Yogathon Support & News

I want to extend my thanks for the support for the upcoming yogathon.

Here are a list of new sponsors that generously gave for the yogathon and Habitat for Humanity.

Steve & Caroline - Santa Monica, CA
Steve said he wanted to support anything that was bhavalicious!
Tami & George - Wake Forest, NC
My good friends. Thank you. Miss you.
Tom & Dee - West Hills, CA
Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law
If you need a fantabulous florist in the Valley
check out West Hills Flower Shoppe
Rose & Andre - LA, CA
My sister-in-law & nephew. Grazie mille
Modern Mobile Homes
For all your manufactured home needs!

Many thanks to everyone for your support. It's your donations and good wishes that are going to make this yogathon a smashing success! I am still looking for sponsors and accepting donations until Thursday June 28. Email me for more info.

Here is some more news about the yogathon.

During the yogathon Visitors will be welcome Saturday night June 30
from 10-12am for kirtan/chanting with Wah!
It will be a $20 donation at the door.

What's Kirtan?
Kirtan is call and response chanting to musical ragas tradition that goes back 500 years. It is often accompanied by rhythmic drumming style that transports the chanters to profound spiritual realms. It is said that kirtan is accepted as one of the surest paths to enlightenment. Who isn't looking for a little bit of that?
Try it, you'll like it!

Also Save the Date
Saturday, September 8, 2007
This is the day that City Yoga will participate in a Habitat Home Build!
Yes, you can get your hands dirty!
Who hasn't wanted to help on a build?
This is an awesome way to participate directly with Habitat for Humanity and to see what your generous donations are doing for your community!
I love it!
If you are interested you can sign up at City Yoga.

Mother's Day

My favorite new book is Lotta Jansdotter's Simply Sewing.
It has great easy patterns.

Here is a little something I whipped up for my mom.


Hat & Tote



Close-up


Tote

We went to the Reel Inn for lunch. YUM!
She had Orange Roughy and I had the Sea Bass.
FYI. While standing in line we signed a petition to save the Reel Inn. It seems that developers want to get rid of all the businesses on the corner of Topanga Cyn and PCH. This would be very sad. It's part of the landscape and the food is delicious.



Mom loved her new stuff and we had fun toodling through the canyon in my Miata. Lunch was delicious. On the way home we picked up some strawberries and cherries. It was a great mom and daughter day.

Yogathon

Remember those bygone days of dance-a-thons?
Well welcome to the 21st century...
(drumroll)...
the Yogathon!

I am participating in a 24-hour yogic jam session at City Yoga (Fairfax & Santa Monica). It begins at 8am Saturday June 30 and continues until 8am Sunday July 1st. The yogathon benefits Habitat for Humanity-Los Angeles. Habitat for Humanity is a great non-profit that helps families buy their own homes. City Yoga is trying to raise $100,000.00 because that is the amount of money to build one home. If we reach the goal H4H will designate a home "the house that yoga built". I am looking for sponsors for this fun-tastic event. 100% of the donations goes directly to Habitat for Humanity in Los Angeles.

Last night at SnB, Ellen generously sponsored me!!! WOW! Thanks Ellen. You are the best! Kate was also ready & willing and wrote me a check immediately. Thank you Kate!

I have to admit that it is difficult for me to ask friends for donations. I hate to think I might be imposing on anyone. But if you don't ask then how can anyone help and get involved. We often respond to devastation like Hurricane Katrina and Lord knows they still need a lot of love and attention in those areas that were affected. It's great to do good in the world and an opportunity to help those in our own backyard is even greater.

Here are some fun facts from the last City Yoga Yogathon.

24 bhavalicious hours of yoga

A total of 43 bright inner bodies participated on the mat…
(32 warriors who went the distance and 11 enthusiastic part-time
drop-ins)

The event revealed the radiant leadership of 14 amazing teachers.

Their 12 classes included a total of 324 poses (give or take a down dog)

Collectively, we chanted 108 oms.

The grand total $23,518
…donated by 396 generous sponsors, from LA to Wisconsin to England.

The single largest donation was $1000 (and there were 2 of them)

The single smallest donation was $1 (and there were 6 of them)

The most popular donation was $25 (and there were 63 of them)

A total of 58 people/businesses donated goods and services worth $11,146

In 24 hours, we collectively drank 324 bottles of smartwater (that’s 5,475.6 ounces)

…which means we drank a bottle per pose (see above)

And we ate 2 delicious catered meals: lunch by Jonathon Darr,
Dinner by Dorit Dyke.

Consequently, we went through 11 rolls of toilet paper.

We were the talk of the town, as seen on KCAL 9 Saturday and CBS Sunday.

