Remabulous

In training for the Silverlake Reservoir Run...

This past week, I joined the YMCA here in LA. I had come to realize that despite all my creative solutions to not have to join a gym, I actually like going to the gym. I am one of those weirdos. And for anyone who hasn't tried this- books on tape are a dream to get you through cardio on the machines. It sounds crazy, but someone telling a story is way more engaging than just music for me.

 I have been three times so far this week. I'll go again tomorrow. I am a machine. I am so sore I can barely move, but it feels good. Silverlake reservoir is mine. I'll have to start jogging on a treadmill maybe next week in order to get the running back into the routine, but I am feeling good about a spring run. My assistant, Jen, has agreed to come and document with film. That's right- we are not going to put one over on your people. We're proving these goals with film.

So, for anyone who worries that they have too much work to do to go to the gym I must say that I have gotten more done this week in less time because I don't have the nervous jittery copped-up-in-the-house feeling that comes from, well, never leaving the house.

If you work at home, you have to make the time to leave. I champion the gym as a way to do that. Plus, I've been sleeping like a champion! Yay...

And another goal bites the dust! Madame Bovary is finished.

So... another day, another goal completed. I was up in Santa Barbara on a retreat with my amazing mastermind partners and planning out next steps of our year to make 2010 the best year ever as business owners.

One of the best parts about retreats is the ability to sit and read for more than five minutes at a time and especially to do it at other times than right before bed when I am liable not to remember half of what I've read.

So... did I enjoy Madame Bovary? Definitely.

Even though I read it on the Nook instead of as a paper page traditional book?

I did.

Here are my thoughts on both.

And damn do I wish Netflix would get on it and release this version of the movie so I can watch it. I love Isabelle Huppert. Can't wait!

Cooking with the Clan

32 has been a year of cooking, it turns out. Six full items on my list are food related. Not surprising as I love little more than to cook and eat in a group, as I am doing here...

But six items? That's a big chunk. We have:

• #1: learn to make souffle
• #3: learn to make cheese
• #17: build a vegetable bed in the garden
• #20: order organic produce delivery and cook everything that shows up
• #26: Take a knife skills class- chop like a ninja
• #31: make homemade pasta

So far, I think I'm doing pretty well on this. My stepmother cooked a carrot souffle for Christmas that was amazing. I need to get on her about the recipe. Yum.

I have not yet made cheese. I was a bit worried about dairy for a bit when I made my sad gluten discovery. Now that I am pretty much certain that dairy and I are cool, it's going to get back into the priority list...

I've got the delivery box showing up and I have discovered a new love affair with collard greens. My god. Go buy some and saute them with olive oil and salt until they get a bit crispy. Even better- add some crushed garlic. Yumtastic. I have been making them to go with chicken and apple sausages for dinner once in a while.

I have been failing knife skills class. Two lessons:

1. Don't try to cut a full chicken neck off a chicken with a knife- use scissors. I sliced open my finger and it bled for three days before healing up when I tried to cut the neck off for Oskar. Boo.
2. Don't chop onions when you're have paying attention. Sliced the bejesus out of my pinky.

I think knife skills might need a bit more respect at the moment.

And as for pasta- has anyone ever made rice pasta at home? I have seen gnocchi made with rice flour and it was amazing. Light and fluffy and spectacular. I have not heard of any non-wheat noodles made at home. Perhaps I will be the first!

So food fills my days and nights. I am loving cooking and above you can see the evidence of the first Second Sunday Supper potluck. It was dreamy and delightful. Everyone really brought their best with new recipes. Amazing.

What have you been cooking? Please share recipes, cookbooks, ingredients, adventures!

Domestic Bliss.

Here we have the portrait of domestic bliss as it exists most dramatically in Remabulous HQ.

Oskar has a love affair with the heat grate. He has had this love affair since we first turned the thing on a year ago October. And the entire season that it's on, he's on it.

I used to worry that he would catch on fire from sleeping on a heating panel.

I got stressed out when he got his collar stuck in it and needed help getting himself uncaught. But still, he persists.

Many of us make decisions this way. We stick with rituals and choices and behaviors that feel good even though there is a risk.

I started to worry about this idea watching him sleep on the very hot metal. Do I set myself up for pain by choosing risky but enjoyable life situations? (My mind went straight to dating on this one), but I then remembered that without risk, there is no gain. And we all deserve a really good nap, even if it's in the sun on a beach lounger and we might get burned even with sunscreen.

So I say nap on the radiator if you must. And I will remember that risk is ok in the pursuit of joy, even if my practical side balks. #8 is proving to be a challenge to the part of me that wants to play things safe.

Apparently, despite the fact that I am having a wild love affair with my kitchen, complete with new gluten free bread going in the breadmaker as we speak, having a wild love affair with a human man is another thing entirely.

We all learn from this challenge. I know I'll never solve it, but I do wish that the rules were a bit clearer.

If only any of us could date without constantly feeling that we're always doing it wrong.

That would be a real moment of bliss. I seek it. Send me your juju to help me along!

Emma Bovary's in the house! (And she's gone high tech...)

One of my goals for the 32 for 32 challenge is to read Madame Bovary. I think throwing in a classic book each year raises the intellectual rigor of the challenge, and any excuse to read makes me a happy camper, even though Flaubert (pictured right) didn't expect me to read his book anywhere other than in a paper copy when he wrote it...

