Time to Ketchup

I actually meant time to catch up but if I went with that title then I couldn't have used a big picture of a bottle of ketchup as filler. I know I haven't written anything in a while so today's blog is just a little of everything that's been going on these past few weeks. In absolutely no chronological order. 


First, I have to tell you about hot yoga last night. It was like I had an out of body experience. Or more like an 'in somebody else's body' experience- I was so flexible and actually was one of the good ones in class! Normally I'm the token fumbler who can barely touch my fingertips to my shins; you know, the person you want to sit next to to make yourself feel better. But last night, after a week off because of a cold, I tried the Power Yoga-Pilates Fusion class, which concentrates more on building strength than regular yoga. 




While I'm waiting for class to start, the instructor knows everybody else so it's clear that these people attend on a regular basis so I set up in the front corner by the wall to try to not be so noticeable but halfway through, I almost dragged my mat next to the instructor's because I was on fire and obviously everyone else could benefit from my mastery of the subject. 


They must have had the heat set to Gumby because no joke- I could put my hands flat on the floor while standing, I could lay my body so flat my head touched my knees, and I could do every advance pose that she whipped out. 


After about halfway through, the instructor is starting to recognize my superior abilities and every time we start a new pose, she'd say, "And for those of you who find this too easy, you can try this more advanced position," and here we'd exchange knowing glances, like "we'll pretend like this next pose is hard for us but we're just doing it so that everyone else doesn't feel too bad about themselves but we both know we are super-awesome". Or something like that. Even thinking about it now still baffles me. I'm thinking there are two possibilities for this phenomenon: 


1. Because of my severe lack of physical activity, my muscles have actually taken on a jelly-like quality and were therefore much easier to stretch once heat was applied.


2. This was a one-shot deal from my body so that I could see what would happen if I actually DID exercise on a regular basis, but for now it will never happen again. 


I'm pretty sure that the next time I go back I'll return to being the token doofus party favor of the class. But man, it was nice while it lasted!

Here I am!

In the meantime, work has got me thinking twice about VaVaVaVoom. After a friend of mine gave me a good talking to (your in your mid-thirties, do you really want to work at Taco Bell when you're forty? No? Then get your ass in gear), I really thought about it and quite honestly, if I devoted as much time to my job that I do to sewing, I could be CEO in five years! It was like it was suddenly crystal clear. It was my 'no duh!' moment. While I was pondering all of this, I made all my listings in my store inactive.



That lasted about two days. Not that I've changed my mind about devoting a little more time to my career, but I just couldn't stand to have my Etsy storefront empty. So in a stroke of brilliance, I decided that I would list my items but I'd put that I have an eight week production time, which would put me past Halloween! It's genius! Two hours later I got a Paypal ping on my phone- I got an order. I picked up my phone, read the order, and let out a slow-motion "Fuuuuuuuddddggge" a la A Christmas Story. But just like in the movie, I didn't say fudge. I let out the mother of all curse words because my super ultra brilliant idea had backfired almost immediately. 


At first I read the order and thought, "Hey, it's not so bad, it's just Snow White!". Then I read the note. It's from a woman I had started a conversation with a while ago and she wants the shirt in an Ariel style for her daughter's birthday party. By next week. I just cried quietly at my desk for a few hours. Oh, and then I took another order for an actual Snow White shirt. Stupidity knows no bounds.


But on a good note about my store- I might have help! I don't want to jinx it, but I'm meeting my potential favorite person in the whole world tomorrow after work. She's going to give the Alice in Wonderland shirt a go since it's not needed until the end of October and if she doesn't catch on that we only make about fifty cents an hour, then she'll start picking up the overflow! Which will be everything! Woohoo! I told her all about the shirts I've made and the ones I want to make, and she didn't hang up on me! And since Bobby met her through church, I'm not too concerned about her stealing my ideas and opening up her own store. Plus I told her that I don't want anyone who's going to steal my ideas and open their own store. So keep your fingers crossed! I might be on my way to becoming a real sweatshop owner!


