Yoga Update & Recipes

Yoga update – I'm back to it.  Shoulder is feeling better, but mostly I need to maintain my back, its been hurting more lately and I’ve even gone so far as to visit a chiropractor – something I previously didn’t put a lot of stock into.  My ankles are crap, my shoulder is becoming crap, but I cannot let my back get to that point.  The only reason I do minimal efforts to maintain my ankles is because the issues I have with them don’t have any influence on my horseback riding or skiing - and honestly, I've been to PT for my ankles and have attempted a lot of different things for them since the issue began, gawd, 6 years ago?!  If my back goes to pot, goodbye riding, goodbye happiness, goodbye life.  I will be one cranky, sad individual.  So, its time for me to learn how to maintain and improve whatever I've got going on.  My hope is that yoga will help strengthen all my problem areas - especially my back.  The relaxation benefit of it is great, which is bound to help my body in more ways than one.

Battling TMJ and having a mouth appliance (retainer and night guard) has really altered my diet to encompass a lot of soft foods as I've adjusted to having said appliances.  I was one of the lucky ones as a kid who never had braces, a cavity or anything.  My bite is perfect blah, blah, blah.  But stress through college led to me clenching and grinding my teeth at night which led to the tempromandibular joint becoming a bit off which led to clicking while chewing, pain, a locked jaw at times, and waking up multiple days a week with a headache.  Yay... not.  But perhaps YAY because I've found new and strengthened old favorite recipes because of this!

New: Egg-in-the-hole, avocado style.  Pretty basic, made the same way as egg-in-the-hole with bread, but use an avocado instead!

Since my phone ate the photo I had of my food, I
thought this was a cute substitute.

Grapefruit avocado salad: Two ingredients that complement each other so well, but that I never considered as a good match.  Just grapefruit and avocado - no dressing needed!

At two o'clock in this photo is the salad

Bagel thins with almond butter and bananas: I eat this for breakfast lately.  Nutrious and filling!

Old/improved: Tuna salad.  Previously my tuna salad consisted of tuna, mayo, and relish.  Thanks to Pinterest and the interwebz, I now have added paprika, cumin, and onion/garlic powder to the mix.  SO tasty.  Especially when you live on the not-coast like me and all tuna is strictly from a can.

Seasonally improved: the version of tortilla española (typical recipe sans onions since - while I really like them - prepping them/cooking them KILLS my eyes and I'd just rather not deal with that) I love so much has had ramps (an endemic species of leek that grows in our WV woods in the spring, similar to garlic) added to it lately.  My breath reeks, yeah, but damn, the combination of sauteed potatoes, ramps, and egg goes so well together.  Its quick, its easy, and its soft - my new requirement - so I'm thrilled with it.  And you can't really go wrong with raw ingredients like that being super unhealthy or anything.  =)

Ramp & spinach pizza:  Another great seasonal use of ramps.  Nom, nom, nom.

Have you found/improved/rediscovered any recipes lately?  Please share!

Griffin Runs

Arrive 5:15p; catch horse @ 6:45p.  He was a little asshat monday night.  And I was disgusted with him, but I couldn't let him get away with it.  The other horses did make it a little harder than it should have been, I think, but it didn't excuse his behavior.  I finally gave into it being a long night and just walked round and round the field putting pressure on him making him move his feet.  D and her husband finally stepped in and decided that he needed to be chased with the 4-wheeler as my walk - to prevent busting an ankle or something in a now rock hard foothole from when it was muddy - wasn't fast enough to do much good in putting pressure on him for long.

I pulled Duke and Wrangler out of the field to take his two main buddies away.  Bill has been lame and usually doesn't partake in the games the other three (1.7 yr, 4 yr, and 6 yr olds) are always involved in, so he got to stay in the field.  Steve and I gave Griffin a lot of chances to come to me, chasing slowly, but he STILL wasn't at all interested in coming in.  So we revved it up a lot of notches and really put the pressure on him.

I've never ridden a four wheeler quite like that - I was passenger in this case, I drive like a grandma on those things.  SUPER intense, a little scary, and a lot of fun.  Griffin did give in after about 15 minutes of hard zig zagging chase all over creation at full speed - let us get to the inside of the circle he halted dropped his head, licked and chewed.  Good horse.

Oh, and there was finding out this little tidbit: Little man is capable of at least a 32 mph gallop.  Go little horse! 

Once he surrendered was tuckered out, he got to stand and not have to move his feet while tied up by the barn.  I applied SWAT to his evil bug areas (they're already SO AWFUL!), rasped his feet, and then curried and gave him his some feed once he'd cooled off.  Hopefully he won't pull this shenanigan again.  It was a good lesson learned on both our parts.

