How many calories are in that marshmallow?

One new development in our lives over the past few months is that Young William and I enrolled in a fitness boot camp. Holy crap, right? Yeah.... that's what I originally said. Holy CRRAAAAP!!! The place we are going to is Boot Camp Santa Fe and we totally love it. I have maybe never been more surprised at myself in my whole life.  We were initially prodded to join by Jeff and Kari (friends and owners of the place where I work) because they wanted to join up and start getting in better shape. So we did it... we are now about ten weeks in to a 3 day a week schedule getting our asses whooped. Whipped? Whooped. Definitely WHOOPED. For the initial 8 weeks (the beginner class) we went and never missed a class. I was sore every day for 8 weeks solid. For reals.

For anyone out there curious about joining a boot camp here is a bit about our particular class..... it's 50 minutes long, you have about a 5 to 8 minute warm up period of stretching and getting your heart rate up a bit and then the next 40 minutes consists of squats, sit ups, push ups, holding the plank pose, mountain climbers, jumping rope, more squats, more sits ups and so on and so forth. You never stop moving and there are a million variations on the theme. I never knew there were so many ways to do sit ups. You will feel like you are going to straight up die for sure at least two or three times during the class. Then there is a quick cool down stretching session right at the end. The thing I have grown to love about the class is that it pushes you to work harder than you ever would alone. Well, for most people anyway. I am sure there are some fitness buffs out there that can go ape shit all by themselves but I am not one of them. After finishing the 8 week beginner class and then doing two of FRANK'S classes over the holiday break time (you must say the name FRANK with some authority and volume because FRANK means business) I feel stronger than I have in perhaps my entire life. Billy is feeling it too although he used to be a muscle head back in the day unlike me so his body has gone down this road before... whereas mine has most certainly not. Allow me to mention that I achieved a moment toward the end of one of FRANK'S classes where I was actually gagging. My body was trying to make me barf.... but I did not let it. Sheer will power people. Sheeeeer will power at work there.

So yeah! We are now enrolled in the nest session of camp and classes started again this week. We plan to keep going three days a week for the next 16 weeks to carry us through til Spring when we will drop one day of class so we can go hiking in the mountains on that day instead. I also just signed up for this thing called Gym Pact which is a free application for iPhones or iPads (nothing on the market yet for droids etc.) where you pledge how many days a week you are planning to go to the gym and a dollar amount you must pay in if you miss a day (I pledged ten bucks.) You check in when you get to the gym and the GPS registers whether or not you are really there.... if you don't check in then you pay ten bucks. If you DO check in and never miss a scheduled day at the gym then you actually MAKE money. The money comes from the lazy slobs who did not go when they said they would... and the funds go straight into a paypal account. Cool, right? I have no idea what the earnings will be.... a pretty insignificant amount I am sure, but what the Hell, it's another motivating factor to get us there.

Other than that news it's pretty much business as usual around here. Rudy is crabby because it's winter. He is usually stationed by the door that looks out on to the entry way to our compound in his cozy bed garumphing and mumbling at the passers by....

Yesterday I made some from scratch marshmallows. We have been trying really hard to not eat sweets but listen up Yo, it ain't easy. These gigantic marshmallows only have about 30 calories per.... so they are a great way to shut your brain up when it goes scratching around bitching and moaning that it needs sugar. I made mine with orange zest, cardamom spice and organic orange extract. Here is the recipe I used.... you can modify it any old way you please which is awesome. You do need a candy thermometer and a stand mixer with a whisk attachment so go out and buy those things pronto if you don't have them on hand already. I also doubled the recipe and just put it in a 9 x 13 inch pan with no problems.

If you have never had a real marshmallow before they really do beat the pants right off of the store bought variety. There is no comparison. Especially for putting in hot chocolate.