With a gift of almost $25,000, we built a deserving family ¼ of their dream house!

Our gift to Habitat for Humanity-LA was the largest community-driven gift in 2005.


I will keep you posted.
Om Shanti,
Natalie

Around the World in a Sunday

Chinatown
Empress Pavilion




Dim Sum is all about anticipation and there is no other dining experience like the hustle and bustle of a Dim Sum restaurant. First there is the one hour wait. Oh so hungry and now have to wait an hour which is almost unbearable because the cardinal rule for eating dim sum is to arrive hungry. Finally, after being seated and the pouring of fragrant jasmine tea, you spy a rattling cart heading your way. The cart is piled high with hot, steaming tins filled with surprises wrapped in dough. The woman pulls off the tops to reveal little dumplings of joy and a chicken foot or two. Oh yes, chicken feet. Almost all those tins reveal yummy morsels for the eating. The tricky part about eating dim sum is knowing when to stop piling tins on your table. Inevitably, I eat one too many shrimp har gow and have to be rolled out of the restaurant, but not today.

Italia
Pazzo Gelato
Sunset Blvd. and Hyperion




The great thing about ice creams in general is that no matter how full you are there is room for ice cream. Ice cream melts. It takes no room.
Me: Italian vanilla and pistachio
Hubby: Italian vanilla and espresso pistachio
Perfetto!

Espana
Dinner at home with friends Mitch & Joey

Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain by Penelope Casas came in the mail last week and was the inspiration for our little dinner.



The Menu
Potato Tortilla
Asparagus with Brie
Toast with Ham, Arugula & Strawberry
Andouille sausage (not Spanish, but delicious)
Manchego
Olives
marcona almonds
Bread
Strawberries and Spanish truffle bar

Wines
Marques de la Concordia Crianza 2004 Rioja
Delicious and $10.99 at Whole Foods
Ponzi Tavola 2003 Pinot Noir
The Tavola 2005 Pinot was written up recently in the LA Times
Fabulous winery. Go to Oregon and drink up. It's worth every sip, I promise.

Clean up was a snap after three bottles of wine along with good music.

Rhymes with Orange

This past Tuesday I got the chance to go to American Idol. My good friend Annette is always on some email list regarding AI. We have gone to past result shows together, but this was our first singing show. I was very excited to see all the Idols perform.

In preparation for the show I made a poster. My poster was in response to a poster last week that stated, "Sanjaya is my Papaya."

My poster:



My logic: Nothing rhymes with orange and therefore Melinda is a one of a kind.

Alas, they did not show my poster on TV. And I whooped and hollered and acted a fool while holding my poster proudly over my head during the show. All to no avail. I looked carefully with the assistance of Tivo and my poster and shenanigans did not make the cut. Plus during the commercial breaks on the show the warm-up comedian dude goes around and reads all the posters and riffs about them. He came by me twice but did not mention my poster, to which I could only conclude that he didn't get it. I guess I am too, what? Literate or literary for the AI crowd? Or just Craaazy. I thought I was clever and the art work, well. The navel in the orange is a rhinestone and I mixed micro-glitter into my paint. It was sparkle poster craftiness.

Sadly, aside from my art work not being properly displayed or understood, Sanjaya the papaya was sent home on Wednesday. That Papaya is a cute boy. Totally cut out for Tiger Beat. He just needs one Da Doo Run Run Hit and he is destined for a VH1 "Where are They Now" show in twenty years. Good Luck Sanjaya. Hope to see you soon on the Disney channel.

The first image is from a nothing rhymes with orange t-shirt.
http://threadless.com/product/462/Nothing_Rhymes_With_Orange
Funny t-shirt.

Thanks Annette for taking to me Idol!

The Thrill of the Hunt

I like to think that I am fairly hip and with it. Someone in touch with popular culture. But while watching commercials during American Idol I learned something new. There was some friends list cell phone commercial playing that referred to a woman as an "old Cougar." Well something about it tickled my funny bone and kept playing the line over and over again when my hubby asked me if I knew what an urban cougar was?

I did not.

It's an older woman who hooks up with younger men.

I had never heard of an urban cougar before. My next course of action was to google the term and people there is a whole world of cougars out there. No Kidding.

check out www.urbancougar.com
on this website they define the urban cougar as a sophisticated species of female who seeks the pleasure of younger males.

There is www.gocougar.com, a cougar dating site.

For even more info right from the cougar's mouth check out this clip.
http://www.current.tv/studio/media/9932632

I can only blame my married existence for my lack of cougar knowledge.
Hell if I wasn't married I would definitely be a cougar.
Everyone likes a fresh kill once in a while.
And who doesn't love Mrs. Robinson, the lead huntress in Big Game?



