Here’s my story from last years Festival of Colors!

I have survived yet another splendid celebration of the arrival of spring at the Festival of Colors, just down the road at the Hare Krishna Temple, right here in good ol’ Spanish Fork, Utah. What started out 15 years ago as a small gathering consisting of a couple of Krishna devotees, a handful of Indians, and sprinkling of BYU college students, has now turned into the largest celebration of the Hindu Holi (Festival of Colors) in the United States. Attendance this year was expected to reach 30,000.

The festival even hit the big time with major media coverage this year  from the big guys at  Reuters (Jim Urquhart) and msnbc.

On this cold, snowy March day, young and old alike, and every age in between, gathered to welcome spring and to spread peace, love and happiness to the world.

The day started out cold and snowy as the first festival goers arrived at the Krishna Temple at about 9:30 A.M.

By 10:30 the grounds surrounding the Krishna Temple were filled with a bright, shiny, and clean crowd, ready to celebrate.

At 11:00 A.M. sharp, after some live Krishna rock music, a group reciting of the Hare Krishna mantra (the largest ever in the U.S.), and a quick countdown from ten, the colors were thrown.

...and the world became colorful!

In India, Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. The festival breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors.~Sri Sri Radha Krsna Temple

The festivities continued with the Krishna version of a Woodstock-esque concert, complete with crowd surfing and much merriment.

Before long, the hill full of snow quickly turned into a muddy slide and a few just couldn't resist the lure of the slippery mud.

Really, if you're already covered in a rainbow of colors, what's the harm in adding a little mud, right?

I can guarantee many a Facebook profile photo was changed to became much more colorful by the end of the day.

There were even some celebrities joining in the hoopla.

“The color, noise and entertainment that accompanies the celebration of Holi bears witness to a feeling of oneness and sense of brotherhood. The festival brings home the lesson of spiritual and social harmony!!” ~ Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple

Here’s a progression of shots, taking you all the way from just before the throwing of the colors, through the throwing, the quick build up of pink haze, and finally, the colorful afterglow, all within a time span of 5 seconds.

Five second time progression at Colors Festival

Take a quick scroll

My family joined me for the celebration this year (well, all except for my husband who had to work and doesn’t exactly enjoy sucking in colored powder, anyway).

A great day was had by all. After several showers, I think we’re all clean and good as new and counting down the days until next year’s celebration.

This is for Julie…it’s not very fancy, but it has worked fine for me. I just have a clear filter on the lens (which is a MUST). You can get one at any camera store. I cover my bag in plastic because as you know, that powder gets everywhere. And then I put my camera inside plastic by cutting a hole in the end just big enough to fit over the lens snugly, and I leave the back end open to put my hands through and to see in the eye piece. If you have a raincover, that should work. Hold your camera close to your body to protect it when you’re not shooting. I usually wear an open jacket or open button up shirt and kind of hide the camera underneath to keep some of the powder off. Also, the best place to shoot to be able to get the whole effect of the throwing of colors is on the deck, off to the right or left side. Even with all these precautions, your camera will still get powder on it. A careful cleaning afterwards should do the trick. Hope you get some great pics and have tons of fun at the festival this year.

~Kate

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Why is it that you people get to have all the fun?!?! It really does look like a great day, Kate. My question is this: Will you still be digging the colors of the rainbow out of your ears at Christmastime?

We’re just lucky, I guess. No purple powder in my ear this year, thank goodness. After two days of blowing my nose, that is also now clear. The clothes even came mostly clean, well, except for my 10 year old son’s pink shoe laces.

Other Festival of Colors stories here, here and here.

How much fun are these adjustable denim KitchenKuffs!!

There are several statements that take place in our house over and over again:

• Pick up your dirty clothes
• Chew with your mouth closed
• Throw away your trash

And my all-time least favorite:

• Can someone come push up my sleeves?!?! PLEASE!?!?

Well, Kate, bar the door, those days are gone. May I present:

KitchenKuffs!!!

That’s right, people. It’s time to say goodbye to soggy sleeves!

