OUCH!

It's one of those weeks.

On "good days" I have tight shoulder and neck muscle pain nearly 24/7.

But today is not a "good day."

24/7?

Is it because I lift big impressive manly weights at the gym?

No.

It's because my neck isn't naturally curved how it's designed to.

It's quite straight.

Perching my neck forward. Like a chicken. 

One chiropractor told me, "I don't need to do an Xray to see what your problem is."

So that's why 24/7.

Not complaining, just relaying information.

This little tube in the picture above is what I use almost daily to relax those muscles that just work extra hard doing their thankless job of holding up my massive head.

Just kidding.

My head and neck are regular size (thank God). I'm only sympathizing with those hard working, persistent muscles instead of cursing them like I feel like doing most of the time.

However!

Sometimes these muscles just flex up with everything they have, (usually in my sleep or doing something anti strenuous and embarrassing, like sneezing), and pull just hard enough to create (insert dramatic horror music rift) a---

SPASM

If you've had one you know what I'm talking about.

If you haven't, pray to everything holy that you never experience this.

A spasm can be on a scale from 1: "ooh I better be careful" to 5: "do I call the chiropractor" to 8: hundreds of dollars later and a week long of deep tissue massage (not the pleasurable kind) at the chiropractor to  a 10!: holding your head up manually-- with your hands and feeling like the slightest move will cause your neck to shatter and your head to roll right off.

EW! 

I know! but I've experienced the whole spectrum!!!

Back to spasm. (no pun intended)

Yesterday I was at about a 3

Time to bring in the big guns!

I tried this!

WOW! 

Amazing!

I'm not an expert, here's a link if you want to investigate for your own, "OH! (insert strong expletive here)!!!!! not again"- kind of pain.

I'm just saying IT WORKED!

It's not for everyday at $39 for an 8oz tube.

If you know neck/back spasms and how they can rearrange your whole life when they stop by for an extended visit (it's never just an overnighter), then you will not be deterred by $39.

Plus

it's natural

your body needs the magnesium

for many other important reasons

and 

it works!

The spasms stopped.

Liquid Energy

Here's what's giving me energy these days. 

CELL FOOD

I wish I could explain to you how it works and why it's so wonderful. I can't. Trust me, it is. The week I started dropping this magical liquid in my water, is the week that I made over my son's room. I'm not talking about changing sheets and moving furniture around. I'm talking, prepping floors, primer and painting floors, walls, ceiling, trim and taking multiple trips to Ace Hardware because "oops, need more paint because I spilled half of it on the floor in the middle of the night." I am NOT a high energy person and delight that I am one of those people who do not feel guilty when I linger a little too long. I like to meander. I love the quote "It's not a waste of time if you enjoyed yourself." So, boosts of energy that are noticable are more than significant to me. If being 40, busy or alive has zapped some of your energy for no good reason and you want it back AND you like putting natural healthy things into your body, then you may want to give Cell Food a try.

I bought mine at the local health food store.

40th Milestone

40

I am this.

It was inevitable.

I didn't want a party.

I'm not sure why.

Maybe because I didn't see 40 as an accomplishment.

Maybe I was in denial.

Maybe I didn't want the "remember when you turned 40" comment surfacing as a nagging reminder that now I am this.

Strange because I love celebrating it with others who are this.

For me I just didn't want the attention around my age.

I wanted to feel young again with my family.

So we went and hooped it up at Disneyland.

Great choice.

No regrets.

Except that I was so busy hooping it up that I didn't take any pictures.

No regrets.

No cake.

However, one day while cruising on 
Pinterest, 

I found the yummiest looking cake on earth. 

A chocolate chip cookie and milk cake for a one year old party.

www.apartystyle.com

I need to enjoy that.

That sweet one year old won't even remember that cake!

I will.

I wanted it!

Showed it to my TrueLove.

My TrueLove indulged me.

