Thanks guys! I just bookmarked the "Rick Steves" homepage. I am determined to see some of Europe before I rust and this looks like a great way to do it. The tours are a reasonable cost and they look good!

So DH was away at the sleep clinic last night. I slept right through the night until my alarm went off. His comings and goings, late bedtime, talking, and snoring really do affect my sleep as well.

TGIF! And only one more day 'til I go get Lafayette - :woohoo:

Dagmar :dance:

We don't plan on going until 2012 and the only book we have is on the 2011 tours, but we're probably going to do a Europe trip that encompasses Paris and some of Italy. DH wants to start in England so we may have to do that part on our own as I don't think he wants an exclusive UK tour. We'll see, still just in the early planning stages.

Krampus - That's a pretty high recommendation for Rick Steves. It's funny - I lived in China for four years and traveled all over SE Asia on my own (or with friends) but the idea of going to Europe completely intimidates me! I think part of it is the language barrier. I've never considered a package tour before because it seemed like it would be a drag, but not the way you've described it. Hmmmm, now to get the money and time to go . . .

saef - I love the names for OPI polish, and am jealous of whoever gets to think those up all day. As long as the job came with decent health insurance, I'd take it. Also, thanks for mentioning your passport renewal. Mine expires at the end of the month, so I guess it's time to renew as well.

Andrea - Those Fiber One bars seem to affect many people that way, but not all. I've been told it's the chicory root extract they use for fiber. I'll eat them occasionally because they don't affect me too badly, but could never make it a daily thing. Hope you're, ahem, recovered now. :)

Dagmar - The friend I visited last weekend is a snorer. It wasn't fun trying to get and stay asleep. I hope your husband gets some answers!

Michele - This might sound kind of weird and creepy, but you were in my dream last night. You were eating a chocolate cupcake with white frosting. I have no idea what you look like in real life, of course, but I knew - with that magical dream knowledge - that it was Traveling Michele from 3FC. It was a pretty brief part of my dream, which also included buying a new laptop case and changing the battery in my bathroom scale. :)

Does anyone have any recommendations for brands of almond butter? I'm making a run to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's later today and want to pick up some more. I've only had one jar before - Blue Diamond creamy - and it was fine, but maybe someone has strong almond butter feelings they'd like to share?

I'm also going to venture to the WF meat department for the first time. I find it overwhelming, but I'm planning to make myself a hamburger this weekend, and everyone keeps saying grass-fed beef is the way to go. Since I so rarely buy beef and it's only for me, the added expense may be worth it. I guess I'll find out.

Happy Friday, everyone!

ETA: Whoa! I just browsed over the the Rick Steves site. Never having done Europe OR a package tour before, do those prices seem fair? $2800 (plus airfare) for 13 days in Italy? That seems steep to me, but I'd love a second, third, and fourth opinion.

To those of you contemplating going to Europe. Do not worry about the language barrier, there is none. I have been to Iceland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands and France and have taken the train through all those countries including, Sweden, Germany and Brussels. In all these countries English is spoken and in some cases better than we Americans do. On the train announcements were made in French, English and German (at least I think it was German.) I visited my cousin in Norway and she said they start learning English in school about the third grade.

I've found that in any large city, there is no language barrier. When in Italy a couple of years ago, we only ran into problems when visiting small towns. We got by, though. Most hotels have staff that are at least bilingual, some that speak many languages. Restaurants are where you're a little more likely to run into non-English speakers, but as long as you can understand the basic words and can make out the menu, you're fine. I know that all Scandinavian countries require English to be taught from a very young age. My brother hosted an exchange student from Norway and you'd never know it wasn't her primary language.

As for price on the Rick Steves tours, yes it is a little higher than doing it on your own but remember it's a tour and you have to pay the guide and bus driver. When I did Italy, it cost me about $2500, including flight, for 10 days, but we drove ourselves and no meals (except breakfast) was included. I think there are a few meals included in the RS tours, if I remember correctly.

As for almond butter, I have no idea. Whenever I've picked anything up like that I buy the smallest container at Trader Joes because I'm never sure if I"ll like it. I prefer peanut butter anyway.

The other day I picked up some frozen Angus beef burgers and we had them for dinner and boy was I impressed! Much tastier than regular beef.

I'm doing something Greek for dinner tonight. I was going to do Greek nachos but the more I think about it, gyros will be just as good and probably a tad bit healthier, although I do plan on making my own pita chips so I won't use much oil.

Jen - the last almond butter I had was Maranatha, and it wasn't the greatest, but wasn't too bad. I have had Whole Foods grind fresh almonds into butter for me, and that was fantastic. I did a nut blend butter once there, too. Back along the back wall with their fresh granola you can get by the pound they have an assortment of nuts and a grinder.

