Tonight I had tacos!! I made them using lean ground beef and McCormick Mild Taco Seasoning Mix. I used Ortega Whole Grain Taco Shells… I heated them up in the toaster before I filled them with the ground taco meat… These taco shells are light and crispy- not thick and grainy like usual taco shells. Then I topped with grated cheddar cheese… They were incredible.
I served the tacos with a salad… Romaine leaves tossed with diced apples, toasted walnuts and blue cheese crumbles – topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I eat this salad at least 3 times per week… Sometimes I add shredded chicken and serve it as a meal….
Then I had “Cole’s Cashew Chocolate Chip Bite-lettes” by Laura’s Wholesome Junk Food. I found these at Harris Teeter the other night. You won’t believe how heavenly these are…. put it this way, they are all gone. My daughter loves them as much as I do. You can’t even tell they are gluten-free… They are made with rice flour, chocolate chips, cashew nut butter and are soft and chewy - and do not contain any artificial ingredients or preservatives. Go to www.lauraswholesomejunkfood.com and you can order a gluten-free variety pack of cookies including brownies and mint-double fudge…
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 02.02.2010 at 10:17 pm// Tagged under: food , balsamic vinegar, cashew nut butter, Cole's Cashew Chocolate Chip Bite-lettes, gluten free, Harris Teeter, Laura's Wholesome Junk Food, McCormick Mild Taco Seasoning Mix, Ortega Whole Grain Taco Shells, rice flour, taco, www.lauraswholesomejunkfood.com //
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I met my friend Marci at the barn yesterday morning around 10am. She wanted me to experience an “energy session” with the horses. Marci works at the barn on Monday mornings feeding the horses. But, what I realized yesterday is that the horses work on Marci Monday mornings….
Marci told me that horses feel our energy,… they can sense when we have pain – physically and emotionally. She wanted me to come out on a Monday morning – a time when no one would be out at the barn to distract us or the horses. We started off in the mare’s field. Two of them came over to us immediately. Lena and Meg stood very close and checked me out with their incredible noses. Marci said they were “working” on me. They pursed their top lip together and quickly moved it left to right while scanning my body. Sometimes they would stop on a certain spot and almost push themselves against me. Marci said they sensed something there or that I had stuck or blocked energy. And then they would just stop and close their eyes.. So peaceful- drifting off to sleep.
We stayed in the mare’s field for what seemed like a couple minutes, but what was in reality about 1/2 hour. We then went across to the next field to visit some of the geldings. Gryffin is a huge Percheron. He came over to me and put his mouth to mine… We just stood there breathing each others breath. He was so still…. a 1,500 lb giant next to me – not moving… just absorbing my energy.
Then he turned around walked over past the hay bale and just layed down…. I approached him- bent down to hug his enormous neck and I just stayed there. He didn’t move. It was so serene.
Indian stuck with me the most. He stayed at my ear for a long time.. breathing in and out.. Then he went to the back of my neck and pushed at me with his head. He worked on my hand.. sniffing, wiggling his lip and taking my energy. Marci said that when they take our bad or blocked energy as theirs they need to then release it. So she said they yawn or roll to get it out…. Sure enough,.. Indian then proceeded to yawn!
We did the same in all 6 fields. And the experience was the same… Each time Marci entered the fields the horses knew her as their dominant “mare” and showed her tremendous respect…. Marci said she comes here Mondays, not for the money, but for the “therapy”. It carries her through the rest of her week.
When I looked at my watch it was 1:00. We had been doing this for 3 hours…. impossible. I will do this again, soon.
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 02.02.2010 at 9:30 pm// Tagged under: good karma, wellness , Gentle Giants, Percheron //
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Cadbury Creme Eggs – I know they aren’t good for you.. but, I LOVEEEEE these and only eat them when they come out this time of year…
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.31.2010 at 10:06 pm// Tagged under: good karma , Cadbury Creme Eggs, gluten free //
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Muse’s “City Of Delusion” on the “Black Holes and Revelations” album…
Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet’s “Lux Aeterna” on the “Requiem For A Dream” album
Citizen Cope’s “Sideways” on “The Clarence Greenwood Recordings” album.
