Peoples Yoga Recharge

A while back I wrote about this great online yoga site, Peoples Yoga. I wanted to update about how awesome this website is. I thought I was going to do this great detox and do yoga regularly... well, okay so I am not that motivated but I have been using their services every so often and it has been great. Anytime I just don't want to go out to the gym or yoga studio (like in the snow) or if I am having a specific challenge (like today... I threw my back out a few days ago), I just pop onto PeoplesYoga.com and find the perfect workout. I just finished a short (30 minutes) beginner level yoga class on their site. It was exactly what I needed. I needed to get my body moving, my back moving but not push myself too hard, which I tend to do when at the actual studio.With Peoples Yoga, I was able to move at my speed, modify as necessary, and spend some extra time in poses that helped my back. I highly recommend the site! Check it out!

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The Wedding Challenge

Engagement picIt is the most amazing time of your life. It really is. You are planning the day when you marry your soul mate, your Beshert.When you get engaged, it's all so exciting and happy... then you start planning. I have been told, by recently married friends, that the bickering and fights that happen during this time are the worst... oh boy!I am fortunate that my dear fiance isn't picky and has only reserved veto power in this process but it doesn't mean that we haven't had our challenges. From the band or DJ conversation to which photographer to the hours spent looking at wedding rings for both of us, everything takes time and thought. However, the hardest part of wedding planning (at least so far)... and frankly some of the hardest conversations and decisions I have ever had to make have centered around our guest list.How do you encapsulate two peoples' lives into a guest list? Not only this but we have both led rich and full lives. When my parents got married, you invited the entire extended family and some friends. But that just doesn't fly here. Our families do not live within blocks of each other. I have people in my family tree that I haven't seen or spoken to since my Bat Mitzvah. How can I not invite my best friends from college but invite these people? Dan and I each made our lists. His with the heavy input from his parents (they had a cheat sheet, his sister got married a couple of years ago) and mine was mainly done by me. I took some input from my parents, adding in some of their 1st cousins and representatives from each branch or sibling (oy! Our family tree can be so complicated!) but it was important to me that my dear and closest friends from different stages of my life be included. There were negotiations... "You can add them, but you have to take someone else off" and debates, "Are we inviting kids? Can we afford that? Family kids only?" And I know we have insulted and upset people with some of the decisions we made. But I have to say this...No decision was without debate and long thought. No decision was made ignorant of the repercussions to us... the couple getting married. And frankly it sucks to be the bride and be worried about hurting people's feelings... not like it's MY wedding or anything.In the end, we did the best we could. We don't have an endless budget, we don't have a million dollars to feed every person we ever met or were friendly with and their spouse and kids. We had to make decisions.And we hope that people don't take it as a personal affront. I don't know any couple that could invite every person they wanted to, to their wedding. We still like and enjoy the company of the people we didn't invite. But I cannot think of any harder thing than paring down a wedding guest list.Anyone have any good stories? Horror stories about this?

Tis the Season (to get sick)

I always welcome the cold weather with trepidation. The seasons change and it is beautiful and all... but with the cold weather we welcome colds and the flu. Funny thing is, when I used to work for Ballet Nouveau, I used to get sick ALL THE TIME. I was around little ballerinas all day... little ballerinas with the sniffles who didn't always wash their hands... And thus... I would get sick every year... several times a season.Now don't get me wrong... I wash my hands. But maybe not always for long enough. You know, the worst thing that can happen in a public bathroom is for the soap to be crappy. You know the kind of cheap soap I am talking about... the stuff that feels gross on your hands and smells disgusting? Yeah, I can stand that stuff. So I admit it. Sometimes I don't wash my hands for long enough (You're supposed to sing "Row, Row Your Boat," you know) but I always do.So I started buying soap that I really liked and bringing it with me to work. That way, I always got a good wash. I tried a ton of different soaps and finally settled on two that I love. The first, Dial Complete Antibacterial Foaming Hand Wash. The second, Mrs. Myers frufru hand soap. Love that Mrs. Myers but man oh man, can it get expensive! The Dial is awesome, affordable AND new for the holiday season... comes in cute holiday themed bottles.Recently, Dial sent me a couple of these bottles to have around the house. My fiance totally embraced them. He loved the clean feeling and the scent (he was less than thrilled with the soap we had in the bathroom at the time... too girly he said). Bonus... you can get them delivered to your house through my new favorite website Soap.com! Why do I love Dial? I love it because it smells good. Because it is gentle on my hands and it is a hospital strength antibacterial formula! AND! I love the foam! It feels so much better than typical gel soap!I recommend you check out Dial's holiday packaging and their foaming soap! Dial provided a free sample of their Holiday Foaming Hand Soap for this post. My participation is voluntary and my opinions, as always, are my own.

