New Adventures

I am now a licensed provider on our base here. I so far enjoyed the training. I have subbed for another provider for a 4 year old & 8 year old. I wasn't totally prepared with having toys, etc. Although I think we had a fun week. We took advantage of the weather to have picnics and snacks outside. Fall will only last so long. I had only had them for a week. Now I will be starting two younger children. One 4 months and the other 1 year. Both boys and looking forward to it. I start monday with the 4 month old. I am hopeful I will have them both in my care for a year. It will be an experience to teach other kids that I'm taking care of rather than just mine. Not to mention an adventure and learning experience coming up with lesson plans for all the kids. My two who are 6 and 3. Then the other two I will be watching. I will only have one girl out of the 4. It should be interesting! I am now looking into what I need to do to get my CDA. It will be a process. I also think going to school for early childhood education and possibly classes in sign language will be very helpful in learning to communicate and helping the younger ones communicate. If anyone has suggestions I'm open to them.

I will still be continuing my children's yoga classes just need to get on that and figure out when the classes will start. Just so much preparing for with these two other kids.

Shrimp Red Thai Curry

Ingredients

* 1/2 can coconut milk ( or substitute whole can or 1/2 can lite coconut milk)
* 3 tsp. red Thai curry paste
* 1 tsp low sodium sauce
* 1 fresh red bell pepper ( or green)
* 1/4 tsp ginger
* 1 tsp lemongrass
* 1 can of Pineapple ( in 100% Juice)
* 1 bag frozen medium shrimp
* 1 cup Basmati Rice
* 1 tbsp. Olive oil
* Cilantro for garnish
* Green onion for garnish
* Lime juice ( optional)







Directions ( Start cooking rice before everything else so it's ready when you are done)



1. Heat up skillet med-high heat and add olive oil. Add shrimp and once heated/cooked through remove to a separate plate.



2. Take maybe another tsp or two olive oil to pan and saute pepper/pineapple. I remove pineapple once hot. This is an optional choice.



3. Next combine coconut milk, curry paste, soy sauce, ginger, lemongrass. Slowly bring to a simmer over medium low heat, stirring frequently.



4. Finally add shrimp back in and stir through. Serve over rice. You can use brown rice or jasmine rice as well. Add lime juice, cilantro and green onion here.

Number of Servings: 4

Signs that fall is near....

Summer flew by too quick! My daughter has been asking when she gets to go back to school almost every day. I keep telling her enjoy your vacation because someday you won't want it to end. She is going into Kindergarten this year and she's so happy. I think she is more than ready. She has been drawing pictures, writing books and I wonder where she got all her talent from. I was creative in my pictures as a kid. I knew my brother was a little bit more advanced than myself. She is a scorpio like him. Funny because I see certain personality traits in her that my brother has. He and his girlfriend gave her a keyboard so that she can take piano lessons this year. She is going to be one busy kid. I think I am ready to for her to go back to school. I for one love summer. My most favorite season is Fall. I love everything about it. I love the colors of the changing leaves ( although you don't see as much for as long in Jersey), I love the feeling of the crisp air, I love the variety of clothes. With earthy colors that I can match to my makeup and hair. Most of all my favorite holiday rolls around - Halloween! You can't forget the hay rides, bobbing for apples, face painting :) That is one thing I miss about my hometown Sharon Springs, NY. I remember for at least a couple years we had a Fall Festival and that was by far one of my favorite things to do. I vow to take Keara on another one this year. We did go a couple years ago with the kids on a hay ride to search for our pumpkins. That Michael carved so beautifully! I was so impressed! I think he might have to carve them once again for us if he is here!

Getting closer this month to taking the Child Day Care class to be doing home day care. Am I ready for this? Is anyone? LOL....I am excited. I am sad to leave my morning yoga classes :( Every time I have a class someone thanks me after class. I love being able to bring yoga when we may not have had it otherwise. Anyway still work to be done before we start. When we first moved into our house they had only painted the house with a white flat paint. It is truly driving me nuts! I can't just wipe off a mark on the wall. The first day we moved in the movers hit the walls with our furniture marking them up. So we will be painting a paint that can be easily cleaned! I love painting so I'm looking forward to it! Then also having the carpet cleaned! I love super clean carpets! This year is the year to replace furniture, etc that we have had since we moved in together when we were dating. We just celebrated our 8 year anniversary but we have been together for 10 in December. There goes my 20's!! I have had all kinds of experiences. Being married young you definitely learn a lot about yourself and other people. You also learn how to communicate. Well you hope you do.

I have a mission also in the next three months to get into even better shape. I imagine what it would be like to compete in a bikini competition. I'm not sure if I would actually like to do it. But I'd like to get there so that maybe when I wanted I could try. It's been the first week of P90X/Insanity/Brazilian Butt Lift...but I will talk about that later ;)

Vegetable Green Thai Curry....

