What a horrible horoscope!

I'm not happy with my horoscope today from SFGate.com:


LEO July 22-August 21
Get ready for a role reversal with your spouse. It’s now your turn to be the breadwinner; or if that’s what you’ve been doing, he’ll take over from here.

Don't you just hate it when a horoscope totally hits home? I have been the breadwinner for a while as he had been underemployed. But now my better half has a great job! I am not comfortable with the idea of someone else being my breadwinner, even if it is my significant other.

What a different perspective you get when roles are reversed!

Then there's my weekly horoscope:

LEO (July 22-August 21): Life just got crazier with Mercury gone bananas in quirky Aquarius. It doesn't help that the full moon (or is it fool moon?) is lighting up your money house. You, the arch flirt of the Cosmos, are better off cooling it for the next couple of weeks. But when have you ever listened to that "for your own good" stuff?

How much stock do you put in your horoscope? I promise myself today I will make every effort to defy what mine dictates. And I have to say, SFGate offers one of the best. It's between them, Yahoo! and DailyOm. I think this is one of those days I'll have to check all three!

How do you find balance?

I'm swamped this week doing a research paper for school and my boyfriend is home for the week for a quick break from a long session of out-of-town training. When he's out of town, I can easily balance school, work, working out, and can even find time to do yoga. Now that he's in town it's a whole other story! He wakes up at 3:30 am for work, and I got off work at 9:00 pm last night. The crazy hours aren't working out for me as I've been very unproductive this week.

When he's gone, I work constantly. When he's here, I'm constantly interrupted. I can't seem to find a balance.

With my professional work done for the day, I have now scarcely 40 minutes or so until he gets home. I still have homework to do. I love my better half, but I wish I had better use of my free time without him. Tomorrow I'm going to have to try and be productive at 3:30 in the morning because once his alarm goes off, I can't sleep anymore. I'm not a terribly talented sleeper! I spent two hours today tossing and turning before finally sleeping until almost 8:00am. So that makes my private work day wihout him only seven hours long -- but I have much more than seven hours of work to do in a day.

Jai Uttal To Be in Phoenix

Wow, if I had the spare time to go to this, it would be awesome! I have not yet heard kirtan live and in person. Maybe that should be one of the things on my to-to list!

DailyOM is a Daily Read For Me

One of my favorite websites for Yoga philosophy is DailyOm.com. I don't actually visit it but get the horoscope and inspiration in my inbox daily. Sometimes it's just the best therapy there is!

You can also learn a litte more about the book Autobiography of a Yogi at DailyOm, it's one of the 100 great spiritual texts of all time. (Or so I remember hearing somewhere). I haven't been able to finish the book, but it's a very nice story of devotion.

Don't miss the horoscopes either. Some days they fit me, some days they don't. But each is given in the manner of teaching a lesson and I can appreciate that.

OmKicker took a big, long "Om" yesterday

OmKicker took a day off and I wish I could say I had a big Om, but I didn't. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to take care of things like taxes and auto insurance and there wasn't time for even a little Om much less a kick. The night before, I did rather well though. I rode the recumbent bike for an hour while reading my book for school, then did a power vinyasa thanks to the video podcast instruction of Yogamazing, and finished up my mini-health kick with a dinner of tofu and asparagus.

Last night I ate dinner at Green Restaurant at Scottsdale & McKellips in Tempe. I ordered the argentine po-boy (a fake steak sandwich) and a Newman's O's Soynami (vegan soft serve). I love a dinner where no animals are harmed!

OmKicker Suggestions on What to Give up For Lent

Whatever your spirituality may be, yoga can work with it. Here are my OmKicker ideas for what you can give up for Lent for the next 40 days. Sometimes sacrificing something you love can be a great exercise in faith. Or maybe you make Lent work for you and give up something you don't need anyway. No matter how you look at it, Lent can be an excellent way to go inward and ask yourself what you should be trying to go without for 40 days.

*My Blackberry
*Judging others
*Negative thoughts
*Chocolate
*A corner of my home to an animal who needs to be adopted
*Complaining
*Driving too fast
*Blogging (just kidding)
*Blaming
*Trying to fit someone else's idea of who I should be
*Slouching
*Eating processed foods
*Eating meat
*Drinking alcohol
*Sleeping in

What are some of your ideas for Lent? I was pondering what to give up because -- and I'm not even Catholic -- two of my coworkers were chatting about what they gave up. One gave up swearing and the other gave up hitting the snooze button.

Watch Shiva Rea Practice Yoga

There is nothing quite like watching Shiva! There's a sequence of a few minutes on her Yoga Shakti DVD that is truly amazing and inspirational. She makes me want to do yoga 24/7!

If I could dance on the beach like that, I'd be a happy girl.

A mantra/prayer for the day

Some days, you just need some positive thinking in the form of a mantra or a prayer. The two are one and the same to me sometimes, or at least they serve the same purpose of concentrating on positivity.

Think of it in terms of "today I will..." And then think of something you want to accomplish. Today I will...eat six servings of vegetables. Today I will...get my taxes done. It can be a to-do item like that.

Maybe you're having a good day and want the good feeling you're having to eminate out towards others who may not be having such a great time. I think of my aunt who is sick, my boyfriend's grandpa who just took a fall, and my friend's mom recovering from having two aneurysms. I'd like to send healing energy to them all, so I'm thinking of my own mantra/prayer for the day.

