365: Red; Hot Stuff

This is my basket of hot stuff; hot water bottle (filled, because I don't like to waste the water, so I just re-boil what's in there) and two hot-yoga towels.

The first time you go to hot yoga, you will feel like you're going to die, and you're pretty sure you're never going back. In my case, my daughter got me to agree to a 30-day hot yoga challenge. It's a commitment, let me tell you, to dive right in to 30 days in a row. In June. When it's already hot outside.

After the 30 days though, when you're all flexible and your skin is soft like a baby's - true story; all your dead skin cells slough off thanks to the salt in your sweat - and you're used to the heat, and you've had a couple of interesting experiences because you ate too close to class time, you actually do want to go back.

As for that hot water bottle, who doesn't love one of those!?

No, I don't have a good reason for storing this stuff in a raffia basket in my bathroom.

365: Red; March 23, Not burning it down

Sometimes the best laid plans just totally go to hell. Such was the night of the Beef Wellington.

Every possible thing happened to slow down getting dinner on the table, starting with a dog suddenly developing a very weird pain, followed by fog filling the kitchen thanks to lovely fatty beef with a lovely buttery crust starting to smoke, followed by a delicious dinner, followed by said dog becoming really uncomfortable just as the real, shredded coconut topping for the real, from-the-nut, coconut pie caught fire in the oven while everyone poured over the dog.

This is the movement one makes whilst waiving the new, not-yet-burned oven mitts under the fire alarm in an effort to have it quit screaming. What you don't see is three other people extricating a flaming pile of burned coconut from the oven.