So Far It's a Lovely Weekend

The sound of everyone in the house.............yes, I have missed this. Even when they are making a lot of noise when playing a Mario game on the x-box. Let me clarify about the noise, just listening them laugh at one another, make insane comments and yes, talk about their male superiority of a video game...it just makes me smile.

I don't get the luxury of having all three boys home on a weekend any more, so when it does happen, it is special.

I am enjoying everyone's pictures of the beach this weekend as I cruise around on Facebook, as the last time I was outside today  (which was about noon) it was 98 degrees - it is sure to rise from there.

One week to go until I have to get serious about getting ready for the school year. The nice part about that is I spend the first week in Las Vegas sitting by the pool and working. And believe it or not, I am not the sole person at the pool with a laptop - it's quite amusing.

Usually people around me want to engage in discussion about education and what my class is all about. For some reason, wherever I go, my face must scream, TALK TO ME, I WILL TALK TO YOU. It's usually pretty good, every once in a while I get a "live" one. I do have to say that my favorite people to talk to are the pool waitresses. They have such great stories! I'm usually down at the pool from 9 - 12 or 1, and then I work the rest of the time up in the room because then it starts to get crowded by all the families. I think that's why the waitresses are so chatty - it's really quiet in the morning hours.

Well, got to get back to making family dinner. Tonight's menu:

10 hour pork baby back ribs (Tom's method of smoking and bbq)
Greek Potatoes (I mean, are there any other kind?)
Steamed Artichokes that are finished off on the grill with olive oil, garlic and salt.
They are accompanied by 2 different sauces, one is an oriental style sauce and the other is more like a remoulade.

With three boys in the house.................will there be leftovers????

Massages and Indian Casinos aka "Girls Day Out"

I believe that everyone should get a massage every once in a while. Its good to fine tune that body so that the mind can move forward. I haven't had a massage in a while so it was a nice treat to go with a group of girls (yes we are all girls at times, not just women) and get one done.

Then comes the question of how long should a massage be? In my mind, it can never be long enough! I find it fascinating that a lot of spas now offer timed massages. Would you like the 25 or the 50 minutes massage? In some places, you can get an 80 minute massage. I think after 80 minutes I might be in a coma induced state and the spa would be stuck with me on the table, taking at least another 20 minutes for me to peel myself away from it. 

Now, with that being said, you can do a multitude of things before and after a massage. There's always lunch and/or dinner and sometimes shopping. But on this day, it was to be dropping a few coin another way. We opted to get massages at an Indian Casino.

Now, I have never been to one, so from that point of view it was very interesting. This one was really nice and I have to say as far as casinos go, it was better than the ones near the California-Nevada border. It was small, but decorated well,. They could have taken a little hint from the big time casinos in Las Vegas by pushing through more air and oxygen (people who go here really like to smoke) but they did provide sealed No-Smoking rooms instead. 

I had done some online research about this casino before we arrived and found out that they had a bingo room. The girls were willing to go along and play (4 hours long!). Very fun. I thought at one point we were going to be asked to leave because we just couldn't keep quiet. It wasn't the talking, it was the laughing. A couple of us made a few "aca" comments (you have to seen the movie Pitch Perfect to understand what I am saying) and then one person starting laughing, then the others giggled, then it got louder as we looked at one another and realized how much we were laughing, and it escalated from there. When 3 rows of people (about 75 people) turn around and "shush" you all at the same time (and rather loudly) you have a fear of being in trouble, unfortunately it did not sober us up enough as we continued to giggle. Luckily, we got it together and finished our session.

We decided we have to do this at least once a year - we even became premier members (to be honest we signed up for the discounts and the free t-shirt) - and that we would take a bigger crew. Oh my, I don't know if they are ready for that!

Life's A Beach

Relaxing and enjoying a beautiful few days in Oxnard with good friends. Last night we went out on a friends Duffy and enjoyed the Channel Islands Harbor, what beauty!


Being on the water has amazing restorative properties: regenerating your soul and allowing you to dream about all you can still do with your life - it's so not over yet!

I highly recommend that everyone take the time to go to the water and feel the power of relaxation.

Take your spouse, significant other,or your best friend and reconnect not only with your mind and soul but to those around you, your dreams, your life and feel immensely blessed!

It's been a fantastic weekend!

OMG - The Taste of Farmers Market

Last night, oy, my stomach is still rolling this morning.......I went to the Taste of Farmers Market in one of the oldest farmers markets in the country, Los Angeles. If you have never been there, it's filled with over 100 stalls of restaurants, bars, specialty shops, fruit stands, etc. You name it, it's there. Every nationality seems to be represented.

Last year, my son and I happened upon it quite by accident as I went to LA to see my back surgeon (he came to keep me company) and we decided to run around the Grove to wait out some traffic before our return home. We thought it an intriguing idea and decided that next summer we would attend......we are true to our word.....so off we went.

 



 They had 50 locations that you could visit. Everything was offered from watermelon juice to pork belly BLT sandwiches. The sandwiches you see on my son's plate above are probably the largest portions we saw all night, They were indeed small bites.

I found that after visiting about 13 stalls, I was done. I think the chicken pate did me in, I was avoiding bread up to that point but who can eat pate without bread? My son was not to be denied (or so he said) so he LITERALLY tried all 50 booths. It got to the point where he went with 1 bite just to make it count. I don't know where he puts it. Here's a rally picture when he was at about 30.



 We have a strategy for next year though: first read the offerings and go for the ones we really want right off the bat, after that we share, unless it's something that we really want. That way we get to try everything (the 1 bite theory). At one point, I think he was on number 41, a woman who checked off his card asked him if he had really eaten at all those places (she look astonished, as I said, this is not an easy feat to accomplish). He replied yes, and that not all of the places had checked off his card (which was true - we were keeping track on the map with full commentary/rating on how each item tasted).

This is a fun event and I would attend again. You really can not go with a group larger than 4 as it is a tight space and getting from one vendor to the other is not easy. A lot of people are doing this and there are regular diners there as well who are not doing the event. One man walked up to me and asked me what was going on (I explained all, and told him he could still buy a ticket at Gate 1), later, we saw him wondering around with his tag, plate and fork. It's one of those things that if you see it once, you think, yeah, that looks like fun.

Today though is a "fasting" day - hooray!

I know that this event does not aid towards my overall goal, and I'm not going to rationalize what to eat and what not. Life is about living and having experiences with the people you love and want to have around you. It's just sometimes................you eat, and the next day you pay for it!

The Beginning

Today I was looking at old photographs and I had forgotten how thin I was when my husband and I first got married. In my minds eye, that was still me. This picture was taken when we were visiting Greece 1 1/2 years after we were married (over 2 years of us being together) - this was August 1989:

 But this picture below is what the mirror is now showing me - July 2013:

I know the Skinny B from the first pic is in there somewhere and so I thought it would be fun to write about this journey .

So far this summer we have been making up for lost travel time as I was down for over a year with back issues (3 surgeries later and I am in great form - thanks!) so watching what I eat as well as move a lot is definitely high on the chart. We were able to take a trip to Alaska and the Great Northwest for 2 weeks

and I have been traveling up and down the great state of California to see family and friends. Believe me, the summer is not over and there is still a lot more traveling to go.

I hope that you enjoy my blog and come along for the ride!