sure what to eat before hand or anything. I always run at night where I've had food during the day so I have some energy to use. I looked on the internet for breakfast suggestions and I went with a Clif Bar, a banana, and half a bottle of Gatorade. Not a good plan. My stomach was already in a nervous knot before the race, then add on top of that WAY too much food and you have a recipe for an upset stomach. My goal was to run the whole thing and not walk....but I walked when I felt my stomach starting to try and re-gift the Clif Bar. You can see in my Runner+ Jog Log where I walked a bit in the run..just after mile 2. Luckily I didn't have to walk much before my stomach righted itself so that's good.

Overall, not a terrible run but I know I can do better. I'm going to do the following to ensure that I improve over the next month:

1) Make sure I don't have big gaps in my practicing. I've given friends permission to verbally abuse me or even kick my ass if they see anything more than a 3 day break between runs in my Runner+ logs. Those 5 and 6 day gaps are unacceptable. I'm definitely shipping my shoes to DC next week so I can get a run in while I'm on my mini-vacation (yes, I said shipping....I refuse to pay American Airlines to check a bag...bastards).

2) Haul my ass out of bed in the mornings a few times to try and find the perfect amount of food to consume before a run so that I have enough energy but don't have to hold back from throwing up. I'll still run at night because I enjoy it and it works best for me. But I need to get my body used to running first thing in the morning.

3) Get in several runs that are longer than 3.5 miles so that I'm well practiced so that 3.1 doesn't seem like a challenge.

My results will be posted later and I'm sure that my time will be different there than it is in my Jog Log, but since my distance was spot on in my Nike+ thingie I'm going to go with my times since I was near the back of the pack so I didn't get to the starting line until a little bit after the gun went off. I waited to start my Nike+ thingie until I crossed the start line so I know it's accurate.

I knew I signed up for a "practice" 5K for a reason!! :)

Couch to 5K Update

2008-08-25T23:41:00.002-05:00

The last time I updated you all on my Couch to 5K progress I was in the middle of week 4 of 9 and progressing nicely in my running. Well, one of the things I was doing was avoiding looking ahead to the coming weeks so that I couldn't try to talk myself out of going on days when the workouts were going to be especially challenging. Week 5 is when the runs that were scaring me started, but as it turned out they weren't that bad!

I just finished week 7 today and I'm still feeling pretty good about my progress. Now, if you do the math you'll see that I should be further than week 7 by now if I stuck to my 3 days a week running schedule. Well, the state fair, weddings, and an ingrown toenail (eew) interfered with my running and set me behind a little bit. I'm still going okay tho! I didn't run for 5 days this week and then picked right back up with my 25min run tonight. My pace was a little slower than I'd like, but really....when you consider I hadn't run for 5 days and my toe was still a little sore....I did pretty well! So, my goal for the coming 2 weeks worth of runs is to really stay on schedule and not let life interfere as much.

As was the case in the last post about my running endeavors, the podcasts and Runner+ have been instrumental in my success! The community on Runner+ has been awesome as ever and I even have a new Facebook friend out of it! I even have their iPhone app as one of my shortcuts so I can access my stats anytime (now that they've blocked the site at work...grrrrr).

I've had a lot of good feedback from this blog and from my Jog Log on Runner+ so I'm going to try and be better about posting updates more frequently than every 4 weeks! I figure I'll give an update at the end of the last week which should be 2 weeks from now and then keep you posted as I just keep on running 5K in preparation for my races.

As always, thanks for reading and wish me luck on the running! Good luck to those of you that are also working through the Couch to 5K program or any other fitness program!

Reggie's Sleepout 2008 Donations Needed!

2008-08-12T18:38:00.003-05:00

Last year some friends and I participated in an event called Reggie's Sleepout. The event is held to raise awareness and money to address the critical problem of youth homelessness in Central Iowa.

Participants gather in the Drake football stadium and sleep under the stars in cardboard structures, tents, sleeping bags, etc in the cold of November. Teams are formed to raise funds for Iowa Homeless Youth Centers and The Des Moines Area Religious Council to help combat the issue of homelessness.

