Day 1 - Transition

Last night we hosted an authentic Brazilian dinner complete with Pao de Queijo (in the picture), rice and beans with farofa, grilled balsamic chicken, and a salad of hearts of palm, mango and red onion with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice, and balsamic. Unfortunately we had no caipirinhas as it was a mellow Sunday but drinks included guarana and passion fruit juice. Desert consisted of assorted brasilian “chocolate blasts” as our friend called his bites in between guitar hero tunes, “Now a chocolate blast before trying this one on expert”. All of this thanks to a recent visit to Mercado do Brasil, a Brazilian market in the Mission selling everything from Havaianas to grocery items unavailable to us anywhere else. It made me so happy to see all of these things from my childhood and also to know that home is just a plane ride away and now a trip to the Mission brings me pretty close.

So that was a Grand Finale to my pre-40 days phase and I have officially shifted gears into, well, a personal revolution. On Saturday Megan told me to try and sleep less because it's probably what's making me lethargic. I woke up at 6:45 today, no snooze, but I still felt cranky as I rolled off the bed. I used the morning for my first meditation of the day and opted for a 1-hr yoga class with Ariel Howland, one of my favorite teachers. My body feels heavy and stiff, even a forward fold is painful as it jolts a cold sensation down my angry spine. My 20 minutes of yoga yesterday caused a pull in a muscle under my right shoulder blade and even moving my neck in the opposite direction is hard. I feel rusty, but also confident that by the end of this week I’ll be back to my old yogi self. Even Gwyneth Paltrow just went through a detox after what she called “an enjoying life phase” so here I am, confessing to you that I have been through my “enjoying life phase” in the past 3 weeks and it shows in my yoga practice. It's only day one and we are supposed to be kind and non-critical to ourselves during these 40 days, so I am going to work on that.

Currently listening to A little While