Under a Red Roof

Jimmy Fallon Campaign – Week Two!

October 18, 2010 in Admiring, Making, Practicing by Colleen | 5 comments

Hello Everyone! Hello Jimmy!

Welcome to the second installment of my campaign to be a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, further showcasing my talents and interests. Have I also mentioned that I am house trained and eat very little? You’ll notice the improved video quality (the sound actually matches my mouth!), though Milo the cat is ever determined to have his voice heard. It is election season, after all, and just so you know, I am by no means shirking my civic duty with this campaign. Voting is important! The only disappointing bit is that my scan of the painting I made turned out uber-creepy (watch the video if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and not at all blog worthy. Sigh. Hopefully I can remedy this before next week.

Be Well –

Colleen

Tags: Jimmy Fallon

On Yoga

August 27, 2010 in Admiring, Being, Practicing, Spotlighting by Colleen | 3 comments

As many of you know, from this space and my life in the physical world, I practice yoga. What initially began as neat way to get exercise has become a deeply invigorating physical and spiritual practice. By God’s (or maybe Buddha’s or Shiva Nataraja’s) grace, I have the privilege to be led through asanas that bring me closer to what I believe is most important in this world: body, mind, and spirit connecting and strengthening, not just within me, but to human consciousness, and all that lives, breathes, and moves. As a result, I have changed. I am more integrated, physically stronger yet softer, more understanding, caring, and connected. I still have a long way to go, but the journey, with yoga, is far more joyous and centered.

At the center of this is Shiva Rea. I have had other teachers, but none has inspired me or encouraged me to continue as she has (despite never having met!). Were it not for the discovery of the brilliant Yoga Shakti DVD more than five years ago, I don’t know that I would still be practicing. It’s not only Shiva’s way of teaching, of leading, but the steady evolution of her yoga, rooted in the ebb and flow of life, not to mention those fabulous matrices that allow me to mix it up according to my needs and time.

These four DVDs are my favorites and are the foundation of my practice. They are challenging, fun, beautiful, and as ever changing as I am. Difficult one day, a breeze the next, they enable me to be exactly where I am and embrace it.

As for each video – Yoga Shakti is closest to what I would call a traditional vinyasa practice. I think, too, if you are new to yoga, it is the best place to start, as she offers some basic postures and forms. As you progress, it can be very challenging, too. Even after more than five years, I can, by no means, complete all the postures as shown. Shiva is strong and incredibly flexible! My goal is to have this video mastered in 2013. The body and mind open slowly, over time.

Trance Dance – I’ve written about this before, and my love for it is simple. Dance! Invigorating, fluid, sacred, and totally fun!

Daily Energy – I was so jazzed when she made this DVD! Sometimes I don’t have a lot of time. With this video, I can have a complete practice in as little as twenty minutes, which is pretty awesome. Since it also has a yoga matrix, I can make it a whole lot longer, add some core work, forward bends, and a complete shavasana, too.

Creative Core + Upper Body – Though the practice is centered around 108 push-ups (not all at once – thank goodness!), it is definitely not just for the upper body. The legs and core get a terrific workout, too. Speaking of the core – in all of the DVDs except Trance, she offers core cultivation in very creative and fun ways. I’d never seen or felt anything like it – very good! Oh, and this one is also pretty short, running at 35 minutes.

Tags: Shiva Rea, Yoga

October Sky

October 7, 2009 in Cooking + Baking, Decorating, Eating, Exploring, Gardening + Nature, Practicing, Shopping by Colleen | 5 comments

So, I’ve got quite the hodgepodge for you today. First off, isn’t this a gorgeous sky? It was like the heavens couldn’t make up their mind, sweet, soft, and ethereal pink or menacing grey. A bit like me, sometimes I just can’t decide.

Take, for instance, my sugar addiction. One moment I am not at all interested in eating one more bite of it, and I get a little haughty, feeling, “Oh, I’ve really licked it this time!” Then, I drive by Pix, pull over the car and eat half of a St. Honore before I am dumbstruck by what is happening. Shoot! As for this very moment, I am feeling, more than anything else, like I need to let the obsession go. I am a pretty healthy person, all things considered, knocking on wood, etcetera, etcetera. Why fret about it? My cravings ebb and flow, like a river or the sea, just let it be.

Speaking of being and the flow of the sea, today my yoga practice involved a new, and rather exciting video (at least to me – it’s been out for a while) Shiva Rea: Yoga Trance Dance. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned that I LOVE to dance, in a crazy, unscripted, primal, and occasionally, um, nutty, kind of way, really taking the rhythms to another plane, both physically and mentally (quite unlike my graceful ballerina friend Mara). Thankfully, this DVD fully embraces these qualities, really engaging the practitioner in a dynamic and energizing flow, riding the waves of grace, energy, and movement. I highly recommend it.

Now, a bit more of the sea, in a shopping and decorating note. How about this painting gracing our bedroom? There used to be a poster of an old map of Paris, but we had grown tired of it, and then I got, in a semi-paranoid state, to thinking that if the big earthquake comes while we are in bed and knocks it off the wall, we’re goners. So, the other day at the Goodwill Bins, I found this. It is an original oil painting by H. Walker. I know nothing of this person, but bless his or her heart, the sea is right, and I got a bargain that will not kill me, my precious spouse, or cats, all for $20, including the frame. Not bad, not bad at all my precious peeps. Now if I could center the bed under the painting, my anal-retentive self would be super happy. One thing at a time…

Finally, the last of the summer tomatoes. We’ve had quite the season around here – I canned nine pints, made a big batch of Spicy Tomato Chutney (Zowie – I posted this recipe one year ago TODAY!), and eaten and eaten to my heart’s content. These are the Sungold cherry variety from our rather prolific vines. I sliced them, sprayed them with olive oil (using our refillable pump – love this gadget), followed by a sprinkle of salt, and two hours at 200 degrees in the oven. With my instructions, because I didn’t want to stop watching the news and get off the couch (sometimes I refuse to budge), the hubster made this pasta dish. Easy, delicious. Why don’t you try it? This serves two and is yummy!

