Minty Smoothie, Sana stuff, Yoga and Yogurt

Welcome to Monday!




After a busy day of work, linear regression (stats revision) and Vinyasa Flow from Yogadownload, I've got a moment to relax, blog and down a post-yoga smoothie. It's a little bit green.

The Most Deserved Foodie Friday Ever

Today I am in full on exam study mode, which is strangely relaxing after the day I had yesterday. You'll never guess what happened? Only the worst nightmare of an online business! NO INTERNET.

The snow killed our connectivity!

When The Programmer phoned Telstra, they delivered the depressing news that we would probably be offline until Sunday because they were, ahem, snowed under with similar issues all over the South Island.  This news caused a slight attack of personal chaos. I was trying to avoid <<<<<<< this kind of behaviour:

What have I been doing today?

Easter Monday and what was I doing?  Working.

Luckily, the reason was for a product launch, which always involves a short day 

and a few vino's in the office.

Haha, yes, we do invite a lot of product to the launch party...

I hope your Easter break has been fantastic and full of chocolate and fun times with family 

(and /or bottled product, up to you.. :)  )

Busy at the Business - Giveaway!

New Stevia label

Did you know that I used to be a graphic designer? 

Yup, my very first job was as an advertising artist, but it wasn't for me. Plus, I was 18 and didn't really understand the concept of working for a living.  Who does, really?

In my brief time as a graphic artist I learned a couple of useful things. I discovered that doctors can win some serious prizes for prescribing asthma inhalers (one of my first promotion jobs) and I learned a bit about making labels. When we started Sana on a budget of about NZ$1.50, this dubious skill set made me the default art department.

I've been resisting the idea, but finally looked at the Sana labels and decided it's time to jazz them up. The website banner isn't thrilling me either. I've got a month before the fam arrives and uni starts for the year, so I'm dusting off the rusty skills, familiarising myself with GIMP and .. well, let's see how it goes.  But, I need some help (help! help!) with a catchy name for the newbie.

Sugar Free Adventures #2

By accident I spent most of today immersed in things sans sugar, again. 

The Sana customers have been requesting Stevia for a loooong time. We promised to introduce it over a year ago but experienced painful legislative difficulties as it was not an approved sweetener. Now it is, but only in a particular, slightly more pricey form (high Rebaudioside A).

Finally we got organised and launch date was set for 1st December. 

Observant readers will note that today is a little beyond that deadline. Mmmmmm (thoughtful, 'I wonder how that happened?' noise).  In our defense, being one month and eight days late is not considered seriously tardy in the world of product launches. It's practically ahead of schedule.

I'll be blogging some Stevia baking trials as soon as Junk Free Jan is over. The reason is, I'm not sure if it's allowed. I think part of the mission is to avoid pumped up flavours.  So far, so good. I've made it to day 5, judging by the daily banana count..

Real World Fitness

This post is about fitness. Specifically, my fitness, and what I'm doing about it.  I admit, the last year has not been my best year for fitness consistency. I've had.. challenges. Work, study, family life, travel, gym getting trashed by an earthquake.. just the usual things that life throws your way.

Over the last few months I've retrieved my fitness mojo, eased myself back into something like a routine, and remembered how much better I feel when I make the effort. Exercise is the ultimate stress buster and mood lifter. 

C

This week has been intense, but I kept on it, and as we all know, if you keep doing, eventually it gets done and you have earned your right to watch Project Runway. I am still a little behind on emails, so if you are waiting, just hang in there and I'll catch up in the next few days.

On Wednesday I actually submitted an assignment at 2 a.m. in the morning and reflected on the days, years ago, when working until the early hours was almost an every day thing. Luckily, this time around it was just an exceptional few days; I have no idea how I used to do it.  Wait, I DO remember. I did it by being miserable and having no life. No wonder I gave that up.

Busy Bee, Healthy Bee

For the next week, I'm going to be a busy, busy bee. There are three university assignments to get finished and it's time for another production run of Sana stuff - that's always a kind of crazy time. It is quite fun to see the new product when it's done though. It gives me a little buzz, which I guess is a sign that I'm on the right track with this whole health business / health study malarky.

