Mental gymnastics.

I've been struggling with yoga lately. It's definitely my preferred workout of choice, but I'm just not getting out of it what I used to.  I was initially so drawn to yoga because I felt like it did a lot for both my mental and physical health, but recently, going to yoga has seemed like more of an obligation and has felt more stressful to me than relaxing. Probably because I have been so crazy busy this fall... but despite that, I have been trying to sprinkle in some other ways to maintain both my mental and physical health. Here is a look at how I have been trying to keep a balance over the last few months and find time to enjoy the fall (which apparently means random 90 degree days in November here...).

MENTAL HEALTH: Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
As we speak, I am sitting on the couch drinking a glass of wine. And I skipped yoga today. It was rainy, chilly, and I was in a bad mood. The traffic getting to yoga and parking would have been terrible and I wanted nothing more than to feel cozy and cook some comfort food. Shocking I know, that cooking and eating mac and cheese relaxes me. But I needed it tonight. There is just something about dancing around your kitchen, listening to music, and making-up an ingenious culinary creation.  That's right, totally made this up and I am super proud of it.  (The recipe is at the bottom of the blog post for those who are interested.) Then of course, putting on fuzzy socks and eating a bowl of the stuff is pretty divine too.

PHYSICAL HEALTH: Heroes of Hope 5K
As many of you probably know from Facebook, I ran a 5k last Sunday with some girls from my sorority Alumni group to benefit brain tumor research. It was a great day to run on the beach, a bit warm, but really beautiful. This was actually quite a big accomplishment for me. Since breaking my ankle 4 years ago and getting hardware to repair it, I have really struggled to run like I used to. I have had a lot of problems with leg pain and sciatica and have been really frustrated and annoyed with myself and my body.  It was really great to balance running with yoga to train for this and I really focused on not pushing myself too hard, too fast (my main problem post-new ankle). I'm proud to say that I ran the entire 5k in 29:16. My goal was to run it in 30 minutes, so I was spot on. The best part is that I feel great and more pain free than I have felt after running in a really long time.  And all of my wonder friends and family almost doubled my fundraising goal for the race. THANK YOU to everyone that donated.  It means so much to me and of course to those who will benefit from the research that is being funded at all the major hospitals in the LA area.

This adolescent bear is quite proud of me.

LA and I make amends...

So, after getting in a bit of a fight with Los Angeles, I spent sometime getting back to one of the things that made me excited about this city in the first place, nature. Being active and outside has always been somewhat of a reset button for me and a reset was definitely necessary these past few weeks.  I've been traveling a lot lately and I haven't had much time to relax. Any time that I have had in LA has been short and spent trying to cram in friends and events.  Without time to recharge, it's easy to get frustrated. Fortunately, between all of my trips and traveling, I was able to spend some time with nature.

A few weeks ago, my friend Carrie invited me to join a girl she knows from college and her friends to go hiking in Malibu. I've been hiking in Malibu many times, but I had never heard of these so called "moon pools" that we were going to see.  After a bit of a slow start, we made our way up PCH and up into Malibu Creek State Park.

Aside from being an absolutely gorgeous place to spend the day, the park has also been used to film many movies and tv shows, as part of it used to be owned by 20th Century Fox. One of the most well known things to be filmed in the park is the tv show M*A*S*H, and you can actually do a hike to the filming site.

M*A*S*H Site hike from Feb 2012

Baby it's cold outside.

That's right, I said it.  It's in the 50s and I am freezing!  I could turn on my heater, but I don't want to because I feel like I should be better at this.  I just moved from Chicago where this would be a perfect fall day!  Gnat says this means that I'm assimilating- I say I'm getting soft.  Is feeling cold in mild weather on my Angeleno check list???

Regardless, since I was feeling chilly I decided that today would be the perfect day to cook my favorite Chicken Curry Soup from college.  This soup would appear about once a week or so in The Grill in the UMC where I worked.  When it was there, I would eat it regardless of what I had brought for lunch (or get it and save it if I had already eaten... or eat it anyway...).  For my graduation present from CU, Jan, one of the women I work with managed to snag the recipe for me.  It apparently took some effort to get the chef to release the recipe and because of this I'm going to keep it a secret.  I will post pictures of cooking it though.

Finished product, delish!

Soooo, the recipe is meant to be sold in a cafeteria-like atmosphere, and therefore, it makes 6 gallons.  I quarter it to make 1.5 gallons, which is still a lot.  Hopefully I can share some with my neighbors to try and make friends with them :)  Otherwise I guess I'm just eating it until January...ish...

No place like home.

Philosophically, there are multitudes of different opinions on what constitutes "home".  People, places, things, states of mind or combinations of these.  For me, it's difficult to describe how I view "home" because it's more of a feeling I get.  I feel a comfort, familiarity and warmth with floods of old memories and excitement for new ones.  For me, home is not necessarily where I live, though places I live do often become home.

I knew October in LA was going to be difficult for me- the weekend I moved into my apartment is the only weekend I have had and will have in the apartment all month.  To top that off, all of my weekends would be spent with many old friends in all of my favorite places.  This past weekend was the motherload.  First stop:

Oh heeeeyyyyy Fall!

I LOVE FALL!

GC Pumpkin Carving 2009

The changing leaves, bonfires, football, scarves, boots, sweaters, comfort food- everything!  Unfortunately for me, Fall isn't really a "thing" here in California.  It's been sunny and in the 70s or 80s everyday with some cooler temps at night that are just lacking that crisp fall smell.

A weekend trip to St. Louis for the wedding of two of my favorite teacher pals, Kristen and Chris, was just the ticket to get into the fall spirit.  I stepped of the plane into the heart of fall.  Even the wedding was complete with gorgeous fall touches and a jar of apple butter for a favor:

Are you ready for some football?

Photo courtesy of FX

I know I am.  Football is a sure sign of fall (I'll save my obsessive love of fall for another post) and the weather this past weekend in Iowa was a perfect match for the start of high school football and college football (even if Colorado's debut as a Pac-12 team was less than stellar). With the pro season kick-off rapidly approaching I must say that I'm excited for a new venture in the football arena this year.  No friends, I'm not talking about the new indoor football team in CR, I'm talking about fantasy football!  This year, in addition to manically cheering on my Buffs and my Bears, I will be managing and dominating my fantasy league with... wait for it.... Refrigerator of Sweetness.  Epic, I know.  If you don't get it, sorry you're not awesome.

I knew that fantasy football was for me after watching the first two seasons of The League on FX.  If you haven't seen the show, I recommend you watch it immediately; it's hilarious and takes place in Chicago.  I can only hope that my fantasy league incurs such debauchery and absurd competitiveness.  I must say, I was fairly disappointed when my draft order was doled out to me in an e-mail from ESPN as opposed to being determined in a manner such as this.

But in all seriousness, I cannot wait to start fantasy football- and the wait is almost over, my (autopick) draft is at 5am tomorrow morning!  I've spent the last several weeks participating in mock drafts, tinkering with my autopick strategy and reordering my pick preferences to ensure a championship combination of beefy and agile gentleman is delivered to my inbox much like a present under the Christmas tree.  I'm confident that my obsessive planning and organization coupled with my adorably competitive nature will pay off.  After all, I am going against a bunch of genetic counselors, most of whom are female and one of whom is a male that thinks football involves kicking a black and white ball into a net...

Wish me luck!  I'll post the roster tomorrow!

Also... it appears that the closest thing LA has to a professional football team is USC... who isn't even bowl eligible this year and has lower stadium attendance than Colorado (!?!?!)... here's to hoping I find a good Bears bar!