Posted by terrepruitt on September 27, 2019
This is a bunch of roses from our yard from way back in 2010. When we have so many flowers in the house the entire downstairs smells like roses. Roses purchased don’t have the same smell – or any smell for that matter – as backyard roses.
I have a ton of yard rose photos so I thought I would use one for today’s Friday Photo.
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: fragrant roses, Friday Photo, pink roses, yard roses | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 25, 2019
I have so many pictures of our cats. It would take me ALL of my Friday Photos to post them all. So I thought I would just post a few. No particular reason for these pictures. No exciting stories behind them. The one of Teagan with her eye open looking at me is the last of a few. She was so cute with her paw over her face – you know how they do that? Well, I disturbed her enough to get that look. The one with them staring through the screen is them looking at a lizard that visits them. And Nessa has been in that box a lot!
Posted in Cats, Teagan and Nessa | Tagged: black cat, box kitty, evil eye, green eyes, Nessa, Teagan, the Girlies, tortoiseshell cat, yard lizard | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 23, 2019
Shells And Cheese With Beef And Corn
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 of a medium size onion
1 lb hamburger
garlic salt
can of corn
3 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 C milk
4 cups shredded/grated cheese
1 Cup Panko bread crumbs
bag of pasta shells*
While chopping the onion let the coconut oil heat up in a large pan. Cook the chopped onion in the oil. After the onion is cooked, break the hamburger up into the pan. Sprinkle with garlic salt. (continued below)
While the meat is cooking, you can make the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour a little at a time. Keeping all the lumps out and incorporating the flour into the melted butter. – (Don’t forget about the meat cooking!) – Pour in the milk a little at a time stirring constantly and working out the lumps. Add the salt. Add some cheese, stirring and letting it melt as you go. Continue to add about two cups of shredded cheese.
Cook the hamburger until almost done. (If needed drain the grease from the meat.) Drain the corn and stir it into the meat. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Since the corn is already cooked it doesn’t necessarily need to cook with the meat because it will cook in the oven.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that boil the water for the pasta. *I didn’t use an entire bag because it had been opened. I think there was about 3/4th of a bag of small shells. Cook the pasta. Drain the pasta.
Butter a 9X13 baking dish. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
Spread a very thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the buttered dish. Then mix the pasta, a little over half of the cheese sauce, and the meat and corn mixture together. Spread half of the new mixture (cheese sauce and meat-corn) into the dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Then spread the remaining mixture on top of the cheese layer. Then top with the rest of the cheese sauce, spreading out evenly.* Then top with the rest of the shredded cheese and the bread crumbs.
Bake about 25 to 30 minutes. If you want the bread crumbs brown broil it for about 5 minutes (or until they are browned).
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*I am sure mixing all the shells, meat-corn, and cheese sauce together and then putting it in the baking dish would work. I was just trying to make is a little more like sauce ON the shells. It all seeped down and was yummy.
This is very rich and very filling. And pretty good. My husband loved it. I always seem to like pasta dishes better the next day. It is as if the flavors all meld and seep into the pasta. So I really enjoyed our leftovers that we ate for a few days.
And, sadly, I didn’t make this with plans to post about it, so I only have the one picture of the finished product. But I will be making it again. I had a friend that says she uses cream corn . . . that might be interesting.
I don’t even know why I put corn in it. I was thinking of two separate things to make at points during the day and when I went to cook, they got combined someohow.
How do you make macaroni and cheese? Do you put meat in yours? Vegetables?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: beef, bread crumbs, casserole, cheese sauce, Corn, macaroni and cheese, meat-corn, pasta, roux, shells | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 20, 2019
Tulips are pretty cool. These ones were a very pretty color. They opened up beautifully. I thought they would make a nice Friday Photo.
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: Friday Photo, open flowers, pink flowers, Pretty flowers, tulips | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 18, 2019
Ok, so I am sitting at my computer trying to come up with something to post. I have come up with a few ideas but all of them have to do with Yin Yoga because I have that on the brain somewhat since I just started teaching a Yin Yoga class. I really, really love the practice and I just want to keep on about it, but I don’t want to inundate you all with just yoga stuff. I also kinda wanted to take the day off because my hubby is cooking dinner and I would like to be down in the kitchen visiting with him. One thing I did to try to give me a post idea was I looked at the number of views for my posts. I started a couple of posts as follow up post to help give some of my post some love. But again, I want to be downstairs because I hear my honey in the kitchen. So, I decided to just list a few of my posts that I think are still relevant and could be of interest to you. I have been blogging 10 years so I would bet that some of you have missed a few posts. Well, maybe click on a link below if something catches your eye.