Oh, and in case you didn't see on Facebook, I revamped the Mary Poppins shirt so that it was more streamlined for running and I gotta tell ya, that shirt is hot. As in sexy hot. If I didn't like my client so much, I would have claimed that one of the animals had explosive diarrhea all over it and given her a refund and kept it for myself. I LOVE how this shirt came out! With the ruffles and the corset, you can't help but feeling like you're the shit when you're wearing it. I am so excited that this weekend at Disney, two women are going to be wearing my shirts while running the half marathon! I'm so excited I could run a marathon myself! Or an eighth of the way around the block! You know, whichever. 


And after only one short month, I finally put buttons and button-holes on the jon jons mom made for me (I'll be sending my list of critique later, mom) and got them listed on Etsy. This is the first time I'm actually excited about the damn things! I'm hoping they sell quickly so that the sweatshop factory SE (Southeast) can get busy again. That Tennessee welfare only goes so far!


That's it for now. I will try to get back on a blog schedule because I really like writing. Sure, I might be writing more about trends in healthcare but hey, that can be fun too, right? Till next time! Thanks for coming back!

Pan-Sauteed Rosemary Chicken with Caramelized Onions & Carrots

Please pardon anything too off the wall today. I'm on a Nyquil-Dayquil bender and I'm just trying to do something productive during the two hours a day I'm awake. I attempted to work a half day but after five minutes on the phone with my co-worker trying to explain why I couldn't plug my monitor in and he spent another five minutes explaining yes, it would work, I just had to turn the plug over, I decided that maybe I should just go back to bed. So I did. 


I originally posted this as just a link but now that I've made this recipe, I wanted to repost the blog as a whole so that you don't miss any of Eva's awesomeness. Background about Eva; she was born in Italy and her mom cooks the most amazing food and she's taken after her. And she looks like a supermodel but I promise you won't be able to hate her for that after you've tasted this chicken. 


Here's her original post from her blog, Layla Lounge, named after her puppy. I've added in my own notes and pictures after the recipe and even a recipe for the salad I made to go along with it. Do yourself a favor and make this dish to impress someone you love!




How to get your husband home from a softball game

You make good chicken, send him a picture with the quote...

"It's getting cold honey!!"

So easy you can't mess it up. Only five (5) ingredients: chicken, extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 sweet onion, one (1) carrot and three branches of fresh rosemary.

So this is how I started this delicious meal: I got home from work at the same time my husband was leaving for his Thursday softball game with the boys. I had chicken in the fridge ready for cooking so I stayed home.  I started by grabbing my handy kitchen scissors and headed outside in the rain soaked back yard. My sliding glass door has not been opened for at least a couple of weeks because of the monsoon we've been having. I slide the door open and a fluorescent green spider jumps out of nowhere to pulls a Charlotte, and at eye level, waves all it's eight little hands and says hi. If you know me and spiders then you know my reaction. All at the same time, my right leg gets knocked over from under me an my dog is in the yard. DAMN IT! 

One arachnoid murder, two large muddy holes, a back yard game of catch me if you can and a dog with digested mouthfuls of dirt; I resort to my secret weapon. One large, thick, juicy, fresh deli turkey slice. She knew why it was there and she was not ready to come in. I placed it on the floor inside my kitchen and got behind her. Paranoid and panting, Layla couldn't stand it anymore, she inched closer and I finally cornered her. I pushed her in and shut the door behind her.

OK, so... Back to the first ingredient: I used my scissors to get three branches of fresh rosemary.

And OOOoooo look at what this rain is doing to my basil!!  I kept looking back and forth thinking, basil or rosemary, basil or rosemary. I stuck to the plan.

The rest is easy. I used chicken thighs because dark meat has so much flavour and the skin keeps the meat juicy while is cooks. I cut up 1/4 of a large sweet onion in slices (about 1/8 inch thick, if cut thinner they burn too easy), and did the same with the carrot. I sauteed them in a two inch thick pan with extra virgin olive oil. I never measure so just put enough to cover the bottom but not so much that they are swimming. They'll never cook that way.

