I Make Myself

The Canadians are here!

Farmer's Market

A day in El Salvador

A friend of mine came for a quick visit. It was only for a few days but enough to do a little sightseeing. We took her to the San Salvador volcano. A place known as El Boqueron and we also went to Ataco. 

It was a relaxed weekend and we had a great time.

Although I'd love to talk more about it the truth is I have little to no words. The world seems crazy and unexplainable sometimes. By sometimes I mean right now.

I was raised in a Christian family but it was not until later in life that I made my peace with what I believe in. One of the questions that has always haunted me was HOW could we continue to state that God created us in his own image (Genesis 1:27) when there is so much anger, jealousy and resentment in our hearts. We have engraved our minds with the image of a loving God so where do all these evil feelings come from? shouldn't we be loving like Him instead? Shouldn't love be a more natural, first-response feeling?

What aspects do we actually inherit from our creator? What does his own image mean then? Does it mean having two legs? or two arms? come on! It has to be something more than that.

It took me -and still takes me- time to process these questions but so far I've come up with one answer that has given me hope. Yes, not closure but hope. I think that what we take after our creator is the ability to choose and decide.

We may not have control over the anger, sadness or frustration we feel but we do have the ability to choose what we do with it. 

Today, I don't want to talk specifically about Boston or Afghanistan, Venezuela or El Salvador. 

But when I see all the hatred and violence that is being poured into the world I can't help but wonder how I am contributing -or not contributing- to this madness. 

Crazy, crazy world.

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.

Semana Santa

...Also known as Easter Break was...

a cheap board of scrabble

a 950-page novel for me 

a 100-page history book for him

a pair of non-working Iphones

a few but very well curated conversations.

Semana Santa was an entire week off

from everything & from everyone.

It was just us two.

We came back today and thankfully we still have tomorrow to ease our way slowly into our day-to-day routine. I just wanted to check in with anyone who's still here. It's a little bit passed midnight in El Salvador so I'll get myself to bed before I start to ramble incoherent post-vacation thoughts. 

I'll sort them out and be back.

Happy Easter!

Lately

Sometimes it seems (to me) like I eat, breath and dream about yoga.

Yes,  I am in love with the practice but I am even more in love with everything else that blossoms from it.

So naturally yoga is all I want to talk about..lately.

But not today. 

Today I want to talk about everything else that has been going on...besides yoga.

  

1) My Kindle, 2) the Salvadorean version of a Happy Hour, 3) family breakfast, 4) late-night date, 5) new high chairs, 6) new old wooden table.

 
I particularly want to talk about my new BFF:  my Kindle paperwhite.

I was one of those books lovers that refused to make the e-reader jump. How could I trade the flipping-through-pages experience for a scrolling down device right? Well I did and I love it.

I am reading a whole lot more now. It's more practical and like I've said before, now I have access to many books I couldn't read before. 

The first book I read was The Great Gatsby and now that I've read it I can't wait to watch the movie! Normally I am not that crazy about books turned into movies. There are just a few that I believe are narrated better in moving images than in words.

I get it, a great book is supposed to make a great movie, but I find that is rarely the case. Some recent examples are Life of Pi, the Millennium trilogy and some of the Harry Potter films.

And I have a strong opinion about this subject because I believe turning great books into movies is a way to feed a make-it-larger-than-life mentality: make it bigger, shinier, sparkly...and now blow it up and make it 3D!. Well, books may not be that visually appealing but they can be an amazing experience. Everything you see in a movie still happens when you read a book, it all happens with the help of your imagination.

Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with making the movie, my main problem is substituting one for the other. 

But I will stop here because I could go on and on about this movies and books thing.

Anyhow, my expectations for the Great Gatsby movie are really high. I love.love.love Baz Lurhmann. I love his movies except Australia. I think Moulin Rouge is one of my favorite movies. I know every song, every line and cry every time I watch it.

The Gatsby story is not that long so I don't think he'll be cutting out parts from the book. He didn't in Romeo & Juliet...another reason why I love him.

He did Romeo and Juliet (Leo Dicaprio and Claire Danes) and I loved how he used the original written language. But that may just be me and a handful of reading geeks, I know of people who couldn't stand the use of  the "thee" pronoun throughout the movie.

This was my first time reading Fitzgerald. Now, I may read particularly slow  but this book made me read s-l-o-w-e-r. English is my second language and I may be fluent but this book had a lot of new words for me. Luckily the Kindle comes with a dictionary and whenever I found a word I didn't know I just tapped it and it immediately gave me its definition.

The other books I am currently reading are: The autobiography of a Yogi, Daring Greatly, The case for God and (still) 1Q84. 

Disclaimer: This post was not, in any way, sponsored by Amazon and/or Baz Lurhmann. Although I wish they would send me books or movies to review this post comes from my experience with a Kindle my husband got me as a Christmas gift. 

Tell me..what is currently on your reading list?

Non-negotiable

This was my weekend:

On Friday I was done with work by noon and got together with some friends to catch up on what's going on with our lives lately.

At 8:00 I had a dinner to attend. Heinz was feeling tired so he joined us for dinner but left early. I stayed longer.

Saturday we had plans to go the beach but at the last minute I had to substitute for a Yoga class so we ended up staying here. 

We decided to stay in and go on Sunday.

Sunday we went to the beach where my parents, my sister and her husband had already spent the night. Some friends came too and we had an amazing time. 

It was fun going to the beach, hanging out with my friends and playing with their (really cute) babies but I was happy Heinz and I got to spend some alone time the day before.

I don't care if we go out for for a quick bite,  stay in and watch TV or even fall sleep together on the couch. There are things that are non-negotiable for me.

Spending some just-the-two-of-us-time with Heinz is one of them.

