So misleading...

Could you get mad at this face??No? Never in a million years could you be upset with this adorable fuzzy kitty face?

WRONG.
Yes it is nice to have a furry friend who follows you everywhere and is in desperate need of your constant attention. However, before you enter into such a relationship KEEP IN MIND: this friend is also capable of:
- tracking kitty litter EVERYWHERE
- puking all over your floor
- drinking your beer
- staring at you while you sleep
- preventing you from sleeping by sitting on top of you and kneading you forcefully with her paws while simultaneously drooling in your ear, then acting like a kitty boomerang when you shove her to the end of the bed in an attempt to stop this behavior
- purring and looking at you confusedly as if trying to understand why this makes you upset

You have been warned.

Let it Snow!!!

On Saturday I slept in until 9am and when I got up and looked outside I saw....

THIS!!!: The first snowfall of the year!!!...which OK, maybe wasn't so magical when I had to scrape 6 inches of wet slush off my car so I could drive to Trader Joe's, but still exciting. To celebrate the arrival of winter, I cuddled up in a blanket, whipped up a little of this:
...which I have to say one of my favorite teas. Most teas that claim to be "candy cane" really just taste like regular peppermint tea...but this one actually tastes like candy cane! It's really delicous, another Trader Joe's victory. I also made a baked apple as a mid-afternoon snack, topped with honey, cinnamon and almond butter. On Saturday night I braved the drive to St. Paul to make dinner, have some drinks and watch a movie with friends.

As far as Yoga, I've been mixing up my studios the last couple of weeks. Last week I took a class from Lynn at One Yoga, where we focused on twisting poses to help the digestive system and gaining stability in half-moon and revolved half-moon... revolved half moon is probably one of my biggest yoga nemises, and Lynn said she would focus on it all month so I'll definitely have to go back to that class.

On Thursday I went to a class with Ali at The Om Collective, a new studio that just opened on Lyndale, taking the place where Balance Fitness used to be. The studio is beautiful and the class was amazing - we did a series of hip-openers and postures to work the hamstrings and open the heart/shoulders, all leading up to this madness at the end:

To my complete and total shock I could actually kind of do it! At least, I could do the modified version where your back knee is on the ground with your foot at a 90-degree angle behind. My gimpy hips might actually be starting to behave like normal joints but they still need plenty of babying and coddling before I can do anything resembling prasarita padottanasana or any kind of seated straddle.

Off to a meeting for school projects... have a wonderful Tuesday and enjoy the snow!!

Still not a Kantian

A couple of weeks ago in pricing class, we had a lengthy discussion about pricing ethics. My professor posed the following situation: you're driving along and you see a yard sale, given by a farmer who is selling everything he owns to feed his family. Among the sale items, you see a painting that is priced at $15.00... but when you look at it you know it's really valuable (a Picasso or a Monet or something along those lines). So... the ethical conundrum is, do you pay the asking price of $15, or do you pay the real value?

Kantian pricing, my professor explained, would demand that you do the right thing and pay the full value. When people in my class started to argue, he just laid on the guilt ("His children are starving! His goats are starving!!" etc). Soon we moved on to Rawles, which was even more awesome. I loved this discussion because philosophy and ethics rarely come up in my classes, at least not directly. Mostly we seem to take it for granted that people will do the right thing.

Anyways, the point of all this is, last weekend I encountered a Kantian pricing conundrum! I was visiting my fiancee at school and we went to one of our favorite places in town, a coffee shop-slash- used bookstore. I think I've previously documented my obsession with books, so no need to explain why I love this place. As I was perusing the Literature section, I came across an old hardcover volume of a book by one of my favorite childrens book authors. It was a 1905, first edition with plated illustrations, in great shape except for the binding which is a little bit falling apart.

I really wanted this book...like REALLY wanted it. The victorian style illustrations and adventureous verses pretty much epitmomized for me what childhood should be like... I started having daydreams of reading them to my kids from this awesome-looking volume, and passing it down to them to read to their kids etc. Only one problem - there was no price marked. I assumed it would probably cost more than a grad student with no income should be paying for one book, but I figured I wouldn't hurt to ask so I took it up to the front desk.

I handed it to the hipster-looking college student manning the cash register/coffee bar, and explained that I'd found this book without a price, and wondered how much it cost.
"Hmm..." she kind of half glanced at the book. "What section was it in?"
"Literature."

She opened a couple of pages and leafed through them for a maximum of 2 seconds. "I dunno," she shrugged. "Five bucks?"
DONE.

I immediately thought about the farmer and his painting - had I just done something horribly immoral? Well... the store obviously wasn't aware of the true value of that book, so they weren't any less happy with the sale... and I was enormously happy getting something I really wanted for far less than it should have cost me, so I figure overall happiness was increased. And at that point offering them more money would have just looked weird.

Needless to say, I spent the whole walk back to Ben's apartment telling him about Kantian pricing and the ethical dilemma of the farmer. Poor Ben. I'm almost as sorry for this as I was for subjecting him to my Managerial Accounting spazzes last spring.

In other news, Maggie is coming to visit this week! Maggie is my parents cat... I think she's awesome, but the last time she was here she hid under my bed for two straight days (unintentionally useful for dusting under there haha). Wish me luck!

In case you're having a bad day...