Food is expensive... Heck... A wedding is expensive!

I know I am not telling anyone anything new here but... man! We just started talking to caterers and florists... and wow! Things can really add up. Dan and I are both pretty money conscious so it hit us hard when we saw the first catering proposal. Wow.Here's the thing... normal weddings are expensive... our wedding will be even more so because it has to be kosher. Thus, we have to pay for a person to be onsite the whole time to supervise the kashrut and we have to pay for special dishes and silverware... Kosher meat is 2 to 3 times as expensive as non-kosher meat... oy! What we do for our beliefs... but that's the point, right?I (Talia) believe that kashrut, keeping kosher, and a lot of Jewish halacha (law) is about being mindful. I can't just eat in any restaurant or any place. I have to be mindful.So ... Judaism is keeping us mindful at our wedding too. :) Unfortunately, it's not all good mindfulness. We had to cut down our guest list for the final time the other night... oy... that was hard. There are definitely people that I would love to come to the wedding but I just don't have the space. I hope everyone understands... making my wedding guest list was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life!We are sending out save-the-dates soon and many of you have been contacted by us with the password to the wedding details section.Anyway, wedding is trucking along!

A Shabbat of Peace For All

I am taking a moment out of my day to stop reading about the impeding war in Israel... to stop looking at pictures of dead and injured children on both sides... to stop drafting messages from my CEO to our community on what is going on in Israel...Why? (Other than the obvious answer of, that is all insanely depressing) To say to all of you... 

SHABBAT SHALOM

 Let this be a sabbath of peace. For the Israelis. For the Gazans and Palestinians. For my friends and family who are in target zones. For the  bitter armchair internet warriors who call people on the other side horrible names and accuse them of horrible acts. For each and every one of us. 

Engagment Pictures

We finally got our act together! With all my work event craziness and Dan's general busy-ness... we hadn't had time to schedule our engagement pictures. It's been six weeks since we got engaged and since we are planning a March wedding... we need to get cracking on those Save-The-Dates!I was perusing Facebook the other day and noticed a friend of mine, Max Gerson, is shooting professional pictures on the side. And DAMN! He is good. :) I talked to Dan about maybe using Max for a photo shoot... He saw some of his pictures and agreed. So we planned for today, November 11... until Max told me that it was going to be snowy and gross. It was at that moment that I kinda freaked out. Dan's worried about people having time to make plans to get to the wedding (I agree) and we need to get the save-the-dates out.I have the designer in place, she is just waiting for the pics. So after going round and round with Max... me throwing out crazy ideas, he coming back with viable ones... we settled on some concepts. Dan wanted straight pics, Max and I were kind of excited about something a bit more dramatic. We looked at the weather and decided today, Sunday, would be the day. It was cold but beautiful.We started in Civic Center Park, near the wedding venue, and shot all around. Yes, there were homeless folk hanging out but nothing crazy happened... but we were COLD! From there, we moved on to The Cruise Room at The Oxford Hotel. AMAZING location. It opened the day after prohibition ended in 1933 and is downtown Denver's first bar. It was fashioned after one of the lounges on the Queen Mary. Original chrome and neon reflect onto the wall panels depicting light-hearted “toasts” from around the world. Utterly FUN to shoot pictures! The staff at McCormicks was amazing. They let us take pictures no problem and we came WAY before the bar was open. They have a free jukebox with songs from another era on actual 45s (records)... it kept us entertained and Max caught some great shots of us dancing. We also entertained the McCormicks patrons who watched us shoot through the glass doors. It's was Dan's first time taking pictures in public like that and he kept saying, "Babe! They are staring at us!" "We are keeping them quite entertained!"All in all, it was an awesome day and I think we got some beautiful pictures out of it. Max is quite talented, has great ideas but isn't too pushy. He let us take some of the shots we wanted too (even if they aren't as good)!So vendors to recommend - I loved shooting engagement pictures in downtown Denver. Don't be afraid to call your favorite bar or restaurant and ask if you can shoot before they open.Engagement pictures photographer - Max Gerson!!I'll be sure to post pictures when I get them! :)