He showed the Pinterest pic to my CakeMakingGeniusFriend who could execute it to perfection blindfolded and in her sleep.

The cake was coming.

I couldn't eat it alone.

So I called some friends.

The ones that I love.

A few were around on the holiday weekend.

Yes, my birthday is a national holiday, 4 day weekend!

They call it "Memorial Day".

No disrespect. It is an honor to share my birthday with memories of those who gave their lives to serve our nation.

It's always been nice!

So, cake was coming.

And voila! 

I ended up with what I didn't want: a party!

An unparty.

It was more about the cake than me being 40.

40 was just an excuse.

A yummy one!

Yummy is an UNDERSTATEMENT!

I'm sure this will be the recipe used in Heaven.

OUT 

OF 

THIS 

WORLD!!!

Yep, a yummy excuse to be together.

And a fun one too! 

There's my TrueLove, ME, my HairStyleGuru, and my CakeMakingGenius Friends. Above all, they are my amazing friends who love me and have no problem celebrating a number!

Forget all the fancy titles!

"Friend" 

is the best title of all.

And these are some more of them.

Beautiful Friends!

Thank you friends for the memories!

Olio!'s Ultra S'more

Some of you are still enjoying camp outs and back yard fires. 

Please, please, please try this amazing twist on the S'more while there are a few days left of summer.

You will need: 

Friends, Open fire, Skewers, Marshmallows, Milk Chocolate, and PRETZEL STICKS (small ones, not the rods)

Skip the Graham Crackers!

Unless you're a purist, you'll never go back. You don't need triple layers of sweet. Graham crackers are toddler food. Yes they are. Tell me how many elegant cocktail parties you've been to that they pull out the graham crackers. Thought so.

Just skip them.

Here's What You Do

(or what I did)

Skewer up your marshmallow and start wiggling the middle to make a pocket. Once you have some room in the center, wedge your piece of milk chocolate as deep as you can. It won't be perfect, it doesn't need to be.

Now roast it-toast it to your liking.

The chocolate in the middle will soften and swell as you toast the marshmallow.

When it's the perfect color grab about 5 small pretzel sticks and poke them through the melty center.

This is a POPPER! 

Pop the whole thing in and discover what some salt does to this fireside faire. 

My Tuesday Morning Friends (code word "WeightWatchers") will be pleased to find that it's a 2 pt treat!

Sunshine Potato-Egg Bake

This morning my friendly neighbor came over for breakfast. I wanted to make him something decent and fun, since he was giving up his Saturday morning to show me how to blog respectably. So, I've been playing with baked egg recipes and this one I am happy to share with my friends. I'm calling them "Sunshine" because they remind me of the song I love "Pocketful of Sunshine", since the egg sits in a sort potato pocket/groove. Anyways, if you like eggs, sausage, and potato, and all in one bite, then I think you'll like this too.

What you'll need:
3 potatoes
2 sausages
1/3 of package of Neufchatel Cheese 
(you can use light cream cheese, heavy cream cheese, sour cream, anything rich and creamy)
Farm Fresh eggs
Coconut Oil 
(any oil is fine for baking the potatoes, but you'll see in future blogs that coconut oil is always my first choice)
Sea Salt
Pepper

Day before:

Preheat 400

3 Potatoes
2 Sausages, I used a spicy chicken. Dice the sausage and cook.

WASH

(Not that anyone needs a pic of this step, just having fun.)

Pierce with the fork a few times and massage some coconut oil on them.

Stick in the oven, right on the rack

400 degrees for 1 hour

Let cool. Seal up and stick in the fridge.

Morning of:

Slice Potatoes in half lengthwise.

With a small spoon, scoop and scrape the potato out of the skin, being careful not to break the skin. Put the potato filling in a bowl.

Scoop some Neufchatel cheese into the bowl, about 2 dallops, you want to taste the creaminess. It doesn't need to be exact.

Whip them up like mashed potatoes.

Moisten it up with a little milk.