The brainchild of Barbara Doran, KitchenKuffs mean you’ll never have suds-soaked cuffs (or anything else, for that matter) on your long-sleeved tops EVER AGAIN! I was so impressed when I first saw this product that I contacted Barbara. She gave me a pair of regular and a pair of adjustable KitchenKuffs to review for you guys. I’ve had ample opportunity to try them, and as far as I’m concerned, they are a must-have in every kitchen, bath, basement and garage. I’ve used them while cooking dinner, washing dishes, painting a bookcase and potting flowers. They go on with total ease, and stay right where you put them.

Here’s a video from Barbara showing the myriad of ways she’s put her KitchenKuffs to good use:

To me, this is true American ingenuity – entrepreneurship at its finest! The product has even caught the eye of Martha Stewart’s Dreamers into Doers, where Barbara was recently featured as Doer of the Week.

Shown here are the denim KitchenKuffs (adjustable) and the pepper pattern regular KitchenKuffs

I highly recommend that you pick up a pair and give them a try. They’re machine-washable cotton, made here in the USA, very affordable, and come in a variety of patterns in the regular and adjustable KitchenKuffs. I think these will make great gifts for teachers, gardeners, moms and sisters, dads and brothers – anyone who needs to “Keep their sleeves up!” And at a time when many families are pinching pennies more than ever, KitchenKuffs are a unique and thoughtful gift they’ll use time after time, without having to break the bank!

I love ‘em, Barbara – I know our readers will, too.

-Liz

Visit www.kitchenkuffs.com for a patterns, pricing and sizing.

Related articles

• Lining Up Yer Linens (alidoesit.wordpress.com)
• Interview with Barbara Doran – Inventor of the KitchenKuffs (theworkathomewoman.com)
• Raising a Foodie? (thedailymeal.com)

Tag along with Kate as she makes an attempt at being cool, hip and trendy.

Oxygen bars are all the rage these days among the young trendy yuppie types. While I’ll be the first to admit that I am neither young or trendy, I do occasionally try to be hip. My latest attempt at “hipness” involved putting pink plastic tubes up my nose and breathing  the scent of an orange grove, all while trying to relax and not look ridiculous.

Now in case you are reading this and thinking, “What in the sam hill is an oxygen bar?” here’s the Wiki definition:

“An oxygen bar is an establishment, or part of one, that sells oxygen for recreational use. Individual flavored scents may be added to enhance the experience. The flavors in an oxygen bar come from bubbling oxygen through bottles containing aromatic solutions before it reaches the nostrils.” ~Wikipedia

So my thinking is, ‘Why would someone pay good money to breath in scented oxygen?’ I mean, I can plug in an air freshener and breath all the scented air I want…for free. But never one  to be a party pooper, I tagged along with my daughter, her boyfriend and my husband. We made the trip because the boyfriend got injured in a wrestling match  and was having some trouble with his lungs. My husband (who always tries to be among the hip and trendy) heard about the injury and went straight into Dr. mode, telling boyfriend that the oxygen bar would help him heal more quickly.

We went to a salon called Solace. (You can typically find oxygen bars in salons, health clubs,tanning salons,resorts and on practically every corner in Las Vegas.)

First up at the oxygen bar, my daughter and her bf.

My daughter is looking at me with her “I can’t believe you are about to take a picture of me with plastic tubes up my nose” look, while the boyfriend is looking at me with his “Look how cool and trendy I am” look.

While they got their fill of oxygen, my husband and I got 15 wonderful, luxurious minutes in high tech full body massage chairs, each placed in a darkened quiet room. It was 15 minutes of pure heaven. In fact, I”m sincerely hoping that in heaven we each get our own personal full body massage chairs.

My 15 minutes were up much too quickly, as they pulled back my curtain and I was jolted out of my reverie. I mean really, you can’t put a busy mom of 7 kids in a dark quiet room for 15 minutes and think she’s going to leave willingly.