May every smile I have today, my every laugh be transformed into healing energy for my loved ones.

So that's my thought for the day.

One of my two favorite smoothies

The other one involves wheatgrass and fruit while this one is a little more self-indulgent. This doesn't even have a real name so I'll name it off the cuff right now -- The Post-Workout Chocolate Bomber. Here's how you make it:

2 cups of soy milk (or rice milk -- I always buy vanilla soy)
2-3 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1-2 tablespoons agave nectar
1-2 frozen bananas

As you can see, the measurement isn't an exact science. I don't think I've ever measured anything to an exact amount in my kitchen! It's a yummy, chocolate smoothie I like after a workout. The peanut butter gives it protein and the bananas handle a serving of fruit. If you use soy milk you get more protein, but the rice milk has pretty much none! I just accidentally bought rice milk for the first time in ten years. (It was on sale). It only has 2 grams of protein per serving. Ouch.

Check out Yogamazing

Due to cold, windy & rainy weather, all considerations with working out went indoors today. I had absolutely no desire to hit the hot tub after I walked outside today! But I really need the hot tub because I'm sore, so I may reconsider going later tonight if at least the wind and rain calm down.

I do feel better after doing some cardio: half on the eliptical, half on the treadmill with a great deal of stretching out in between. Then I got back to my apartment for a workout with Yogamazing, which I download as a video podcast via iTunes. Chaz's 20-minute yoga podcasts are just what I need to keep me on my yoga track without taking up too much time.

Surprisingly, his MySpace profile has only 13 friends! Add Yogamazing to your MySpace friends list, check out the podcast and get to doing some more downward-facing dogs. You can fit 20 minutes of yoga into your schedule, can't you?

Every Yogamazing episode has a theme, such as burning fat, yoga for dancers, yoga for swimmers, or yoga for carpal tunnel.

Sore from festivities since Thursday

There's nothing like waking up completely sore on a Monday morning! I went to bag class at Krav Maga on Thursday and wisely sat in the spa afterward. Friday I was too busy to work out, but Saturday and Sunday my boyfriend put me through his department of corrections workout exercises. They weren't that bad after six years of Krav Maga, but I am a bit out of shape as of late, hence this health kick I'm just beginning. (I know it's hard to say I'm on a health kick when I'm already vegan, but bear with me).

The cool thing was that I totally impressed my boyfriend by holding my arms out (palms up) for an eternity. He says some people in his class can't even do that and he's going to tell them that his girlfriend does it better than they do.

I definitely need to move today. I'm thinking cardio and some more spa time!

I'm no expert

I don't claim myself as an expert; this blog is only about what I'm interested in and what works for me. I'm a hobbyist and these are my hobbies. Yoga, Krav Maga, and vegetarian cooking all fit together into a very healthy lifestyle.

What OmKicker will cover.

This new blog will cover overall health for people who never want to touch a Slimfast or an Atkins meal. My values are a little different; I call it "Om with a kick." I do yoga and I'm a vegetarian but I also enjoy self-defense training in Krav Maga (Israeli hand-to-hand combat). I like yoga and traditional fitness and believe both serve each other. I just want this site to serve as a resource for those who are into yoga but who aren't running around wearing patchouli to an ashram. This is for modern practitioners of yoga who don't mind other forms of fitness and who care about their overall picture of health.

Two years ago, I went vegan and began a search for all kind of information. The transition was tough because the world is just not friendly to vegetarians, let alone vegans. I've learned so much I wish I knew back then, and I'd like to share that here. Where can a person find affordable vegetarian shampoo? What the heck do I do with this tofu stuff anyway?

Maybe you want to do some MMA-style fighting but still turn inward with a downward facing dog. That's what OmKicker is all about. There are so many positive aspects to my lifestyle that I get from yoga, Krav Maga, and being a vegan that I want to share how I live and what works for me.

So here's a little brainstorm of what this will cover:
yoga
inner beauty
outer beauty
Krav Maga
fitness
weight training
vegan/vegetarian stuff
recipes
green housecleaning
animal rights
karma yoga
favorite yoga videos
yoga music
Krav Maga music
asanas
meditation
yoga podcasts
how to get fit
how to go vegan
how to find veg products
attitudes towards vegetarians
vegetarian beauty
finding products not tested on animals
stretching
pilates
running
cardio
flexibility
yoga DVDs
challenging yourself
couples workouts
recipes
cooking
grocery shopping
nutrition
workout clothes
gear
fashion

...and anything else that comes to mind. This is just beginning, so I'm very excited to see where the road takes this blog.

Om...with a kick!

“Om with a kick” describes the lifestyle of those of us who do yoga and live by yogic principles — but aren’t exactly living in ashrams. We’re not just into yoga, we’re into fitness, vegetarian food, overall health, weight training, aerobic and anaerobic exercise, being fit, being active, and being healthy. Just because we believe in ahimsa or the principle of not harming others, doesn’t mean we’re passive victims either! For example, I’ve been doing Krav Maga, or Israeli hand-to-hand combat for almost six years now and I also believe in the right to bear arms. But the food I buy and cook is vegan and I’m not a fan of hunting. “Om with a kick” is about living comfortably with that duality.