Lady Booga

BOOGER FACE

Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh

Fin's full of snot, showing mom lots of snot

B-b-b- Booger face, b-b-booger face

(mum mum mum mah)

B-b-b-booger face, b-b-booger face

(mum mum mum mah)

SAVE US!

xx

Mother Ship

DAY PASS Yoga and Journaling Retreat

Yoga & journaling Retreat

We are pleased to let you know the accommodations have been filled for the retreat. We are happy to offer Full and Half Day passes to join us in Duck North Carolina. (Of course if you want to come and stay near by I can help to find you accommodations nearby!)

Immerse yourself in yoga, guided meditation and journal writing in the comfort of a beautiful beach house in Duck, North Carolina! Explore the beach and comb the shops in the quaint little beach- side town of Duck and enjoy the company of the like minded.

When?

Saturday March 13, 2010

Where?


Duck, North Carolina

Who Are Your hosts?

Rachel Victoria Mills PHD:

Rachel is an accomplished writer, poet, artist and university professor. Rachel spent many years in the University Of Chapel Hill's English department as well as guest teaching at several noted Universities in the United States. Rachel leads journaling groups in a supported environment, encouraging each participant to dig deep and fulfill the intention of the piece of writing they are working on. Each journal meeting begins with an assigned writing cue, participants let the cues take them where they may. The group then takes turns sharing their work if they choose to.

Michelle Shipley RYT:

Yoga Alliance of North America recognized instructor has fulfilled 200 plus hours of yoga teacher trainings. Classes are gentle Hatha based with a strong emphasis on alignment and breath work. Hands on assists, and encouragement throughout practice are taught to build a strong yoga foundation. Individual attention in a group setting ensures each client find their personal edge and full potential.

RATES

Saturday Full Day [No Accommodations] $100.00


Includes morning yoga, breakfast, journaling, free/beach time, guided meditation, journal class & dinner

Saturday 1/2 Day Morning: $50.00

Includes morning yoga, breakfast & journaling

Saturday 1/2 Day Afternoon: $50.00

Includes guided meditation, journaling, and dinner

To Register Please Contact Me!

What's In A Name?

MAE

English meaning of the girl´s name Mae:

kinswomen

French meaning of the girl´s name Mae:

May, goddess of spring growth

It can also mean the 5th month and be a short form of both Mary and Maeve.

Meet Great Grandma Mae! She was named after her mom's sister Aunt Mae, Steve's mom was named Linda Mae, and now we have our Finley Mae.

I like your ears Great Grandma Mae

I like your mouth too Great Grandma Mae

Aren't they sweet together?

On my side we have MAE as well. My Aunt Ann was originally named Mae (a name change occurred after she was adopted) and her birth mom was Mae.

It's only fitting that we would choose this name for our wee lass too. For Us the name MAE is a family name all the way around!

WARNING This Post WILL Induce Hunger

Dining OUT in Costa Rica

Steve and I have been travelling to COSTA RICA together since 2001. As we set out on our first trip we read several books about Costa Rica learning about culture, industry and food. The Lonely Planet and Foder's travels guides were among those books we bought and read cover to cover. We also spoke to many people who had either wintered in Costa Rica or been surf bums there in the late 80's early 90's. Every one told us the food was bland.

A day or so into our first trip Steve and I were beginning to wonder what the discussion of bland food was about? We ate local dishes. Casados is the Costa Rican name for a plate of the day. You get the fresh catch or chicken and salad, beans, rice, and fried plantain and sometimes some young cheese. All ingredients are fresh and delicious. Nothing in our opinion is bland.

We are currently living in eastern NC where we rarely go out to eat. I'm positive in the bigger city of Raleigh there are excellent restaurants but in our area not so much. Yes, we are food snobs. Having come from a city like Toronto where we can get every type of cuisine under the sun where competition is fierce so food quality rock - it's hard to come to this area to eat out. I'm not saying southern fried is not good, it is , it's just other specialties done well are lacking here. So we elect to stay home and cook. While the restaurant experience is disappointing the shopping is not. We have a Saturday morning farmer's market we can shop for organic produce and a fish co-op within walking distance.