Pasta (we used brown rice fettuccine, as we avoid wheat when we can)

1 handful pine nuts

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

3-4 fresh sage leaves, sliced fine, as in a chiffonade

1 handful raisins

1 large handful of sun or oven dried tomatoes

salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste

While your pasta is cooking, toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet until light brown, shaking the pan to evenly brown. Set aside. Add butter and olive oil to pan, bring to a slow bubble, add the sage and raisins, cooking until the raisins puff a little, add the tomatoes and gently stir, just until warmed through. Once your pasta is finished, toss everything together. Season with salt, fresh ground pepper, and red pepper flakes.

If you have some green tomatoes left in the garden, fry them up! We sliced ours to about 1/4″, dipped them in Ener-G egg replacer (regular egg will do), dredged them in brown rice flour (more crunch, but wheat will do), corn meal, salt, and pepper, and fried in enough sunflower oil to cover the bottom of the skillet. Fry until golden on each side and voila, yummy (I can’t find the photo, sorry).

What a day! Enjoy yours.

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Decorating

One Word

September 9, 2008 in Learning, Practicing, Thinking by Colleen | Permalink

The pen is mightier than the sword, so they say. But that mightiness, when one thinks about it, has very little to do with the pen. Words are the real source of the power. Though many of them look rather pedestrian, when brought together with skill, they can topple even the most worthy opponent, win the heart of a beloved, or make a Madeleine jump off the page and into the mouth of the reader.

Think of the first potent word most of us learn, two simple letters, placed side by side. N-O. No. A small utterance. It doesn’t look like much, but it speaks volumes. We hear it and are brought to attention.

Another powerful word discovered early in life is mine. Though we are tiny when we come to know it, it gives us our first taste of wealth and power. This teddy bear is mine. Those blocks? Mine! These dolls? All mine, mine, mine! So exciting!

Until recently, I had thought I’d reached a sort of plateau with words. Even when I learned a new one (coming soon – to this very post!), the excitement wore off rather quickly. Ho hum, yes, another word. I’ll put it in the files, find a good use for it, and be off on my merry way.

Well, gentle readers, imagine my surprise when I started using an old and somewhat faded word to dizzying effects, lightening the burden of some very cumbersome thoughts. Sound the trumpets because here it comes!

** Sometimes **

Sometimes? Really? Yes, really. Look:

I abhor the solipsistic (the new, dollar word) nature of my blog – sometimes.

I am terribly lazy – sometimes.

The world is an awful place – sometimes.

Election coverage is so annoying – sometimes.

I am so negative – sometimes.

Ahhh, it just feels better, doesn’t it? Thanks to my not-so-new, favorite, dime-store word, I am turning frowns upside down, am less quick to anger and frustration, and generally happier – most of the time. Try it, and see if it doesn’t work for you, too.

Cat as Teacher

August 26, 2008 in Learning, Practicing, Receiving by Colleen | 1 comment

Ahh, the Little Man. A few weeks ago, he hurt his right back hip pretty badly. Who knows how, he gets into all sorts of mischief. Anyway, the cutie was gimping around the house, a source of mirth, wonder, and sadness. Why? Well, sometimes, he would be in so much pain that he thought something else was causing it (a ghost maybe – we need Ghostbusters!), and, in his mind, thought that if he hissed at the offender that the pain would go away. Sadly, it didn’t.

So we decided that a little indoor R & R was just what he needed to heal his wound. The problem was that after a couple of days, he really wanted to go outside, pleading at the back door, scratching at the glass, or otherwise laying in prostrations that made it easy for him to trip us and exit. So, thinking, golly, if he wants to go out this badly, he can’t be in that much pain, we let him go.

We were wrong. The gimp got worse and he hissed at the invisible entity more and more. Lesson learned. He could not go outside, no matter how much he pleaded or tried to trip us on the way out the door. It took ten agonizing days of him meowing his little heart out, and me cuddling him as I left, giving him variations on these words of encouragement:

“Your body is healing Little Man. You’ve got to stay inside until you quit hissing at yourself.”

“I know this feels like punishment Doodie, but Mama loves you and wants you to get better, so no matter how much you meow, you cannot go outside.”

“A few more days of inside time and you’ll be right as rain my sweet boy.”

The funny thing was, as this cat healing was going on, I was going through my own struggle with my cleanse. Boy did I want some sugar! Gimme! Gimme! So I made some rice pudding with coconut milk and added sorghum and brown rice syrups to sweeten it because this wasn’t cheating. It wasn’t cane sugar.

You bet I ate that pudding up, gobble, gobble, gobble, and, like Milo being let out too soon, I got sick. I felt like the guy in the Alka-Seltzer commercial, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” My tummy went topsy-turvy and I wished and I wished that I hadn’t eaten it.

Then I looked at Milo, curled up at my feet, and realized that it was like the first time I let him out. Message received. So, not surprisingly, I’m talking to myself now:

“Your body is healing, Colleen. You can’t have those sweets until you are all better. Even then, just a little.”

“I know this feels like punishment sometimes, but I want to feel better, so now matter how much I want a sweet, I cannot have one.”

“In four more weeks, you’ll be right as rain. Then you can have a little sugar.”

I guess it is just one of those times of grace. The Little Man got hurt so he could teach me about my own healing. Thanks, Boo, Mama loves you, too.

Tags: cats