My secret about sauteing onions is that you really can't walk away. Just stir occasionally so they don't burn or stick. The onions are ready when they begin to smell delicious and become translucent and soft. I placed the burner on a little higher than medium for the whole recipe. The carrots are really easy to cook, if you just pay attention to the onions, the carrots will be ready at the same time. Then take all the leafs off the rosemary branches and add to the mix, sprinkle a little salt and fresh grated pepper on the chicken and place them skin down atop the mixture.

Now you can walk away. For just a little bit. Pour a second glass of wine... If you're reading this blog, I know I didn't have to tell you to pour the first one. I on the other hand, didn't plan this, so I took a sip of my soda.

Don't touch the chicken until the skin is a nice golden crunchy brown. At that point the chicken is half cooked. You can peek to check for the color but don't turn until ready. You'll know it's ready when the chicken is not sticking anymore. Then when it's ready to turn, you'll want to stay by the stove and turn it often so you keep the chicken nice and tender. I kept on moving the mixture under the cooking chicken. And voila' chicken is done!!

If you don't have a favorite go to side item I have two suggestions. This easy, breezy, chicken recipe is paired really well with sweet potato fries or a simple veggie mix.

 - Sweet potato fries: cut one potato per person into strips. Sweet potatoes are really hard so use a really good knife. If you don't have a really good knife; go to the store, buy two, keep one and bring me the other. I don't have one either! Place the sweet potato strips on a metal cooking sheet with chipolte seasoning, pepper, salt, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and roll them around to spread the mix. Don't use wax paper, save the wax trees. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 420 or till Crispy:) YUMMMM!!!!!!!!!!! You can even pan fry these if you want, but they will smoke up your house so I don't recommend it.

- Veggie mix: in a medium pot mix frozen pearl onions (every time I see one cooked I think of Donald Duck's butt in the Three Caballeros), peas and veggie medley (corn, peas, green beans...) pinch of salt, a little extra virgin olive oil and cover with filtered water. Start cooking this first before the chicken. Cook at a little above medium with no cover, by the time the chicken is done this should be ready to eat also. Make sure the water does evaporate completely while cooking. You can add more water but do allow to evaporate by serving time. If you are not scrunched for time, you can start this recipe by sauteing some sweet onions in extra virgin olive oil then add the ingredients listed above and cook at a lower setting for about 1 1/2 hours. You might need a little more wine if you cook it this way.

Then 5 minutes before sitting down to eat, take picture, text to hubby and wait. He'll be home in a Jiffy:)

(Then take picture post on facebook and get requests for recipe:)

Enjoy Girls!!! Let me know how it comes out!!!

Notes from Anna:

Since this was my first time making the recipe, I thought I'd add in a few pieces of advice that I found out as I went along:

~ My carrots were small so I used two of them but once I was finished, I wished I'd used four since they were soooooo gooooood! And I usually avoid cooked carrots like ebola. And you can see from my pic that the pan wasn't crowded so I could have fit in four.

~ I used red onion because I needed red onion for the salad recipe and it turned out great.

~ Use chicken thighs with the bones still in. This will take a little longer to cook (about 20 - 25 minutes) and it'll be hard not to gnaw the pink flesh from the bones once the chicken is about halfway done, but hold out, it'll be worth it!

~ I added in a little more EVOO before adding in the chicken but the chicken skin will produce a lot of fat so I ended up with too much. So don't do that. Also, the chicken takes so long to cook that you don't have to cook the onion and carrot that much before adding in the chicken because there will be plenty of time for it all to cook together.

Once we started eating this, Bobby said this was a real treat, which is sad in a way since eating chicken and a salad probably shouldn't be considered a treat but I agreed that this particular chicken was exceptional and definitely company-worthy. Since I don't usually make rice or potatoes with dinner, I made this salad to go with it instead (recipe from Publix) and it was PERFECT together. But this makes enough salad for four so it's a LOT of salad. Here's the recipe:

Chickpea Artichoke Salad

1/2 can canned quartered artichokes, chopped

1/2 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and coarsely chopped

1/4 red onion, finely chopped

1 bag arugula leaves (4-5 oz)

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil (I only used 1/4 cup because I don't like that much oil)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon fresh pepper

Combine first 4 ingredients. Whisk last 4 ingredients together and mix with salad mixture. Let sit in refrigerator while chicken is cooking so the flavors can meld. Enjoy!!!

