I love my new home

Thank you God for my wonderful new home. I am blessed beyond my dreams.

5 more days till Christmas

Time is going by so fast I can hardly believe it is almost Christmas.  All I want for Christmas this year is:

1. For my daughter to be happy and have the most charmed and lucky life in the world.

2. For my boys Jasper and Jeffery to continue to be the most spoiled dogs in the world.

3. For me to realize that the dreams I have been waiting for are nothing compared to what really is in my future.

New Chapter in My Life

One day I want to have my own cabin in the woods. I want to buy land and build a homestead. I have been researching everything I can on it and I needed a place to keep all my information together. So I thought I would also share it too. So I am not going to retire this blog, but I will be spending alot of time at my NEW blog
The Barefoot Hippie Homestead
I would like it to be in a year or two. And then again, my friend Barb laughs at me because my retirement plans change on a daily basis. So whether it happens or not................come along for the ride. I can still have a Barefoot Hippie Homestead right here where I am. Heck, I can have chickens in the city of Buffalo now if I just got a permit. Nothing is impossible!!!

The Beast!!!!

Best thing I ever purchased in a long time! This Nordic Track treadclimber hooks up to the wifi in the house and has google maps. It comes with Terrain Simulation workouts of famous hikes all over the world like Diamond Head in Hawaii and Cathedral Rock in Nevada, my first work out I hiked the Appalachian trail. It was AWESOME! I was actually smiling and sweating. So now I can hike any where in the world and not have to worry about grizzleys, snakes, mosquito's or my dogs getting eaten by wolves. The only predator we encountered yesterday was the "I forgot my wireless router password so I had to reset everything to hook up the treadclimber" monster. What I love about this machine is that it goes up to a 40% incline so I can get a really robust workout just walking (hiking) or I can run too. Unfortunately, I had been eating really bad crappy food since I ordered this beast and it was not assembled for almost 2 weeks so I tacked on a few more lbs. But after yesterdays workout I really worked my a__ off!!! So now after killing myself, it is more incentive not to eat bad unhealthy food. Today I did the iFit workout where Jillian Michaels yells at me, I need someone to yell at me to get working out. I also am doing my yoga in the morning which is reeeeeeally nice. AND I have to walk the boys before I get on the beast. I promised them, its only fair. This thing is so awesome it hooks up to Facebook so now if my friends also have a treadmill with iFit, we can run 5Ks together in the winter in the privacy of our own homes!!! How friggin cool is that????? I think this thing is going to change my life, in a good way. And I am going to work out all winter so that next summer I will knock every ones eyes out!!!! hahahah I may even post bikini pics on Facebook!!! That will be my goal. Growing my hair long, and getting skinny, Jeffery mentioned bigger boobs.........i dunno.......we'll see.........

Is Wegmans organic really organic???

I am so proud of myself. I spent a LOT of time in the organic section of Wegmans today. I got 0rganic Quinoa (Keen-wah), organic flax seeds, organic raisins, steel cut oats, 7 grain bread....yadda yadda yadda. I am going to try the Quinoa Stuffed Peppers recipe. I had been dying to try Quinoa for ages now. I somehow think it is like cous cous which I love and I also saw in the organic bins and will add to my collection soon.... I will let you know the verdict on how the Quinoa tastes and cooks.
So any way, I love all the organic stuff at Wegmans, it is like they have an organic version of almost everything now. Which got me to wondering, just because Wegman's label says organic, is it really? Or are they becoming another conglomerate like Monsanto? Well, I googled Wegmans organic and got a ton of information. I always knew this was a great store but I never realized how great. I did not know that Wegmans has had its own organic research farm since 2007! The nagging is gone, I am impressed. There was a slew of articles to back up the phenomenally good products this store carries, from grass fed beef down to my favorite find So Delicious Coconut Milk!!! So yummy. I always feel good when I shop there but now I feel even better, and no longer have any nagging doubts. I used to miss Whole Foods but now I think Wegmans is just as good and quite equal now. Slowly but surely, I am eating better and healthier. Trying hard to eliminate high fructose corn syrup and GMO's. Sure I relapse here and there, and it is hard to know how far reaching Monsanto's tentacles are out there in so many products. I just listened to an interview about a woman who tried to go a Month without Monsanto. I did not realize Monsanto controls All cotton, All soy, its even in most Vitamin E!!! Don't know what I am talking about? Watch Food Inc.
But any way....its getting late, I will think about all that tomorrow.........tomorrow is Friday and we are taste testing something else I found at Wegman's today......Jacks Pumpkin Spice Ale, I didn't check if it is organic, (yes the yeast if used in brewing can be traced back to Monsanto.....ugh) and I will not check until each bottle is empty.....

Romeo and Juliet's - Not so much!!!!

