Fall is falling!

Who says we don’t have seasons in California?  Exhibit A:  It has been in the 30s for my last 3 early morning runs. I have needed to wear running tights and long sleeves to cope.  (Note the lack of shorts!) 

Exhibit B:  Here are some trees on the street where I live doing something amazing, they are changing color. I don’t think I need further evidence fall is falling here in Claremont.  

Colorful leaves on morning run.

Leaves starting to change color on my street!

Cute husband with his cute car (fall leaves in background).

Raking leaves, late morning runs, teaching vinyasa flow and taking restorative yoga class, early afternoon hikes and bike rides; my fall break has been sublime. We enjoyed a snowflake filled Thanksgiving Day with the Jackson family in Big Bear. 

Photo I took leaving IceHouse Canyon at Mt. Baldy after a hike.  Any ideas what is going on in lower right hand corner?
Eyeball of hillside dragon awakening from slumber, alien space ship taking flight, spectral entity???... I haven't a clue!

Leaving Big Bear

I always feel like the days surrounding Thanksgiving are not complete unless you are eating pumpkin pie or something similar for breakfast.  I made this same crustless Paleoish pumpkin pie for breakfast last year around this time.  This year I cut the sugar even more and added an egg to help it firm up in the oven.  After eating this for breakfast for the past week, I think I’ve gotten my pumpkin fix for the fall.  Any ideas for what I should eat for breakfast as we start to welcome winter? 

1 banana (mashed)

1 can pumpkin puree (15-16 oz)

1 egg

¼ cup coconut sugar or (1-2 tbsp maple syrup)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp allspice

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ fresh grated nutmeg

Put everything in the food processor and run until smooth.  Pour into a brownie pan or loaf pan sprayed with coconut oil cooking spray.

 Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  Top with homemade whip cream and toasted pecans.  Store in the fridge after baking.

Seasonal Shifts: from dawn to dusk

Yes, we recently celebrated Halloween.  No I’m not titling this post after the 1990s horror movie with a similar name.  With our daylight savings shift this weekend, my Saturday morning run was before sunrise, ending my five miles just at dawn. 

My Sunday afternoon nature walk, a speedy but  meditative two miles, ended at dusk.  I found that these sojourns in the hills were the perfect bookends to my weekend. 

Such symmetry helped to make sense of the otherwise disorienting shift of sleeping, waking, and odd light, that often times upsets my world with the time change.  I hope to remember this ceremony of greeting the light at either end of the horizon and carry this out from year to year when we make this seasonal shift. 

Among other things I hope to remember from this weekend, would be how much fun I had with my husband on Halloween.  His band played at the Black Watch Pub dressed as The Ghost Busters.  I dressed as Sigourney Weaver’s character Dana Barrett.  This is one of Greg’s and now one of my favorite movies.  So we spent the night quoting, snapping photos and enjoying good music.  The band even played the Ghost Busters theme song! 

We are entering into our final week of our Sugar Detox.  We managed to get through Halloween and avoided the temptation of all the candy that abounds during this week.  That doesn’t mean that we’ve been skipping dessert entirely.  Here is a sugar free pumpkin pie-ish recipe I concocted tonight.

8 oz canned pumpkin

1 egg

1 mashed banana

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

sprinkle of sea salt

(Put all ingredients in food process are run until smooth, pour into custard cups and bake at 350 for 20 min.)