Today I decided that my camera needed a good scrubbing!

Get on in here, Canon!

I was swimming some laps during lunch and I saw my nice camera by the side of the pool, where I normally keep it, and thought, "When was the last time I gave my camera a good scrub down?". And since I was already in a large body of water, I thought I may as well take advantage of the situation. So using the pool brush and a chlorine tab as soap, I gave my camera a nice soak and went to work cleaning the body and lens until they were sparkling. When I was happy that I got into every nook and cranny, I laid the parts out on the pool deck to dry. I can't wait to use my new, super-clean camera and lens!

I love it when it has that new-camera smell. I think it's the chlorine tab that does the trick.

I'm ready for my close-up...

Okay, even though I lack common sense, even I'm not enough of a dumbass to do that to my camera. But since I posted on the National Enquirer of the internet (Facebook) that I took a dunk today at lunch with my camera, I thought I may as well explain how a thirty, err, twenty something woman in her pajamas and her Canon digital SLR with a Tamron 28-200m 78mm lens ended up 6 feet under water in the middle of the day. 


Last night, I put the last finishing touches on the Belle shirt and called it a night. As you know, but I will tell you anyway, about a month ago I received an order for two Disney princess shirts to be worn while running the Disney half marathon coming up in October. My client even found the website that sells Under Armor fabric by the yard so I put my order in and when I got home from Maine, I was ready to rock and roll. Wow, that sounded lame. Sorry about that. Anyway, I finished Mary Poppins last week and then Belle this week but I like to get pictures of the shirts outdoors to show the colors in natural light.

Belle- ready to run!

Mary Poppins- now in moisture wicking material!

So today during my lunch break, I bring out the Belle shirt on the dress form and set it up on the steps on the left side of the pool. And despite the visual you all probably have of me falling backwards into the pool, arms flailing like a dancing monkey, that's actually not what happened. Well, at least not today.

I usually like to enter via bicycle

I like to get the shirt in focus with the background blurred so in order to do that, I back up as much as possible and then zoom in. Since it's a 200m lens, I can back up pretty far. So I walk around to the front of the pool (still on solid ground at this point), aim my camera, and zoom. I'm still too close so I start backing up. My camera is the type that you actually have to hold up to your face to look through the viewfinder so I've got my camera in front of my face and I'm concentrating on the picture. I'm backing up, I'm backing up, all the while moving parallel to the pool, not perpendicular. Then I'm under water. 

The orange and teal buoys signify to others, 'dumb Polack underwater here'

Our pool is kidney bean shaped, and I started off in the indent of the kidney. So when I was walking backwards and what I thought was just next to the pool, I was actually walking straight back into the fat part of the bean. Otherwise known as the deep end. So there was no falling; I literally stepped right into the water and went straight down. Luckily, fat floats so I bob to the surface like a buoy, and grab my camera strap and haul ass out of the pool.

I just stood there for about five seconds trying to take in the fact that I was actually so mentally challenged that I walked into my own pool. Then I went right into fast motion, like the Benny Hill show, running into the patio and removing the card, battery, and lens from the camera and desperately shaking all the water out. I was screwwwwwedddddd. The camera body looked okay and will probably work tomorrow but my lens looked like a snowglobe. 

Hey, does this lens come with a sun hood?

And it took pictures of this hottie. 

The sad part is the death of my lens. I've had it for 11? years, since the time we still used film in our cameras. It moved to the digital age with me and has taken pictures of weddings, anniversaries, christenings, and has helped me take amazing pictures of my two beautiful nieces from the time they were born. I swore I wasn't going to cry! It's like I'm losing a pet. Okay, maybe a pet rock, but a very useful pet rock. And I'm supposed to take pictures of my friend tomorrow and in return she was going to model these latest shirts for me so I'm hoping the gods of cameras will take pity on me and magically evaporate all moisture in my lens overnight.

