Summer goodness

I was in Canmore for a good part of the day yesterday. Enjoyed a good road bike ride, and swim with some girls. It was a pretty good day. When I got home, Mark was in the garage fixing the bikes, and I joined him only to yap his ear off about food, biking, dinner, and other mish mash nonsensicle stuff. Then we decided we'd better get things going for dinner. So I said I'd go put a bottle of wine in the fridge to chill while we prepared things. Turned out we drank all our whites! So it was a quick clean up scramble, and we ran off to J Webb to stock up again. (I think wine is a more expensive addiction than triathlon... guess I should cut back a bit he he...)
We made it, shortly before they closed(thank goodness!) Tasted a few samples first, chatted Sarah up about the weekend, then drove home to start dinner. I was still thinking about the chicken thighs we were going to BBQ, and wanted to spice them up a bit. Not with a marinade.What to do, what to do??
I had some beautiful, white onions, and wanted to use them. But how was I going to incorporate onions into chicken?? Good think Mark was driving, because my little mind was a whirring!  Then bam! I thought relish! Why couldn't I do a relish? BBQ some zucchini,onions and garlic up, and process it.
Done!

So here is what I did:

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic, unpeeled

1 medium zucchini

Coconut oil

Salt

Tinfoil

2 tsp. grainy mustard

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Turn on your BBQ to medium heat.
While the BBQ is heating up, prepare your onion, and zucchini
Slice the onion lengthwise, from the top, in two different directions, like a plus symbol, but not all the way through.
Place the onion on the tinfoil, drizzle with coconut oil, and sprinkle with salt.
Then place the galic cloves around the onion. Wrap the tinfoil around everything to seal it up.
Then, with the zucchini, slice it lengthwise into four pieces.
Place them on the BBQ until both are well cooked through. About 30-40 minutes. ( Alternatively, you could do everything on a baking sheet in the oven to avoid the tinfoil business.)

Grab your food processor and set it up with the big blade.

Once everything is cooked, and nicely browned, place the zucchini in your food processor, and pulse to coarsely chop. Place the zucchini in a bowl and set aside.
Then peel the garlic cloves, and toss them, and the cooked onion into the food processor. Pulse again to coarsley chop.

Add the onion/garlic mix into the zucchini mix. Fold them together. Add some more salt, if needed. Then fold in the mustard and balsamic vinegar.

Voila! Done. On went the potato wedges, then the chicken, then the carrots. Once that was done, I quickly boiled some peas. Dinner was served. The wine we drank was a wonderful Chardonnay,Mounterey County, Mount Eden. Then I plated our meal and put a good amount of my so called "relish" on top of the meat.
It was wonderful! What a great match. Now am I able to can some of this goodness?

Shine! Shine! Shine!

What makes me shine?

I always wanted to make a difference in this world. Always felt that I was here to really impact people, be an inspiration. But never knew how I was going to accomplish this let alone what it was that I was supposed to do! That's just my personality. I feel I have to "do" .
                                           Lightbulb!
              It's not a matter of doing.
                                 It's a matter of just being.
                   That's how I shine.
                                That's how I inspire.
          Just be.... me....
But it's not easy some days. I have those mental wars of why I can't do something, anything.
Then I hear a good song, taste a strawberry that was perfect, or smile at someone while walking down the street, and they smile back.
                                                   Simple.
Life disapears in an instant.  I want to live now, in the present. 
                                            I have it all, and I just need to be.


As the late Jack Layton said in his letter:
     ......love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Liked this music video as well.

Everything we do has an impact on someone, somewhere, somehow.

  Consciousness, awareness, passion, stay present.

Sitting

 Doing a little ride with a friend yesterday morning, the topic of sitting, and how it negatively impacts us came up, of course as we're seated on our bikes!  I recalled a previous article from Bicycling Magazine (but can't seem to find it now?) about "sitting disease", but had to ask a chiro friend about another article that he frequently gives to his patients.
So here is a great read if you're like the rest of us who frequent our office chairs! And you're likely sitting and reading this!

http://www.menshealth.com/health/back-pain-and-spinal-health

I love this stuff.
It brings to light my own physical weaknesses, and inspires me to keep moving.

Below is another link for some exercises, and stretches that I did find in Bicycling Magazine.

http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/your-best-cycling-body-ever
My fave is the pike on the fit ball!

Now to get out of my chair and wander...

Communication

After I taught my fitness class today, I walked away a little disapointed in the outcome. Not that my participants did anything wrong. They worked really hard. They always do. They make me smile, inside and out, with all their efforts. But I felt like something was lacking.
As I walked to my next job, I replayed the class through my mind, and knew what it was that I had done ineffectively. Communicate.
I know, that just because it makes sense in my mind, doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else understands it. So how do I get better at this?  How do I consistently get all the pertinant information out without overdoing it?
Part of me thinks that it is something that just takes practice like anything else. But are some of us better communicators than others? Maybe. How do I really improve on my communication?
My outcome from podering these questions, was that I really feel that I need to simplify things. If I make it simple for myself, then maybe it will be clear all around.
 I'm going to review my plans for classes this week, and see what I can improve on.
I don't think it would hurt either if I looked into a workshop, or class for communication.
Onward and upward!