I've also got The Programmer home sick with strep throat. As you can imagine, I have him on a strict regime of pro-biotics (to balance the antibiotics he's on), vitamins, healthy food, rest and no kissing. Also, no beer, even though the Rugby World Cup in on. I'm a slave-driver. 

Yesterday I had to head out to see the guys at Puraz and snapped a few pics on the way. I have to say that Merivale, being a high socio-economic part of town, is certainly racing ahead with putting itself back together after the quakes. I saw my first container shop there; it was swanky, expensive Quinns. :D If it's good enough for them, it should be more than good enough for the $2 shop.

I drove past some things that made me feel a bit sad. The Knox church:

Pre-earthquake, it looked like this:

Source

I also saw one of two tower clocks that have stopped at the time of the quake:

It's been 12.51pm on that clock since February 22nd.

After getting a bit depressed through exposing my poor wee mind to reminders of earthquake destruction, it was necessary to do some food shopping, which is guaranteed retail therapy for fitness bloggers.

I found this thingy at the Liberty Market:

It's Daikon - pickled Japanese radish.  Not sure what to do with it, I added some slices to last nights super healthy feast - fish, veges, shaved raw parmesan. I think there is some seaweed in there too. I'm feeling a bit experimental, clearly.

Have you tried anything new lately? 

Ok, back to it. Just . 2000 . words . to .go......

Mad cats and fun with packaging

Please excuse the phone pics today. It was pure laziness. My phone was 'right there' >> and getting my camera would have required walking about 20m. :D

These tea bags drive my cats crazy.

It's a pretty serious situation. If I don't lock these tea bags away at night, the cats will mount a search and destroy operation. In the morning there will be a torn up box and tea bag parts strewn all over the kitchen floor.

If they find a used one in a cup, they will fish it out with a paw and roll on it with a goofy expression. It's like a catnip high, only... more extreme. The ingredients are: valerian, hops, and lemongrass. At first I just assumed that the tea bag factory had accidentally or intentionally swapped in some catnip (hey, I have worked in health food manufacture, don't tell me this would never happen.. oops we are a bit short on Valerian and the shipment is running late, do you think anyone would notice if we used a bit of this stuff?). 

However, having consulted a herbalist, it seems that actually, cats quite like Valerian. Valerian is the plant from which Valium is extracted. My cats like to get their groove on by snorting herbals. I would totally recommend these tea bags as a method of amusing yourself. Give one to your cat and watch them get high. This is not recommended with children, but with animals, I think it's ok.

***********************

Today I have been messing around with packaging. I got a big sample box in the mail.

I am on a mission to put the Sana product in the most environmentally friendly packaging available that  is also free of Bisphenol A (BPA). It's turning out to be quite a task. Packaging in general is not an entirely eco friendly thing and you just have to do your best.  We have always tried to keep packaging minimal, focus on larger pack sizes and (as our customers would know) not use excessive ink on the labels. 

Now I'm tossing up the options to see if we can do even better. Biodegradable or recyclable? Is it better for the customer to be able to see the product, or is an opaque bag better? Is a foil lined brown paper bag really a more eco option, or does it just 'look' more environmentally friendly? Gold? Blue? Red? Black? Print on the bag? It takes a lot of mental argument to analyse the many variables that add up to 'that is the bag for my product!' Sometimes it also takes verbal argument with business partners, but this time, it's all up to me to fulfill the requirements of the business and the planet (oh, the responsibility..).

Tonight I'm taking a break from bags, although I may dream about them later! I'm heading off to an art exhibition opening, which should be a chance to get out of my workout gear (bad habit when working/studying from home: just schlep about in trackies all day) and give my social skills an airing. I will see if I can get pics and report back tomorrow.

T minus two days

It's just two days and a few hours until I am on that plane to Zurich! In spite of a last minute Psyllium crisis, my confidence is trending toward there still being a business here when I return in August. ;)

The day started in the usual way, with Razzy lying his vast bulk on top of me so that he doesn't miss the crucial moment when I get up and start feeding time at the zoo. However, today things happened a little differently. That's because yesterday, we had a little talk:

'Razzy', I said to him. 'Your butt is so fat that I can't even fit all of you into a single photograph. Have you gained weight?'.