So off to the oxygen bar I headed. I sat on a stool and put the pastel pink oxygen tubes up my nostrils. They felt hard and plastic-y. Thinking I must have them in upside down, I took them out, turned them over and tried it again. Even more hard and plastic-y. Then as instructed, I put the tubes around my ears to hold it in place.  The right side, however kept slipping off. I now am thinking maybe my ears are lopsided?!

Anyway, I decided to push forward and attempt to relax and enjoy, first with the scent of lavender.  Not bad. A quick re-adjustment of  the tubes which were digging into my nasal passages and then on to the eucalyptus. Too medicine-y and hospital-like for my taste. ( With the twist of a switch we were able to control the scent of our oxygen.) Next scent, and my favorite by far, the orange groves.

I tried to relax, breath deeply and feel the oxygen flowing into my body, truly I did.  But I just could not get past the hard plastic up my nose enough to relax. However, my husband seemed to have no trouble in that department, as he appeared to be practically asleep on his stool. In fact, I thought he might just doze off and fall to the floor.

Here are the claimed benefits of breathing oxygen at an oxygen bar:

-Heightens concentration, alertness and memory

-Oxygen gives you energy!

-Oxygen is vital to your immune system, memory, thinking and sight

-Promotes healing and counters aging

-Strengthens your heart, reducing the risk of heart attacks

-Calms your mind and stabilizes your nervous system

-Speeds up the body’s recovery after physical exertion

-Provides a natural remedy for headaches, migraines and hangovers

-Relieves temporary altitude discomfort

-Improves digestion and cell metabolism

-Relieves muscle stiffness, support pre-athletic performance

-Lessens chronic fatigue syndrome and gives you better sleep patterns

Our verdicts:

The boyfriend: loved it. Thought the oxygen made it much easier to breath for the rest of the day.

The daughter: liked it, but not as much as the boyfriend. She was concerned about looking silly. But she said it made her feel good.

The husband: swears by it. Says he would go every week if he could. He says it helps him when he over-exerts himself.

Kate: ummm…maybe I’m just not cut out to be cool, hip and trendy.

Want to learn more about oxygen bars? Check out All About Oxygen.

I also found this…

“Scientific data says that purified oxygen does very little, as our blood is already saturated with 99% oxygen. Any effect that may occur would dissipate within a few minutes, as the blood re-circulates.

Although oxygen bars offer a respite from the many air pollutants found in large cities, many believe that it’s the same as stepping into any building or car with an air filtration system.

To quote an expert, “If your lungs are healthy, and you have no breathing difficulties, your body has all the oxygen it needs,” says George Boyer, MD, chief of pulmonary and critical care at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. “Taking in more is like going to the gas station and trying to fill a tank that’s already filled.”

The Truth About Oxygen Bars

Check out Kate’s other Adventures…

Kate Goes on an Adventure: with New Moon’s Laurent and Caius

Kate Goes on an Adventure: The Quest for a New Moon Mall Tour Wristband

Kate Goes on an Adventure: Demolition Derby

Kate Goes on an Adventure: Hot Air Ballooning

Kate Goes on an Adventure: Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week

Related articles

• Increases Your Supply of Oxygen to Rejuvenate You at the Cellular Level (smarthome.com)
• 14 Interesting Facts About Oxygen (femaleimagination.wordpress.com)
• Beauty Byte: OGO Oxygenated Water (fabsugar.com)
• Oxygen discovered surrounding Saturn’s icy moon Dione (slashgear.com)

Oh man, I really need a vacation from my vacation. More precisely, a vacation after my vacation. I should probably tell you that I spend nine looong months of the year impatiently waiting for the warm, delicious, relaxing, rejuvenating  too short three months of summer. No homework for the kids (or the mom, come on ladies, you know exactly what I mean), no strict bedtimes, the water park just calling our names, beckoning us to frolic and play.

Without going on too much of a whining streak, let me just say that this was the summer that wasn’t, which quickly turned into the vacation that wasn’t.

So, here’s the whine. Feel free to skip it if you’d like. (Haha. Just kidding. Don’t skip it. It’s stuff you need to know.)

