Snow Ice Cream

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
When life hands you snow, make SNOW ICE CREAM!

Recently the kids spent the night at their grandparents house and came home raving about the snow ice cream they made with grannee and popa. They also came home with the recipe. It seems like today might be the last day for snow around here.They are predicting rain and hopefully warmer temps. Here's the recipe in case you are inspired to whip up a batch before the fluffy stuff is gone. You can make it in minutes and it really is pretty yummy.

Snow Ice Cream

2 cups milk
1 cup condensed milk
1 cup sugar
2 Tbs. vanilla
Fresh Snow!

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and then keep adding fresh snow until the mixture is stiff. We used 1 1/2 large bowls of snow. Enjoy!

CHERISH LIFE'S PRECIOUS MOMENTS

The old gray face of time reminds us to take nothing for granted and to cherish life's precious moments.

a few armfuls of "sugar"

I know there are a lot of snow-haters out there right now but this is the stuff memories are made of! Yes it's tough feeling like your stuck inside and yes we all have to exercise a bit more shoveling the driveways (Claire, I do feel for you!) and yes we all have to drive a little slower, but there are at least a few of us enjoying it. I have to admit I didn't really want to go outside this afternoon but yesterday I made the challenge to get more fresh air this week and my kids really had some steam to blow off. As usual there was the prodding and coraling the kids to get bundled up, but it paid off big. I built the kids their first igloo and we were all aglow with playfulness and wonder. As I dug out the little snow fort, the Mary Poppins song ran through my brain... "just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down..." As I was simultaneously sweating and feeling the chill of ice crystals falling down the back of my neck, I felt like I was heaping up big arm fulls of frozen sugar that I knew would put smiles on my kids faces now and on mine when I look back at these photos remembering these precious fleeting moments. I'll keep saying it - "it really is worth it to do the extras that make life more energizing and fulfilling." What extras have you been considering but have put off because they take too much effort or time? As my friend Jodi, reminded my throughout last year in her email signature - "life is short" - you might as well make some time for fun. xoxo

Remarkable beauty can be found in ordinary things simply by taking the time to look.

Hello again! I have to admit that I have been hibernating a bit. Believe it or not it is actually the snow that has brought me out of my cozy den. I have never been a fan of winter. Actually I quite dislike the monotonous gray sky and chilly weather. But, all this candy coating snow has given me such an energy boost. I had a great weekend walking through the snow, pulling a sled and my dogs down a wooded trail and watching the kids squeal with delight as their sleds rushed down the slopes. Even the call of shoveling the driveway brought me outside into the fresh air. I know the snow is putting a damper on everyone's normal schedule but I for one am loving it. I hope you too can find some beauty in your day today. The woods are so pretty right now I just had to share a few shots.

My hibernation was party due to the winter weather but also to the fact that my husband and I went on a little bit of an electronics detox. We are following the diet and lifestyle plan of Marcelle Pick's Core Balance Plan. I'll be blogging a bit about it in the weeks to come. The electronic detox is intended to help you de-stress and give your adrenals some restoration. It suggests you don't use electronics after 7:30 pm. We turned off the tv and computers in lieu of getting some more peace and quiet. It was helpful, but I missed my time "connecting" with the world outside my living room. Now I'm hoping to get back on track with little doses of inspiration for me and you through this blog.

My feel better challenge for this week is to try to breathe as much FRESH air as possible. Yes, feeling good takes effort, time and planning but it is worth it! xoxo

The Poetry of Everyday Living

In my yoga teacher’s bio, I say that The Poetry of Everyday Living is my biggest source of inspiration. I realized this when I came across one of my very first poems written in second or third grade. The topic was “If you could be a flower, what would you be?” I don’t have the poem here in front of me but it went something like this…

If I could be a flower, I would be a rose because it is such a beautiful flower but it also has thorns to protect itself so no one will hurt it.

In that line I distilled the essence of my young life and I think captured what many of us feel on a daily basis. I wanted to thrive and be beautiful but I have always been afraid of being hurt. I was also aware that life is full of beauty and pain and sometimes that pain really does serve an important purpose.

This past month of my life has been quite “poetic” – filled with many ups and downs. I’ve had a hard run of pain, theft, loss, fear and doubt. Among other small challenges, my downward spiral began with the re-emergence of an old injury offering me headaches, nausea and neck pain. I lost a job with no notice the week of Christmas. I had my purse stolen. I’m afraid that the person who stole my purse made a trip to my home and to my friend’s home. I’m afraid of further repercussions from the theft. People close to me had sudden losses as well. As soon as I thought to myself, well at least everyone is healthy, my husband’s grandmother suddenly passed away. I’m afraid to think of what might be next and I’m afraid to hope it’s all over. I know it could be worse but it was hard.

Losing Granny Solomon was hard on my husband’s family as well as it is for me. My father was orphaned at nine in Ireland. My mother came from a large but fractured family. I prayed to my “angel” grandmother and I loved the one grandmother that I knew but she passed away when I was 12. Granny Solomon was my grandmother longer than I had one of my own alive. She took me in just like I really was one of her grandchildren. We will all miss her greatly but there is so much goodness, happiness and love that she left behind that will always be felt whether she is here in body or not.

This is the poetry of life. Even in dark times, there is beauty to be held and appreciated. The things that happen to us may not feel good but they do shift our perception and understanding of the world. It is up to each of us to decide how we will look out into the world after life writes challenges for us. There’s no doubt that life is full of challenges and “bad” things do happen to good people everyday. The thing is we can grow from these challenges if we choose.

The other day there was a Facebook comment where someone asked, “Am I the only one who doesn’t think that all things happen for a reason?” I’m not sure about that. I think that perhaps all things DON’T happen for a reason BUT we can reason all things. We have the potential to see the silver lining in every cloud.

In each of the challenges I’ve faced over the last month I have grown in ways that I otherwise wouldn’t have. I’ve experienced that pain as pain draws us deeper into ourselves, it also has the potential to connect us deeper to those we care about and who care about us with love and support. Having said that I’m ready for a little more sunshine in my life!

Striking a Balance Between Inner and Outer Peace

As a yoga teacher, I'm always looking for bits of inspiration both to keep me feeling inspired and empowered and to share with my students. New Year's offers so much in the way of inspiration, motivation and challenges to uplift your current state of being and movement through life. When I read the invitation to "strike a balance between inner and outer peace" I just had to stop and ponder, how do you really do that and what does that really mean?

To me having a balance between inner and outer peace means to remember that ultimately I do not have the power to control external forces. Believe me the world would be quite a different place if I could and I bet it would for you too! But just because I can't change it or even because I really don't like a lot of what I see right now in the world doesn't mean that I can't have a level of peace about it. What I do know is that even though I can't control the world, what I do matters. What I do on a daily basis touches and influences life around me. So it's important for me to me to stay strong, to stay hopeful, to stay as positive as possible in hopes of at least tinting life around me in a more beautiful hue.

What we say and what we do matters. It colors the world around us. We may not choose what happens around us and even to us but we do have the opportunity to choose how we will react in relation to life's external forces. By cultivating internal peace and harmony we create a greater potential to channel that same peace and harmony outside ourselves.

Winter

The world curls in upon herself,
...to rest
...to renew,
to reignite she waits,
...with patience
...with hope.

In all seasons of life, there is great beauty (even if it is all covered in ice and snow!)

Sometimes we just have to wait and be at peace with the waiting.