I love to cook. Especially when it's quick and really yummy at the end. Some of my favorite types of cuisine are Thai, Vietnamese and Indian. I love curry! It makes me so happy to eat it! It's my comfort food! So here I am to share this recipe with all of you. It's not spicy. So most people can eat it. Not to mention dairy free and gluten free.


Vegetable Green Thai Curry:


Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. Coconut Oil
3/4 Can of Coconut Milk
1 Potato
1 Sweet Potato
Bunch of Green Beans
1 Red Pepper
1 1/2 Cup Vegetable broth or water
2 Tbsp. Green Curry Paste
1 Scallion Sliced for Garnish
1 cup Jasmine Rice
Juice of 1 lime

Take 1 Cup of broth and 1/2 Cup of coconut milk and bring to a bowl in a small saucepan. Add 1 cup of jasmine rice to this once its boiled and simmer for about 15 min or until liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile in a wok add coconut oil to wok and heat to med heat. Add in potato and sweet potatoes and 1/4 cup of broth. Cover and steam until potatoes are soft. Then add red pepper and green beans and continue to steam until veggies are as soft to your tasting. Add in 2 heaping tablespoons of green curry paste. Let cook for about 30 sec and mix in with veggies. Then add 3/4 cup of coconut milk and simmer everything for about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and add in juice of 1 lime and add scallions for garnish. Or Cilantro as well. Top over jasmine rice.

If you want to use some chicken add it into the oil and cook before you add potatoes. Cook the chicken a little while then add the potatoes and steam. Go from there...

This should make about 4 servings. ( You may want to cook more rice or add more veggies to make it serve larger portions)

YUM!! ( I do believe it's gluten free :)

Being Happy With Your Life Right Now...

Sometimes I allow music to create my mood for me. Or maybe I just think that I do. After teaching class today I felt an intense happy feeling flow through me. So much that honestly I wanted to cry. I kept saying to myself you aren't pregnant. Why are you getting so emotional? I was listening to the new 30 Seconds From Mars CD. The song "This is War"....sometimes its not the lyrics of the song that get to me. It's the musical composition. How it stirs up emotions that I cannot control.

I started thinking how grateful I am to be where I am today. I came to Jersey about 2 years 7 months ago. I have to say I haven't liked living in Jersey all that much in comparison to how I liked living in Arizona or Utah. I am from NY so coming back to the east coast I was stoked about getting to be able to go to NYC all the time. Still it reminds me of where I grew up. The little town called Sharon Springs in middle of nowhere in upstate NY. For those of who are saying where? It's only about 30 minutes from Cooperstown...Most of you might know this is where the baseball hall of fame is. I love Sharon. It's a quaint small town that I can say I honestly had some of the greatest experiences of my life. I was able to work and meet survivors of the holocaust. To meet them and hear their stories I wouldn't trade for anything. I used to love exploring the old hotels that were abandoned and dilapidated. We were careless and more fascinated by the exploration that cured our boredom. Still to this day for some reason I can't see myself living in a small town. What is it about my personality that can't deal with quiet? I come home everyday and honestly I just constantly need to move! I need to do something! Small rural area's make this very difficult for me. Thank goodness for Yoga. That is what saves me and calms me down. Yoga tells me to relax and settle. Slow down and smell the flowers like everyone keeps telling me to do.

Now I realize that I came here maybe not 100% happy to be here though I realized today again it is one path that I was meant to do. As I started to fill up with emotion after teaching class. I look at every person in my class that I get to talk to and teach just a teeny bit of yoga too and realize this is what makes me happy. Not just teaching yoga but the experience of meeting new people. Learning more about them. Hearing their jokes or their stories. Even when they tell me to go easy on them. It means something is working. Even the young airman who asked me if they could have another class or earlier yoga class. His excitement and exuberance put a smile on my face that I couldn't swipe off.

We all have had issues throughout our lives that cause us to be or act the way we do today. It's finding the positive in everyday life that helps you find your place and what drives you or motivates you to get up in the morning. I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I don't know where I'm going next and you know I never really do. I just know I'll be ready when it comes.

Jobs on base or Home Day Care...

So the first blog was just the beginning of my rants....

My decision to work strictly on base if I get a job has been decided. I refuse to drive an hour to two hours every morning and night anymore when I work. I prefer to work on base because it's close and convenient. Especially if the kids are in a daycare or with a home provider. That decision was easy.