Another part of this event is the cardboard structure contest. Last year my friends and I created a huge cardboard replica of the 801 Grand building in downtown Des Moines to illustrate just how much space would be required to house all of the homeless in the state. It would take nearly 4 buildings the size of 801 Grand to house all of the homeless in the state as of 2005. That's a ton! Our creation was the biggest and most impressive structure at the event and it went a long way to put the size of the problem into perspective. This year, we're going even bigger and hope to increase awareness even more.

Our team, the Huddled Masses, would love to not only go bigger on the structure but also bring in an impressive amount of money for the event by way of fund raising from our friends and families. Donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated! And if you're interested in joining our team, just let us know!

Donate to our team, the Huddled Masses!

Learn more about Reggie's Sleepout: http://www.reggiessleepout.org

Thanks for reading and an extra big thanks to those who donate to the cause!

Running...Running....

2008-07-21T20:04:00.003-05:00

The Couch to 5K training is going well, I think! I'll be starting on the week 4 workout this week so I'm almost half-way through the program. If I stick with it and make sure that I keep my workouts consistent I think I'll be able to do it.

I bought one of those Nike+ SportBand thingies to help me track my progress. Sure, I can get on MapMyRun after my runs to figure out how far I went but that's kind of annoying and it doesn't keep a history. The Nike+ thingie will allow me to upload my runs so that I can keep track of progress online. I also synced up my Nike+ profile with Runner+ which gives a little better tracking than the Nike+ apparently. At least that's what my friend Kris says! So, hopefully with the tracking, consistent workouts, etc I'll be able to easily meet my goal.

I'm also super excited because I can once again fit into the jeans that I was fitting into before I gained weight again! Sure, they're a little snug around the waist, but that'll change soon I hope! It's really a great measurement of my progress that I can fit into them again. I'm seeing my hips and thighs shrink which makes me very happy. Apparently I wasn't imagining the weight loss afterall!

It's probably not hurting that I'm also taking adult swimming lessons. I took lessons when I was a kid to get me to the point where I wouldn't drown, but I kept getting fried in the sun so I quit. Now I want to be able to do lap swim for a workout and it wouldn't hurt to have a stronger stroke in general. So, I decided to take adult swimming lessons. I feel like I've already improved a great deal in the 2 one-hour sessions I've had. If I keep that up and am able to add swimming to my workout I'll be in great shape.

I'm excited! Tune in later for more updates!

I've set a goal...

2008-07-06T19:56:00.004-05:00

...I'm going to run a 5k.

I've always hated running. It's just never really been something I enjoyed. I ran distance in track in high school but that's because I wasn't very fast and distance was something I could do, and in a small school you're in every extracurricular activity. There's also the issue of my boobs. They're not small and without the assistance of a pretty supportive sports bra running just hurts.

I've been trying to shed some weight and nothing seems to be working, so I decided to man up and try running since it seems to work for a lot of people. I know myself, however. So, to ensure I keep running, I signed up to run the 5k Road Race that's part of the Des Moines Marathon in October. I figure this gives me plenty of time to train for it so I don't die and it's in a cooler time of year so I won't pass out from heat exhaustion. Also, I turn 30 in December so it's a good goal to set for a milestone year. "I will run a 5k before I'm 30." I already paid the registration so if I go back now I'm wasting money. So far I seem to be doing okay.

I'm using this program from Cool Running called Couch to 5k. It eases you into running so you can gradually build up your endurance and so your joints don't suffer as much. Thing is, I really hate clock-watching while I work out and I know that if I had to remember which segments I'm walking vs running I'd lose track and my workout wouldn't be as effective. I decided to hunt for podcasts that would help and to my great pleasure I found some! The original is from Robert Ullrey and it's great!! It is a series of songs that are perfect for running and he pops on to tell you when to switch from walking and running and also gives you some encouragement along the way. It's fantastic. It eliminates the clock-watching and makes the workouts go faster. It's also really good to have someone come on and tell me to loosen my shoulders or run on my heels as I start to get tired.

I'm hoping this works for me. I'm not too terribly far along on my training but it's going well so far. My goal is to run the entire thing but I've heard that's rare for first time 5k runners. But, if I can do it, it'd be awesome. Also, I'd like to see some weight come off. I think I'm seeing progress but I could be overeager and imagining things. We'll see.