You see, I became a mother-in-law this summer, which means I became the mother of the bride, which means every waking moment (and many not-so-waking moments) were spent preparing for the big day, which in reality means crossing off those first six weeks of summer. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved almost every one of those minutes getting ready for the wedding and wouldn’t trade them for anything…but, they did use up half of the summer.)

And then as soon as the wedding was over, the next week and a half was spent helping my second oldest daughter gather all of her earthly belongings and loading them tetris-style into a U-haul to make the big move to Arizona to begin her first job as an English teacher. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, her move coincided with our vacation to Las Vegas, which is a mere two hour drive  from her destination of Kingman, AZ.

On the plus side, her U-haul didn’t get abducted during a week of hanging out in the condo parking lot in the city of sin. On the minus side, most of the vacation was spent house hunting, car shopping, driving, U-haul unloading, and worrying. On the double minus side, I had to leave my daughter behind in Arizona

It was in this state of mind that we headed home from our so-called vacation. About two hours into the drive on I-15, we entered Virgin Gorge, the hot, beautiful, hot, winding hot stretch between Mesquite, NV. and St. George, UT. Did I mention that it’s hot?

Halfway through the gorge our radiator cracked. Not good, but also not the end of the world. We figured we’d just pull off the road and call our auto protection service and have them send a tow. What we didn’t count on was that there was no cell service and it was HOT! 115 degrees hot, with nary a spec of shade. So I did what any desperate mom would do, I climbed to the top of a ridge, held my phone up to the heavens with a prayer in my heart and successfully texted my daughter with instructions to call our auto service to send us a tow.

And then we waited…and waited…and waited, and nothing happened. No tow truck appeared to rescue us. Why? Because our stupid dumb auto service representative (and his stupid dumb supervisor) couldn’t figure out how to over-ride the stupid dumb computer program to send a tow across the state line to an area without a zip code. We were six miles from the state line! Only six miles, people! How hard could it be?  My daughter, whom I had texted, was on the phone with a representative  for over an hour pleading our case and…nothing, nada, zilch. No tow truck.

An hour in 115 degrees.

I made the climb again and luckily for us a truck driver headed in the other direction saw me at the top of the ridge, waving my cell phone around like a mad woman. He honked at me and gave me a thumbs up, which I hoped meant that he planned on sending someone to the rescue.

And then we waited again. And waited some more. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent an hour and a half in 115 degrees with the the sun beating down on you (hopefully you haven’t), but let me tell you we felt like we were not far from possible heat stroke.

Then a miraculous thing happened.  All of the sudden in the cloudless blue sky, a little gray rain cloud appeared right above our car and rained on us. Call it luck. Call it coincidence. Call it happenstance. Call it good karma. Call it divine intervention (my personal choice). Call it whatever you want, but there it was, one  glorious little cloud raining on us, cooling us down. Giving us hope.

And then a kind-hearted Highway Patrolman came to our assistance, hooked tow ropes to our car and pulled us the six miles to the Utah border so the stupid dumb auto service could send a tow.

Thank heavens for little gray rainclouds. Literally. Thank you. And for alert truckers and a kind-hearted patrolman.

And to the auto protection service I say, “May you rot in the 115 degree heat in Virgin Gorge. Well, maybe not rot, exactly, but at least spend a few tortuous hours stuck there with no one to save the day.”

~Kate

P.S. I’m headed out to frolic and play. Maybe you should too.

Related articles

• Kate’s Escapades – Not now! I’m burying a young girl. (coffeebreakwithlizandkate.com)
• Kate’s Escapades – Do you believe in the Vacation Fairy? (coffeebreakwithlizandkate.com)
• Mega-colossal space raincloud found at moist black hole (go.theregister.com)
• Family Vacations In Arizona: A Huffington Post Travel Guide (huffingtonpost.com)

Solve this word problem.