Now the question is finding the job on base that I can be happy doing. My first choice is the CDC ( Child Day Care Center)...I love kids, if you work full time you are able to get a spot for your kids. My boy is the one I'm most concerned about since my baby doll is in school now. I felt the need to stay home with him because I did it with my daughter for a while. I feel it was important for me to be here with them since the hubby gets deployed and travels an awful lot for work. They pay a decent starting wage and since my kids could be there with me then I wouldn't feel I was losing so much to daycare costs.

Other job options are more with accounting and office support. Some of them I think would be fun if I was to be paid enough to pay for daycare and still feel I was taking enough home after the fact. It's like why work for pennies and stress yourself out at the same time? I could just stay home and budget. In turn creating less stress for myself and my family. Which leads me to the other option.

Since there is such a shortage of home daycare providers on the list currently. When I mean shortage. I mean we had about six people on the list for all 3 bases that we are connected with. Maybe I could do something for others like provide that for other mom's such as myself who get so frustrated that there is such a shortage. I could stay home with my children. The money would be great. At the same time the stress levels would increase in taking care of someone else's children. Making sure everything is organized just perfectly and following the rules of the FCC. I feel I could stick by the rules just fine since I'm a cautious person to begin with. I could make my own hours so it could work out just fine. I know when I have worked night shifts at the spa I worked at finding care was difficult so maybe I could try and offer that as well. Instead of just the 7-5 hours. All of these things which are things to think about. What is better for my family and myself? I would not want to cause any more stress on them. The kids though I'm sure wouldn't mind having the other kids around. It's the hubby I worry about lol....and myself. I am a woman of many patience. This is what will be tested most of all.

I love life and the options we have. I feel sometimes like I am always starting over. Although sometimes the new starts are just where we need to be to get to where were going.

Working as a Military Spouse & Mom??

The fun part about being a military mom and spouse when trying to get a job is figure out daycare costs. Whether or not it pays to go to work. When you live in middle of nowhere and the wages when you move from place to place are generally low. For some reason I keep choosing jobs where I have to self promote myself for my yoga classes, or as an esthetician. Unfortunately when you don't have more than one source of income paying daycare to do all this can get expensive. I'm starting to come into a new reality. At least one that I hope is for everyone's best interest. I love what I do. I love what I have gone to school for. I went to school in Utah for Master Esthetics and I loved it. 1200 hours. The only other state that has more than that Alabama at 1500 hrs. I think now I probably should have gone to school for hair at the same time because the hour requirements for hair in utah was 2000 hours. I love hair. I just didn't want the responsibility of messing up someone else's mop. I do it to my own quite enough with my experimentation. I also went to school for Vinyasa yoga. Some of you may not know exactly what this yoga is. Most yoga is Vinyasa based. Vinyasa really is the breath synchronized movement. I teach a flow based class. Usually faster pace where you inhale and move and exhale you go to the next move...this class in general can burn from 445 calories on in an hour. Although I'm not sure how accurate that is when classes should be about 90 minutes on average. Most studios have classes 75 to 90 minutes long. I have since gone on to study Core Strength Yoga, Prenatal & Postnatal Yoga and Children's Yoga. I love teaching Yoga. This is definitely something I was meant to do. Yoga has changed my life. I hope to give it to others to help them achieve a little bit of what I have experienced. My biggest challenge/achievement was starting my children's yoga class on base. I was nervous to try and get it going. Fear of failing and having absolutely no one show up. The first time I tried to start it off base and two people signed up. So I decided to find a new location on base. I ended up with 5 families so I ended up with a huge class. I have never felt so good about doing something. I started to realize that teaching kids yoga was one of the ultimate feelings of satisfaction for me. Maybe it's a little selfish that I might like it more than them but it made me realize that I have a purpose in life. My job as a mother has brought me here.

Anyway so in my realization for now is that I must get a regular stable job. This makes me sad and stressed. I stress that I don't have enough coming in on my half. I also stress that I need to find a job to work around my teaching schedule. My son is almost in school so I would like to work more regularly or at least bring in more income regularly. I teach regular Vinyasa flow classes though and the love I have for teaching this group of people cannot be replaced by any job. This is the ultimate job. The only other option that I'm not totally opposed to is starting my own daycare at home here. When I look for daycare options that are home based because there is usually a waiting list at the CDC there is no one. Even for someone like me who merely needs hourly care. It is either too expensive for what I make for my hours that I'm gone. Or there is no one available even for hourly. The Air Force claims to care about the military family. I start to doubt this with daily trial and tribulations.

Yoga, skin care, helping people feel their best is what I love to do the most. As a Yogi I have to keep telling myself the truth. I have to realize that I can't do it all. Sometimes there are road blocks we must overcome. Not everything has to be all at once. I have to accept this and take life and everyday as it comes. I also need to realize that life will work out in it's own way. We make our own destiny.