I was craving a sweet, I said to myself, how about going to a coffee house on a nice afternoon, people watch and have a nice big something with frosting. My immediate thought was The Spot Coffee on Elmwood. But since my self imposed exile from any place past Hertel that resembles any area near the Elmwood neighborhood and all businesses, I said, try another place. A few weeks ago after garage sale-ing and visiting the farmers market, I realized that every time I venture any where in the Elmwood area district I always have a terrible experience. The people are sooooooo pretentious and full of themselves, even more so than Amherst people, who are also equally self involved and clueless. Why on earth would any one in Amherst want to drive a Hummer?????? Certainly not the terrain. Isn't Amherst mainly flat and 80% parking lots? Useless people driving useless cars but I digress.
I stopped at Romeo and Juliet's on Hertel. I asked if they have Casata Cake. They say yes, I get a slice and a cup of coffee.
The very blase' kid behind the counter grabbed the Casata Cake slice with his bare hands, put it on a paper plate and handed it over with a tiny cup of coffee. The cake still had wax paper on it, so I figured it was ok since the blase' kid didn't really touch it. The Casata cake was made with yellow cake and not the traditional Angel Food cake. I myself made a Casata cake for my husband Frank using Tina Reccioni's recipe. It was fab! This cake was not fab. It seemed very commercial. So I guess I have learned my lesson. Romeo and Juliet's looks like a nice place but nothing in it is home made. So maybe next week I will try another coffee place in the area. Or maybe I should just make something at home!
Good idea Cyn.
Well after reading this blog it sounds like I might be a tad negative and I am craving sweets.............better check the calendar...........hahahahaha

Loving my new 4 in 1 Grill!!!!

Im LOVING my new 4 in 1 Griddle! This morning we made organic buttermilk pancakes! mmmmm unfortunately I bought the Log Cabin maple syrup, with corn syrup, even tho the label said No High Fructose Corn syrup, it really is basically the same, BAD FOR U. I love this griddle because I can take out the plates to clean. It opens up flat for lots of grilling. Which I will do for our late lunch of grilled veggies, (marinate peppers, red onion, zucinni and eggplant) on chiabatta bread with goat cheese. Throw in some spinach layers too. This grill can be used for paninni also! Try crusty bread with a nice italian type meat like prociutto and cappicola and a layer of mozzerela and rasberry jam, YES I am serious, its fab. Or Brie instead of the mozzerela, brie goes great with sweet.

Oh and speaking of sweet, since we are trying to rid our selves of high fructose corn syrup and I love love love the sweat tea at McD's, I have been making my own sweet tea and its GREAT! Brew a full pot of tea in your coffee maker, I use 4 salada tea bags for 1 pot. Cool that down. In a sauce pan, 1 cup of sugar, (use the organic raw sugar) to 1 cup of water, this is really simple syrup, low heat for about 5 minutes just to disolve the sugar, I usually throw in a couple nice big sprigs of mint from my garden in at this time too. Once sugar is dissolved, I cover and let sit for 20 minutes to let mint or lemon slices infuse. I strain the simple syrup into my iced tea container. This stuff is addicting. It may have sugar in it but at least you know where all the ingredients have come from. I am trying my best to eat REAL food, nothing processed.
Better for you in so many ways.
Any way, this grill is exactly like th cuisinart Grill I have been eyeing but this General Electric is less the pricey price tag!!!

Yoga people get it......

People that do yoga get it, so it is very hard to explain to others how yoga changes and transforms your life. I don't even understand it myself, I just witness it. During the Chakra Balancing yoga, we honored our father, for many breaths I had to think about and thank a man I have not thought of in many many years. And I had to thank him for my life. Well, for most of my life I blamed him for the really not so great life I have had. Well, after that, I got a letter from his insurance company, and shortly after that a check. My father died in 1990. So yes, I thought it was odd. But not a coincidence.
Since I have been doing yoga, I have been building bridges in places I thought I had burned beyond repair, mainly with family. During the past few years, doing back bends into my past and forgiving, I get a call from my brother! I move back to the city where I grew up, I participate in family reunions, I connect with nieces and nephews.
So this recent connection with my dad. It is also to help me heal. Heal the past. So I have made peace with most of what I have had to make peace with. Except one last thing of course. I wish so hard with everything in my life that I could go back, back to when Jessica was 9 years old and change everything. I would make her my whole world, and I would work 2 or 3 jobs to put her thru the best schools in Buffalo, college, dancing classes, art classes, or what ever her heart desired.
It would be just the two of us in our world until she was 18 or in college on her own. Not alot of yoga can change that.
In some ways, I am just like my father......not proud of it

Yoga Sutra 1.I

With humility (an open heart and mind) we embrace the study of yoga.

I embrace what I will learn from my study and doing yoga. I am open to the changes it will and has brought to my life. I have already experienced drastic changes. I TRUST that what ever happens will be for my highest good. I KNOW that some times the learning will not be easy. I HOPE to crack open my heart and the shields I have built over my lifetime. I will accept if after all this, my life remains simple and boring. Earlier I wrote that the paths I have always taken were the least traveled, I always chose the really hard and difficult ways of doing things. Nothing I ever did was easy. I was proud of myself that I was so strong and able to meet every challenge. I always did what was in my heart, but it seems all those decisions and hard ways have led me only to being alone. Completely and utterly alone.
I am tired of hard work now. I just want the easy way out. Maybe live in a secluded property away from people. I think about that all the time. So I will with humility and an open heart and mind embrace the study of yoga to see what it shall bring.