Wish me luck! I'll try to post updates regarding my progress as I go.

Obama '08: Next Steps

2008-07-06T16:05:00.004-05:00

Election time is coming up quickly and I'm so excited! I've never been as involved in a political campaign in all my life as I've been for Obama. I've always been very politically active but in more of a "get your asses up and vote" kind of way. Never for one particular candidate. Sure, I did some door knocking for Kerry last time around but that was for the greater good, not because I was super involved in the campaign itself.

I lived here during the last election, but wasn't familiar with the caucus process, didn't have my heart set on a candidate, and therefore didn't participate. I've always been a registered Independent because I vote by issue, not by party (even tho I definitely lean to the left). But this time around, I switch my registration so I could caucus for Obama. I went to more events, rallies, house meetings, and volunteered more than I even thought possible. I've always been so disheartened by the process....but this time it's different. I feel a real change, a momentum, and I see real potential for healing in this country on the horizon. So, I got off my ass and threw the spare time I had into the campaign. I was greeter girl at our precinct caucus (see photo in logo above....thanks www.logobama.com!) which meant that I welcomed and gave stickers to the huge number of Obama supporters that packed our caucus location well beyond fire code limits. From there I decided I wanted to be a delegate. So, I got elected delegate from my precinct and off I went to the celebration rally downtown.

Being a delegate is a long process. People seem to think it's just about casting your vote for your candidate at conventions and that's it. Oh no, my friends. You have to vote on the party platform as well which can take forever and then you get to do candidate oriented things which can also take forever. You do this at each level of the convention process: country, district, and state. At district people start vying for the chance to go to the national convention. I had decided early that I didn't want to go to the DNC, but would instead work to help people that I thought deserved it more than myself. Even more people are sent to DNC from the state convention which, unfortunately, had to be rescheduled this year due to the Floods of '08 so we had pretty low attendance. But, we got our jobs done and now it's onto the general election.

I'm doing what I can to help make sure Obama is elected. Volunteering, housing volunteers, talking to friends, sporting Obama gear, etc. I'm truly excited about the potential for this year and everywhere I go it seems like other people are, too. I'm so happy to see so many people with Obama bumper stickers, shirts, buttons, etc. I hope that you Obama supporters out there will do the same!

I'm fired up and ready to go!

Summer Music Festivals Rock!

2008-07-06T13:26:00.006-05:00

Des Moines, you outdid yourself this time! Okay, Des Moines Music Coalition, YOU did outdid yourself. But without the support of the city it would have failed. It says a lot about the the city that it'd back such a huge event in the heart of the city. It should go far toward your goal of attracting and retaining young professionals in the state. Okay, enough of the serious stuff.

80/35 Music Festival was outstanding! This 2 day music festival took place in the Western Gateway Park in Des Moines and it was the perfect setting. The big green space with the Des Moines skyline in the background and the clear blue skies overhead were wonderful and added to the already cool vibe of the event. The mainstage occupied the majority of the green space in the park, but there were a variety of vendors along the side streets as well. The mainstage was for ticketholders only but the two side stages and all of the outside events and vendors were free to the public.

Also in the mainstage area was a DJ stage that featured a variety of DJs during and in between shows on the mainstage. The diversity in the musical acts at the festival provided entertainment that would appeal to almost anyone. Jamgrass (Jam Band + Bluegrass = Jam Grass), Hip Hop, eclectic rock, indie, jazz, etc. Also adding to the fun was the people watching that was awesome due to the variety of people drawn to the festival by the diversity of the acts.

Oh, but one of the greatest things about the festival is something that other festivals around the country could learn from. Reasonable prices! First of all, they didn't sell shitty beer. They sold only beer from Olde Main Brewing Company in Ames, IA. One quick note...micro brews all day will mess you up. But it's a sneak attack. I was all good all day....then I had that one last Scottish Ale and it pushed me right over the precipice from tipsy to wasted. In talking to some other friends of mine, they had some similar experiences. Which, actually, isn't a bad thing. It would take me a whole lot of $5 Bud Light 16oz beers at most festivals to even hit the tipsy stage. The first day of the festival, I spent $20 on 6 beers and that's all I needed. It definitely snuck up on me though. Anywho, the moral of this story is that 3 for $10 beer, $1 water, huge pulled pork sandwiches for $4, much needed popsicles for $1, the list goes on. They didn't price gouge the festival-goers like most festival organizers even though with blazing sun and minimal shade they could have easily scored lots of cash from dehydrated people. The simple fact that people could afford the festival made it that much more appealing. A two day pass was only $40 and I managed to make it through both days with food, beer, and CDs and only spent $60 more. That to me is a successful event. Oh, and they let us bring in our own bottled water....smart.