What are the chances he'll still look like this in 10 years? Slim to none. It's a good thing I got a  picture.

So that's the story of today. I'm glad I could provide amusement to you all (Jillian, Kyndall, Debbie- I'm thinking pointedly of you) and hopefully tomorrow I will have a limb ripped off while wrestling an endangered species so that the mirth will continue. We can only hope!

Maybe if I wear a pork chop necklace I can get this done by noon!

Police. 2 am. Full Moon. Saturday Night. Our House.

I was going to write a blog tonight about insomnia but thought maybe I'd do it during the day so that I can concentrate on just falling asleep for a few minutes. Apparently it worked because the next thing I know, I'm fighting my way awake and trying to reconcile what I was hearing; the noise is so loud, was someone on the roof? Had someone been running across our roof? I go to our sliding doors in our bedroom and look through the curtains and my eyes and my mind are trying to put together what they're seeing. My eyes are seeing someone run to our back fence and jump over it to get out. Meaning he was inside the yard first. My brain is trying to think of the probabilities of this being an animal, like a sloth bear or perhaps the worlds largest raccoon (give me a break, it was 2 in the morning), that actually went over the fence. Since it's a 6 foot solid privacy fence, my brain and my eyes come to the decision that what we saw was a man scale our fence. From the inside.

The view from my room. The back right-hand corner is where he went over

"Bobby?", I call out, while keeping an eye on that spot of fence in case there's more action, "Bobby, are you awake, did you hear that?". I'm sorry, I think the first thing I actually said was, "Do you have your gun?". I left the coordination of what we saw or heard until after I was sure we could defend ourselves with actual firepower. Bobby has his gun but from where he's standing, he sees someone with a flashlight in the backyard and then in the front yard. It's hard to comprehend what's happening here, and Bobby is telling me to call the police and I'm telling him I don't know where my phone is so Bobby calls 911 and walks through what happened.

You can see the dirt marks for the climb. Applesauce had a field day smelling everything.

In minutes there are cop cars blocking the entrances to our neighborhood and about ten minutes later a cop comes by to get info and to tell us they were talking to a guy down the street and they'll come back in a little bit to talk to us. 


Here's the story we were told: one of our neighbors had some kids throwing oranges at his house and got so mad, he got in his car to follow the kids and chase them through the neighborhood trying to catch them. What apparently happened was that the kid who was being chased jumped our fence at the side of the house, waking me up, and ran straight back to the back of the yard and jumped over the fence again and out of the yard. Then the neighbor came looking for him with a flashlight but didn't jump our fence and then went back to the front yard.

Here's where he came over from the front yard. It's the corner with the pool pump and all our crap so no wonder it made so much noise.

When the neighbor saw the cop cars, he actually approached them to tell them what happened and when Bobby and I put our stories together, it seems to make sense. But those 30 minutes from the time we woke up and saw the guy in our backyard to the time we found out what happened were pretty scary. I kept thinking about what would have happened if instead of jumping the back fence, he tried to come inside, or what if it had been a professional, not a kid being chased? We would have never heard anything.

The sliding glass doors are our bedroom so my head was only a few feet from where it happened. I don't know if it was a good thing or bad thing that it woke me up because now I have the image of a man jumping our fence stuck in my head.

So was owning a gun helpful? By the time we realized what was going on, it would have been too late for it to be of any use. I think waking up from a dead sleep, we will always, always, always be at a disadvantage. I'm not opposed to them, I just don't want to rely on their presence to protect me or my house. And I couldn't imagine living with ourselves if we'd shot some kid who's crime was throwing oranges at someone's house. I think if that was your kid, you'd agree.


In the end, I'd rather have a nice, loud, obnoxious alarm system. So we will be calling the electrician to have motion sensor flood lights installed around the house and we will finally install that security system we've been talking about. It took all my willpower not to call up everyone I knew last night to tell them to just go and check that all their doors and windows are locked. So I'm writing this instead: be careful, everyone. We're lucky nothing happened but we don't want to rely on luck anymore. Replace burnt out lightbulbs that you've been meaning to replace in outdoor lights, actually USE the alarm system that you pay for every month, even when you're at home. Be safe. Keep your kids safe. Don't put it off any longer.