When it looks (and tastes!) like mashed up potatoes, add sausage and salt&pepper. Mash a little more.

Now, scoop that goodness into the potato skins. Make a nice pocket in the middle.

Note: My potatoes were not big enough to handle all the egg my chickies lay, so I quick and coated 6 ramekins with coconut oil and tucked that potato real cozy like inside.

Crack open that farm fresh egg and drop that baby right into that little pocket-bed you made.

Put them on a cookie sheet just so that you can transfer them easier in and out of the oven.

Stick them in the oven till the eggs are set. 425 for about 12 minutes. If you don't like the natural, velvety sauce that a perfect yolk makes when pierced with the fork, then keep yours in the oven a little longer.

Sea salt sprinkle, a crack of the pepper grinder on top.

And wow!

It's good!

I served it up with Peaches and Blueberries, Sausage, Trader Joe's Coffee Cake and some strong coffee. Everyone was full and happy.

If this seems too laborious, I have some thoughts on making this easier and quicker.

Leftover mashed potatoes would be PERFECT! And so easy!! Honestly, they'd taste probably just as good. 

Let me know how you try it and if you find it a keeper!

Lake Almanor 11

Me and my TrueLove 

Each summer we find ourselves gathering up the kids, their friends, and our friends and heading up to this fabulous place. This is the first year that we ditched camping and rented a cabin. 
A plug for the Dorodo Inn. 
http://www.doradoinn.com/
My vivacious friend Lisa purchased this very special place a few years ago and has put a piece of her soul into making it a lovely "home away from home" for the faithful vacationers that have made their memories there long before any of us discovered it. 

LOVED IT!

Had to post a few pics because that means as I post, I get to RELIVEIT.

Two weeks before the kids' school year begins is the time I will cram pack all of my favorite 

RELIVEITS.

And, yes!

I made up a new word: RELIVEIT

(I know. It's really just two words smooshed up next to eachother.)

Olio! (oh-lee-OH!)

Olio! (Oh-lee-oh!)

Yup! Oh, to pick a name for a snapshot into my life, a sneak peak into my heart and head and a display of my artsy-fartsy creations. Not an easy task for something that is to sum up ME. 

OLIO! 

Why Olio!?

I'm glad you asked. 

Nicole is my name. 

My mother used to call me "Nicoli", which I always hated. (It even looks wierd). Hey WAIT! She still calls me this. Maybe I hated it because she often would follow it with "Ravioli" so it would rhyme, "Nicoli Ravioli". Yeah! Sounds like a chubby kid. Which I was. And if I was bitter I could blame my deep love for food on that. But I'm not. I love that my mom raised me on FABULOUS Italian food. I just don't want to be addressed like something that sounds like a menu item.

"Nicky" 

was a boy's name. 

"Nicola" 

I love, but it only sounded lovely coming out of my Zia Romilda's broken English Italian accent. Actually, she's the only one that ever called me that. 

"Cole" 

was created by my highschool peeps, but short lived because it reminded me of "coal", the kind you never want to be unlucky enough to find in your Christmas stocking. 

                                                 But one day, my older brother (his nicknames are way more exhausting than mine), called me, 

 "Olie!" 

  I LOVED IT! 

It sounded like me. Of course, my favorite was when he called me, "Olie-Olie-Olie-OH!" sang like the thing you say when you are a kid playing hide-and-seek and you're just about to go look for all of your friends. 

            This is how "Olio!" was born!

I LOVED IT! To end on the "Oh!", as in, "Oh! how fabulous!" or "Oh! how delicious!" or "Oh! I love it!" (All things that one would love to hear regarding their life and offerings). Till this day, only a few old kindred souls have referred to me as "Olie" or " Olio!" and it brings a huge "oh! I-am-so-loved-kind-of-smile" inside. They know who they are. But now, I'm inviting my whole world into this sweet special name for ME. AND or this blog. EW! The word "blog" sounds like... let's just say I like it worse than my original nickname.