Even pale redheaded people can have fun at outdoor concerts. Thanks to diligent sunscreen application, I walked away with only minimal sunburn! Not bad for someone that can fry in 10 minutes outside without sunscreen. :) The photo on the left is of me (bottom) and my friend Jess. This was on day one before we had spent much time outside, but I ended the festival only slightly more pink than I started. Good times had by all!

Overall, the festival was fantastic and I look forward to the 2nd annual festival next year. Great Job Des Moines Music Coalition! I'm excited you guys got such a huge turnout and I'm excited to see what you guys come up with for next year!

I knew I'd suck at this....

2008-07-06T13:16:00.003-05:00

When I started this blog I was fairly certain that I'd suck at keeping up with it. I was right.

It's strange. Ask anyone that knows me and they'll tell you that I spout off random stories and thoughts pretty much all day long. But when I sit in front of the PC and try to think of things to blog about I always second guess myself and decided that what I have to say is likely not interesting to the masses. Hell, it's probably not interesting to the people that know me either but that doesn't stop me from telling the stories. Oh well.

In all fairness to myself...this is true of most blogs out there. I really don't care about the content of blogs for the most part. There are some exceptions, but mostly I really don't bother reading because it's inane, self-serving, and usually badly written....no offense to bloggers out there. Mine is inane, self-serving, and badly written, too. :)

Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for not writing anything for a while. A long while. I'm going to throw out a few blogs....they may suck, they may rock. Either way, I'm blogging. Go me.

Go Bearcats!

2007-08-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again....Bearcat Football Season!

For those of you that are completely confused by that statement...let me rephrase. It's football season and my Division II school Northwest Missouri State University is kicking off their season this Thursday!

I rarely make it to Maryville for a game during the season but my friend and I are making the trip for the very first game with the new field and new lights. Should be a good time. Until now, all of the games have been day games because the field wasn't set up for evening games. The evening games will make an already electric game day atmosphere even more charged! I'm excited. :)

Yeah, being around all of the current students will make me feel old since I recently came to terms with the reality that I've been out of school longer than I was in, but I'm okay with that.

Once a Bearcat, Always a Bearcat!

Lost Luggage Update!

2007-08-14T21:12:00.001-05:00

WOOOOOOO!!! Bag located and enroute to Des Moines.

And there was much rejoicing.

I guess after they had me fill out the detailed bag inventory and saw that the contents added up to $790 (yeah, seriously) they decided they better find my damn bag!

Now, let's just hope it arrives in one piece with no missing items.

It'll be nice to have my Sonicare back!

Hot Dog!

2007-08-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to share my Iowa State Fair joy.

Yes, there are trans fat free corn dogs at the state fair! Okay, so it doesn't really balance out the cheese curds, beer, ice cream, etc that I consumed that day but every bit helps, right?

What is it about the state fair that makes people lose all eating restraint? Certainly it can't be all of the unnecessary bikini top and spandex pant combos walking around that motivate me to pack a little extra fat onto my thighs.

But damn that corn dog was mighty tasty....no guilt here!

The American Way....American Airlines, that is.

2007-08-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, the days of swearing off a particular airline are in the past. They all suck equally anymore. If I didn't have enough airline miles for a round trip with American I'd attempt to swear them off (until they offered me the cheapest tickets for my next trip, of course).

Before I take any more trips I'll need to first get my suitcase back and that's looking less and less likely by the day. Where's my suitcase, you ask? Let's start at the beginning.

