Thursday, February 23

Yes, I haven't written in over a week.  Reason?  I guess I haven't felt like it.  Sometimes I find it is nice to break out of stuff a little.

I was granted a random, surprise and extremely appreciated 3-day weekend by Chantry (the coolest boss ever) and I took total and complete advantage of it.  We skied all day Saturday where I attempted to overcome my Revie Bowl anxiety and was only moderately successful.  I now know where I can ski in that area and feel competent but I get such stage fright with that lift right there.  Ulgh.  I will keep chipping away at it.

Sunday, Ally and I had another great practice, incorporating some more arm balances into that Dragonfly Practice, and we tried taking it to the next level where you put your foot behind your head and THEN try to balance on your hands.  What a brain scrambler.  She was more successful than me, as she is more flexible in general, and it was fun to play around with it.

Then, JC and I skied the whole afternoon... and here was my big breakthrough: we skied all blacks.  Not only did we ski nothing but blacks, but I skied them without any fear, hesitancy or anxiety.  HUGE.  Major step in my ski career.  We played around with skiing lumps, not really bumps, but getting a sense for the rhythm of bumps, pole placement, where to turn, etc...

Moonday we had 9 inches but the snow conditions turned out to be tricky and fickle.  I don't think it got above single digits up top, so the snow remained sticky, grabby and slow with suepr hard-pack sprinkled betwixt.  I did the best I could and we were both pretty tired by the end of Monday.  We spent a lot of time eating over the weekend, we even had STEAK NIGHT!!  A rarity for my husband to want red meat, so I was super happy to grill up a couple and smear some blue cheese-butter on top and watch it ooze down around the edges.

I am contemplating making a mountain town family cookbook with all my tried-and-true recipes.  Thoughts?

Last night JC's band TriCo played at the Llama so I prepared a lot of foods for the weekend, as a visiting yoga instructor is here and I will be in yoga from 5-7:30 on Friday night, 9-12 on Sat. (then skiing), 4:30 -7 on Sat. night, 9-12 on Sun, (then skiing).  I made Carmola Granola, whose recipe I will include soon, Party Nuts, cut up a pineapple for the kids to dip in cinnamon whipped cream, homemade calzones and peeled whole carrots with the green tops for them to have toinght when I am teaching yoga.

It is super windy out there this morning, the light coming out and casting that eery early morning gray on everything. 

We just figured out that the Olympics will be on when the Sparacino-Carmola clans converge at the beach in August, which will be super fun!  I love watching those swimmers.  I have very fond memories of watching the last Olympics with Jane in Hawaii, I would stop by her place after work because I didn't have tv and she would tivo it for us to watch events unfold.  In case you didn't know, the Sparacinos (mom, dad, Leigh, Ella) and the Carmolas (JC's dad and mom, us and the kids) will be staying in a 4-bedroom beach house on Oak Island this summer.  Looking forward to the parents meeting and getting super tan.  Don't tell my dermatologist, who actually believes that no tan is a healthy tan.  What a crock!