Making Progress?

Lately all things in my life have to do with yoga. What to eat for lunch? If I eat a veggie burger and fries, I'll feel horrible in class later. If I eat lentil soup, I'll feel bad in class too. Should I have a glass of wine tonight? Eh, maybe not, I'll feel dehydrahted in the morning. Coffee, soda? Nope, need to drink water so I don't pass out in yoga later. Everything seems to revolve around yoga. Maybe that's a good thing, I do tend to obsess about things and let everything else take the back burner. I mean that is how I got to the point of committing to the challenge. For years, any sort of exercise has just not been my priority. School, work, home projects have always taken over and during the last few months something clicked in me that reminded me without great health, none of those other things matter. Do I still work very hard at my job everyday? Absolutely. But for the first time in a LONG time I have managed to leave work at 5p each day to get to yoga while still meeting deadlines at work. And somehow, I haven't felt incredibly stressed. Maybe making this challenge a priority is positively affecting other aspects of my life. One of the instructors, Kathy, always says "the most important thing in your life is you." She's absolutely right. Of course the instructors say lots of things, some of which I can't help but laugh, like when Gianna calls everyone "my yogis." All I can think is "I fooled you!" Ha ha! Yogi? Hardly! Some days it takes all I've got to just stay in the room, much less actually do all of the poses. Overall though, I am making progress, which makes me feel good.

In other progress related news...Jason's company is doing really well! He's done so many proposals lately, for bigger jobs, and the signed contracts have been rolling in. The next few weeks will be very busy for him but hopefully this is a sign of how things will be this year. I'm so happy that his business has been successful so far and can't imagine things any other way. We've had to make a lot of adjustments in this past year and are slowly getting back to a place that involves actually building our savings again, it's all been worth it. And I know as time goes on we'll continue to see that. For now our life is revolving around my yoga schedule, Jason's work and squeezing in time to hang out with friends! I'm ready for spring and grilling out on the patio, that will definitely call for having people over to enjoy it with us!

Half Way Done!!!

Sweat. Lots and lots of SWEAT! yuck! On Saturday, February 5th I officially made it to the half way point in the Bikram challenge, 30 classes are complete and for me, 21 days of enduring the heat since my last day off. Have I seen any improvement since the day I started, Jan 2nd? Yes and no. Some days I have a great class and feel like I'm making a ton of progress, yesterday was one of those days. I kicked out, briefly, in the "standing head to knee" pose. That was quite an accomplishment considering how I lack any coordination or balance, just the fact that I'm not falling right away when I stand on one leg is amazing, HA! I know I will probably never be flexible enough to be in a yoga competition but I would like to do some of the postures better than I do today. In my 60th class I really really hope that I can hold onto my feet in Camel, right now I can barely grab one.


I also have a lot of "mental" goals for the next 30 days....
- quiet my mind; stop making grocery lists, thinking about things I need to do at home/work and all those other little thoughts that creep into my mind when I am desperately trying to grab my feet in Camel and Rabbit
- limit the mental freak out when I see someones sweat fall onto my towel/mat. I know I am shooting eye daggers at them when I drop falls, but it's not their fault, the room is packed and they are just trying to do yoga too. I should be more understanding, there might be a day when I accidentally sweat on someone else's towel...although not likely ;)
- stop judging myself. No one is perfect and as I overheard someone say before class the other day, everyone has their demons. As long as I continue to go and try then I will continue to grow and improve. As they say, you get 100% benefit if you do the pose correctly, depth is just an extra.
- keep up the determination to finish this challenge...because I get a free t-shirt! ha ha!

I guess we'll see what happens in the hot room tomorrow!

New Year, New Challenge

Torture Chamber. That's what they call it. At the beginning of this year I decided to finally commit to doing a Bikram Challenge. And it DOES feels like torture. 90 minutes, 105 degrees, 50% humidity and way too many people in one room. Some home I've made it through 17 of the 60 classes so now I'm over a quarter of the way complete. There are times during class I wonder if I'll make it through an entire class. But then there are days, like yesterday, that part way through in my most unfavorite pose, I break out into a smile and can't wipe off the stupid grin on my face the rest of the class. I still can't explain that one.

This past year has been very challenging. Jason starting a business and some uncertaintity in my job both contributed to a hectic year. So my goal for 2011 is to focus on simplifying some things in our lives. I've now been vegan for 2 years but until recently haven't maintained a steady workout schedule, which is another very important side of being healthy. My job is important to me but as we have both learned, in the end business is business and you may not have that job forever, or even as long as you might like. The stress of having one person responsible for a business and then an employee's livelihood, kind of scary! Doing this yoga benefits me in so many ways, I am determined to make it through the 60 classes and get my free t-shirt! HA!