Over the past few months I have been enticed by the electronic reader concept.

Before you freak out let me say that I:

1. Shop in independent bookstores. In fact, I may have sent many employees children to college. Most people say "My god" when they come in my house in response not to the view or the lovely layout- thank you Jackie Page- but instead to the number of books everywhere. I have to install floor to ceiling shelves in the Dining Room this month just to keep it under control.
2. Used to work for an independent bookstore in LA for several years.

So, with the previous two things in mind I thought about the following:

1. If I have to pay a goddamned overage fee one more time for a suitcase that is over 50 pounds because I have so many books with me I am going to lose it.
2. If my dad has to lift said suitcase into the trunk of the car when he picks me up on visits and is trying to be nice, I'm afaid his back will lose it.
3. On a recent business trip to Las Vegas, I finished the book I'd brought on the first night. I had five more days. There are NO bookstores on the strip in Las Vegas. They don't want you to read. They want you to gamble. I needed another book and I needed one fast. Help!

All of these second set of problems would be solved by one of these magic new devices.

So then... which one to choose? Kindle? Nook? Wait for the mythical tablet from Apple and see if it is a reader?

I went with the Nook. Here's why...

One of those days.

Sometimes it's a manic Tuesday instead of a manic Monday. As always, I set my alarm last night to wake up at the painful hour of 6am to go to my weekly networking breakfast across town. However, the sucker didn't go off.

Cut to me waking up feeling way more rested than I should and reaching over to grab the clock: 7:01. I am supposed to be at this meeting in 5 minutes. It is a 30 minute drive on a good day.

Fuck.

Something I said over and over the entire drive there.

Thankfully, everything worked out, but I did keep thinking on the way over...

"What's all this goddamn planning and list-making for if things like this can still happen?"

I know I still get annoyed that life continues to happen even though I've made excellent plans. And on a day when I really wanted to arrive to do a proper intro to the group for my friend and possibly new member, life still happens.

And when I think about it, life is what brings me unexpected treats as well: a beautiful sunset, a new book, a film with a twist ending, and the really great blind date I had this past Saturday night. We'll see if he calls. I hope so.

Amazing how we can be grateful for an especially fun date and then want to get right back into controlling and hoping that there will be a call in the time frame we want.

Or maybe that's just me.

This whole plans versus letting go thing is a work in progress- perhaps 33 is when I shall learn to let go.

I don't think I am quite ready yet...

Whole new year, whole new decade. Do I have to be a whole new me?

Here we go again... a new year! I am excited and have been enjoying that shiny glow with the first day of a new year. It feels a little bit like a new toy or a new car or a new appliance- I have several in the kitchen today- when I want to use everything that 2010 features without getting it messy, yet.

I've got a lovely mass of ratatouille in the brand new slow cooker, slow cooking away, and I tried for the second time in the last week to make wheat-free waffles for breakfast. Although today's were tasty, I have to recommend the gluten-free waffle mix from Trader Joe's to anyone who's asking. And to them I would say that my whole wheat eating family happily gobbled those puppies up. Bob's Red Mill mix required more adjustment- 1 cup of milk rather than 3/4 cup, and 3 eggs rather than 1 and the waffle iron set lower that I would normally- just to 3 rather than at 4 or a bit below. After one failed disaster, I did have a pretty good waffle breakfast.

Because I want to be the sort of person who eats waffles for breakfast on New Years' Day and sometimes on weekends or just when i feel like it. I want to make a big vat of food for friends and have them over.

It's funny how we have these concepts of ourselves and yet, we don't give ourselves time to live out these ideas. I already am that person, I just never took the time and space to be before. And as I am jumping into yet another year, having noted with some alarm how much faster 2009 passed by than previous years I realize there is no better time to do the things that make me me than now.

So... with that in mind, I share the 2010 motto and the new list of goals and intentions...

The motto:  Keep it simple, Sassy!

Too much of last year involved making things more complicated, faster, spinnier and crazier. This year I will focus on fewer goals at a time, enjoy them, and then move on. I will not over gadget myself and think that more stuff means a better experience.

And the goals and intentions:

I only made three this year, seeing as I have a running list of 32 to chew on. I wanted to keep even the list simple.

1. I will buy no newly made clothing in 2010. My friend Amy inspired this one and I will undertake this goal with her and my friend Erin. For 2010, I am limited to vintage, second-hand, made by me and swapped or borrowed clothes. I feel good about this, especially since we all agreed to an exception for underwear/bras, socks, and gift cards that any kind soul passes along for our birthdays when we begin to get a bit loopy.
2. I want to cook at home or with friends more often than I eat prepared food or in restaurants. I am a busy entrepreneur, but I feel that my health and my values demand that I pay more attention, cut going out spending and learn how to cook yummy food that is gluten free. I am excited and off to a good start today.
3. I will rebuild my relationship to writing... in my journal, which I have neglected until the last week, to writing my dreams down, which I want to do daily, to finishing a draft of my novel this month, and to my websites that got the short end of the stick the last part of the year. I am excited to be my writer self a bigger part of the time in 2010. Feels more like me.

Who's got goals and intentions to share?

Please share them below!

Happy New Year to all and may we all be more of who we see ourselves to be this year.