If you’re someone who has…

• a love of movies
• a fascination with celebrities
• a hobby of photography

where might you be found???

a. at an airport working as body scanner technician

b. at Disneyland documenting your trip with snapshots of you and Mickey

c. on the sidelines of a Patriots game working as the video assistant taping the opposing team’s cute sign language

d. at the Sundance Film Festival playing paparazzi

e. all of the above

If you picked “e” you’d probably be right. But for purposes of today’s story, let focus on “d”, shall we?

Playing paparazzi at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s one of the highlights of my year, getting the chance to mingle with the “big boys” (and girls – no sexism here) in the paparazzi world, snagging  snapshots of celebrities at The Sundance Film Festival as they scurry around the snowy, cold streets of Park City, Utah.

I was lucky enough to go to the festival for one day last year, and I had so much fun that I knew for certain that I wanted to go back for more this year. I even naively applied for “Press Credentials” for this year’s festival. Hahahahaha, fat chance for that, but it was worth a shot, right?

Denied.

“Thank you for your interest in covering the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.  Unfortunately…blah, blah, blah,… are only able to accredit a fraction of the journalists who apply. Respectfully Yours, The Sundance Film Festival Press Office”

Yes, these really are my boots. Don't make fun. My feet stayed toasty all day.

Well fine, paparazzi time for me once again. Anyway, I learned some good paparazzi tricks last year that I wanted to try out: like the head down, elbows out technique for getting to the front of the shooting pack, like wearing appropriate footwear for trudging through the snowbanks, like being quiet and sneaky when making a celebrity sighting and not squealing like a little girl.

I was all set this past Friday and Saturday to go to the big opening weekend of the festival, when the celebrities are out in full force. But as is often the case with real life, real life sometimes gets in the way. Like when a pipe under the concrete floor of your basement breaks and floods your house. And then your car breaks down and you have to get a tow home at midnight. Fun real life stuff like that. Stuff that makes you wonder if it’s even worth going out and actually doing something for yourself that doesn’t involve laundry, picking up dog poop, and wiping snotty noses. You know, stuff like that.

Finally, by Monday morning I felt like things were under control enough that the world would not end if I took off for the day. Only three days late. Not too bad in mommy timing. Am I right? You know I am.

I got there bright (and I do mean bright..have you seen the blinding way sunlight reflects off the snow?) and early, ready to paparazzi it up.

First off, I caught a bus to Eccles Theater and the premier of “Cedar Rapids”, with Anne Heche, Ed Harris, John C. Reilly, and Sigourney Weaver. Odds were at least one of them would be there. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the timing of the bus route and arrived about 15 minutes too late to find out for myself.

No big deal though, plenty of time left for stalking celebrities. Onto a second bus headed down to Main Street, where all the real action takes place anyway, with all my “straps”: a camera with a strap, a backpack with a strap, and a camera bag with a strap. I was off the bus for only about five minutes when I realized I was missing a strap…the camera bag strap. Now, if I were to predict something that I would NEVER EVER leave behind, it would be my camera bag. To me, that would be like leaving behind a child. (On second thought, strike that example. I actually did leave a child behind at a gas station on vacation years ago. Oops.)

Immediate panic. Inside that camera bag were my lenses, my phone, my money, my driver’s license, and one other  item which shall remain undisclosed, because of the risk of being disowned by my brother who may, or may not, have loaned me a flash for the day. I’m a little fuzzy on that point. Heehee.

By the time I got back to the station, my bus had already left. Long story short, I spent the next two hours looking for the missing camera bag on every bus that entered the station.  Nothing. I left my information with the transit Lost and Found department, gave them my husband’s cell number as a contact, and went off to lick my wounds and contemplate the end of the world.

I stubbornly refused to click even one picture as my own little form of protest to how much life stinks sometimes. First, I get there 3 days late, then I miss the celebs by minutes, then I lose my camera bag.

Fate was trying to tell me,

“Get back home, woman. Bwaaaaahahahaha! Don’t you know you have a kid that needs some Ramen cooked?”