'No', he lied. 'I've got my winter coat on'.

'Ok', I said. 'Let's see how much that coat weighs, shall we?'

(weighing procedure)

'It appears you have gained 500g. If you were a human, this would be no problem, but you are a cat. I'm afraid we must start a militant feline diet protocol immediately'.

I think he was about to protest it, but then got distracted by the idea of lazing in front of the fire.

This morning we began segregated feedings.  I think the problem is that they all get fed together and I don't exactly have time in my day to sit there and watch them finish. I think what is happening is that the others are nibblers (they are all very sleek) and leave food, which Mr Garbage Guts cleans up. Personally I like squishy fat cats, and he is certainly still active enough, but I've seen what overweight does to cats as they age and I don't want that for Razzy. Luckily I have the power. I also have the ability to leave the country for  a month to avoid the incessant cat whining - and he has a loud, loud yowl. 

If anyone has successfully dieted a cat, please let me know how you did it. It's not like I can talk to him about his emotional eating issues... even though he clearly has them. The only approach I can think of is brute force and earplugs.

Today I got the lollypops for the dispatch dept. Look at this!

Whoooooo! 

Forgetting about the excessive packaging and food miles for a minute, these are great. I have sampled... a few. I would have uploaded a photo of me doing this, but bulging eyes and a red face was not a flattering look on me.

Ok, back to it. The to-do list is still a bit longer than I'd like it to be at this phase, but I'm not concerned about all the rushing around because once I get on that plane I've got 36 hours of butt sitting (groooan). That's like... seven or eight movies? Six aeroplane meals? I try not to whinge, because it's a privilege to be able to travel, but long-haul is just not easy. Well, I'm sure it's easy in First Class..... but....

It had to happen one day....

Tonight I did something that made me unreasonably nervous. I let someone else organise the Monday orders for Sana Direct.  I am heading overseas for a month and the business has grown up to the point where I have to accept that it actually can function without me. Usually when a core team member goes frisking around the world, we just shut the webstore for a bit. However, with the number of customers we have now, this is no longer a viable option. Our little business is growing up and getting independent and I feel a bit... conflicted about that. Like someone who's baby doesn't really need them anymore.. except in an adolescent crisis, naturally.

I have pulled out all stops to ensure that things run smoothly in my absence. I have a fully documented set of operating procedures.  The order entry and dispatch one is four pages long.  I made sure to add that invoices must be inscribed with a handwritten smiley face and accompanied by an organic lollypop, so let me know if you don't get one and I'll raise hell by Skype.

Instead of hovering, I occupied myself by playing with the new label printer that I bought today:

It's speedy and efficient and much smaller on the desk than the previous monolith. Now I've got SO much more room to fill up with piles of paper! Yay!

The other exciting discovery of the day was.. fishcakes! I know, it's a bog standard easy meal but one that I hardly ever make.  

What's great about fishcakes is that they don't strictly require any terribly perishable ingredients, although you can use fresh fish if you want. Tonight that was such a bonus because I've been so many kinds of crazy-busy that I forgot to defrost anything for dinner and the vege bin was looking a bit depressing.

These fish cakes have:

* One large kumara (sweet potato) - about 300g

* Some kale, scavenged from the patchy winter garden

* About 30g of goats cheese

* Half a massel chicken stock cube

* A large can of organic, imported Alaskan Salmon - pricey, but worth it for my peace of mind since I'm really wary of ocean fish at the moment  (for this we can blame that toxicology paper, oh yes).

I simply steamed the veges, then whirred everything into submission using my food-processor-o-death.  Formed into balls, mine were baked in the oven and The Programmers were fried. Mine came out better. His kind of fell apart: I think the steamed veges were still holding too much water. He still told me it tasted amaaaaazing though. you can't go wrong with feeding men fried, salty stuff.

That's a homemade tartare sauce on the top of mine.

