I just went back and read the blog I posted last January, when I was thrilled to have the opportunity to walk on the beach and search for sea glass in 17-below-zero-degree weather. Despite the fact that the sea glass was frozen to the beach and that I froze my ass off, I was able to dislodge a few pieces and had a great time doing it.

This year I experienced a completely different story, as I experienced near tropical weather for northeast Ohio, with a balmy 61-degree-high temperature on January 1, 2011. I took a long, leisurely stroll on the beach, enjoyed the intermittent sunshine, found a boatload of sea glass, and this time I didn’t need any special tools to wedge the frozen glass from the sand.

Check out my sea glass finds for the day—quite the haul compared to my 2010 New Year’s Day outing!

I know I was lucky to have such a beautiful day, so I savored every minute of it and again thought to myself, What a great way to start the year! I’m hoping that the freakishly warm weather we experienced was a sign that our winter will be short and sweet, and spring will be here before we know it (yeah, I’m delusional at times).

You can read more about my New Year’s Day experience at the Polar Plunge and my rainbow sighting over Lake Erie on The Daily Downward Dog.

Happy New Year!

Here in Ohio, we’ve had the white thing covered for quite a few weeks, with more snow in the forecast for Christmas Eve (woo hoo!). So, with that in mind, I’ll be taking my dreams the green Christmas route.  One without conspicuous consumption and recycle bins full of used holiday accoutrements.

Show your respect for Mother Earth and adopt a few new green traditions this year. To get you started, check out this list from Eartheasy with tips from how to shop and buy green, to recycling your wrapping paper and holiday cards. I’m happy to report that it is now officially cool to wrap your presents in used newspapers or the comics page (I’ve been doing this for years and never knew I was being green).

At Christmas and throughout the New Year, give a gift to the planet and everyone who lives on it by being ecologically conscious.

Wishing you a Green Christmas and an eco-friendly New Year!

Green Holiday Image by: Madhaven M

So, I started teaching yoga classes for my friends and family recently and went out and bought a bunch of yoga mats so the newbies could practice in style on the comfort of their own mats. I thought this would be a nice thing to do, but the problem was schlepping all those mats around. Carrying a couple of yoga mats along with all the yoga gear you need for a class takes more than two hands and a great deal of coordination.

Thanks to the stylish folks over at Saltbox, I now have the perfect solution. I got the opportunity to take their Getaway bag (in my favorite shade of green) for a test-drive this past weekend and packed up my yoga clothes, a water bottle, my laptop, speakers, cell phone, essential oils, class notes, and three yoga mats. Even with all this cargo, there still was plenty of room in the bag, and it all fit comfortably over my shoulder. I have to say I felt pretty damn vogue walking into my yoga classes with this smart-looking, stylish bag slung over my shoulder!

Don’t you just love this color of green?! The Getaway bag comes in five different styles for a total of 21 different colors/patterns.

On the inside of the Getaway bag there are two deep zip-up pockets on each side to put things like your phone and wallet. I used the bag fully open, but there is a center clip you can use to turn the bag into a cool slouchy pouch bag that makes a really big purse, and you can detach the handles and arrange them any way you like.

If you are going to use this bag for carrying a yoga mat, please note that the mat will stick out a bit, but it securely held the three mats I placed in it without a problem. This bag is going to be my go-to yoga-gear bag, and it will also get a lot of use when I jet away for exotic weekend getaways and for days at the beach (on the beautiful shores of Lake Erie!). The canvas is extremely durable, and I can tell it is going to soften and become just like a pair of my favorite jeans—except my jeans aren’t waterproof like the Getaway bag.

Saltbox also offers handbags, wallets, carryalls, and I love the fact that their bags are cruelty-free. They use a variety of plant-based fibers and man-made synthetics to create their products in small batches, which means that each piece has its own unique qualities.