It was at this point that my husband came riding up on his white horse, camera bag in hand, with not even one thing missing. Someone had returned it, Lost and Found called him, and up he came to save the day. He even bought me lunch at Burger King. Ha! Take that Fate! And thank you nice stranger who returned my camera bag and kept me from sinking into a deep abyss.

With only a few hours in my day left to shoot…bam, jackpot.

Greg Kinnear at the premier of “Salvation Boulevard”

And comedian Jim Gaffigan also in “Salvation Boulevard”

So take that Fate! Double whammy to you. And let this serve as notice for next year’s Sundance Festival. I’ve got my eyes on you.

Related articles

• Sundance 2011 (huffingtonpost.com)
• “Sundance Channel Brings The Festival To You” and related posts (sundancechannel.com)

What are Sanuks anyway?

And where did they take me?

Go ahead…take a look.

And where did they take me?

Go ahead…take a look.

What are Sanuks anyway?

And where did they take me?

Go ahead. Give it a click and see.

Let’s talk about the cookbook first,

In the Kitchen with Liz and KatePractically Painless Recipes!

I’m tellin’ ya – we cover it all: breakfast, lunch, dinner from appetizers to desserts. It’s my opinion that this cookbook will become a family favorite, because the recipes are so easy, and the variety is fantastic. These aren’t just any ol’ recipes, either. They’re the ones Kate and I use in our kitchens. And for me, that’s really saying something, because if someone asks me what I’m making for dinner, my first inclination is to answer with, “reservations.”

Nevertheless, shortly uploading all our recipes, I decided I would fix one of the dishes featured in the book. But apparently, once they’ve been uploaded to the publisher, they’re no longer accessible. Enter slight panic, because now I had to locate the piece of paper the recipe was on – assuming I hadn’t already thrown it away.

Within 24 hours, Kate was texting with the same dilemma. So needless to say, the cookbook’s arrival can come none too soon. We want our recipes now! And we want them all in one place, so the first – and often only – source we need to whip up a fabu meal is as close as our copy of Practically Painless Recipes. I highly suggest you order your copy today. And here’s even better news. While we originally expected the books to be shipped by December 1, we may be able to ship them by the end of October. Woohoo!

So let’s talk about coffee, now. Not just any coffee – we’re talking

CaffeMarco,

which I believe is the finest coffee around. I met the roaster, Mark, at the local Farmer’s Market. Unfortunately, he was closing up for the day. But after talking to him for a few minutes, my curiosity was peaked. I wanted to taste the coffee. The next day, Colton and I made a trip to his roastery, located about 15 minutes from the city I live in. We spent a lot of time discussing why he does what he does. And it’s really quite simple. He wants to produce the best coffee he can. He’s not looking to go global with it, because that would take away from his business model, which includes his personal pledge to get the coffee to the customer as quickly as possible for ultimate freshness.

Mark sells to what I would consider specialty grocers, personally delivering fresh coffee to them each week, and of course, ships it to all who request it. He doesn’t advertise. Just roasts the best coffee he can and lets the java speak for itself. And I think that’s a real testament to his quality.

I purchased two bags of coffee that day – dark roast and decaf (whole bean) – and immediately tried the coffee for myself. Just so we’re clear, here, I used to be a fan of Dunkin and the Bucks of Star. I gotta tell ya, though. No more. Oh sure, it’ll do in a pinch. But once I tried CaffeMarco, I knew I’d found the best coffee around. You’d probably expect the dark roast to have a bitter bite to it. Not so. It’s all about the flavor, which is outstanding. Even when the coffee cools off, you still get nothing but rich, delicious flavor with every sip.

I shared some of the beans with my Dad and my neighbor, who concur that it’s the best coffee they’ve ever had.

While I realize this has been a rather lengthy coffee-and-cookbooks rant, Kate and I think it’s important you know that we made a decision long ago – if we were to offer products to our readers, we’d offer the best. And we believe that’s what you’ll find with CaffeMarco, and Practically Painless Recipes.

So what are you waiting for? Place your orders today! You know you want to

-Liz

What are Sanuks anyway?

And where did they take me?

Go ahead. Give it a click and see.