In the world of blogging, one thing you need to do is find at least one good person to collaborate with. It’s beneficial to everyone involved. Ideas are crafted. Bonds are formed. Comfort levels are expanded. Traffic is increased and analytics become more interesting! (Sorry, I work in data outside of this food blog. Ha! Numbers occasionally make me geek out. 😉 )

For many years, I’ve been following Yoga By Candace by Candace Moore, a well-known yoga instructor who runs a healthy lifestyle blog, incorporating her practice into it as well as fitness tips, recipes, and wonderful healthful products. She just released her first book, Namaslay: Rock Your Yoga Practice, Tap Into Your Greatness, & Defy Your Limits, which lays out best practices for the craft as well as how she’s persevered after a very serious illness. I’ve started reading though, and as a non-yoga practicer that has been interested yet a bit intimidated by the whole concept of yoga, she breaks it down in a way that soothes my angst about doing it incorrectly.

Can I throw it back? I’ve actually known Candace since we were nuggets! We lived a few houses away from each other and would play together a lot as kids. If there is one thing I’ll always remember, it was listening to “Love Shack” by The B52s on vinyl (before it was technically vintage and still a primary way of listening to music if you didn’t want to rewind a cassette tape) and lip syncing along; Candace, I’m not sure if you remember this, but you always made to lip sync Fred Schneider’s parts of the song while you got to lip sync Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson’s parts. I was always upset you never let me do the female parts, though, in hindsight, doing Fred Schneider’s parts is pretty cool. Ha! Also, in a throwback surely all 80s babies can appreciate, we, along with our neighbor Amy, attempted to form a Babysitters’ Club…I remember the excitement of conceptualizing our version of it, but don’t remember it actually panning out. Haha. Needless to say, life happens, adolescence happens, and we had our own friend groups by the time we got to high school. Around 2013, I discovered her blog via a mutual friend on Facebook, and started following along, impressed by her posts. Social media can work in many ways, sometimes driving people apart (hello, politics!), but social media definitely brought us back together again. After posting a status on my personal Facebook page, encouraging my friends to follow this blog’s IG feed, I got a message from Candace over Facebook messenger, and, well…

As I attempt to move this blog from mere “hobby” status into possibly more of a side business in the next few years (I have my eyes on the prize of, one day, crafting a cookbook), I am thankful for all of the opportunities I have to expand my reach, and having Candace reach out to me has made me so incredibly happy. I am glad to have her help, and I am also glad to (hopefully!) enrich her site with wholesome recipes that her readers will enjoy.

Please follow this link for the recipe Apple Pumpkin Oatmeal, featured on Yoga By Candace.