Fall Nostalgia/Amnesia

I have this box in my closet from my Grammy's house.  Grammy lives in a nursing home now and we had to sell her house.  It was one of the happiest places on earth, filled with cousins to play with, historical treasures and Milky Way candy bars. My Grammy's house had a certain smell to it, and that box still has that smell.  I hope it never leaves.

Wednesday night,  I retrieved this from that box.

I had never seen one of these before but my mother set one aside for my sister and me.  We both don't remember ever what it was for even though my  Mom swears we did...probably because we were eating the Milky Ways instead of the healthy baked apples these provide.

Apparently, these are apple bakers.  Just core an apple, add a tablespoon of water and what ever spices you'd like and bake at 350 for 20-40 minutes.  I just put some of my Trader Joe's Sugar, Chocolate and Coffee Bean Grinder topping on top and baked for a little too long (as you can see from the mushy picture).  I used a Cortland Apple and it came out sweet and sour with a little hint of the coffee bean.

It's a nice fall dessert that is healthy and brings back memories (or lack of memories in this instance) for the fall.  Although after a quick Google search I found some not so healthy alternatives I might have to try out too!
http://www.applebaker.com/applebak.htm

http://vimeo.com/29642950

And these that look MUCH better than mine!


http://www.fitsugar.com/Healthy-Baked-Apple-Recipe-13640542



http://www.theeverythingsoapblog.com/2012/09/recipe-baked-apples.html

Have you ever seen one of these?  What reminds you of fall?  Am I the only one who forgets things her mother swears she should know?

Mentor Monday: Old School Friendship Bracelets

It is now time for the least read post I write.  Out of my huge readership of 30-70 readers, Mentor Monday usually only gets about 10 hits.  But it's an important one to me so here goes.

This week's Mentor Monday turned into Tuesday due to scheduling problems.  We went a little old school and made some friendship bracelets.  Back in the day, the Garcia cousins were pretty awesome at friendship bracelets.  Every family get together revolved around what color floss we had and the latest braiding style we learned.  At these events, it was usually 6 girls to 1 boy so my poor cousin Michael learned how to make all these bracelets along with us.  We also used to sing "The Rainbow Connection" while we slept outside in my screen porch, but now I'm just embarassing myself.

Back to the bracelets, I figured we would do the easiest friendship bracelet I could remember (ie the only one I could remember).  "A" never made a friendship bracelet before so she wasn't quite sure all the work that went into them.  I picked three colors and used two strands of each in my bracelet.  She chose 6 colors and did a fancy, colorful layout with the 6th color in the middle and the one strand of the other colors straddling in on either side.  So basically, way too many strands for the first friendship bracelet.  After going through the first color weave, she basically gave up as it was a tangled mess.  Since I'm a bit practiced in this and only had a few strands, I had gotten pretty far on mine.  Instead of letting her give up, I had her switch with me and practice on my bracelet which had a well established pattern.   Once she "got it" she got really into it and got pretty far.  I only made it half way through her color scheme in about 30 minutes but the strands are pretty well organized so she should be able to pick it back up where I left off.  "A" ended up getting really into it and claims she is going to make some progress this week.  I can't wait to see how far she gets because, as you can see in the picture below, she has a lot of work ahead of her. 

My simple, yet effective bracelet

"A"s super creative, complicated, bracelet

This One Time....in Elementary School Gym Class.

Remember the crab walk?  I do.  It was a staple of the fitness program at Bacon Elementary School.  That's right Bacon School.  Where we had to be fit in order to save ourselves from the Pig jokes.  Not that we cared because we had the greatest elementary school in all of Townieville.  And the greatest name.  Anyway.

Back to the crab walk.  It seemed like every relay race had one lap that included the crab walk.  I remember flipping over on my back, and flying down the gym, the whole length of the gym mind you, crawling like a crab.  Then hopping up and getting ready for the next length.  No big deal.  

Why the walk down memory lane?  Well because....




That's right, bootcamp.  It is an online one with about 300 other women that lasts three weeks.  We get emailed workouts and guidelines and are challenged to fit them into our lives and do them to best of our ability.  Well, yesterday's workout went a little old school (elementary school) with the crab walk.

This was not the crab walk of my memories though.  I do not remember my shoulders screaming and my wrists aching.  I do not remember my butt feeling like an anchor struggling to cling to the bottom of the sea as I struggled to push it up and walk like Sebastian the Crab.  I also don't remember going backwards.  If Mr. A wanted to separate the men from the boys in those relay races, we would have added in a backwards length.  That, my friends, is more of a coordination challenge than anything else.  

It is a lot of fun though.  I try to go to the gym every morning before work and I find it much easier to get out of bed when I actually have a plan.  Bootcamp is giving me that plan. There is a little corner of the Y with a big mirror, a row of kettlebells, a rack of weights, and easy access to stability balls, bosu balls, and bands.  It is tucked away by the aerobics room and I like to call it...well, Mine.  I don't like when others wander into my exercise grotto.  Like that guy doing push ups the other day.  I don't want to look in my mirror and see your sweaty red face grunting through push ups.  And I can't help but think that staring at my butt is what is getting him through those push ups, because really, when given the opportunity, why wouldn't you stare at my butt.  I would.  Anyway.

I've finished the first week and enjoying my first rest day.  It really feels like a rest day when I am actually working hard the other days.  The best thing I've found so far is that it is the first exercise program I've signed up for where the first questions wasn't "what is your weight?"  In fact, no one has asked and I'm not telling them.  Because it's not about the number on the scale. I don't fail if I'm not two pounds lighter by the end of the week and because of that, I think I'll succeed.