Layla Lounge: How to get your husband home from a softball game

Layla Lounge: How to get your husband home from a softball game: You make good chicken, send him a picture with the quote... "It's getting cold honey!!" So easy you can't mess it up. Only five (5) ingred...

Baby Mary reading 'This Is The Wind' to her favorite Aunt Anna

This is the wind, that blew on the farm, on the night you were born.


This is baby Mary's favorite book so when I heard her reading it out loud one morning while we were all getting ready, I had to get it on record. It's about a woman who goes into labor one cold night and her and her husband's journey to the hospital to give birth to their new baby. And along with her, a little mouse crawls in the house (to stay nice and warm, as you will soon hear) to give birth to a litter of mice also. 

I wish I had the words to the book so that you could read along with her. The lines build on each other, kind of like "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" except in this book, each sentence usually ends with "that blew on the farm on the night you were born", which Mary tends to leave out most of the time. But what she does remember and can recite is amazing. 

My favorite part? Her reading of the last two pages, which reads, "This is your cry, which rose to the sky, on the wind that grew calm, on the night you were born." She misses the last line but when she says, "This is your cry," it makes me cry every time. Damn I love this kid! Get your tissues and get ready for some extreme cuteness. 

Return to Hot Yoga. And this time, with guests!

Well, not really guests plural, just guest singular. For some reason, Bobby told me that he wanted to go to hot yoga with me. I'm assuming he experienced some sort of old-fart style injury that made him realize he needs to be a little more limber or perhaps he purchased a new 'book' and has some extra-curricular activities in mind but either way, he kept saying he wanted to go, and I probably asked him a hundred times to be sure since I thought he was messing with me.

Watchu mean you wanna try hot yoga?

I know you're probably shocked that I'M going back to hot yoga, based on my earlier posts about my first time at hot yoga and then the second, super awful time. But here's what I didn't write later: I ended up loving it. I didn't write about it because it would have gone something like this:


"Hey everyone! Remember all those awful things I said about hot yoga? I was wrong! Oops!"

Who'd read that shit? Not me so I figured you all wouldn't want to either. But by the time I finished my Living Social deal, I was going 2 to 3 times a week. I was a frickin' addict. But then I started VaVaVaVoom, the summer just flew by, and I just never went back. So I've been talking about going back for a while, and even found a place just a few minutes from my house (Heat Yoga in Clearwater), and bookmarked their website on my phone. Every once in a while I'd check out the classes and remark to anyone who was around me that I'm going to go back soon and gee, that class sounded interesting! I think I thought if I could convince others I was going then I could convince myself. 

If I just make it up this hill, I swear I'll go to hot yoga again!

I'd been eyeing the schedule and knew there was a 6 pm class today and Bobby agreed to the time and hey, it was date night after all, so it all just came together. I also saw it as a sign that when I was checking Groupon today, there was some coupon for a bagel shop called 'A Roll with a Hole" and I thought, huh, great name! Change the order around a little and it could pretty much describe me: an a-hole with a roll! Or maybe a few rolls. Seems like the one on the back of my legs hit it off so well with the new muffin top that they're going steady these days. 

It's hard to emphasize how much I do not exercise. On my last night in Maine, I got sick and Abby's hypothesis was that my body was physically rejecting all of the exercise it got while hiking. And honestly, it made the most sense. Up until a week ago, blinking was my main source of energy expenditure. All this sewing has made me have the physique of a corn dog, crusty breading and all. Not attractive.




To get ready for my re-entry into physical movement, I thought I'd ready the mind before readying the body. So around 2, I decided to go ahead and get dressed in my yoga gear (the middle school bus stop is in our front yard and I'm kinda embarrassed if I'm still in my pi's when they get dropped off in the afternoon). While I'm always a fan of stretchy exercise clothes, I don't recall feeling that my sports bra was trying to 'smother me with love' before. I seriously felt like I was wearing the world's skimpiest straight jacket. I think I'm going to have to have Bobby pre-wear all my workout clothes from now on so they won't be that tight anymore.

