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We have left humid hot Florida and now are on the west coast, with some really cold days.  I think missing winter last year in Peru has thrown me off.  Spring in FL was my summer, now all this cold weather makes me feel like it’s fall….but summer will come.

We spent a week with Matt’s parents, playing wii, cards and relaxing.  We had a nice family gathering one day so we got to share our slideshow and catch up with everybody.  We now are in Portland staying with friends and seeking employment and lodging.  It was really cold when we arrived but the past few days have been sunny and beautiful.  Maybe we’ll just stay unemployed to take advantage of all the fun things there are to do.

Matt and I finished a 3 day liquids fast and are now enjoying the pleasures of cooking and eating once again. I always feel better after a cleanse and don’t feel like I’m carrying around any extra crap in my body. At least for today! I documented our fast on my food blog if you are interested.  I also wrote a little how-to day by day what we eat, what we do, if you want the details the entry is here.

One of my goals during the fast was to do yoga every day. I do yoga, but very rarely. Usually only when we are at a yoga center. For some reason, I can’t get into it on my own without a live leader and other people around. If I do it alone I just feel like I’m stretching and end up cheating or getting distracted. I’ve never tried the videos before. We’ve been checking out different yoga DVDs to see who we like and if any of them are worth repeating. So far the most intense one (and longest) is Power Yoga by Rodney Yee. Both of us break a sweat during the session and when I’m finished I feel relaxed, stronger and more flexible. It seems to be the most productive video we’ve done so far. The easy, slow ones are nice but I am very easily distracted and if I can go into a pose that’s a little harder, my mind stays there. So I’ve been doing yoga and enjoying it and it helps me go into meditation much easier.  Matt got a book called the Heart of Yoga, explaining a lot of theory behind it.  Perhaps knowing it will help me appreciate it better, and maybe do it more?  We’ll see.

Meditation is something I always intend to do and put it off.  It’s frustrating, I get distracted, bored and my mind races incessantly.  I know it’s good for you and all that but I’ve always avoided it as much as possible.  While in Peru at the yoga center I read some books on meditation and the like.  The one that impressed me the most was The Power of Now.  It’s a great book and has really good exercises for quieting the mind and making meditation easier.  And I think the author is Oprah’s new best friend. By the way, has anyone heard that Oprah is eating vegan, gluten free and sans booze for 21 days?  She’s doing a physical/spiritual cleanse and I think it’s really cool someone as influential as her is publicly talking about veganism.  The world listens to Oprah, not the little people.  So if she is looking into where her food came from and what it does to her body, perhaps more will not only follow but be educated.

I don’t know exactly why, but we keep getting sick and we’ve been back in the US for over a month now. It’s a different sick than in Peru. That was mostly intestinal anger. This includes head colds, sore throat, cough, itchy angry eyes, etc. Perhaps we are acclimating to the new germs; perhaps we have parasites, who knows? All I know is that I need a cleanse.

Fresh Carrot Juice & Muesli.

Before we left for Peru, Matt and I fasted about twice a year (juice fast) and while it’s challenging at times, it is very rewarding. I feel better, physically and emotionally, and giving my body a break from constant digestion and allowing it to clean house is great. Fasting is something that’s been practiced for over 5,000 years and is used for detox (the liver stores a lot of pesticides and other toxins), boosting the immune system and preventing/healing illnesses (the aging process even gets reversed a bit). We’re exposed to so much toxicity, whether air pollution, pesticides on produce or even our overexposure to plastics, it makes me sick (literally and figuratively).

Raw Ginger Almond Rolls.

Along with our typical 3 day juice fast (we’d do longer, but I lose more than 10% of my body weight which puts me out of cleansing mode and into starvation mode) this time we’re going to eat 100% raw for 5 days before. “Raw food” is food that hasn’t been cooked or heated over 104degF (there are many schools of thought on Raw Cuisine whose “rules” vary) and includes soaked nuts, seeds and sprouts (and dehydrating). The main thing that stands out is that the enzymes aren’t destroyed in cooking, thus aiding digestion and preventing/healing chronic diseases and illnesses. Plus I’ve always wanted to learn more about raw food-ism, so now’s the time. I’ll be documenting the fast on my food blog, so if you are interested, head over there!

Speaking of my sweater, a friend recommended the web community ravelry.com to me. It’s a free knitting/crochet website sort of set up like the myspace thing but not as annoying, seizure inducing or “friend-based coolness factored.” You basically have access to free patterns, ideas and are linked in with a bunch of other fiber nerds. There’s forums for questions, groups to join to go do real life knitting/crochet with other humans in your area (good for when we make that upcoming move), and your own little profile, complete with your list of projects and photos.

I’m not addicted to it, but I’m enjoying it so far and it makes me feel a bit more motivated to work on my projects since it is announced and listed. I also have a queue based on other people’s projects that I’d like to do one day. The neat part it that it’s all linked. My current sweater is using yarn I got in Peru. By entering my yarn type, I can see who else is making projects with the same brand of yarn and what the projects are. The sweater I made years ago (and never finished) from the SnB book is on my list, meaning I can now see who else is making that sweater (and see fotos of their work). It’s really fun to see how one pattern can look so different.

So it’s nice to be back at the knitting needles and even nicer to be linked into a community since I am far from home or friends to knit/crochet with. Especially since this new sweater is designed by me and I’m playing it all by ear. I’m trying to use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s techniques for a raglan sweater and am very roughly looking at a sweater pattern book I got from the library. We’ll see how much I get done in early summer Florida!

Our time in Florida has been a mix of relaxation and adventure. We visited the Everglades and saw too many alligators for my comfort level. We went to Sarasota and watched dolphins play in the water and pelicans doing some marathon fishing. We went to Sunday night drum circle on the beach and enjoyed the mixing of ages and cultures. We’ve been spreading the Wii love with our families. We swam in the ocean, enjoyed the beach and had some quality family time.

We lucked out and had a little friend time, too. My trapeze partner was in Florida for a few days and we spent a day at Disney together, VIP style. Her brother works there and was generous enough to get us in for free and we barely had to wait for any rides. We went to Animal Kingdom (a first for me, I really liked this park. Animals, roller coaster, and a fun safari ride). My favorite new animal is the Bongo antelope, part zebra part deer part cow. A white rhino was less than a foot from Matt and the lion king was taking a snooze. We also popped into the Magic Kingdom, did the classic rides and popped into MGM (which is now called Hollywood Studios) to ride the Tower of Terror, easily one of the best rides in all of Disney. At one point we were dropping and a window opened and my glasses were off my lap, floating in front of my face! It was fun to hang out at Disney and not stress about the lines or where to go. We were happy to follow his Disney’s Best Hits tour. Thanks guys! It was so good to spend time with you!

Now we’re chilling with my parents and taking it easy. We drove our rental car on the beach on its last day, which was pretty classy. We’ve visited a few farmer’s markets and have been eating really well, thanks to my mom. We ate at a vegan raw restaurant one day and it rocked my world! It was the best raw food- taste and presentation-wise that I’ve had so far. I’ll post a review on my food blog one day. We were treated to massages one day at the massage college and Matt had a really deep knot worked out of his shoulder. I think so many toxins got released that he now is sick again. We can’t seem to get well since we got back from Peru. We’re sleeping a lot but there must be some Peruvian parasites still hanging on. Regardless, we’re keeping busy with my dad’s movie collection, reading, going to the pool and cooking. I even started a sweater with my alpaca yarn and frogged the whole thing last night and have started over (too big).