Thanks.
Inflammation – a quick little read that might give you something to think about
Loose Feeling Joints – too loose might not be a good thing
Trauma – a cream I used to like, I think they changed the ingredients or marketed as Traumeel now
Push Workout – Sample – like it says
Vase Are Like That, Ya Know? – a post about not knowing what to write, and then turning to life
Mews Of Change – announcement of changing our cats’ names
Ok, I’m off to celebrate and be with hubby.
Thanks for stopping by!
Posted in Misc | Tagged: Inflammation, loose feeling joints, push workout, trauma cream, vases and life | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 16, 2019
I’ve been preaching about the four principles of a Yin Yoga practice. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga calls them tattvas and it lists three. Tattva is Sanskrit and it is said to mean truth or principle. Some say it stands for “thatness” or reality. So we could say that these are four intentions or goals of a Yin Yoga practice.
1) Come into the pose at the appropriate depth.
I was actually taught to come into a pose about 80% of what I can do or could do. So, first of all, there is a difference between what you can do in a 30 second hold and what you can do in a three to five minute hold. Start in a pose at 80% of what you can do and hold. Then see how it goes. There is always time to go further into the pose. Often time there is “sinking” or “relaxing” into a pose and if you started out at that 100% mark there would be no room to sink and relax. So starting out at about 80% gives you room to lengthen into it.
2) Resolve to be still.
It is such a challenge to be still. Sometimes movement might not even come because there is discomfort we might just feel the NEED to move our hair, adjust our clothes, or examine that spot/lint/crumb on our pants/leg/mat. But the change comes from the stillness. The Qi moves when there is relaxation in the muscles and there isn’t something – a muscle contraction – blocking it. So resolve to be still, this does not include the sinking or relaxing into a pose. What I have experienced and what I see is that just happens and is almost imperceptible if not something that the participant is not even that aware is happening. It is the actually moving around that you don’t want to do.
3) Hold for a time.
Since the tissue we are working with is not elastic and it really won’t stretch in the same way a muscle can be stretched it needs time to change and “lengthen”. Again, most of that sinking from relaxation doesn’t even come until after the one minute mark so the longer you can hold the more time the tissue will have to change.
4) Play your edge.
This comes after the “appropriate depth” idea. Once you have come into a pose at the 80% of what you can do, you want to push the boundary. That does not mean push into a pose that just means allow your body to sink into or relax into it until you are sure you can’t go any more. That doesn’t even mean go to you 100%, necessarily, it could . . . but it just depends. Remember every time we come to the mat it is different. There are days that we know we shouldn’t be doing what we consider to our 100% and then there are days that we are convinced we can do 110%. So that edge, that 100% is constantly changing and we can play that edge every time. That is where we affect the change.
So these are four principles that I learned that should be applied every time we come to the mat for a Yin Yoga Practice. Starting at 80% will allow us space to sink/relax and give the body a change to lengthen. Staying still will allow the Qi to flow. Holding the pose give our bodies the time it needs for us to sink/relax and the Qi to flow. And playing that edge ensures we will allow for change.
Do you have any tattvas you bring to you mat when doing Yin Yoga?
Posted in Yin Yoga | Tagged: intentions, principles, sanskrit, stillness, tattvas, Yin Yoga, Yoga Practice | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 13, 2019
My friend went on vacation and brought this back for me. I love it. It is blue – plus – and it is a kitty – BIG plus. I have it on my table where I see it often. I wanted to share it with you for my Friday Photo today. I probably should have shared a picture of my black cat since it is Friday the 13th!
