Tuesday, January 12, 2010

VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas

Just a quickie post. I promise I'll write a post on Arizona this week, just super busy prepping for my departure to Argentina next week, eeeeeeeeeeee!!

But I entered this POM contest at the beginning of December with a recipe I came up with and the voting ends January 14th, so this Thursday. I don't think the contest winner is decided entirely on reader votes, but I would love it if you all went and voted for me! And maybe you'll even be inspired to do some cooking of your own :)

VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas: "VEGAN Sweet and Spicy Cocoa Mole Pom Enchiladas"

Much love,
Gaby

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I'm ready for some warm weather again

Hello everyone! It's about time I post about my trip to Arizona, where I froze my bum off but had a lot of fun thanks to my ability to layer 7 sweaters on at one time. One would think coming home to Houston would give some relief from the cold but unfortunately it's been in the 30/40 range all week and is supposed to get down to the 20's by Friday. YIKES! I need a more powerful space heater.



Before beginning on my Arizona adventure tales, I realized I haven't updated you on Gab World in a while so here's a brief overview of what's been going on. Well...ok not too much I guess. Work is on an off busy so I guess that's good. This week is really dead for me and I find myself worrying about needing to pay bills and saving up, but then there are weeks like the week before Christmas where I could barely fit in a shower (yuck).

I also finally started training to become a yoga instructor. YAY!!!! I've thought about it for so long but just haven't had the money to invest on the certification. But, luckily I go to an amazing studio owned by some of the nicest people in the world, and they decided to start a teacher training program for me and a few of the other students interested in becoming teachers. We're the pilot program, so it's all very informal, but we get together for a few hours every other Sunday and work on our teaching techniques and learning the series, among other necessary yoga stuff. All of the instructors and trainees are really wonderful and positive people so I've really enjoyed getting more involved and getting to know all of them. I hope to keep hanging out with them more outside of yoga (can we say friend crushes?) I can start teaching as soon as I feel comfortable, and then I hope that later on with the certification it will be a good side job that I can take anywhere my interpreting job takes me. Wherever that is, I know I'll need yoga in my life and if I get to share that with other people along the way, even better! 


Another thing I've done a bit of is modeling. Nothing big, nothing paid, just a few fashion shows since October. I am very hesitant about posting that because I don't want the negative stereotype that goes with it. To be honest, I kind of have not enjoyed it. Yes, sometimes the stereotype IS true. The environment is stressful, the models chain smoke to replace eating, it's hours of waiting around getting make up caked on your face, funky hairstyles, sitting around in little dresses and freezing and then getting home way past my bedtime. On the other hand though, it has not been all bad, some shows have been fun, aside from a few really ugly make up/ hair jobs, I've gotten to wear pretty dresses, and had some good laughs with nice models who eat real food and have outside lives. I'll keep doing it once in a while simply because 1) it is kind of cool to be able to say I do it haha, and I think it will be good for my self esteem, which for a while now has been rock bottom; and 2) I'm getting free proffessional photo sessions out of it, easily worth thousands of dollars which may help me obtain paying gigs in the future. I like paying jobs :)
yeah...not happening


And finally, I have big time travel coming up!! I am set to depart to Buenos Aires on January 21st with my grandmother, who has been here visiting. For right now my return ticket is for the end of February. I had originally thought that I might want to stay longer and find a job, but my job prospecting has proven very unsuccessful, and the way work has been here, I don't think I can afford to be gone much longer. But I think it will be a great trip anyways, I'll do some traveling, and hopefully sign up for some classes while I'm there to keep me busy and meet new people. I do have my grandmother and some cousins there but other than that, I don't know anyone and would love to meet more people my age and get my Spanish skills up to par with people of my own generation. I know for sure I'll find some yoga and dance classes, but I'm also looking for something interpreting related or even just to build up my legal terminology in order to get my interpreting liscence when I get back and do more court room related interpreting. One of my besties, Eva, will be traveling with me on the way there too so I'm so excited to travel with her! She came with me back in 2006 and loves Argentina. She'll be there for a little over a week so I'm going to take advantage of having a travel buddy to maybe go visit Uruguay and some more central provinces of the country. She's already purchased several books and we're going to start planning everything soon.
Alfajores anyone? Nomnomnom 

That's all for now. Important rule of blogging (made up by me): Do not overwhelm your readers with monster length wordy posts. Woops! I do this all the time. So I'm sorry for that but hope you enjoy reading this anyways, and I'll spare you the Arizona details for next time, and I'll include lots of pictures!

Ciao!

<3 Gaby