In the spirit of the season, the generous folks at Saltbox are sharing the love and offering one of my lucky readers at either the Daily Downward Dog or here at MariaMedia the chance to win his or her very own Getaway bag. You get to pick which pattern and vibrant color you like! Here’s what you gotta do to win:

Required: Sign up for the Saltbox e-mail list. Send Saltbox an e-mail at studio@saltboxnyc.com with “Maria invited me to join your list and enter to win my choice of a Getaway bag!” Please put your e-mail address within the body of the e-mail, and make sure it is not hyperlinked (plain text, please).

Required: Leave a comment below and let me know what your favorite Saltbox collection is.

Extra steps for good giveaway karma: Saltbox is an emerging design company and needs our help to grow! Please either a) Fan them on Facebook or b) Follow them on Twitter and tweet “Thanks to @downwarddog for the chance to win a Getaway bag from @saltboxnyc, I want one in ______. [Fill in the blank with your color choice found on Saltbox’s Web site.]

If you can’t wait to win and really want to purchase the Getaway bag, here is a discount code to get 20 percent off any Getaway bag until the end of December: GA20DEC

Everyone is a winner in this giveaway, because after the lucky winner is selected, all those who participated in the giveaway are going to get a really cool extra-special kerprise from me. Ooh, I bet you can’t wait to find out what this is!

When you are up at the Saltbox Web site, check out their newest zig-zag design called Cinnabar. I am loving those colors (hint, hint, honey, if you are reading this…).

This giveaway is open to all U.S. residents, and you can enter through Thursday, December 16 at noon when the winner will be randomly selected.

It’s been a while since I’ve said hello to those of you who are nice enough to stop by and check out MariaMedia. I’ve enjoyed meeting so many cool people and appreciate your continued support.

MariaMedia was formed to be a journal of my journey into my new professional life. It has been eight months since the blog launched, and when it started I was cranking out close to 10 blog posts a week! Wow, that was exhausting but therapeutic as I wrote about the things I’m passionate about and the media that matters to me.

One of my passions that brought so much joy into my life these past few years is yoga. MariaMedia started out with weekday daily yoga musings called the Daily Downward Dog that eventually morphed into its own Web site, The Daily Downward Dog. If you haven’t visited the D.D.D., please do. I’m really proud of the way it is turning out and the community of fellow yogis I’ve met and shared with.

In true Maria form I’m taking that passion for yoga one step further, and I have started yoga-teacher training. I want to share my love for yoga and how it has helped me heal my back pain and relieve stress. I’m not kidding myself; I’ll never teach a power yoga class, but I’m going to rock out with yoga for inflexible people who want to grow spiritually and feel amazing.

My yoga-teacher training classes meet one day a week and one weekend a month for the next six months, and I have to tell you I am loving this deep dive (ha ha, I always hated that word when I worked in Corporate America) into the wonderful world of yoga. I’ve always known that yoga is so much more than the physical poses, and it is really cool to start understanding the practice on a deeper level.

I love making up new words, and now I get to learn the meaning of all those Sanskrit words that are so fun to say, like “Sup-Ta Bad-dha Ko-Na-Sana” (Supta Baddha Konasana). I’ve never been good at science, so I have to admit, the yoga anatomy sessions are a bit overwhelming.

So, what does all this mean to you? Well, because I need to dedicate more time to my teacher training, I’m not going to kid myself that I can still keep up the pace of the blog postings I did in the past, and I definitely need to halt production of my Web series No Songs for Men (yeah, the money that used to pay for NSFM production is now paying for my yoga-teacher training tuition). You’ve probably already noticed that the postings have dwindled off a bit, but I promise to keep MariaMedia alive with occasional postings, and someday I’ll finish up the story of the Code Cherry gals when I have the time to keep the episodes cranking out on a regular schedule.

Thanks again for your continued support, and, please, if you are spiritual in any way, send me a little love and encouragement as I go through my yoga-teacher training. This has been a fun journey so far, and I can’t wait to see where my passion for yoga takes me next.

I love the colors of the sunset, but I have to admit that this time of year, they have some fierce competition from the beautiful colors of the fall foliage. I live within walking distance to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, so it’s easy for me to take a break during my day to sneak out and take in the changing colors as they unfold. Like the sunset, there is a new episode every day as the canvas of colors and density of leaves drastically changes.

