Wake Up and Smell...

When I was a little girl, next to December (obviously because of Christmas), June was my most favorite month of the year.  Now that I am NOT a little girl anymore, next to December, June is my most favorite month of the year.  So nothings changed right?

OHHHH NO!  LOL.  Everything has changed!

When I was a little girl, June was my favorite month because a) my BIRTHDAY is in June!  What kid doesn't love the month their birthday is in!!??  And b) school ended for 2 and half months in June!!!!!!  Ironically, NOW (this is unbelievable) June could be my least favorite month because a)  my BIRTHDAY is in June and b)  school ends for 2 and half months in June!!!!!!

Do ya GET it????  Ummmmm - let's see - little girl, birthday - presents!  Big girl, birthday - a YEAR OLDER.  Yeah - now do you get it?  Let's take it a step further.  Little girl, summer vacation!!!!!!  No school for months!  Big girl, summer vacation???  3 kids home for months????   Weepppppppppp.

Remember I said "could be my least favorite month"?  Actually, yes - those 2 reasons kind of bum me out - (YES, bad mother...go ahead, say it.  Then go talk to most of my "mother" friends!)  But I do love June, despite what I just pointed out to you.  Because there is one thing I love about June that I just can't wait for every year.  I am like a kid at Christmas.  It rivals waiting for the first peepers to start their "It's Spring" song.

Here's my dirty little secret.

Just like in the movie Same Time Next Year, I meet my love every June -  the smell of the wild roses.  My alibi?  Running or biking down the country roads of our little town.  THAT is what I ADORE about June.  I can't quite articulate how much I love that first scent of perfumed air.  I have been running and biking these roads for 47 years.  I know exactly which roads I will encounter my love.  It never fails me.

Last Wednesday was the day.  I jumped on my bike with my friend Robin and headed out in search of my rendezvous.  I casually wheeled through that one section of Roast Meat Hill Road (I know - can you believe that crazy name?) and there -- my love awaited.  I bound through the perfumed barrier, breathing in the scent I love so much.  I've waited so long.  It's so sweet.  It transports me back to somewhere that I cannot identify, just like it does every year.  It is a really good place.  I feel happy and carefree and wildly joyful.  I take that joy with me.  I carry it for hours.  And then I go back for more 2 days later.

I will continue to meet my secret love for the next week or two.  I will continue to catch joy each time we are together.  And then, once again, like every year, I am abandoned...sniff.  But I'll keep it in my heart that we will meet again at the Same Time Next Year.  If nothing else, there will always be that...

  

Happy Things

I am a thief.  I stole this pic from someone's blog.  (I hope I don't get in trouble!!!!!!!)  I LOVE this picture.  It makes me happy.  That got me thinking.  What else makes me happy?  Come on in and find out!

- Family holidays (yea really!!!)
- Morning Glories
- Early mornings holding a sleepy child (no matter how old!)
- Long summer days when I don't have to work at night
- Laying in the hammock for hours with a page turner
- No homework nights!
- Summer evenings on my back porch
- Beach (no other explanation necessary)
- Color
- When my garden looks like a garden
- Connecting with friends old and new
- Connecting
- When I catch the bug - running, biking, training, reading, decorating, gardening, cooking...
- My awesome clientele
- Block Island
- Buxton, North Carolina
- Memories of days gone by
- Doing what I love for a living
- Down time (LOTS OF DOWN TIME!)
- my i-phone
- that my daughter loves to figure skate and that she is GOOD
- a good tan (if you can't tone it, tan it - I always say!)
- when my jeans just slip on
- beautiful, soft lingerie
- the energy in my bedroom in the late afternoon when the wall color glows

- Tanqueray & Tonic on a hot summer afternoon
- Summer Sundays
- Going out for breakfast
- Going out for breakfast with my kids
- A really hard workout - when it's done!
- Skiing
- Lobster with lemon and butter
- My Cannondale bike
- A loose flowy dress on a hot humid day
- Flip flops
- Uggs
- Sloggers!  (My new happy shoe!)
- Sunny summer days
- Blizzards
- December
- Long chats at night
- The New York Yankees playing well

Most of all, catching JOY makes me happy.  Because quite honestly, that's what it's all about.

PS  The other evening, a client walked into my gym for a class and brought me this.

It's an ornament her step daughter made recycling wire.  Do you see it?  Do you see it?!!!  JOY hangs in the center from a crystal bead!  I totally caught JOY!  Thank you Linda D!

PPS  I forgot CHEESECAKE!  My cheesecake makes me happy!  Thanks Sharlene for the recipe I'm MAD about that is the only one I will ever use!

A New Kind of Joy!

I have to tell you.  I am salivating right now.  Why is that, Joey?

Because this afternoon I mixed up a big ole batch of CHICKEN MARBELLA.  And THAT my friends, gives me Anticipatory Joy.  Is anticipatory even a word???  Well it is NOW!  Because Chicken Marbella has to marinate overnight.  So that means I am anticipating my joy when that first bite explodes flavor into my mouth tomorrow!