At 3 pm, I sent Bobby a warning text to STOP EATING and start drinking lots and lots of water. He seemed surprisingly willing. At 4:30, I hear the garage door and Bobby's home early to get ready. Curiouser and curiouser. He then asked me where I kept my old Hooters shorts (at Goodwill, with my ab master) and then came into my office wearing my pajama shorts and asked if that was okay to wear. Sorry ladies, he scampered off before I could get a pic. I don't know which was more disturbing; Bobby in my pajama bottoms or Bobby scampering like a girl when he thought he was going to be caught on film.

I finally get all of our crap together and we head out. I've been telling Bobby that it's okay to take it easy, and to just sit on his mat if he starts to feel sick, but now I've got a new worry. I've been, naturally, completely delusional and picturing myself performing Barishnikov-esque stretches next to a passed out Bobby during class but now, reality is hitting hard and I'm realizing that I'M the one who's most likely to pass out, not Bobby. Shit! He's been actually using the BowFlex that I just had to have and now avoid like a fat kid avoids a carrot stick. I'm going to look like a complete idiot! Hey, maybe it'll go better than I expect. You never know!

It went way worse than I expected. Don't get me wrong, the place was great, fantastic teacher, the heat wasn't set to 'broil'. But as I lay on my mat halfway through class (I like to call this pose 'warrior holding down the floor'), I can feel my heart pounding through every blood cell in my body. And I literally have done nothing harder than raise my arms above my head and taken a few deep breaths. How out of shape do I have to be to already be this wiped out? Of course, as I'm laying there trying not to die, I naturally daydream of Big Macs due to Justice's article on Cross Fit (thanks Justice!) and I reflect that we seem to have correlating goals: to be fit enough to be able to hoist not one, but two Big Macs at a time! A few more minutes in this heat and even Bobby is going to start looking like a Big Mac. I'd better get my ass a movin'.

Make that 2- and supersize me!

I fake it almost the entire way through the rest of class. It's not until the last ten minutes that I feel like heat is emanating from every part of my body like a huge George Foreskin grill. I think I could make a grilled cheese sandwich on my muffin top I'm so damned hot. I hold out until the last 'namaste' and then pull a road runner style exit out of there and into the air conditioned lobby. I sit on the bench for a few minutes, staring at the cooler and think how great a cold drink would be. I drag my zombie-like body to the counter and grunt towards the cooler until the girl at the desk realizes I'm heat-dumb and gets me the water. I'm thinking she's seen my condition once or twice before.

water.... me.... want....water.....

No, I said 'no tomatoes'!

She is super nice; she introduces herself since we had talked on the phone earlier and she asks how I liked the class. I go to tell her it was great and I want to sign up for a membership but it ends up coming out as, "Huwwwuuuuuuwuuuuu wugh buuuubuuuu tuuu wuuu luuugghh". I sound like Chewbacca trying to order chimichangas at Moe's. What the hell is wrong with my mouth? I take a drink and then try again. This time it at least sounds like English, although English spoken by a stroke victim, but she gets the point. I get my keychain tag and I'm all good. I'm gonna start back with some warm yoga classes and then work my way back up to the hot stuff. 


Oh, how did Bobby do? What do you think. Way better than I had thought and while I'm happy that he liked it and would even consider doing it again, I would have felt a little better if he had thrown up just a little bit or maybe even had a slight heat stroke. I should have known that being Mexican, he was pretty much built for the heat and being told what to do in a large group setting. Afterwards, he's glowing like a blushing bride while I look like someone squeezed me around the middle until the blood was one micron away from bursting out of my face. 

Ola amigo! Donde esta hot yoga por favor?

In the end, it was a good night. I made dinner and ended up sewing till midnight and look, I still  have energy to type this up at 1:30 am! Crap, I need to get some sleep. Just go try it. Hot yoga is worth it just for the detox and large calorie burn for very little movement. Just make sure you're good at it before you bring in your better half so you don't look like a moron like me. Good luck!

This will be you afterwards, I promise!