On this trip to Costa Rica we were very excited to dine out for two reasons:

1. We have not dined out in ages - especially long leisurely dinners since becoming parents. Family is so respected in Costa Rica and the wait staff is all over the children. Children are welcomed to dinner at any hour of the evening.

2. The food as we have come to know it is AMAZING!

Casado from Harbour Reef

Finley & Steve sharing a Casado at Soda Melyssa

Shrimp & Avocado salad from Lagarta Lodge

Finley & Steve sharing the same expression and a chicken burrito at Kaya Sol

Shrimp in Gorgonzola Sauce at Casa Tucan

Papas Fritas at The Guilded Iguana

The Priest Family eating at a Soda which is a typical outdoor Costa Rican Restaurant.

The cokes are served cold in glass bottles and are made with sugar cane ... so yummy!

Pargo Rojo or as we know it Red Snapper from Casa Tucan

Snook in salsa verde aka basil pesto from Guilded Iguana

Molly chowing down on a margherita pizza at Giardino Topical

(yes that is my PILSEN in the foreground!)

Circle Small, Gums and All!

Brush your teeth.

Round and round.

Circle small

Gums and all!

Finley has four teeth and she is already totally into brushing them.

Yes, I used disposable dipes while on vacation this time. I explored and exhausted several other options before finding the BumGenius FLIP system. These diapers can accommodate either a cloth or a disposable insert!!! Of course I didn't have time to order them to the house before we left on vacation and since we did not have a washer in the house we rented in Costa Rica...I went disposable. I felt guilty - then Steve reminded me we have used less than 60 disposable diapers in 10 months. Our footprint in landfill is quite minimal. I'm totally gonna buy a flip system. Super handy for travelling!

**** I should mention I also traveled with Fin's POTTY and she continued to use it while on holiday.

Yoga & journaling Retreat

Hey ladies, my friend Rachel and I are hosting a Yoga & Journaling Retreat this spring at the beach! Wanna join us???

Immerse yourself in yoga, guided meditation and journal writing in the comfort of a beautiful beach house in Duck, North Carolina! Explore the beach and comb the shops in the quaint little beach side town of Duck and enjoy the company of the like minded.

When?

Friday, March 12th - 3:00pm arrival until Sunday, March 14th - noon departure.

Where?
Duck, North Carolina

Retreat house can be viewed HERE

Who Are Your hosts?

Rachel Victoria Mills PHD:

Rachel is an accomplished writer, poet, artist and university professor. Rachel spent many years in the University Of Chapel Hill's English department as well as guest teaching at several noted Universities in the United States. Rachel leads journaling groups in a supported environment, encouraging each participant to dig deep and fulfill the intention of the piece of writing they are working on. Each journal meeting begins with an assigned writing cue, participants let the cues take them where they may. The group then takes turns sharing their work if they choose to.

Michelle Shipley RYT:

RYT = Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga alliance of North America. I have fulfilled 200 plus hours of yoga teacher trainings. Classes are gentle Hatha based with a strong emphasis on alignment and breath work. Hands on assists, and encouragement throughout practice are taught to build a strong yoga foundation. Individual attention in a group setting ensures each client find their personal edge and full potential.

Meals:

Delicious and nutritious home cooked meals are included in the rates, as well as snacks, juice, coffee, tea and wine. We will offer a Veggie and Meat option at each sitting.

RATES

Full Weekend including Accommodations: $200.00
Includes Friday late afternoon yoga and journaling, all Saturday activities, and Sunday yoga, breakfast, and morning activity

Saturday Full Day [No Accommodations] $100.00
Includes morning yoga, breakfast, journaling, free/beach time, guided meditation, journal class & dinner

Saturday 1/2 Day Morning: $50.00

Includes morning yoga, breakfast & journaling

Saturday 1/2 Day Afternoon: $50.00

Includes guided meditation, journaling, and dinner

Come join us for a beautiful healthy, stress-relieving, companionable weekend at the beach!

PLEASE CONTACT ME FOR MORE INFO!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

From The Pare' Family!

