I Make Myself

The Canadians are here!

Farmer's Market

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.

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!

Currently

In my fridge:

• Roast Beef (First time buying it. I somehow got the craving and found a small package at the super market)
• Turkey ham
• Munster cheese
• Fresh Mozzarella balls
• Cream Cheese
• Brie
• Broccoli
• Green Beans
• Brussels sprouts
• Sweet potatoes
• Pre-cut carrot sticks
• Celery sticks
• Quinoa
• Flour Tortillas
• Chickpeas
• Red beans
• Avocados
• A bag of spinach
• Basil
• Apples
• Bananas
• Sliced Pineapple
• Half of a Papaya
• Portbello mushrooms
• Almond Milk
• Coconut Water
• 2 beers
• 3 opened wine bottles (two reds one white in case you were wondering)

On my playlist:

• The Black Keys
• The Drive soundtrack
• Snatam Kaur
• Krishna Das

 

On my to-do list:

• Work on a Pranayama workshop
• A yoga practice focused on back pain and/or injuries

 

On my mind:

Easter Break!

I am counting the days till Easter Break. Heinz gets the entire week off so we rented a small romantic casita just for the two of us.

We are going to a nearby beach and the house is right by the ocean. Our plan is to not have any plans.

Well maybe just one and that is to finally finish my Murakami book. It is sooooooo good! and it's two books in one you know...so yes, it's taking me a long time to read it but I am loving every page.

I got Heinz the Photojojo phone lens series as a Christmas gift. They are really fun to play with and my favorite one so far is the Fisheye.  

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!