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Buzz, buzz, bzzzz…I’m still buzzing from my first experience doing the flying trapeze! WOW. What an exhilarating experience! First of all, thank you, Facebook… because it was a friend on Facebook who invited me along. We’d never met in person until today. Now we’re “real” friends and not just “Facebook friends.” (Gotta love the modern vernacular, huh?)
Until recently, I’d never even heard of the School of Acrobatics New Circus Arts (SANCA) in Seattle. What a fun place. Animals don’t belong in the circus, but people do! I didn’t know that getting on the flying trapeze was on my “bucket list” until today! (Technically, I don’t have a bucket list, but I think I might just start one. After all, I’m already into my 40’s. Time’s a ticking.) Yes, the flying trapeze is definitely bucket list material.
The whole time I was there, I was nervous and excited and shaking and giddy. My face is tired from using my grinnin’ muscles. (It probably didn’t help that I had a non-dairy espresso drink during the drive there!) The class was small– only 3 of us– so we had plenty of “air” time. I’m probably going to be sore from using muscles (i.e distal hamstrings) that haven’t been used that way for decades. Let’s see…the last time I swung upside down by my knees on a bar was in elementary school, on the playground…around 1980!
First, I learned how to take off (“Ready, HUP!”), swing out, bring my legs up on the bar, and swing upside down by my knees (“knee hang”):
Then, I learned how to have the instructor “catch” me. Here’s the instructor getting set up:
And here’s me in action:
I’m looking forward to going back again!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
“Wet” Ingredients:
15 oz can organic pumpkin
2/3 C non-dairy milk
*3 cubes applesauce (about 1/4 cup)
1 T organic canola oil
1/3 C organic brown sugar
1/3 C evaporated cane juice sugar
2 t vanilla extract
Dry Ingredients:
1/3 C each: millet flour, quinoa flour, brown rice flour, oat flour, rolled oats, garbanzo bean flour
2/3 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 C fine chopped walnuts
2 T ground flax
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/8 t ground clove
1/3 C non dairy chocolate chips (or raisins)
1 T cacao nibs (optional)
Raw sugar (coarse grain)
Instructions:
Blend the “wet” ingredients in the blender. Mix with the dry ingredients and fold in the chocolate chips and cacao nibs. Sprinkle 1/8 t raw sugar on the top of each muffin before baking. Bake in muffin liners at 350 degrees for about 23 minutes. Makes about 18.
*So that I always have applesauce on hand for low-fat baking, I freeze unsweetened applesauce in ice cube trays, then thaw a few cubes at a time.
Freeheel Vegan 