I Make Myself

The Canadians are here!

Two of my friends from my Yoga Teacher Training in Costa Rica came to El Salvador. It's been a blast having them here and we've been going around the country (and more) for the past week. 

I'll go into detail once things settle down but here is a preview of what we did.

      

I got them addicted to good Salvadorian coffee - two down and the rest of the world to go -, we went to the beach, did some yoga and we even managed to squeeze in a little visit to Guatemala.

I'll be back with pictures from my camara :)

Farmers Market

I recently discovered this treasure. A farmers market with local, fresh and affordable produce. Even though I was there to look for some vegetables for my new juicing trend I immediately drifted towards the flowers. I got some cactus and succulents for my collection and I also bought coconut oil which until then had been impossible to find.

If you live in El Salvador this happens every Thursday from 8:00 to 12:0 at the Ministerio de Agricultura in Santa Tecla.

The weather is beginning to change here. We wake up to cloudier more humid days. We already had our first rain of the season. Going to the beach on the weekends is not my first option anymore. I'd rather stay and watch a movie. I think it was last weekend that Heinz and I watched Fahrenheit 451. Yesterday it was Amelie for the billionth time.

Heinz and I have a somewhat hard time deciding what movie to watch. I used to like foreign films until he made me watch weird-no beginning-no end-silent-black and white-dutch movies. One after another. I had to draw a line. 

I like happy ending movies and I like musicals to the core. 

He likes Truffaut

I like Marley

He likes black and white 

I like Moulin Rouge

He likes subtitles

I like Sex and the City. 1 and 2.

But Amelie....that movie....we can watch it over and over. That is our balance. It's our meeting point. 

 

Out and about

Last week's highlights included doing a little bit of exploring, discovering a new farmers market (not only produce but plants included) and watching my sister's new collection hit the runway. 

 

Besides sharing snapshots of my salvadorean life I've decided to start sharing different things I find fun, inspiring, challenging, beautiful and well, interesting and worth reading.

They will come from different sources but mostly from other blogs I read.

If I can help spread the love in anyway darn it I will.

Here are today's first cool-amazing-heart-melting-awesome links.

Amanda from RunToTheFinish is nothing but unknown in the running/blogging world. Her passion and determination blow my mind. She was one of the first running blogs I started to read and now one of the few I continue to read. It's not the first time I've mentioned her here. She was one of the bloggers that inspired my marathon training. She has an amazing weight loss story that she has been kind enough to share with all her readers. It's definitely much MUCH more than "just" a weight loss story. You can read it here.

GrowSoulBeautiful is a place where yoga and photography meet.  They have a fun and very insightful Instagram challenge called #YogaADay.  The idea is to explore asanas and self-portraits and upload them to Instagram adding the hashtag and tagging @growsoulbeautiful. They feature a selection of the uploaded pictures but of course you can see all of them by searching #YogaAday on Instagram. For me the idea of self-portraits (and I think I'm not alone on this one) represents pushing myself out of my comfort zone into a vulnerable place and interestingly enough, that is what yoga has been for me. I think this challenge captures the essence of freeing yourself in the asanas right on. You can read about the challenge here

Through Instagram I found Win Wiley. A photographer from Nebraska who simply lights up my feed. He shared a few words and some out-of-this-world images about Brooklyn and Trevor. These photos will fill your heart with love and inspiration.

it's been a short while since I've been following Gena's blog Choosing Raw. She's a vegan and I'm not even vegetarian but that doesn't mean that I don't find very useful resources on her website. On the contrary it's filled with not only yummy recipes but also interesting (to say the least) information on nutrition (She is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist), body image and wellness. If anyone has ever come close to convincing me -without even trying- to go vegan it's her. She's smart, rational and very well informed yet humble about it. I recently read what she wrote about an article in Marie Claire called "The Vegan Myth". It's a very well written piece worth reading (Gena's that is). The Marie Claire article states that veganism is something that is supposed to be healthy but it actually may not. I've heard this debate before. It was in the yoga community (anyone remember that NYT article?) and since it's all in the past I will leave it there. Gena's words are very wise and -I think- come from an honest place. You can read them here.

Enjoy a good read!

I am

Now, the written version.

Normally, I eat lunch watching Grey's Anatomy reruns. I've started to think that this may not be the best idea. Even though I LOVE Grey's the truth is that each episode leaves me emotionally drained. After each episode ends I always end up calling Heinz to tell him how much I love him. 

I don't mind watching them when he's around. Thursday nights I have to teach a class from 7-8PM so by the time I make it home the episode (current season and not reruns) has already started. This is their final season and I'm not ready for it to go away just yet. I want to see Meredith's kid grow up and become Seattle Grace's new McChief.