The Perfect Ahhhh

I was frantic. Crummy few weeks at work, working too hard on two huge events. I was stressed to near tears. Then my friend 'D' called me."Hey little sister! I have something I want you to try.""Grumble, grumble, grumble, I need a drink... grumble" - was my approximate response."Never mind, I'm coming by your work to drop it off.""Grumble, grumble, grumble"Click.She dropped off a CUTE little care package with the only thing better than a bottle of wine... chocolate! Chocolate for your Chakras, no less. She left some information about this brand new company called Sushumna Chocolat,  and a sample of all of their flavors for me.But I was in a rush... so I decided I would get ONE square and then get back to work. I chose the first Chakra, grounded. I figured this was a good choice for the place I was in right then... and as I read about the chocolate, I learned that the Muladara chakra is located at the base of your spine. It is associated with survival and feeling stable... well... I needed to survive these events and I sure as heck wasn't feeling stable! This square was milk chocolate with crisped rice  and sweet potato.I broke off a small piece and let is slowly dissolve in my mouth. I breathed slowly through my nose and closed my eyes. I tasted the earthy-ness of the sweet potato and hit the crispness of the rice all swirled with the decadent but not too sweet milk chocolate.I opened my eyes.Unbelievable. I felt better. Maybe it was the chocolate. Maybe it was because I took a moment to refocus my intention. But either way, it was a delicious refresh.I was so excited to eat the rest! But I held off. I brought them home and Dan and I decided to do a tasting after our shabbat dinner.What should we start with? Less focused on the chakras and more on the taste, we hit Chakra two, Svadisthana, next. Appropriately, this is the sensual chakra. Again milk chocolate with chai and cardamom. Amazing. They encapsulated the Indian style of flavoring and intensity in one square. It was delicious.Chakra four, Anahata or compassion, was next. Dark chocolate with sweet dried cherries... perfection! And I don't usually like cherries in chocolate! Not too sweet, totally different flavor profile.We hit one more before we had to call it quits or we would be on a sugar high all night... Chakra seven, transcendence... Fascinating... This one, I was SO curious about it! Sahasrara Chakra was milk chocolate with hemp oil mushroom essence, and cashews. We did NOT know what this would taste like. It was delicate, slightly nutty with an earthly finish. Amazing!We didn't get to chakra three - connected or the Manipura chakra which is white chocolate and vanilla bean, chakra five - expressive or visuddha chakra which is dark chocolate and peppermint, and chakra six - insightful or Ajna chakra which is dark chocolate with port soaked currants...AMAZING, right? The flavor combinations are incredible, things I would never put together in a million years. And the ladies behind this collection - Amity Cooper and Sally Belk really put thought and exquisite flavors into these treats. Not only that but they are only 30 calories a square!!!Sushumna is going to have many different facets. There are not only chocolates for each chakra but mindful wine pairings and a Sushumna Home segment. They are creating candles, soaps, body balm scents, and a charm necklace for each flavor.But here is the deal, they are doing this on their own and need your help! Trust me when I say, the chocolate alone is exquisite... but the whole production together? Incredible.Help fund them by donating to their Kickstarter campaign here - Click Here. You can also learn more on the Kickstarter campaign about what they intend to do. Pledge $50 and you get one of each of the 7 flavors! But here's the catch! They only have 11 more days to fund their project! So click, donate (you can donate as little as $1) and share with your friends! Chocolate for your Chakras for everyone! Want to see founder Amity Cooper on Good Day LA? They paired each bar of chocolate with a celebrity. It's pretty funny. Click here!Did I mention Michael Franti is a fan too? It's true. Here's Amity and Franti... :) Okay fine. Enough gushing! Go out and support Sushumna Chocolat now! I did!