Meow, Mrs. Robinson, Meow!

LOVE monkey

For my Sweet Babu
a LOVE monkey







And for Mama
a LOVE puppy



Yes I have been stuffing all my feelings of love into little creatures. Who knew that out of scraps and socks you could create something so cuddly and fun. Well the doxy isn't that cuddly but when you have a real live cuddle pup who loves to spoon you can't ask for much more.

Fast Knit: Calorimetry

Looking for fast and easy. Jump on the calorimetry bandwagon and knit one up for yourself.





I used Nashua Wooly Stripes, which only has 88 yards, so I ran out of yarn for the bind off row. Luckily I had a little bit of purple Nashua left over from another project. I just have to weave in the ends (BAH!), sew on a button and I will be sporting my new look. Right now I am trying to figure out which is the front and which is the back. I think the purple edge is the back edge. Don't you love the way the stripes knit up? Go to www.knitty.com for the pattern.

Fair Isle Fun

My first foray into fair isle has been sitting in the WIP pile for the last year. It was a Rowan pattern sweater by Lucinda Guy and not knit in the round. I thought it would be fast and easy because it was knit with Big Wool. I thought I would get to play with cables and learn fair isle and intarsia. But I was so wrong. Oh so wrong. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to strand and purl with the two strands of yarn. With frustration it got tossed into the pile of other woebegone projects.

This week I found myself needing a new project. I checked out the WIP pile. I even saw that sweater that gave me so much trouble. Phooey. I needed something fresh.

So a visit to www.knitty.com was in order. The first pattern to pop up was Center Square.
Okay, time to give the fair isle another shot.
Here's how it turned out.




The yarn is Katia Flexi. The fair isle wasn't hard at all in the round. In fact it was down right fun. I think my stranding came out pretty uniform and it took me two days to knit it up. It's a success story. I may have another look at that dastardly sweater that taunts me from the bottom of the basket.

Don't cry over spilt cat food or Get a sense of humor

After getting out of the shower this morning I spilled about 5 pounds of cat all over the bathroom. I filled half of the sink, an entire drawer that was pulled open, and covered most of the floor. I wish I was the sort of person when confronted with a drawer full of cat food to grab the camera and have a laugh. Instead I am the sort of person who is standing naked with a towel wrapped around her head saying “Shit” and thinking I should go back to bed and let the dog clean up the mess on the floor. I am also the same person who is looking at the drawer thinking to myself I was going to cut my toenails but now the clippers are buried under cat crunchies. I was feeling downright defeated and it was only the start of my day. After cleaning up the mess and back to my morning routine, I thought to myself I should have taken a picture because it’s not everyday you see a drawer full of cat food. Next time the unexpected happens I hope I am quicker to smile and grab the camera than to grumble and grab the broom.

Wishing you all a day full of smiles!

Lorenzo Lamas in a Speedo

Star sighting!

Today the pool was packed. After a four day weekend of stuffing myself silly with all the trimmings, me and everyone else dragged themselves to the gym. The pool was unusually busy and people were lined up waiting for others to finish. I vacated my lane and was toweling off when what to my wondering eyes would appear but Lorenzo Lamas in a Speedo!

No kidding!

This is a much younger picture, but he looks about the same with longer hair and leathery skin. It's scary that one can find a picture of him in a speedo in the first place.

Meet my Sock Monkey

Where have I been? What have I been doing? The answer is lots of what I am not supposed to be doing and doing little of what I am supposed to be doing.

Here is the little bit of craftiness that I created this week. Isn't she cute? This was inspired by a Japanese craft book that uses socks and gloves to create cute animals.

I also finished sewing my first dress!! YAY!!! But I don't have a picture of it yet BOO!!! :(

So stay tuned...

I promise it won't be so long next time.

Slaying Dragons in My Bathtub

I get up this morning and head for the shower. I draw back the shower curtain and there, curled up in the bottom of my bathtub laying in wait, is a SCORPIAN!!! EEEewwwww! My hubby and resident bug killer is out of town and I am left to face it...alone. I call my hubby for strategy and moral support as we devise how I am to destroy the three-inch scorpian in my bathtub. The killing of a stinging prehistoric creature with pinchers takes on dramatic proportions as in my pajamas I come face to face with a stinging, nasty, looks dead already, but I know it's just playing possum, dragon that is between me and my taking a shower. Of which I need because I didn't take one yesterday. I wasn't procrastinating I was knitting and how dirty does one really get when when is sitting on the couch knitting all day and night? Started a new knitting project, the Amelie bolero from Rebecca #28. Having a great time with it, but more on that later.