So, to mix things up today, instead of sunset pictures, I thought I would share some of the pictures I took last fall. Unfortunately, my camera cannot capture the crisp fall air, the smell in the air, and the sound of crunching leaves beneath my feet, but a few cows and a flowing river make up for it (sort of!).

These trees and horses hang out at Hale Farm & Village in Bath, Ohio.

These beauties were taken in Peninsula, along the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Check out the sun glistening through the trees and on the water.

This is my favorite fall foliage scenic view spot for sweeping panoramic views of the Cuyahoga Valley from the Ledges at Virginia Kendall Park.

And then the fat lady sings, and we’re forced to look at naked trees for the next six months. Ugh, this time of year really is bittersweet. It is so beautiful for a few weeks, and then we are robbed of all our green leaves, the green grass turns brown, and the skies in northeast Ohio turn gray! In this case it really isn’t a fat lady, but an obese, ugly, old man winter who is singing the blues. I can only wish for a few more Indian summer days to sustain me through the coming months.

At her eightieth birthday party, Sophie Tucker (a.k.a. The Last of the Red Hot Mamas) was asked to reveal her secret of achieving a long life. She replied: ”Keep breathing.”

Damn, I was hoping she would say it was a few glasses of red wine every day, but nevertheless, Sophie must have been a yogini at heart because she knew understood the power of pranayama*.

Like most people that work at a computer all day, I have very tight neck and shoulder muscles and frequently experience pain in my lower back. I practice yoga to help relieve my back pain, and I recently started directing my pranayama breathing into my lower back and problem areas during yoga class (primarily during savasana). Since I started this breathing practice I’ve noticed a huge difference. My back has never felt better, and the tightness and pain in my shoulders are diminishing.

So I started to think, is this back pain relief all in my head, or is my directed breathing activity really medicinal?

I did a little research on the phenomenon and got really excited when I read that during meditation, if you allow your mind to focus on a particular part of the body, the blood flow to that body part increases, providing an abundance of oxygen and other nutrients into those cells.

So, it wasn’t all in my head. There really is something to this focused breathing, and it is having a positive impact on my well-being. I’ve been flooding my aching back with natural healing ingredients fueled by the gift of my breath. Plus, this deep breathing also leaves me in a calmer state and reduces my stress levels.

Do you have back aches and pains in your body? Try a little meditation with guided breathing and you never know, you may just add a few more years to your life!

Photo: Jonathan Natiuk (Isn’t that a cool picture? According to Jonathan those are real lungs that were plasticized!)

*Pranayama: Broken down into plain English, pranayama means breath control. Breathing comes natural, but we can control our breath with special methods of inhaling and exhaling to gain physical and mental benefits, and to alleviate stress.

“I hope I have convinced you—the only thing that separates successful people from the ones who aren’t is the willingness to work very, very hard.” —Helen Gurley Brown

Happy Monday! Don’t you just love the start of a new workweek? A whole five days to accomplish goals, fill in the blanks, and fulfill some dreams.

I know, you are probably about to gag right now because, let’s face it—Mondays pretty much suck!

So, put a smile on your face, grab some coffee, and get ready for an amazing week. And if that doesn’t do it, let some of the crazy stuff Helen Gurley Brown has done motivate and amuse you this morning.

-          Helen got breast implants five years ago…when she was 73!

-          Her favorite quote is: “Sex is one of the three best things we have, and I don’t know the other two.”

-          Her favorite motto: “Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere.”

As crazy as Helen may seem, she is not a sex junkie, but rather a work junkie. She loves to work and obviously has worked very hard throughout her life. In her seventies, she is still working out twice a day, doesn’t drink or smoke, and has been a faithful wife to her husband of 35 years. She is a self-made woman whom Gloria Steinem called a feminist “pioneer.” When she got the pink slip from Cosmopolitan magazine in 1996, she didn’t go off into retirement; instead, she became editor of their international editions and has made them all profitable.