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.31.2010 at 9:59 pm// Tagged under: music , Black Holes and Revelations, Citizen Cope, Clint Mansell, Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet, Lux Aeterna, Muse, music, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings //
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I stayed in for most of the weekend for 2 reasons…. First of all, I got the stuffy/runny nose, congested, sneeezy, headache-y thing going on…. and it snowed like 6 inches on Saturday and most of the area came to a standstill for a while. I watched, “Burn After Reading” OnDEMAND. It’s a Coen Brothers’ movie that stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Francis McDormand and John Malkovich. It’s dark, twisted and hilarious in a not-obviously hilarious way and it takes place in D.C. – which is a few miles from here. I love movies like this that start off one way and through a series of events that take you on a roller coaster ride, you end up not where you thought you would be…
I found another movie like this that took me on another ride today. “The Opposite Of Sex”, with Christina Ricci, Lisa Kudrow and Lyle Lovett. I LOVED this movie. I am not even going to describe it. Just see it. And, if you don’t like this movie then I guess we have totally different palates.
Anyway, back to Friday…. I have a friend, Pascale, that I met after college when I was working at Bloomingdales selling skin care. I worked at the Payot/Lancaster counter and she worked right across from me at the Janet Sartin counter. We hit it off immediately… She was hilarious and so much fun. We became great friends. Over the years we lost touch, but I knew she still lived in the area and I would run into her once in a great while. And, through Facebook we found each other again… When the earthquake struck Haiti I immediately thought of her. She was from Haiti and had many friends and family there. I wrote to her asking if everyone was ok. She sent me the following email on Friday:
As many of you may know, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake two weeks ago. This journal entry was sent to me by my cousin, Vanessa Cassagnol Sossa. I have chills from reading this…. Yet, it is only one survivor’s tale. Surviving the quake is just the first step, surviving the aftermath will be quite another…..
Pass this forward,
Pascale
hello all-glad to be around to write to you. after having taken all of this in i took some time to write things as i remember – although i hope to soon forget the darkest day i have ever seen.
january 12.
i woke up with a special prayer on my mind that day asked for for protection that my children would be particularly guarded,watched over and kept safe guess my soul knew what would happen later on-how could my conscious self ever know.
i planned the day saying i would stop at the montana and drop off some artwork, then stop at the tennis club and tell them i would be returning very soon and then stop at the caribbean market to pick up some goodies. when the time came i refused to go with a hell no reaction and decided instead to take the kids to the shop and patiently wait for closing time to go home.
4:52 the kids were playing horse and trainer in the yard i was swept away by their joy when exactly three minutes later the earth turned to jello under my feet and then the earth started rocking uncontrollably. chairs and garden pots slamming down to the ground the sound of cracking ,popping. breaking , slamming and a thunderous roar. the kids were looking at me petrified-all i could say was “oh my God, oh my God ,get under a table!” and then it was over., as quickly as it began. when we got up i thought wow! that was a real earthquake-a big one!!and then i looked around. the wall surrounding the property was pulverized destroying my garden business,and as i am taking it all in-the employees came running saying the building next door had collapsed with everyone inside-i chalked it up to shoddy construction. her were screams coming from everywhere.and then it dawned on me -this was something much greater than what i thought.we worked our way home though immense traffic just praying my house would be o.k..we finally get home-ompossible to get the car inside-the propeties walls had been smashed as well-no way to get it-but my home was still standing.we worked our way over a mountain of rubble-so far so goodbut inside broken glasses and plates everywhere.my friderator doors wide open with all of it’s contents violently thrown to the ground.where would i start -this is a horribble mess where do i start? and then i looked at the walls. keep in my mind that this is a bugalow built in the 1920’s out of stucco-the walls were completely cracked straight through-no room was spared i knew that this could’nt possibly be code and with the fist after shock it only got worse ,no sleeping in this house tonight or any night for that matter .the after shocks grew stronger and more frequent.wth each shake the kids asked is it ever going to stop???-yes-when?