Apparently, I am in the minority when it comes to knowledge of Chicken Marbella.  Last summer, my husband brought home a container of some chicken dish from The Cooking Company.  I came down from the gym and an evening of training wonderful women and without paying even one bit of real attention to what I was doing, I stuck a fork into the container and wolfed took a mouthful of chicken.  Well.  Wellllllllllll.  I almost SWOONED.  That forkful may very well have created the most grounded moment of my life.  I literally stopped and just groaned with complete JOY.  When I say flavor EXPLODED in my mouth?  Trust me - it was the most flavorful food I had ever eaten.  I went on to demolish the container.

The crazy thing is I mentioned the experience to my brother-in-law.  I said I had the best chicken I ever had the other night.  It had olives and garlic in it.  He casually said to his wife, "Oh, that must be - what's the name of that dish?  Chicken Marbella!"  I was like, what?  No - you couldn't possibly know what the name of this dish is!  So he started describing it - prunes, garlic, olives - yes, yes!  And then my sister-in-law says, "Yea - it's from the Silver Palette Cookbook".  Oh - how stupid of me...I mean, come ON.  They work on a 150 foot yacht with a private chef.  Maybe they DO know what it's called...

So a few days later, I started talking to my fitness class about my chicken dish experience.  One of my clients casually says, "Oh yea - that's Chicken Marbella from The Silver Palette."  HUH!!!!  Am I living in the dark ages??  So I start telling ANOTHER class and someone ELSE says it.  Geeshhhhh -

Well - at any rate, I am now a connoisseur of Chicken Marbella.  I don't make it very often because I usually can't bear the wait overnight for it to marinade but I made it today and I can't wait for Anticipatory Joy tomorrow!  Here's the recipe so you too can jump on my Anticipatory Joy wagon.

By the way - the recipe calls for ALOT of chicken.  I usually cut the amount of chicken in half but keep everything else the same because I LOVE that marinade!  Enjoy!

CHICKEN MARBELLA

4 chickens, 2 1/2 pounds each, quartered
1 head of garlic, peeled and finely pureed
1/4 cup dried oregano
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup pitted prunes
1/2 cup pitted Spanish green olives
1/2 cup capers with a bit of juice
6 bay leaves
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup Italian parsley or fresh coriander (cilantro), finely chopped

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl combine chicken quarters, garlic, oregano, pepper and coarse salt to taste, vinegar, olive oil, prunes, olives, capers and juice, and bay leaves. Cover and let marinate, refrigerated, overnight.

Arrange chicken in a single layer in one or two large, shallow baking pans and spoon marinade over it evenly. Sprinkle chicken pieces with brown sugar and pour white wine around them.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, basting frequently with pan juices. Chicken is done when thigh pieces, pricked with a fork at their thickest, yield clear yellow (rather than pink) juice.

With a slotted spoon transfer chicken, prunes, olives and capers to a serving platter. Moisten with a few spoonfuls of pan juices and sprinkle generously with parsley or cilantro. Pass remaining pan juices in a sauceboat.

To serve Chicken Marbella cold, cool to room temperature in cooking juices before transferring to a serving platter. If chicken has been covered and refrigerated, allow it to return to room temperature before serving. Spoon some of the reserved juices over chicken

My Other Self

So my friend Karen, put out a blog post the other day called My Other Self.  This was her challenge:

What does YOUR Other Self look like?

I challenge you to do a similar post

So here I am Kar!

First and foremost, I am aging OHHHH so gracefully!  I still wear a bikini! And guess what?  I look HOT!















For a living, I passionately train women to feel and look great!

In a gym I own and operate from my home in the Emerald City in Winter and

in the summer, on Block Island where I live in my simple Block Island home.

 

I remain madly in love 

FOREVER.

My gardens are beautiful and they are all my creation.

 I ski in winter and 

skate reallllllyyyyy good.

My kids grow 

and I do this on the beach all summer, in my hammock in the fall and in front of my fire in the winter.

My needs are simple but I must do this ALOT,  

And also this

Because when I do those, I am doing this

and nothing is more important than that...

I HAVE A NEW JOB!!!!!

You know, when my husband had hernia surgery last July, amongst other man jobs, I had to deal with garbage detail.  Now if you live in a city, you most likely have municipal provided garbage pickup .  In the Emerald City, we have a dump Transfer Station.  Fancy name - kinda like Sanitation Engineer - ROLL MY EYES...

Now don't mis-understand, you can get garbage pick up in the Emerald City, but you have to pay for it.  In lieu of that, our illustrious municipality provides a dump Transfer Station which is open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for about 6 hours each day.  This means you can load your car with garbage, wait in a long line of cars (mostly man of the house drivers doing one of their man jobs) and when it's your turn, you get to unload your garbage and drop it into the stinky box hopper.  (BTW - my garbage pile doesn't look this pretty!)

So, the problem is - if you forget to go on Tuesday, now you have 4 days of garbage to load into your nice car on Thursday.  And if you forget Thursday,  you have like 12 bags of garbage to load into your nice car on Saturday.  It's GROSS.  It's a Pain in the A__ and I hate it!!  (Now if I owned a truck, maybe this wouldn't even make my blog!  You see - it's not like you can just lift your 50 gallon garbage "can" onto the bed of your truck.  Each bag has to be loaded into your car - in my case, mom-van - INDIVIDUALLY!  Ugh!)