You may not like some of the messages that Helen conveyed through Cosmopolitan magazine over the years, but she is a gutsy lady with a ton of charisma and swagger, and I think she is a woman who rocks!

Here are a few links to Helen’s works:

Her memoir, I’m Wild Again

The book that started it all, the cult classic, Sex and the Single Girl

Coffee Cup Image: Alessandro Paiva

“When it’s being used as an insult, bitch is an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and do not shy away from expressing them, and who do not sit by and smile uncomfortably if they are bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we will take that as a compliment, thanks.” –Bitch Magazine

Wow, I never knew there was a Bitch magazine. But there is and it’s pretty damn cool. It has been around for 12 years, with the goal of pointing out the insidious, everyday sexism that is so rampant in our pop culture and providing alternatives that celebrate prowoman and profeminism pop products. Actually, Bitch is more than a magazine; it has morphed into BitchMedia and has a Web site/blog full of really smart articles, podcasts, videos, and, if you live in the Portland, Oregon, area, a library stocked full of books for women.

If you ever want to call me a b#@!% for being outspoken, bring it on; I’ll always take it as a compliment! Embrace your inner beeyotch today and check out BitchMedia.

Related articles by Zemanta

• From the Library | Bitch Magazine (bitchmagazine.org)
• From the Library: Outing the Father of Librarianship | Bitch Magazine (bitchmagazine.org)
• The Hip-Hop Effect: The Bitch Complex (urbanbellemag.com)

Well, another sunset season is coming to an end for me, and I have to say that it makes me a little melancholy. From the months of April through October, the rotation of the Earth and the sun are perfectly aligned, so I get to see the sun drop into Lake Erie on a regular basis. It’s getting cooler, so I can’t sit outside in shorts and enjoy nature’s free light show anymore, but I’m still venturing out with a few extra layers and snapping up lots of pictures while I can.

It has been a great season of sunsets, and I took the time recently to click through all the pictures I took to pick out a few favorites. As I was doing so, I marveled at how different the script is every night, with the colors of the sky and the water all different shades from the rainbow and the sometimes not-so-subtle nuances of the clouds for added dimension. The soundtrack can vary too, with either wind, waves, or calm waters.

So, I thought I would share some of the rainbow colors of the summer 2010 sunset season.

This photo was taken on August 12. I love the hazy, lazy, fuzzy, pink sky and the shimmery silver-blue color of the water. It was hot this day, but the water looked very cool.

On June 28 the sky lit up in a deep orange and gold that was amazing.

This was the romantic purple haze and sultry pink sunset from July 8. I love the colors of the sun sparkling off the surface of the water. The cloud formation at the horizon added just the right amount of flair to the occasion.

On September 26 the sunset started out pretty tame.

And then the clouds put on a little fireworks show of their own.

The clouds really deserve a Best Supporting Actress award this year, as they provided lots of drama and, in this case, they were channeling rays of light from the heavens. This picture is from July 18.

When I heralded the beginning of sunset season this year, I thought it would be interesting to count the number of hours I logged watching the sunset. I totally forgot to do this, but I did count the number of pictures I took, and there were over 300. I’m going to savor these last few weeks of sunset season, but this winter when I’m cold and missing my sunset, I’ll have plenty of beautiful pictures to cheer me up. I’ll also be saving up to buy a new camera so I can take even better pictures next year.

If you want to see more of my Lake Erie 2010 Sunset Series photos search the Sunsets & Sea glass category on MariaMedia.

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

“Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.”

–Marion C. Garretty

“There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one.”

–Jill Churchill

My new great-niece was born last week, and I am so excited to have another woman in my family! The Currier clan is a little heavy on the guy side, so it is wonderful to welcome another lady into the fold. Now we have another reason to buy pretty pink shoes, play with Barbies, and host tea parties.

Photo: Amanda Mafioletti

Sending lots of love (and a few inspirational quotes) to Max, Rachael, and Fiona. Please keep me in mind for babysitting and I can’t wait for my first pop-a-party night with Fiona.

Illustration by Gabriella Fabbri