<rant>

I had planned a lovely extended weekend to Pittsburgh to visit a couple of friends. I intentionally booked a Thursday departure and Sunday return to try and leave as much time as possible to play in Pittsburgh. See, I'm a good planner! The travel gods were not on my side and decided I'd certainly enjoy several hours in Chicago O'Hare much more than seeing the sights of an historic city. Sorry Pittsburgh, you were deprived of my presence this time.

I made it to Chicago from Des Moines with no problems at all. After a 2 hour layover I waited patiently at gate G8 for my plane to board. I knew that there had been weather problems in Pittsburgh earlier that day, but the weather was clear there at boarding time so I was fairly certain I'd get to my destination. Not so!

After trying to get people off the plane for 45 minutes because it was overbooked by eight with an additional three people on standby, we finally got on the plane. The captain came on to let us know that another weather system was on its way to Pittsburgh and if we left now we'd run right into it so we were going to sit on the ground (in the plane) for an hour and then take off to avoid it. 1.5 recycled air hours later we were again visited by the lovely voice of the captain only this time he was telling us that due to sky congestion over Pittsburgh all flights there were cancelled. Oh yes, let the fun begin!

The soonest the rebooking agent was able to get me on a flight to Pittsburgh was at 8pm the next day, a full 28 hours later than my original flight. Given that my flight back to Des Moines was scheduled for 7am on Sunday I'd have very little time to actually do anything by the time I got into Pittsburgh and to my hotel. So, I told them to just ship my ass back to Des Moines (at 6:30am the next morning....) and reroute my bag bag home, too. Of course, they were completely out of "distress vouchers" for hotels so I used my handy iPhone to find a room online. The only thing left was a rather sketchy Days Inn but it had a 24 hour courtesy shuttle which was important given my early morning flight.

My iPhone saved the day because there were a few women that weren't able to get a room and would have had to stay in the airport. But, being the social butterfly that I am, I had bonded with them during our airline debacle and offered them space in my room. It made the price tag easier to swallow and even though they were strangers I still preferred having them in the room with me. Turns out, one was a nudist...go figure! She was cool though, I liked her!

Remember that whole rerouting of the bag thing? Yeah, that didn't happen. It's now day 4.5 and I'm still waiting on my bag. If not for the asinine rules around what you can and cannot carry on a plane I would have carried the whole damn bag with me. My need for more than 3oz of sunscreen for a weekend of walking around town was my downfall as it was the main reason I checked my bag. Now, I may never see that sunscreen (or my Sonicare, makeup, bikini, etc) ever again. How hard is it to find a bag that's purple with white squares on it (see picture on right) amongst the piles of navy, green, maroon, and black bags out there? Please, oh, please let them locate my bag! *sigh*

Keep your fingers crossed for me as I fight for my bag and a refund on my $275 trip to O'Hare and back! I'll keep you posted!

</rant>

Thanks for listening....I feel better. Interestingly enough, MSNBC had a very appropriate article online today about improving travel customer service. If we continue to bend over and take it nothing will ever improve! If anything someone will find this blog and relate to my pain or it'll get logged in the annals of online airline complaints. Rest assured that I've complained via official channels as well.

The Inaugural Post

2007-08-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

I figured I should let you people know who you're dealing with, so here's a little "about me" blog to introduce myself.

I'm a redhead from the Midwest. What more do you need to know? Okay, fine, I'm a 20-something from Iowa and I work in the computer industry. Don't assume you can fit me into a nice little definition based on my location and profession, however. I'm about as random as they come and this blog is sure to reflect that.

My interests range from yoga to computers and everything in between. Bear with me, I tend to go off on little tangents but, trust me, I circle back eventually!

Given that I live in the political buffet of the U.S. at the moment I'm sure to have more than a few posts about my political thoughts and observations. I'm a liberal and proud of it, but I'm also open minded enough to listen to other people's opinions and take them into consideration. While I am opinionated I'm not some crazy zealot, but like any politically active person I do have my moments! If you decide to comment on my posts please keep it civil! There's nothing I hate more than the politics of politics. By that I mean the schoolyard style mudslinging and name calling that seems to be so deeply ingrained in politics that I often feel like I'm watching a junior high fight. Let's keep it mature and respectful, folks!

So, other than where I live and a couple ideas about what to expect from my posts what would you guys like to know?

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you back here! I'll do my best to keep it current. :)