- i don’t know. no telephones no t.v.no radio no internet. cut off from the rest of the world.how will they ever know what has happend to us?? paco gets home and hands me his cell phone-here watch cnn-i know you are going crazy. the world knew!! yes-but how will they ever know that we are o.k. they must be worried sick-just as worried as we are.cnn showing pictires of the palace-THE NATIONAL PALACE HAS BEEN DESTROYED!!!!!!! Carribbean supermarket with all it’s clients and employes-the montana and the bellevue club destroyed, dissappeared!!how can this be???? it’s the end of the world.how fricking strong was this thing?????the list went on and on. cnnsays that port-au-prince was leveled-i think thats an understatement.and then the streets wre filled with people-all kinds-camping out -running for cover from the dreaded aftershocks-and i am trying to conincea handful that the trembling was norma-the plates needed to get back into place-they were’nt having it-they were almost as strong as the first one. babies criying everywhe.trul;y a scene from th apocalpse it was p[ithchblack at 6:30 and sound seemed to be sucked in a vacuum-and more aftershocks-and with eack trempor more wails,and more prayers.we never slept that night-wishing that day would come quickly.day finally came with news that so many friends had been killed under collapsed houses and so many more had dissappeared.but with all of this horror around me a look at yself and say”thank youGod “for taking care of us-we are all safe and sound.God heard my prayer that morning and took special care of me and my loved ones.i will never stop being grateful and i will never take anything for granted ever again.the outpouring of love and concern is such an immense comfort and i am confident that we will all come out stonger and better from all of this. thank you all for caring .we love you all very much
I assume there are a lot of typos because she is probably writing from a Blackberry or some other type of handheld device that is hard to write on. Another incredible story from Haiti… We donated money to Haiti through Plan USA. We sponsor a child in Columbia through Plan USA. I found that this is a tremendous and legitimate organization. They actually have PlanUSA workers on the ground in Haiti helping with the aftermath. You can donate to help Haiti through their website: www.planusa.org .
Read more…
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.31.2010 at 8:53 pm// Tagged under: good karma, hilarious , Argentina, Blackberry, Bloomingdales, Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading, Christina Ricci, Coen Brothers, Columbia, D.C, earthquake, energy portal, Facebook, farrier, Francis McDormand, George Clooney, Haiti, Janet Sartin, John Malkovich, Karmic Nectar, Lancaster, Leap Frog Talking Globe, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, Maryland, OnDEMAND, Payot, Plan USA, Poolesville, South Africa, The Opposite Of Sex, UK, www.planusa.org, yoga //
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Guster’s “Barrel Of A Gun” on the “Lost And Gone Forever” album…
Supreme Beings Of Leisure’s “Catch Me” on the “Divine Operating System” album
Doves’ “Walk In Fire” on the “Some Cities” album
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.29.2010 at 12:03 pm// Tagged under: music , Barrel Of A Gun, doves, Guster, Lost And Gone Forever, music, Some Cities, Supreme Beings Of Leisure //
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Tuesday was filled with energy…. I had a mani/pedi appointment and while I was there I started talking to a girl named Stephanie. We instantly connected and I ended up staying at the salon for almost an extra hour because we both could not stop talking! From skin care to our personal lives we compared stories and eventually exchanged email addresses and phone numbers.
I have been in a kind of skin care vortex lately…. I have been asked for advice from several different people about how to take care of their skin. I am a skin care freak… My mother started taking me to get facials when I was 13 from a woman in the neighborhood. Skin care was very important to her and she wanted me to have the same respect for my skin that she had. I started off using Lancome (it seems like it was the only thing around in the late 70’s) cleanser, toner, eye cream, day and night cream and eventually neck cream from the time I was a teenager. After college I worked at Bloomingdales selling 2 European skin care lines where my obsession with skin care and makeup escalated. Over the years I have tried most brands of cosmetics – from department store to drug store brands… you name it and it has been in my bathroom cabinet.
There are two products however that I have been using for a while that I feel should always be in your bathroom cabinet. An Alpha Hydroxy Acid product and a Vitamin A product (like Renova or Retin A). I use Retin A www.retinamicro.com and NeoStrata (which is an Alpha Hydroxy Acid cream) www.NeoStrata.com .
Knowing how much of a skin care freak I am my husband bought me a book a while ago by Paula Begoun, Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me. It is a bible of skin care information. A former makeup artist herself, she lists practically every brand of cosmetics known to man and goes through each product and rates them based on non-biased criteria. In the book you will find that the miracle night cream you spent a lot of cash on is filled with irritating oils and unnecessary ingredients. Eventually Paula created her own line of skin care “Paula’s Choice” www.cosmeticscop.com . I use all of her products and love them. Pick up the book…. It will open your eyes.