I'm observing how my basil is coming back. Score.

I'm crazy about my little plants right now (or always). I used to think that when my basil died it was time to buy and plant a new one but oh was I wrong. I was clever enough to plant the seeds and once it died new plants started growing. It took a little while though. During the time between the old one dried out and the new one started to grow I firmly believed I needed to get a new one.

Now I know the cycle and the time has come where my new baby basil is growing. Rainy season is approaching so my basil will only get bigger and greener.

My succulents on the other hand need to be protected from the rain.

I'm looking forward to using my newly acquired juicer. Yes, healthyliving world, I finally got a juicer.

This had been on the back of my mind since last year. I'm not a big juice drinker but I do plan to incorporate more veggies into my diet in the liquid form. I don't use sugar or sugar substitutes <-- never! so I have to come up with ways to sweeten my juice because it's not my healthy-happy idea to suffer while downing those green beverages.

I'm excited about my new food processor!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and I would insert a million more exclamation marks if it wasn't so blogging unfriendly) I would also insert the BOOM emoticon here but I don't know how. 

I'm completely in-love with "Here comes Honey Boo Boo". I can't get enough of Alana and her family. I know the show has been subject to...I don't want to say polemic...but maybe the word I'm looking for is public scrutiny.

This may well deserve a full post. What do you think?

I'm curious to figure out if my running shoes are giving me little corns on my toes. I know. Too much information. But those little spots turn very red after each run. They don't hurt but they're not a pretty sight. The worst thing is I've heard you can't make them go away. Mine are very little and I definitely don't want them to get bigger so the only thing I'm currently running is a research on what to do.

I'm wondering what book to read next. I'm about to finish "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" (expect my thoughts here) so I want to add another book to my reading list. Any suggestions?

You are here

I thought you would like to check out Heinz' latest work.

I know I would!

I may only talk about him here in a very just-the-two-of-us kind of way and I may have mentioned somewhere that his schedules are crazy. My husband is a film director who currently works in the advertising world but every now and then he gets his hands on cool projects like this one.

He documented Tom Curren's (a surf legend) visit to El Salvador and worked with Puro Surf and Tropical Freaks to produce this...how to call it?....blow-my-mind-crazy-cool piece of work.

I'll stop talking about it now and let you watch it.

"You are Here" from Heinz Kobernik on Vimeo.

 

Needless to say -but yeah, I'm saying it anyway- I'm so proud of him and what he does.

As a weekend note: Let this video be a reminder of the cool waves my little country has to offer. Maybe you'll come visit us someday.

From sunny El Salvador, have a great weekend.

Eat, Read, Sleep

Almost like Eat, Pray, Love only not so much.

Semana Santa is a religious holiday but this year I can't tell you much about the religious part because Heinz and I took the entire week off.  We stepped away from the city to stay at a rented beach house.

We both got the week off even though the actual holidays are only from Thursday to Sunday.

Our plan for the week was to have no plans at all.

The house we stayed at is a private apartment next to a bigger property. It's located in a private beach called La Leona in La Libertad. It's about a 5-minute drive from El Tunco. 

Even though we love staying at hotels, for longer stays we prefer to rent a place where we can cook. I find that whenever I'm away from home, after a couple of days my stomach gets really upset from eating out.

We found this house through VRBO. A website where you find vacation rentals by owners. It's a pretty cool option if you like to travel.

In terms of food we definitely over packed but a girl just needs to have options. We brought fruit, veggies, quinoa, avocados -because they deserve a special mention- soba noddles, beer and wine. You know, basic vacation stuff.

Of course I forgot the most basic things: salt and cooking oil. 

We checked-in on Monday and truth be told we did nothing but eat, read and sleep.

My book kept me quiet for a total of six days. Six!

Even Heinz was amazed at how quiet I'd been. 

That was the best part of the entire vacation: Ma' book.

I'll share my thoughts on it in another post so I don't make this one unbearably long.

On with the fun part. Here are some photos of the casita by the beach.

 
       ...yeah, I know we've gone a little overboard with the fisheye.

At nights I used to come out of hiding and properly interact with Heinz. He wanted to share with me facts he had learned in his history book (I roll my eyes at his type of reading material). This was the perfect time to do it. When I was away from my Murakami book.

We also played Scrabble.

And just so you know if there was a Salvadorean Scrabble version I would kick Heinz' little German butt. 

I miss the wooden and velvet Scrabble! This was all plastic. I guess recession takes its toll even on the board games industry.

Sigh.

Stay tuned if you are interested in reading my thoughts on 1Q84 by Murakami. I didn't know but apparently it caused quite a stir in the editorial world.

Has any of you read it?

PS. We did go to church on Sunday. We had a proper Easter Sunday.