...here's something to make you smile :)

Photo courtesy of: http://www.buzzfeed.com/normallyodd/this-puppys-cuteness-will-kill-you-tc

Mornings like this are why God made coffee

I got up at 5am today to bake scones for a potluck. It was still pitch dark outside...and actually, to be fair it was still pitch dark when I left at 7 to catch the bus.

You would think that getting up at 5 would be the most horrible, torturous thing ever...but the funny thing was, I actually kind of liked it. Even though it is ungodly early, I really enjoyed having 2 hours to shuffle around in my pj's, mess around with a delicious combination of flour, eggs, butter, cheese and fruit, and then curl up on the couch with a cup of steaming french-press coffee while the smell of baked goods permeated my apartment (see? If you try hard enough, you can even make getting up early sound as lovely as a tropical vacation).

I've decided to finally embrace my special relationship with coffee. I've tried several times to give it up entirely and switch over to tea (because I LOVE tea...)... but why fight what's meant to be? I'm not an addict by any means, but without just one cup in the morning I feel off for the rest of the day... and I really do only need one cup. It can even be a fairly small cup, it just needs to be coffee. There's just something so relaxing and calming about the whole routine...everything else in the world can change, but I still have my morning coffee. If Kevin Upton were here right now he'd probably tell me that the whole thing is a placebo effect and I'm being irrational...but he's not here. And so I will continue to bask in my enjoyable dependence on coffee.

FUN FACT: A couple few centuries ago, coffee was touted as a possible cure for the plague.

On an entirely different note, I had a fantastic dinner with my dad tonight at Bar La Grassa. I've been wanting to go there ever since I saw it written up in Bon Appetit, and it did not disappoint! The interior ambiance is great, with sort of a rustic, dark-wood-and-chandelier-with-an-update kind of feel, and the food is amazing. I got a mushroom pasta and my dad got the papardelle with veal, both were great and the beet and avacado salad we had as an appetizer was amazing. I will definitely be back - they do private parties so I'm thinking... bachelorette party kickoff? Heck yes.

Tomorrow I will sleep in until... 5:30... at which point I will try to make the 6am yoga class. We'll see how that goes... :)

Fail.

Sorry everyone... so here's what is going on in my life since I last wrote:
1) The tea did not cure my illness. I was sick for at least a week, and I actually stayed home from school for a day... I can't remember the last time I felt sick enough to stay home from either work or school but I think it might have been when I had food poisoning.
2) Ben was here! Last weekend he came to visit and we watched a lot of movies, had people over for a dinner party and watched the Twins lose to the Yankees...Ok so that last part sucked but the rest of the weekend was great.
3) I went to a 3 hour (!!) workshop on backbends this weekend with Noah Maze, and learned a ton. Full Wheel finally feels like it's supposed to (I think?) :). So yay!
4) I registered for the Net Impact conference! It's over halloween weekend, so I'll miss fun Halloween parties but I'm still really glad I am going. If you aren't familiar with Net Impact, they're an organization that focuses on corporate social responsibility and sustainability...I can't wait.
5) In an odd coincidence, it turns out that Ben will be at another conference 15 minutes from my conference...and no, we did not plan it that way. Total coincidence.

OK that's all... I have to get up early tomorrow to make scone dough so I should get some sleep.

Sick = Tea

Well... we all knew this would happen at some point. I have a bad sore throat and I'm definitely coming down with a cold, which if it gets much worse, puts a crimp in my 'practice every day' goal. I'm going to do a gentle 30 minute practice tonight and go to bed early so I don't get sicker, but in the meantime I needed something hot and delicious to get me through the last stretch of homework (p.s. is it just me or does anyone else really not want to do any work once it's dark outside? kind of problem in the winter in Minnesota...).

The moment I felt a cold coming on, I started craving this amazing honey and ginger tea I had in India... unfortunately I had no idea how to make it. Fortunately... Google machine to the rescue!!! I found this recipe on http://www.learningherbs.com/ and downsized it a bit for a smaller serving. The recipe on the website doesn't have any actual tea in it, but I was pretty sure what I drank in India did have tea in it, so I added a bag of (decaf) Darjeeling for good measure.

Ginger Tea with Lemon and Honey

1. Start boiling some water.

2. Grate a 1/2 inch piece of ginger root (he says to put the ginger at the bottom of a thermos, I just put mine into a tea-ball. Alternatively, you could probably chop off a couple slices of ginger and just let them hang out at the bottom of your tea cup while you drink it)

3. Squeeze some lemon juice into the bottom of your mug (maybe 1/2 -1tsp? I didn't measure, sorry, I'm lazy)

4. Add honey to the mug...and I mean... ADD SOME HONEY. Use a ton. At least a tablespoon. You might think I'm exaggerating but have I ever mislead you? Especially when it comes to using ridiculous amounts of sugary substance? I thought not.

5. When the water is done boiling, pour the water over the lemon juice and honey, add the ginger-ball (that sounds so weird) and tea bag (if you want) and steep for a few minutes. Add the tea bag later if you don't want your tea quite so strong.

6. Remove ... wow I can't even say those two things together. But there it is. Keeping it real here folks...real, and also very mature. Hem. Remove the items that are steeping.

7. Drink the tea. Feel better.

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea"

- Bernard-Paul Heroux