Jen-- too funny!
Sometimes I eat "forbidden" foods in my dreams, but I don't know if I've done it in other people's dreams before! I wonder what I looked like in your dream? I have dark curly hair-- kinda like yours but darker. In my dream last night, dd weighed herself and she was down 10 pounds and we were so excited. Sigh.... she wants to go to a breakfast spot this morning that was featured on "Diners, Drive ins and Dives". I know I'll get an egg white veggie omelet but I'm sure she won't. We had sushi last night so that was fairly healthy. We might go check out some "pick your own" farms today which would be fun and active, but she is still sleeping and I've already been up and exercised.....

TGIF!

Trader Joe's unsalted crunchy raw or unsalted roasted raw are my favorite almond butter brands. They differ markedly. The price can't be beat. I cannot find almond butter anywhere without any additives (except oil) at a comparable price. I'd never buy Blue Diamond at the price I've seen it selling for around here.

I just tried a yoga class today. About a year ago, I took them weekly but never quite enjoyed them. I stopped after the disastrous summer of 2010. (In which I got hit by a car, then picked up a virus that left me mostly deaf in my left ear & gave me permanent inner ear issues with balance.) Now yoga is very challenging for me because of my difficulty balancing without using my eyes & a gaze point. Also, I do not have a yoga body. When we're in the warrior poses & I look at myself head on, I have trouble squaring my hips. And I've got this big ole butt sticking out & a slight sway back, ruining the pure line of correct form. Also I've got heavy calves, quad & thighs. Sitting back on my heels causes me pain, I think from spinning doing something to my quads. I can only do this after warming up for a while & even then, I do not find it at all easeful. In the bow pose, I have a lot of trouble grabbing both my ankles -- there's enough meat on my calves that they don't bend back on themselves very well. Anyway, any time I try yoga class after an interval, thinking I'll be better at it, because I am fitter with a stronger upper body, I find it just as difficult.

I experienced this too, as did several of my friends. I looked into it and it seems there's an ingredient called "inulin" that they add to increase the fiber content on things like Fiber One bars. Very controversial ingredient as to whether it is actually good for you once it's extracted out of natural sources and injected into bars and cereal. Check it out:

Popular Food Additive Can Cause Stomach Ache

I avoid inulin now- no more painful gas :)

Andrea - I have the same problem with FiberOne bars... Almost any added fiber bar, actually. Never again.

Saef - I don't know that I have a good yoga body, either. I see a lot of the same things that you describe when I practice it. I tend to stick to hip opener flows and some of the others that avoid the poses I have trouble with like bow & hero.

Michele - enjoy the breakfast. I know that DD has struggled with her weight in the past, is she still having trouble?

Allison - how do you make pita chips?

Take fresh whole wheat pita bread, cut it into triangles. Spray with olive oil and sprinkle a little salt on them and bake in a single layer until crisp. Pretty much the same as making home made tortilla chips but with pita instead of tortillas.

Shannon, if you don't mind me asking, what do you do to open your hips? I keep hearing about hip opening, and hip-opener postures & moves, and I wish I understood more about open hips & the benefits thereof. It sounds almost mystical. I am used to thinking of my hips as these bony womanly things that hold up the waist of my pants. Being bone, it seems like by virtue of their shape, they are always open. Maybe it is a way of talking about ball & joint mobility in the hip socket. If so, then keeping these parts well-lubricated has to help, as one of our goals in exercising is to be healthy in later life -- which would mean avoiding hip replacement surgery. But I do not know the immediate benefits or how that leads into the long-term benefits.

I always have to deconstruct the exercise/fitness lingo before I can understand what the heck it is talking about. I know it always wants things to be open, rather than closed & scrunched down. (Open shoulders, open hips, etc.) Yeah, I can overthink this stuff, but I just feel better when I have an intellectual understanding of the goal.

Is hip opening like yoga for runners?

A runner friend told me that runners often aren't very flexible.

Shannon, I second saef's request. I've had no time to look into hip-opener flow though it intrigues me every time I read it.

Saef - as I runner I can agree that we aren't often very flexible. My hips and hamstrings are almost always tight, it has taken me almost a year to be able to touch my toes, and I can't do the seated folds well at all.

I don't know the science in comparing open hips to closed hips, but I know that when I do consistent focused hip poses I am more flexible, my back doesn't hurt as much, my running is better, I can lift more weight, my shoulders don't hurt as much. It seems like everything flows from my hips.