After this has digested, I am planning to turn it into yoga energy. Last night I did a 20 minute David Farmar Baptiste Power Yoga from yogadownload.com.  David Farmar is an amazing teacher, even on video and I am, at this very moment, downloading the 45 minute version of the class. I love it when he gets all new agey, endorsing the yogi to 'drop your head, your day, and while you're at it, just go ahead and drop your childhood'.  Maybe tonight he will tell us to drop our control freaky behaviour as regards our businesses?  That, I could use some of.

CRAMMING

Building at the Arts Centre - taken 27th May 2011

Today I am doing something that I try not to do.. cramming for an exam. Specifically, the Nutritional Biochemistry exam on Friday. I've also got a Community Psych exam on Saturday, but I feel ok about that one. Nutritional Biochemistry is an exam of many, many short and medium length answers, no multi-choice and not many clues as to what will actually be in it. It's pretty much, try to memorise the study guide and take it from there.

Naturally, I'm also trying to get my head together after yesterday's serious little shake up, which the media has been all day breathlessly reminding us has been upgraded to a 6.3 on the richter scale. Yes, a free upgrade! yay?. We also had four or five quite decent shakes through the night. Of course, I had a moment today, forgot about it all and went out to 'get a few things' from the supermarket. Bad idea.  Not only was the supermarket in its usual post-quake state of packed full of panicky people trying to take the whole shop home with them, but also there was a 4.2 aftershock while I was waiting at the checkout. Several people abandoned their shopping and fled, pushing and shoving their way through the crowd. The rest of us just shrugged. I guess we are just resigned to it, or have had our panic buttons pressed so many times that they don't work anymore, or something.

Tired of reporting on quakes, the media is now trying to get the country revved up about whether Christchurch should actually be rebuilt. Comments are running hot and fast on news sites, with about 30 percent of respondents seeming to think that it's all getting a bit costly and that perhaps the earth around Christchurch is entering a centuries long phase of shimmy shimmy. The consensus seems to be either a) move the city or b) abandon it. I told Sistasana about it on Skype and she said 'do they think this is a Hollywood movie?'. You know... everyone packs their things into a bag and makes a mass exodus.  Looks good on screen for sure.  The reality is not so simple, really.  Where are you going to put 500,000 people? And just try selling a house in Christchurch right now.. any takers?  In my own mind, I am on the pro-rebuild side of things, but also feeling less attached to the old buildings that are progressively crumbling with every big shake. Unfortunately, the future is not going to look much like the past if we are to be clever about this rebuild.

This building below is the Christchurch Art Gallery, which has acted as Civil Defense HQ since September. I hated it when it was built. Critics called it 'The Tutu'. I'm currently feeling quite affectionate toward it.

It is massive, it is fronted completely in glass, it is new and, as far as I know, has has come through all quakes without so much as popping a window. This goes to show that, if the buildings are made to suit the ground, they will be fine. As for quakes continuing for decades or centuries... well, that's not what usually happens, but nor is such a consistent run of big quakes so.. you never know; you just never know. 

I think that there is going to be a polarising of citizens; those that can live with the uncertainty and those that can't. Those that can't (e.g. the ones that made a stampede in the supermarket) should certainly leave, rather than lose their mental health. I think I'm ok with it for now, although I would never say that it's ideal to always have your internal quake sensor primed to duck for cover, not that this helped at all in yesterdays biggie because I was crossing the road.  The ground moved violently, with a deafening roar and I collided with a car that was stopped at the lights. Or, we collided with each other as both the car and myself were being shunted around. There is a nice bruise forming on my right hip but I didn't really feel it at the time as I was cranked on adrenaline and erm... cracking up with laughter at the guys in a nearby truck that were whooping it up with the 'yeeeehar's and wooohoooo's'. All from the comfort of a stranger's car bonnet mind you...

On a business note, I've checked all the stock and everything looks fine. It will be business as usual tomorrow, although today we did not dispatch due to traffic congestion.  Onward.

and.. go!