I found his color!  One of my couple purchases from Equine Affaire.

He'll grow into that saddle soon enough.  Measuring his legs with the little tricks out there all have him coming to ~15hh!

More on that later

I went to Equine Affaire in Ohio this past weekend - hence my absence - and it was amazing.  More on that later.

Griffin is getting bigger and more beautiful every day.  More on that later.

Kenai and I will be making our return to the world of rock climbing this weekend!  More on that later.

Big accomplishments at work make me happy.  No more on that later, as it would bore everyone.

I have a couple recipe, yoga, and craft posts planned in the near future, so, once again, more on those later!

Hope everyone is enjoying their unseasonable weather and staying safe from tornadoes (for those of you who are plagued with them)!

WW: Tree Poses Across the West

Things You Only Hoped For

How true is this for you?  I can't help but feel overwhelmed thinking about how true it is for me.

- I have a horse, my childhood dream for as long as I can remember
- I have a Siberian husky, another childhood dream
- I have a job doing something I enjoy that has me headed in the direction I've dreamed of going (not the horse riding professional job though ;-))
- I've been to some truly amazing locations around this little planet and seen so many truly incredible things
-Wolves in Yellowstone NP was one of these incredible things
- I've built and developed friendships that have led to me getting to know some truly PHENOMENAL people; each of these people has taught me something new and treasured about life that I would be a little less for without knowing

 Now think about your list, it really makes the day seem so much brighter for knowing.  It makes me think of the Sound of Music when Julie Andrews' character teaches the Von Trappe children to think of their favorite things when things are rough.  How much better is it to think of this list and realize some of those favorite things are dreams/wishes/hopes come to fruition?  I think its far superior.

It really turned my really crappy day completely around - right in the nick of time as there are only ~2 hours of this day left.

Ride - complete with map!

A map of our ride; I adjusted the map to show all the forested area with trails I have yet to explore!  I'm so excited!

Kristen over at Sweet Horse's Breath talked about the Endomondo app a week or so back.  I downloaded it but this was the first I've actually used it.  I enjoyed it so much - and it didn't burn the battery on my phone as much as I'd thought it may - so I bought the pro version!

Average and high speeds, elevation/altitude measurements, and of course knowing how far we went and from where-to where is so valuable!  I'm super psyched to start tracking all our rides. 

Today it was Mayer, me, Kenai, and Griffin.  I started off ponying Griff, but he's all rambunctious and shit now, so I took a page out of Dom's book over at A Collection of Madcap Escapades and trusted in Griffin's herd-bound nature that he'd come with us.  I had a bareback pad on him - just to get him used to a little something - and so I just took the lead on his ponying halter and daisy-chained it through a D-ring on the pad.  He followed right along!

I got tired of her crazy mane and braided it

Kenai led our ride, Mayer and I in the middle, and Griffin trailed behind.  We climbed a mountain, crossed a stream and puddles, walked, trotted, cantered, and even did a little gallop.  Griffin would get no more than 200 ft. behind on the wide open logging road we were on, and he stayed closer on the smaller trail.  I was very proud of both him and Kenai for staying so near - Kenai more than Griffin in that aspect!

When we got back within sight of the barn Mayer started jigging like a royal you-know-what.  Matters weren't helped in that Griffin had taken off full-out Arab gallop, tail flagged in air, chasing Kenai.  Mayer even popped up a little with me and I ended up having to get off her and walk her down the big hill in the field.  Griffin and Kenai ran and played all the way down the hill and into the field, then stopped, realized we weren't there and stopped.  Griffin looked up at us, tail still flagged, then galloped back to us.  Of course Kenai followed.  Too freaking funny.

And I'll leave you with the first time-lapse shot of Griffin:

Cell phone videos

Pimp My Horse

....why is this trending right now?  Oh dear.

Film Friday

My first experience, first run with western powder.  Its akin to the white powdered drug, 'cause I'm addicted after my first try!  Oh, Rocky Mountain high, when will I experience your sweet slopes again!?

Roadtrip 2012

Om nom nom nom

Fredrika...who bashed herself repeatedly against all windows on the house to protect her territory from her reflection.

View from the house.

Best. Meal. Ever.

View from the house the morning it snowed!

My future house...right?!

The Blacktail pack is in the background toward the left part of the photo on one of those hills.

Find the wolf!

Mammoth Hot Springs

This is the reason I wanted to learn to rock climb

Allen!  Allen!  Allen!  Allen! ...wait, that's STEVE!  Steve! Steve! Steve!