Snowmageddon NC

Last year, when it snowed here in Eastern NC during the 3rd week of January, the locals all told me it was the first time it had snowed in five years. Our small town shut down completely. Like Completely. Not even McDonald's was open. We had 2 inches of snow. My friend Sharon was here visiting us from Toronto. Two inches eh? Well, we would be expected to be at work and on time too if we got two inches...heck same goes for 15 inches. We ventured out to see what the state of affairs was in our town and found that Wal-mart was in fact open with about three employees for the whole store, a few families were sledding down the highway overpasses on anything inflatable, wearing their toboggans on their heads (a toboggan is a toque in NC - I don't understand either) a few snowmen were erected by enthusiastic children. Within a day the snow was gone and order restored to our town. It was a novelty for the parents and a thrill for the kids especially those under the age of five...they had never seen snow!

I was not yet far enough removed from living in a snowy climate to find the snow charming. My blood is thin and I have never ever, ever in the history of my life enjoyed the winter. Hence moving to a state where we still have four seasons ... but NO SNOW.

This year it has snowed twice! Yup, this is the second snowfall this month. The southerners are great at storytelling. I'm beginning to believe the locals stories about having had no so snow in 5 years to be a wonderful southern tall tale...

This is the view from my back door this morning at 8 am.

Fin sporting her Canada pj's in honour of the Olympics

(She's American shhhh).

This is the view from the front door this morning 8am.

VayCay -Ohhhhhvey

We LOVE Costa Rica. We've been traveling there since 2001. We particularly like a small little hard to reach surf town, where the waves are gentle, the town has character, there is a good community of Tico and ex pats. The surf described as old guy long board waves by my husband is always fun to launch into, and there is yoga...mmmm paradise right?

We have thought of buying a winter home there often and have spent a couple of days tooling around with a real estate agent looking at property and houses. In the end we love it there but want to see more of the world and always decide against making a permanent move. However, we always go back. It's the one place where I step off the plane, exhale deeply fully and actually can relax. We have stayed for as little as 7 days and as long as 7 weeks at a time in our little beach town so we know it pretty well. I'm not telling you the name of it on purpose!

This time we brought our friends with us who have a 5 year old and a 7 month old. We have brought friends here many times and everyone has loved it s much as we do. It was our first time traveling like this with our baby too. We spent six months planning and preparing our friends for this trip making sure we had just what we needed and nothing more. We are seasoned travelers. We are not flashy, we don't bring anything of any real value with us, we stay low key. We blend in. We try to impres this upon our friends when they come too. And they did a great job of it.

The town as grown so much it makes my heart a little sad. I liked the old school surf town, the one with no bank, no one selling stuff on the beach, no malls no grocery stores within easy distance. I like that we lined up on Monday and Thursday for the produce truck as it rolled through town.

Even though it's grown it has it's charm and it is still a very small beach town free of resorts and chains. There are lots of family's, surfers, yogi's, beach dogs and this time....robbers.

Fin on the beach.

Day Two Our house was broken into. The safe stolen off the wall. Our friends lost their passports, wedding bands and some money. The jokers attempted to get into our house too which was on the same lot but were interrupted...so we were spared any loss of physical property but our holiday was STOLEN. Take anything just not the passports- what a pain in the tail to replace! We moved houses as no one felt safe. The Costa Rica version of the FBI arrived to investigate. While petty theft is common break and enters are not. This really rocked the little town and the news of our incident spread like wild fire. Some thoughtless a-hole broke into our home looking for cash or perhaps small electronics to hawk. They weren't looking for passports. Lesson learned NEVER remove your passport from your person and NEVER use safe unless it is buried in cement. We know the house was targeted it was not us. It would have been the next group into the home. That makes me feel a little better. It was such a cowardly thing to do. It would not have happened if we were home. We didn't leave anything of value out in plain sight. There was never a danger to our person.

We tried to move forward and make the best of the vacation but that invasion was more than any of us could shake. Karma is going to be that robber's bitch I hope he cut himself with his crowbar and gets gangrene and leprosy and scabies and mouth ulcers and a spider lays eggs in his ears and a scorpion makes a nest in the front of his shorts and a monkey pees on his head.

The Pare' Family

The Priest Family

Fin at Sunset

One of the fun rituals of this town is gathering to watch the sunset. Everyone. I mean everyone in town, heads to the beach for sunset. The last surfers ride a few waves, we sip a beer , the beach dogs frolic while everyone watches the ocean swallow up the bright orange ball of sun.

More to come about our beach vacation ... now I must unpack!