Read more…
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.28.2010 at 11:00 pm// Tagged under: books, fitness, food, good karma, wellness , Alpha Hydroxy Acid, Barnes and Noble, Bloomingdales, Don't Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me, Jillian Michaels, Lancome, Master Your Metabolism, NeoStrata, Paula Begoun, Paula's Choice, Renova, Retin A, Shiseido Brilliant Bronze Self-Tanning Emulsion For Face/Body, skin care, Vitamin A, www.cosmeticscop.com, www.NeoStrata.com, www.retinamicro.com //
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Muse’s “Uprising” on the “The Resistance” cd…. muse – my favorite
Coldplay’s “Yes” on the ” Viva La Vida” cd
Crowded House’s “Better Be Home Soon” on the “Recurring Dream” cd…
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.27.2010 at 1:14 pm// Tagged under: music , Coldplay, Crowded House, Muse, music //
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We went up to our house in the mountains at Deep Creek last Thursday. The kid’s last final ended at 9:30 and we left after that for our long weekend (no school Monday either so the teachers could do report cards)! Mark (my husband) and I went boarding as soon as we got there. What a difference from last weekend when there were hundreds of people and we waited in long lift lines. 
It rained on Friday…. I stayed home with our daughter and her friend and Mark took our son to tour Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh. They are a couple hours away and we are trying to tour as many colleges as possible with our son. He is a junior in high school…
The girls actually went out boarding in the rain, but I stayed in and had the house to myself. Perfect day to sink into the couch and read and surf the Internet! Dinner was at Santa Fe Grille. I got a delicious gluten-free steak salad – mesquite grilled steak with stringy sweet potato fries over a platter of greens with their Cactus Ranch dressing….
We went out on Saturday, but the slopes were a sheet of ice because it had rained all day Friday and then frozen up over night. We didn’t last long out there….. But, we did go the ski shop and buy helmets!… It was time. My kids have been asking us why they have to wear helmets and we don’t and our friends who are ski patrols have been giving us a hard time also. So, we did it. It was the right thing to do.
Sunday was great and unseasonably warm…. after boarding Mark wanted to come home to watch football and I went to Uno Chicago Grill to pick up dinner. They have a gluten free menu. I couldn’t believe it! I got herb rubbed breast of chicken and they actually had gluten-free PIZZA! It’s made with rice flour and doesn’t taste exactly like regular Uno pizza, but I’ll take it…. We ate dinner and watched “The Notebook”. I have never seen it. I loved it and actually kept thinking about it for days…..
We spent Monday morning packing up the house and left in the afternoon. It was pouring rain again when we left, but by the time we got home it was beautiful. Shayna (our daughter) wanted to see Riley.. so as soon as we got home I took her out to the barn. The drive out to Poolesville was majestic… the sun was getting ready to set and at the same time the clouds were rolling in.
We took him in the indoor ring because it was too dark by the time we got him to ride outside. I set up a couple jumps for her and watched the two of them. It was the perfect way to end a great weekend. 
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.27.2010 at 12:16 pm// Tagged under: good karma , Carnegie Mellon, Deep Creek, gluten free, Poolesville, Santa Fe Grille, The Notebook, University of Pittsburgh, Uno, Uno Chicago Grill //
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I love Aleia’s gluten-free products! www.aleias.com My favorite cookie is Aleia’s Almond Horns… they are amazing! Chewy and perfect, I have one after dinner as a treat while my family is eating cookies and other gluten-laden desserts…
Also, their croutons are fabulous sprinkled over my caesar salad which I make with romaine lettuce and parmesan crisps (I stole this idea from Nordstrom’s Caesar Salad…) To make the crisps melt shredded parmesan cheese in a toaster oven pan for a couple minutes until it gets bubbly and then let it cool. Break apart the sheet of parm and put on top of your caesar salad that is tossed with Marie’s Caesar dressing.
Posted by Karmic Nectar on 01.22.2010 at 11:49 pm// Tagged under: food , Aleia's, Aleia's Almond Horns, gluten, gluten free, Marie's Caesar dressing, Nordstrom's Caesar Salad, www.aleias.com //
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