Avocado Squirt Gun

I just survived for six days in 2013 without a cell phone, so at least we know it's still possible. I had to check my email on the computer and my primary form of communication was in fact email, or facebook. I felt pretty pathetic. The good news is I now have a function fancy smartphone, we got a huge dump of fresh POWDER last weekend, and the reason I lost my phone is because I went snowboarding on Saturday with Nate. About 14 inches of the fluffiest snow I've seen in years (SERIOUSLY FLUFFY) graced us throughout the day and overnight last Friday, thank you universe!!!! Riding all morning with Nate kicked my butt and we had a ton of fun finding the best (and a little of the not-so-best) snow. Yes!

Avocado squirt gun? My avocado tree has leaves on it! I've been growing this thing for a long, long time and I am so happy to see new life! The kitty ate the first buds it ever had about two or so months ago, but it persevered. And the squirt gun has been brought into play as the official kitty deterrent for plants in the window sill. She will learn, but in the meantime she'll continue to make me act like a crazy person about my house plants.

It feels great to be back in the swing of things after vacation. Classes, classes and more classes. Taking yoga classes, teaching yoga classes, preparing for yoga classes, wanting more yoga classes everywhere all the time.... I am now the Kids Yoga instructor at Studio Zenith and can't wait for class on Monday! It should be a nice challenge for me to teach kids, very cool. I also just submitted my volunteer application for Wanderlust in Stratton this summer! I figure it will be a great excuse to take a long weekend for hard work, practice, new opportunities and sunshine.

Oh right, Valentine's Day. I became obsessed with making homemade caramels for the big day.... So on Wednesday I started by getting all the supplies I needed, ingredients, parchment paper, a candy thermometer and a new pair of yoga pants. DUH. The making of the caramel was actually the easiest part. I let the stuff cool but had some sticky situations and ended up having to put it in the freezer for a flash just to get it to set enough to cut into squares. Somewhere during this process I decided it would be necessary to chocolate coat the caramels and make a variety of flavors.... About 3 hours later I had (with a few minor pitfalls) success! Chocolate covered caramels, peanut butter chocolate covered caramels, chocolate covered caramels with cashews, and sea salted chocolate covered caramels. Phewf. Last night we went out to J. Morgans and I did not cook or do dishes  :)

 

Wishing you all lots of love this time of the year! And so grateful for the return of winter...

You cannot be enlightened as the separate person you see yourself to be because that person has already disappeared, along with everything else from yesterday.
-Buddha