Monthly Archives: March 2011

Simply Despicable

*!@#%*!

Ah, simply irresistible.  How about a future filled with obesity and diabetes?  How irresistible does that sound?!

What the hell is wrong with this picture?

Well gosh, it’s fat-free and has vitamin C, it’s practically virtuous!  And doesn’t the combo of “Peach” in the name and some apple juice concentrate way down on the ingredient list mean that it counts toward my daily fruit intake?

Grrrrr.

I won’t even comment on the religious propaganda at the bottom.

On brighter notes, I am glad that last nights storm didn’t take all of the cherry blossoms from my yard.

And I’m embarrassingly pleased that I finally found the perfect lemon juicer for my morning hot-lemon-and-water.

Sometimes the simpler the better.

And I am grateful for patients who bring us whole wheat rolls straight from their oven…even if, after chomping two of them, they tempted me to go for thirds all afternoon.

My kind of simply irresistible?  The lure of growing a nutritionally superior food right at my kitchen sink…

Black quinoa sprouts.

I’m off to watch my garden grow clean the house and throw the kettlebell around but first I have a question for all you mom’s out there.  A “family choice” question ;). Do you think some kid’s are destined to be picky eaters or do you think that tastes develop based on their environment.  Nature or nurture?

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Filed under food, gardening, workouts

Pleasureables

Have you ever wondered if there is any method to my posting madness?

If not, good!  If so, here’s the deal.  Gracefulfitness is still a baby blog, well maybe a toddler, and we (eh hum, the blog and I?) are still figuring out our groove.

Over the last month or two I have gotten into a schedule of Monday-Friday morningish posts most weeks.  Occasionally, like yesterday, the day flies by without a post.  When this happens I usually post on Saturday or Sunday.

Yesterday flew by with a mix of business (taxes!) and pleasure.

On the pleasure front I ended up in a private yoga session.  I was the only student in a lunchtime power vinyasa class and loved getting extra hands-on assists.  There’s nothing like having someone watch you “vinyasa” to enhance your awareness of every inch of your body!  It made me hyper-aware of a few bad/lazy habits that I have, which I will attempt to reverse.

Another pleasure was finally getting a homemade flavored yogurt right.

Coffee!

I’ve been making my own yogurt since the fall.  Although I prefer the tanginess of plain yogurt most of the time, occasionally it’s fun to have a flavor and one of great things about homemade flavored yogurt is being able to control the sugar.

Sadly, most of my flavor attempts have been fails.  Remember chocolate and peanut?  Ginger and vanilla are winners but a little boring.

Coffee yogurt turned out just how I imagined.  I added a spoonful of instant decaf coffee, a splash of vanilla, and a stevia packet to two of my little yogurt maker jars and let it work it’s magic.

And magic is what it worked. 🙂  Creamy, slightly sweet, and just the right amount of coffee flava.

The real pleasure of the day was a low-key and lovely dinner with great friends.  I love a casual dinner “party” mid-week, especially as the days get longer and the temperature warms.

After arriving to Matt and Kath’s by bike we were greeted with tasting notes and score sheets.

Matt is an awesome home-brewer and beer aficionado.  The flavor of the evening was Hefeweizen and featured a blind taste between three bottled brews and Matt’s homebrew.

[KERF]

[KERF]

After lots of sniffing, sipping, and noting the beers were revealed.

My favorite?  A spicy and sweet brew from the world’s oldest brewery.  I am not a hefeweizen fan but matt helped my appreciate the subtler qualities and characteristics of this type of beer and I could actually see enjoying more of it in the future.

One more pleasure to leave you with.

Babies!

No (sorry Mom 😉 ), not that kind.

Now if we can only get rid of the groundhog…

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Filed under gardening, workouts, yoga