So - back to the story - I became the Sanitation Engineer last July when my husband had his surgery.  I was ok with that because, hey, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!  6 weeks later, I couldn't figure out why a girl gotta do this still!!!!!!!  I mean - I was really good at it - don't get me wrong.  And I learned to be very Type A about it.  I figured it out that if you went all 3 days each week, you were only dealing with a few bags at a time (including your recyclables) and it was a very easy job.  But if you missed a day or god forbid - TWO.  One time, I missed all THREE days!  Trust me you quickly learn how to be a Type A Sanitation Engineer.

Well sometime in September - I finally went on strike.  (Isn't that what Sanitation Engineers do from time to time?)  And the hub started doing his the job again.  But I noticed he often missed 1, 2 sometimes all THREE dump days.  Then he was crabby and I was crabby and it just was annoying and quite the nuisance.

(Now before you say, "What a bum!", you should know that my very hardworking husband not only runs 2 of our 3 businesses and does his man work, he is also very much involved with feeding our kids, getting them ready for school, helping them with their homework, coaching their teams, getting them to karate, piano, skating, baseball, playdates, blah blah blah, because I work as a fitness trainer.  What does that have to do with him doing everything and me doing nothing so much around our house?  Well in my defense, people usually work out in the morning before work or after the kids get on the bus and after work.  Hence - breakfast and dinner time.  Get it?)

Well, we had a bad run this past month and garbage got out of hand.  Just too much Easter, karate, piano, skating, baseball, playdates, blah blah blah.  Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!  I finally just had enough and loaded the van TWICE - and got rid of it.  (How much do I hate this part of country living????)  That was 2 weeks ago.  I decided I was NOT letting this control us ever again.  I don't think the hub realizes it yet, but I am now the self proclaimed Sanitation Engineer.  Yea - where the heck is the JOY in THAT??????  I'm sure HE will have JOY when he realizes.  (Heyyyy - was this a trick???)

But there is!  There is JOY!!!  Because you see...

I HAVEN'T MISSED A DUMP TRANSFER STATION DAY IN TWO WEEKS!

Woohoo!!!!!  I ROCK!  Hey - it's a stretch but come onnnnnnnnn!

  

I'm coming!  It's coming!  I will see you soon, my favorite summertime "home"!

The Day I Heard the Angels Sing

I had a WOW moment today.  I don't even know how to describe it so you will understand.  But here goes.


So - I LOVE Spring Peepers.  You know - those little teeny frogs that make BIG noise?  How icky are they?  (SEE BELOW!!! ewwwww)

 Size relative to a paperclip

In my life - the first peep signifies winter is OVER.  That peep says, "spring may not be here, but winter is over."  Apparently, my friends now know that I listen for that first peep starting in early March and I get reports from all over town!  It's so funny and so endearing that they actually seek me out on facebook to tell me.  I LOVE that!


Better still, every year I have a conversation with my BFF about THE PEEPERS.  For years, she has been tracking the date she first hears them, in a journal.  I swear I call her every year and say, "This HAS to be the earliest!"  And she knows exactly what I mean.  But it never is.  This year, the first facebook message came in around the 15th of March and I emailed her, "This HAS to be the earliest!!!"  "Nope!"  (Actually - it's March 9th but do you think my simple mind can remember that each year???  I mean come on!  March 9th is still veryyyyyy winter!)


Oddly enough, this year I never heard the peepers.  I think because I have no memory left I have just been so busy and so pre-occupied that when the messages came in, I planned to go out and listen and it never happened.  It's UNPRECEDENTED!  Sniff.


Well - today, it didn't matter anymore.  Because today, I got a concert of peepers like no other on earth!!!!!  So loud that I could not hear myself talk.  It was UNBELIEVABLE!  It was Goose bumping.  Smile spreading.  Earth shattering.  Mood altering.  Breath taking.  Heart thumping.  Soul wrenching.  Ok, well maybe not sooo much.  But close!!!!  


I was trail running in the state forest with my friend Kay and as we approached a HUGE swamp area, I started to hear them and I commented, "Ohhhhhh - the peepers!  This is the first time I've heard them this year!"  As we got closer to the swamp, it got louder and Louder and LOuder and LOUder and LOUDEr and LOUDER and LOUDERRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  O-M-G!!!!!!!!!!


I was literally shouting to Kay and couldn't even hear myself.  It took my breath away (and that is not a good thing when you are running!!!!) It resonated through my body like no rock band has ever done.  The power just blew me away.  My ears were bleeding!!! (Well, not really - but you catch my drift!)  And I just had this big ole smile on my face - because surely - I was in peeper heaven...


Ok, well - if I'm not getting this across to you, check below.  Put it on your highest volume and then triple it in your mind.  It's the best I can do.




Joy?  Oh yea - indescribable, unbelievable, surreal, near spiritual, JOY.