When it comes to dealing with most creatures in the house I am happy to return things back to the wild like baby lizards, moths, and spiders. But this is a SCORPIAN in my bathtub!!! I was dealing with a sneaky, stealthy, stinger that made it through the Animal Defense System (2 dogs and 2 cats). My first thought is to wash it down the shower drain, but my husband tells me it will just crawl back out later. Option number 1 is out and I have to face the dragon.

To get ready for battle I slip on my Ugg boots for protection and grab an ESPN magazine, which has an extra-large format and provides good weight and distance for swatting and killing unwanted creatures. My hubby informs me that if I whack it I have to whack it really good because scorpians don't die very easily. The dragon is in the curve of the bath tub and I don't have a good swatting angle. Swatting is out.

Here's how it went down.

Put down the phone. Face the enemy. Drop the magazine onto the scorpian. Pause for any movement. Stomp. Stomp. Gingerly pick up magazine. Scorpian is crawling around. SCREAM! Drop magazine. Stomp. Stomp. Dead.

Before I can pick up the phone again, I can hear my husband laughing and screaming to his friend. When slaying dragons in your bathtub beware of being mocked. The scorpian was swept out of the tub and into the toilet for a watery goodbye. I proceeded to take a shower and wash the heebie jeebies off of myself all the time wondering when the next fiend was going to pop into my shower and deliver the karmic sting. In conclusion, for the next few days I will be checking my shoes for tiny dragons curled up in the toes. Dragons BEWARE!

Caught in the act

There is nothing like admitting my personal procrastination problem and then posting the date I started to write my post...oh four months ago, to confirm that I truly have a procrastination problem. What can I say. I try to get up everyday and take a shower if nothing else!

I was supposed to align my forces of light this weekend with a yoga tantra sadhana intensive but it was cancelled. Doesn't that sound good...aligning the forces of light. Who couldn't use a good alignment once in a while? I guess I will go it alone on my light aligning. Any suggestions? Rituals? Cleanses? Mantras?

Well, I'll figure it out tomorrow.

All But...

Hello. I am Natalie and I am ABD.
What does ABD mean? All But Dissertation.
Which means all I have to do to get my Ph.D. is finish writing and file my dissertation.
But what does that really mean?
It means I knit.

The story of my study habits goes way back. In high school one of my senior awards was Class Procrastinator. I thought I was flying under the radar but there I was labeled by my peers and fooling no one. I was proud of the title bestowed upon me, smiling with my little "know-it-all" smirk that only a teenager can wear with infuriating innocence. Ahhh, the days of last minute cramming with flashes of brilliance through bleary eyes and foggy head, body on automatic pilot as it races down hallways to turn in that paper by final deadline and narrowly missing academic disaster like a "B" grade.

Procrastination and undergrad? No problem, just lots more racing through hallways and sliding papers under professors doors. This tactic has followed me all the way through to graduate school, but the smirk as been completely erased from my no longer innocent face and I have been humbled and bowed by the dissertation process. Yet old habits die hard. No deadline? Make my own schedule? I have all day to work so I'll do it later. Which becomes tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. The motto "No time like the present" doesn't really apply to the procrastinator's task at hand, but it works for knitting.

Two springs ago I picked up the knitting needles and I haven't put them down since. Mostly I needed community. I had been living in abroad in Raleigh, NC and had recently moved home. Writing is a lonely job as any writer will tell. The writing appeals to my reclusive side that can hole up for days with maybe an occasional outing to the mail box. Although I have to admit that the recluse mostly likes to watch television rather than face the computer and the topic of dreaded dissertation. After moving away from my crafty friends in Raleigh I needed new crafty friends. After attending a party and admiring a women's scarf (which she made). I made a mental note of the Knit Cafe, which was her LYS and soon to be mine.

I signed up for a class at the Knit Cafe and Mary Heather was my teacher (Where are you Mary Heather?). I had been taught how to knit one summer as a kid on our yearly camping trip, but after that hot and dusty week, the needles, yarn, and strip of knitting were packed away like the rest of the gear. The Knit Cafe beginning class was a two parter and Mary Heather was a patient, kind and overall great teacher. Once I got going it felt totally natural like I had been doing it all my life. I whipped through my garter, stockinette, seed stitch swatch. The weekend between classes I was in a knitting frenzy. I showed up to the next class with three finished scarves. People in class accused me of being Amish! There is definitely a Southern Baptist or two on my mother's side but no Amish. As for the knitting, as I said earlier, I haven't put the needles down since.

Oh and the dissertation...still a WIP.