Yoga Journal has a list of hip focus poses. I do a lot of hip opener podcasts from yogadownloads.com. The most common exercises that turn up on their routines are warrior poses, runner's lunge, eagle, frog, half moon, dancer, assorted binds around those poses, pigeon, happy baby, bound angle. Even tree is a nice hip opener at the end of a workout, even though it didn't seem like it to me at first.

http://0.tqn.com/d/yoga/1/G/i/pigeon.jpg
Half pigeon is my favorite one, but with my arms walked out forward and folded over until my forehead is on the ground.

I found this description of hip openers in a yoga blog:
"Essentially every asana (yoga pose) will address the mobility of the hips in one way or another. The physical goal of working with hip openers is one of increased strength and increased range of motion in and around the joint. The hip joint is the meeting place of the legs and the pelvis: the merging of the lower half of the body with the upper half. Using our legs, we connect with the earth, we move about, we take ourselves forward in time and on our path in life. The pelvis holds the sacrum and tailbone, securing in place the base of our spine. From a strong and stable pelvic foundation, the spine can rise and lengthen.

When engineers design new skyscrapers, they must start with an intricate and state-of-the-art foundation. It must be flexible enough to roll with the waves of earthquakes, and also stable enough to support the weight and rise of the completed structure. In Hindu mythology, the deity Vishnu is said to rest on a coiled serpent, named Ananta. Ananta is a thousand-headed serpent who balances and supports the world on his raised hood, while Vishnu reclines on Ananta’s long and coiled body. The serpent must provide Vishnu with a bed that is relaxed and comfortable, yet also must maintain the support of the universe with infinite stability. Like Ananta and the foundation, a healthy hip joint can softly absorb the shock of walking and running and standing, and still provide a steady resting place from which the spine can rise.

Like a person translating between two foreign languages, the hips must learn to pass accurate messages from the legs to the torso and spine (and back again the opposite direction). Initially, when hips are tight and weak, messages are lost in the crowd of sensations… as the body tries to sort out its response to the postures. Over time, and with the help of healthy hip joints, actions that are initiated in the legs are felt immediately in the spine and torso (and vice versa).

Because the Western approach to yoga is so deeply oriented in the yoga postures, it is often easy to mistake flexibility with yogic “achievement.” In fact, our goal as yogis is the goal of self-knowledge, which is gained through awareness, introspection, and observation. Because the hips generally provide us with so much resistance and feedback, they are actually giving us a wonderful opportunity to pay attention and try to accurately perceive the sensations in our bodies.

Notoriously stubborn and solid, the hip joints rely on stability to keep us standing up on our own two feet. For that reason, increasing the flexibility of one’s hips is not an overnight process. Hips require time, patience, persistence, inner awareness, and compassion. The hips have many riches to offer us, but they can only be mined at their own pace.

Like the tortoise and the hare, the hips are generally more likely to respond to regular, gentle practice than to irregular, forceful practice. Working with the hip opening postures over months and years, grants us the skills of patience and faith in all aspects of life. By experiencing gradual changes emerging from regular and quiet practice, we learn about creating change in a peaceful and time-appropriate manner. Rather than trying to force change in this moment, we allow the body to evolve over time according to its abilities and circumstances."
http://www.yogawithamey.com/hipopeners.html

I'll see if I can attach the pose guides to the flows that I use, too - they are on my computer at home and I'm still at work.

Jen, I get my -amazingly delicious- almond butter freshly ground from my local Whole Foods-imitation (called Foods for Living). It has this fabulous texture, full of tiny grainy-crunchy almond particles instead of being completely smooth like peanut butter. I believe they use roasted almonds. I have never tried it, but they also make a "sprouted almond seed butter" which is a different (lighter, beigey) color. I've never bought commercially packaged stuff.

So I've recovered from my nearly fatal flatulence episode yesterday. That was really something. I regularly use the sweetener "Just Like Sugar," which is primarily chicory root fiber, without any adverse effects, so I really don't get why this Fiber One bar did me in so badly. And inulin is a component of Stevia which I'm not fond of, but have also used without untoward effects (admittedly in smaller quantities than are probably contained in a Fiber One bar).

Wow Shannon, I didn't realize you were a yogini. Cool. That was definitely the most interesting and informative post I've ever read on the subject of Yoga (not that I've read many, but still). I had no idea my hips were that important.

Krampus, glad to see you posting here. Since I don't read the Feathers board much anymore, I've lost touch with your progress. I'm glad to see that you are still hanging in, and under the 130 pound barrier. I think about you whenever I face a big bowl of white rice, or contemplate whether or not to give in to a sugary treat (or 2). I consider how much each of us has suffered from these particular temptations, and try my damndest to be strong in solidarity with you.