Today I am making a real effort to put that 'can't be bothered' feeling to the side and inflict serious domination on my Toxicology assignment. So far, so good. It helps that things are underway and running smoothly at the factory.  We had a last minute glitch with mixing the flavouring for the WPC because someone had forgotten to pick up the citric acid. 

Ooops. *looks sheepish*

What can I say? It's not like I have P.A. or anything...  *looks sideways*

Having dealt with that little 'oversight', I'm finally free to concentrate on things academic. To get my brain into the correct mode I have logged on to Soundcloud to see what my old music school buddy Dylan has been up to. Lots of good stuff, by the looks of it. You really should check it out. For some reason, his type of music just works for making the A happen, maybe even an A+, now and then.

Lacking pics for todays post I went into our massive photograph archive to see what we were taking pics of a year ago. It seems that The Programmer was going through a landscape phase. The first pic is quite poignant because many buildings you see there no longer exist. And of course, nobody can swim on the beach now because of the pollution. These are pictures of Christchurch Past - March 2010.

Well, seeing as you asked..

Today was about protein structure. Specifically, I had to turn my kitchen into a lab. It was a CSI to discover which fruits contain enzymes that murder proteins (proteases).

That was stage 1, in which suspicion has been cast on pineapple and, perhaps, kiwifruit. I really wanted to test mango, which I know has a protease enzyme in it, but they are scarce right now. Stage 2 involves further investigation, using heat treatment.

I have to say, while not quite as exciting as a Patricia Cornwell novel, at least it proves I am finally capable of applying myself ** to my Nutritional Bioscience paper. Although we had a fairly substantial aftershock **just then**, they have been quite few and far between today, which helps; as does the fact that I was out of bed and pressing the button on my coffee machine this morning before I felt a back twinge. In a few more days I should be game to try a down dog. If that turns out badly, you'll be the first to know, from my position on the floor.

This weekend I'm working hard on getting a Toxicology assignment out of the way because next week involves some major Sana manufacturing activity. I had a reminder of that at some ridiculous hour this morning, when the doorbell rang and, upon investigation, I discovered a Hadrians Wall of fresh Omega 3 capsules in boxes sitting on my porch. It was a bit twilight zone because, firstly, it's a Saturday and, secondly, does my house look like a factory? (maybe it does.. I don't know). I can't even think how the truck navigated the broken roads around here, but I'm not whinging. I'm just very pleased that they somehow found a way to get the product to me under unusual circumstances. They probably tried to deliver to the factory yesterday, but of course it was closed due to the impromptu public holiday.

So next week we have hot-off-the press Omega's being bagged up (on Thursday they were still drying), WPC hopefully turning up and going into production, Psyllium and Maca. That's all pretty easy once the guys in the factory take over because they are genius. I've just got to make sure they have everything, like the raw materials, the flavourings, silica gels, scoops, bags and labels. You'd be suprised at the logistics of synchronising everything to the right place at the right time. I know I was when I first took responsibility for it. For example, if your gum arabic turns up a week later than everything else because someone put the wrong courier ticket on it, then the whole factory grinds to a halt and people get antsy. It's not ideal.

As for that Toxicology assignment, I had an amusing time today trying to find the website for the American Institute for Cancer Research (www.aicr.org), which the textbook had incorrectly noted as www.airc.org - the American Indian Relief Council. Thinking that it must be some combination of a.i.r & c, I tried a few combinations in the browser and happened across: The American Civil Rights Institute (www.acri.org), The International Association for Cryptologic Research (www.iacr.org), the Israel Amateur Radio Club (www.iarc.org) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (www.iarc.fr), which at least was close.

Tomorrow I intend to get back to something approximating health blogging. I did jump on the scales today just to make sure I hadn't blimped out due to excess comfort eating, stress and backpain induced laziness. I haven't. Still mid 57's, which is at least in my comfort zone. Earthquakes may be many undesirable things, but at least they aren't fattening.

Sana Direct Newsletter

If you are not a subscriber to my Sana Direct Newsletter, you can read the 'hot off the press' issue by clicking here.

Tomorrow, a real blog post where I shall reveal all as regards the success, or otherwise, of my creaky joints/blood type O diet so far :)