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: blue kitty, Delft Cat, Friday Photo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 11, 2019
I’ve written several posts about pranayama, the fourth limb of yoga, the practice or control (yama) of life force (prana), basically breathing techniques or exercises. I’ve posted about Dirgha or 3 Part Breath, Samavrtti or Equal Breath, Ujjayi or Victorious Breath/Ocean Breath, and Sitali or Cooling Breath. In those posts I have mentioned that I believe that all of us are familiar with the idea that you can take a breath to calm down or to slow down. I believe that most of us understand that a breath can do those things. Well, I am thinking there are other studies and papers out there that talk about how breath can help with physical changes, but I recently made note of very small study done in 2001 by a group of professors and physicians in Italy. Their report concluded that “Rhythm formulas that involve breathing at six breaths per minute induce favourable psychological and possibly physiological effects.”
The report mentions reciting Ave Maria in Latin, yoga chants, or the rosary. These recitations caused a rhythmic breathing that equaled six breaths per minute. And 10 second breaths or six breaths per minute were the key to a consistent heart rate variability and baroreflex sensitivity.
A consistent heart rate variability can be a sign of good health as could baroreflex sensitivity. The heart rate variability/HRV is “a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat”1. The baroreflex is “(or baroreceptor reflex) is one of the body’s homeostatic mechanisms that helps to maintain blood pressure at nearly constant levels.”2
So, this is just another small confirmation that pranayamas can help counter the stress we all face every day. The specific type of breathing that is consistent and rhythmic allowing for a ten second/6-breath-per-minute breath. You could do a 4-1-4-1 Samavrtti type of pranayama, where you inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 1, exhale for 4, and hold for one. That would total 10 seconds. Or you could do that same type of count with the Ujjayi breath.
The report just acts as a guide to possibly help one decide on a length of breath. Just another tool to help us in our yoga practice or our daily lives.
Do you ever find yourself taking a calming breath? Do you ever use breathing techniques? Is pranayama part of your yoga practice?
1-https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789
2-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroreflex
Posted in Yoga/PiYo/Pilates | Tagged: 3 Part Breath, baroreflex, breathing exercises, breathing techniques, Dirgha, equal breath, heart rate variability, life force control, ocean breath, pranayama, rhythmic breathing, Samavrtti, Sitali. Cooling Breath, ujjayi, yoga breathing | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 9, 2019
Every once in a while I like to have a cocktail and usually cocktails include ice . . . at least the one I drink. (Hubby’s Moscow Mule) But I don’t like to drink out of the glass and have the ice get on my lip or smash into my face. I like to use straws. Well, I have A STRAW. I think it was long, but I cut it to fit our copper mugs. I have been using it for over a year. I decided I wanted to get some reusable straws to that I don’t have to keep using the same ONE STRAW. I had been looking at them, but then it occurred to me that I don’t want a long straw, I wanted a short ones. So I jumped on good ol’ Amazon recently and bought some.
I was not really paying attention to what I was buying because they were pretty affordable so I just ordered them. I hadn’t seen the listing show that it came with a brush as did a lot of the other ones, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I read the box when it arrived and it said it included a brush. I also hadn’t seen that the bottoms were angled . . . also a big plus.
Well, so far we have used them once and we both liked them. See, normally my husband doesn’t even get a straw because we have ONE STRAW, but now we have enough for him to use one, too. He was rather happy about that. And I think he really enjoyed drinking his cocktail via straw.
He was pleasantly surprised that it was sturdy enough to use as a stirrer. It really turned out to be necessary because we were sprinkling powdered ginger into our drinks. We weren’t drinking Moscow Mules at the time.
Anyway . . . I am just sharing another purchase that turned out really good so far. Granted, we have only used them once. So we will see how they hold up.
They are not the prettiest of colors, but . . . I wasn’t really concerned about that. I was looking at length and material. I wanted to be able to put it in the dishwasher and these are able to be run through.
Do you prefer to use a straw when drinking a drink with ice? Do you have straws at home?
Posted in Misc | Tagged: Amazon shopping, cocktails straws, dishwasher safe straws, ginger, Moscow Mule, reusable straws, short straws, stirrer | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on September 6, 2019
I recently took a trip with my friends to visit a friend that has relocated to another state. We have known each other since Junior High School. One of the days we were there we decided to check out a winery since Oregon is really on the map when it comes to wine. We visited this beautiful place.
Oregon winery landscape is worthy of a Friday Photo spot, don’t you think?
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: beautiful landscape, Friday Photo, Lumos Wine Co., Oregon winery, Pinot Noir | 4 Comments »
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