I told you my friends have really cute babies. This last photo is exhibit A.

Now tell me, do you have some non-negotiable weekend activities too? 

Are they work-out related? family related? chilling out related? Is it watching a TV show? a sports game? 

I think it's cool to figure out what things you are willing to negotiate and which ones you are not. 

Not only on the weekends but also when it comes to what you want in life.

Have an awesome week!

Weekend in Rome

This weekend was particularly mellow for us...and I think I may know why.

We got an Apple TV for Christmas.

That little box made us stay home most of the weekend.

Glass -and wine-  can make faces look distorted.

Netflix is rather new here in El Salvador and it was not until very -very- recently that their movies got interesting. 

I don't know if you may know this but Netflix outside the US is different. We don't have access to the same choices. 

The same applies with most streaming stuff. It's a pain.

Anyways...Netflix upgraded their entertainment options (adding more movies) and a very cool thing is that now, through Apple TV, we can rent movies on ITunes.

We could do it before but Heinz and I don't like to watch movies on our computers so we never did.

This weekend Heinz watched two documentaries and we watched To Rome with Love (yeah, I skipped the documentaries in case that wasn't clear)

I am not a big Woody Allen fan I just love Annie Hall and Midnight in Paris. Love Midnight in Paris. Love it. I guess I don't mind Vicky Cristina Barcelona but Scarlet Johansson's character gets on my nerves and I also sort of like Hollywood Ending.

Out of all Woody Allen's films these last european-city-movies have been particularly funny for me so I was looking forward to watching To Rome with Love. 

The movie was entertaining but it lacked originality. I felt like I'd heard the stories before -not because I had- but because they were very predictable. There was a lack of sass and sarcasm which is something I love about Woody's writing. I was looking forward to a bolder script but at the end I got the feeling that Woody might have been in a rush when he wrote it.

Saturday we went thrift shopping and I finally found one (out of the two) night table I've been looking for since last year.

This baby is getting painted today.

We got it for 15$.

Sunday was church, movies...and NFL games....bo-ring.

While Heinz was watching the games I asked him if he wanted to go out for dinner...I got a silent stare as an answer.

It made me look forward to Super Bowl Sunday.

I hope your weekend was good, filled with fun stuff and no silent stares.

2013 what's ahead

I don't know about you but 2013 is shaping up to be a pretty awesome year: yoga classes + new projects + more traveling = fun.

I am diggin' it.

However I did not feel the same way about 2012 at all. Emphasis on the AT ALL part!

I remember last year  getting together with my friends to write down our New Years resolutions. We started this tradition a couple of years ago but last year I think we did it as a pep-talk & moral support activity because we were all kind of down. I remember we all had a hard time coming up with our resolutions trying to hold on to our faith that 2012 would be a good year.

I can't even remember why we were all feeling so beaten-up back when 2012 started and after all the anxiety it turns out last year was pretty great for all of us.

This year I'm shifting my goals though and...everything is getting logged in my Le Petit Prince Moleskine special edition!

I almost cried when I saw this at the bookstore. I love am obsessed with Moleskine products and every year I always get a new daily planner from them. Le Petit Prince is one of my favorite (if not my favorite) book of all times. I even have the elephant&boa drawing tattooed so  to have a Moleskine daily planner with my favorite book...COME ON! I can only take this as a sign. 

Back to the goals.

Let's start with running.

I had thought I wanted to run a second marathon but that is no longer in my plans. Instead of having a marathon as a goal my main objective this year is to have an injury-free year.

How will I achieve that?

You see I would always get injured. Even when I wasn't in "training mode". The problem? over-a-chie-ver Ruth.

Yes, I was my own problem. Running started out as a "safe" zone where I felt free and most important...I felt happy.

Don't get me wrong it still is but having back to  back injuries can leave you burned out. 

Somewhere last year running lost its fun. I would gear up and it would take me forever to get my foot out the door. Antichafer, hydration, power gels, putting on those darn compression sleeves, setting up my Garmin, pace, distance...it all became too much.

I know I came to yoga because I'd heard it would help me with my running injuries and it did. You would think that it was all the stretching that helped me but actually it wasn't. Yoga has helped me in giving me the confidence to be...moderate. For me this means I don't have to push myself anymore. It means I don't have to prove myself  through races or PR"s to call myself a runner. 

This year I'm taking my yoga practice off the mat and bringing it into my running. I will do this by setting how-I-feel- goals. You can call them intentions because I will. 

I will run for fun and I will -only- run for fun. That's it.

No more losing weight related, no more pace & distance related shizzle. I will just have fun.

Will I wear my Garmin? Well of course! Specially because I got a new -fancy- one for Christmas. 

Black...but fancy. Apparently more sofisticated means less colorful. Garmin needs to pimp them up.

But I will wear it to set myself a goal, I will wear my Garmin to get to know my body.

I will check what pace my body feels more comfortable in. I will check it to see what distance my body loves to run. 

I will use my Garmin as a learning tool not as a measuring tool. Nope, not this year.

This year I will not measure my running in how far or fast I can run. I will spend this whole year learning.

I will continue to share distance and numbers here but what's most important to me is that I will share whatever it is I learn.

The same goes into my yoga practice. 

My goal is to discover. DIscover my body, my emotions, mindsets...and you know...learn.

I do want to continue my trainings. I really want to make it to the Self Awakening Yoga training in March at the Nosara Yoga Institute. 

I think it may happen :)

I hope you stick around this year. Not only to read whatever I mumble but to share your story too. Let me know what YOU are setting your mind to, what  your struggles & your achievements are. Let's all make this 2013 great. Don't leave me alone in my fun quest. Join in. Let's have fun together.