So here's to starting the year off with new challenges! I want to document this yoga "journey" as I'm curious what changes I'll see in the 60-ish days of the challenge. My goal for this week's practice is to quiet my mind and just breathe. That is a struggle for this type-A personality with personal space issues in a packed room with sweating strangers only a couple inches away from me. We shall see....

Maybe I spoke too soon???

I took off work today (Friday) b/c my youngest brother-in-law is getting married on Saturday and there are several wedding events, the first being a cocktail party last night. Anyway, today our stone/brick guys were scheduled to show up AND....they are here!!!! Woohooo!!!! I am watching brick go on the base of the columns and the stone outdoor "kitchen" be built. They are expecting to be done with that today so I will definitely take pics and update by the end of the weekend. While they are here and b/c we're getting such a great deal, we are having them do a small retaining wall in the front yard where our yard just slopes too much and do stone borders around our flower beds. Best part is that we managed to get the stone for free thanks to my sis-in-law who works for a home builder! Yeah to saving money!!!!

Just wanted to share my excitement! Oh and we found a table and chairs for the patio too so once they are done today we can actually put it together and sit out there! I definitely need to have some sort of get together to celebrate - everyone is invited!!!!

The project that won't end

As you may or may not know, we have been working on building a covered patio with a "kitchen" area. It has been going on for almost 6 months now and we've run into every issue possible. BUT we're almost done so I guess I need to post pics!!! The first picture is just so you can see from the back of the house, it's when we had to fix the arches that were messed up - they were pointy - not good. They have since been redone and look much better.
Next is after arches are fixed, stucco is done, ceilings are in, lights in, fans in - yeah! All that's left is brick at the base of the columns and the stone work for the grill area which will be L-shaped in the corner on this next picture


I'm sure I should have a lot more pictures, but I don't. Due to the many frustrations pictures have been the last thing I've thought about. I will definitely take many pics once the brick and stone is done this weekend!!!!

Tahoe Ski Trip

Dang - so I'm already behind for the year! So...let me catch up!

We went to Heavenly Ski Resort at South Lake Tahoe towards the end of January. Now yes, it's very true that I am such a klutz and therefore not a very good skiier BUT I love to go on winter trips and ski, tube, just play in the snow. When we got there on Thursday it was raining and it didn't snow in town until late Saturday and Sunday. We did ski on Friday which was horrible! It was warm enough on the mountain that although it was snowing it was a wet snow. We were soaked to the bone by the end of the day. And I fell a million times! One of the last times I fell my head snapped back and I had whiplash for several days after - not fun. Saturday we took a break because we were tired and I had not recovered from my falls. We had planned on going up the gondola to do the Heavenly Flyer - a zip-line ride!!! Yeah, didn't happen, the Flyer was closed the entire time we were there due to weather. Instead we went and saw a movie, Bride Wars - cute and had drinks at Cabo Wabo in one of the casinos. Sunday wasn't too much more exciting. Jason skiied for part of the day but I was still suffering so I walked around the village and then went up later to go tubing.

All in all I would have to say it was the worst ski trip I've ever been on. On the positive side, it was nice to get away from work for a few days and we still managed to have fun despite the circumstances. Here's some pics - nothing to amazing because of the rain it was always foggy and misty so we didn't get to see the amazing views that Tahoe is known for!

This is the view we had from the mountain. We were expecting much clearer skies but no such luck.:(

Like I said, not my favorite vacation ever but still a nice getaway. Oh - I did read some books while we were there! Marley and Me was one of them - I really want to see the movie now but am glad I read the book. It's such a good story and true!

Update on DigiScrapping & Vegan

I purchased Photoshop yesterday and most of the afternoon I played on it trying to figure out how to do things with photos and create a scrapbook page layout. So, first of all, I love the tutorials on The Shabby Shoppe website! They were very helpful when I was trying to figure it out. Now I still don't know how to do everything but I've created 5 scrapbook pages on our paris trip!!! Woohoo! I love The Shabby Shoppe and the same person has another site that has some free digital scrapbooking products which is all I've used so far. I figure I'll wait to spend money until I've gotten a little better at it. I found Photoshop at Wal-mart for the cheapest price but still, that cost me a little bit. Jason is glad that we finally have something to do with all of our photos, if I can do a couple pages a week then I'll be caught up, ok, well at least get a lot done, quickly!!! I'm currently trying to figure out how I can post an image of one of my pages on my blog, when I do...I'll post one!

Onto the veganism...it's still going well - yeah! This week we'll be trying some soy hot dogs and I found a recipe to make chicken nuggets using tofu - not sure how that will be but Jason is willing to try it! I don't plan on making too many "fake" alternates b/c I don't really think that doing that is THAT healthy, but one every so often isn't bad. :) A controller at my company switched to vegan last August and suggested some other books to read for more information and also to reinforce the reasons why I switched. I ordered a couple on Amazon and waiting for them to come in.