Father's Day

Hooray for awesome family portraits 

painted by uber-talented 4-year olds!

Happy Father's Day, Jonathan. 

We love you SO much.

LA, here I come!

My carry-on bag is packed. 

Packed full of yoga clothes, my yoga mat, a couple toiletries, some jeans, 

shorts, t-shirts, and my Nikon D5000.

In the morning I'll be headed for LA.  On Saturday and Sunday I will be there to watch the 8th annual  Bishnu Charan Ghosh International Yoga Asana Championship live and in person.  Ready to be blown away by yoga champions from around the world (several of which I had the amazing fortune of training alongside in Charleston last month).  

We are talking Olympic caliber, world class athletes who've prepared for this event by training 6+ hours a day for months. 

Discipline and dedication.  

Strength and flexibility. 

Balance and grace. 

Focus and determination. 

Inspirational.

You can watch it from home,

streaming live from ghoshcup.com

starting at 10am pacific on Saturday and Sunday.

When the competition is over, I'll be staying on in LA for a week of advanced yoga training. Daily classes taught by Bikram himself. I'll be learning the complete series of 84 postures. 

This is the next step in taking my personal practice to a deeper level.  

I can't wait. I am so excited!!

And I promise I'll have some awe-inspiring pictures to show you when I get back.

Evolution

Things are changing around here.  And here's a picture of my cookbook shelf to give you a clue.

In December I quit my jewelry business (I never did officially make the announcement, did I?). Well as it turns out that would end up being the first of many big changes in my life. In a quick nutshell, I'm in a super-happy place.  My life is right on track and I'm feeling hopeful for the potential that's ahead. This fall I will be bound for LA for 9 weeks of Bikram yoga teacher training. I am feeling very healthy, whole, unstressed, and present. I'm excited about what lies ahead.

I wanted to share some of the changes that have brought it all about.  The way I eat (and also the daily exercise) has had a tremendous impact on my overall feeling of wellness. Gradually I've been weeding out animal products from my diet.  In January I gave up chicken, in March red meat, by April eggs and dairy were gone.  And now fish, too. My diet is 99% plant-based when I'm at home, although I do admit to being flexible when I'm out with friends.

The catalyst was this book: The China Study, and I owe huge thanks to my friend Abby who first told me about it. Click on the link to read a description and reviews. I think everybody needs to read this book.  Jonathan, who's probably the single most skeptical person I have ever known, read only 20 pages before he told me he was fully on board with changing our diet. 

One of the main lessons you'll take away from this book is the study's indisputable connection between animal protein and cancer. There are too many people in my life right now, young people, who are battling cancer, specifically breast cancer, and it scares me to death. Cancer these days seems completely indiscriminate, hitting people in their 20s even! But I intend to do whatever it takes to keep it away from me and my family. I'm in charge of the food that comes into this house, and the food that goes on the table.  This continues to be my most important job, regardless of my recent occupational changes.

So, as things change around here, so too will the content of my blog posts.  A few years ago this blog started as a marketing tool for my jewelry business, and it's changing (evolving like I am).  I think I'll be doing a lot of posts on plant-based and raw recipes, as well as yoga, of course.  I'm experimenting with new and different foods, ingredient combinations, and food prep techniques.  So far I am really surprised at how super yummy these meals can be and I just want to share all my discoveries with you! Hopefully I can inspire you to try new things :)

A Destin weekend getaway

In over four years of being a family of 3, we finally took our first destination family trip this past weekend (to a place that was not Toronto)!

We had an absolute blast in Destin, Florida.
I myself am a self-proclaimed beach hater... I get bored. And I don't like the sun.
But this trip apparently changed all that.


Gorgeous beach, perfect weather,
fantastic hotel, good food, and above all, happy family.
Having our dear friends there with us made it even more special.

With Destin being only a half-day's drive from Atlanta,

we've decided that we're making it an annual thing, but staying longer next time.
3 days and 2 nights is hardly enough.

Here are some pictures of the great memories.

and I'm already looking forward to next time.

:)