Month: March 2012

And if you aren’t I don’t want to hear about it.

My first, and last, yoga class until Friday was a few years ago at an athletic club in Jackson, WY. I should note that it was also my first time in an athletic club. It was a big day for me. A lot of my friends were members of this club and I had a free trial so I had nothing to lose.

My first impression was that it was a strange place full of sweaty people huffing and grunting as they battled machines that resembled medieval torture devices. I finally spotted a machine that looked familiar. Aha! A treadmill. I’d been on one of those before. Granted it was when I was about 10 and my friend and I would take turns sitting on a pillow while the other turned the treadmill on full speed to shoot the pillow riding person across the room. I remembered that as being pretty fun so I thought the treadmill was a pretty safe bet for me to try.

I got on, pushed a button and started moving at a brisk walk. Easy peasy but a bit boring. Then I noticed the row of tv’s lining the wall in front of me. Ohhhh, perfect. It was a bit awkward to watch as I had to tilt my head up to see the screen. This motion, combined with my attempts to read the closed captioning scrolling across the screen, diverted my focus from what my feet were doing and before I knew it I’d lost my balance and was sprawled on the floor. I decided that riding on the treadmill was much more fun than exercising on it.

A quick survey of the gym lead me to the conclusion that I had absolutely no idea what to do with any of the other equipment and as I had no desire to further my humiliation it was time to go. I was just bolting out the door when I ran into two friends on their way in for a yoga class. Before I knew it, I was back inside and in my first yoga class. I’d heard all about yoga, but never thought it really fit my personality. I don’t exactly radiate zen. After the rat race of the gym though, it sounded perfectly delightful. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of an hour spent in serenity and reflective meditation.

Then the instructor, a fifty-something hippie dude, launched into an hour and a half lecture about how we should be living our lives (no television, no meat, no booze) while leading us through a series of body contortions that I’m pretty sure my body was not built to do. So much for my hour of zen. If that was yoga, I wanted nothing to do with it.

And I stuck to my guns until this Friday when I attended a class called Yin Yoga; a type of yoga focused on maintaining poses, controlling breathing and slowing down your mind. I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical about spending an hour stretching and taking deep breaths with a bunch of random strangers. I’d even heard that all that stretching could lead to wayward farts. And at first it was a bit weird. I’m not flexible or graceful so I felt like an elephant in a room of yoga goddesses. The instructor encouraged us to relax but how was I supposed to do that when I was simultaneously sucking-in my muffin top, worrying that I might fart and trying not to fall over? Gradually it became too hard to focus on measured breathing, holding the poses AND judging myself so I just let go and went with it. In fact, by the end of the class I was drifting off on a pleasant daydream. My worries were gone and I was one with the world. Clouds wafted across a blue sky and waves crashed on the beach. I floated in a….Wait.

The reverie faded and was replaced by the sound of snores. Was that coming from me?? Nope. It was coming from the yoga goddess to my left (who’s the elephant now!). I stifled a laugh and felt a wave of triumph–I’d managed to complete the class without seriously embarrassing myself AND accomplished the class mission of becoming relaxed through breathing and stretching. Miracles do happen.

Mom, I’m dedicating this post to you as you’ve worked hard to instill the importance of a healthy breakfast in me. I’m sure my desire to eat pie every morning for breakfast while home for the holidays is still fresh in your mind. You won that battle, but I’m sure there are some lingering doubts in your mind that I’m some sort of pie-eating monster while away from your guidance. So I thought I’d share my new favorite breakfast to ease your mind. Really it revolves around the Greek yogurt and the fact that I have gallons of it courtesy of Costco. Maybe it’s an acquired taste but I think plain Greek yogurt tastes like mushed-up cardboard. Luckily with granola, fresh fruit (I chose strawberries because they were on sale) and honey it tastes yummy. Kinda like a mushed-up pie.

So I discovered a new side of myself and I just have to share. I’m pretty crafty. It all started when I bought a bottle of wine to give our neighbors and needed to package it. They pretty much saved our lives when our gas heater thingie was leaking gas a few weeks ago. Well, actually they alerted the proper authorities who sent an expert to check out the situation precisely at the time I arrived home to take a shower and go to dinner. Shower postponed as the expert then thoroughly examined our house (commenting on the “bachelor pad decor”) and declared the gas smell was coming from the trash (seriously?) until I suggested that maybe that wasn’t very likely. After some major head scratching on his part and major freaking out on my part that I was going to die from some sort of gas poisoning with the gas repairman standing right there, he finally figured out it was coming from the heater. Anyways we’ve already established that he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the room. So after all this the least we could do was give the neighbors a bottle of wine.

My plan was to go to Target and purchase one of those cute little wine gift bags. Only problem was that I didn’t feel like I could go into Target that day. Some days I’m feeling stronger than others and on that particular day I was feeling pretty weak. I knew I could not go in there and walk out with one measly little wine gift bag. My willpower could not take the latest summer apparel just begging for me to buy it. Because somewhere deep down inside I still believe that if I buy summer clothes then it will be summer. And then I started thinking about turkey neck and how I should really get some wrinkle cream which lead to thoughts about wasn’t there some trick that Annette in the movie Grease did to tone her neck and maybe they sell that movie at Target? And if I had that movie wouldn’t it be nice to watch it in bed with a brand new tv and blue ray player for our bedroom?

Can you see why there was absolutely no way that I could go into that store? That’s why I got crafty. I thought about it and decided that those bags are really  glorified brown paper bags anyways and wouldn’t  it be fun to “brown bag” the wine myself? So I went to it. I snagged a grocery bag from the recycling bin but I really wanted it to look organic so the huge logo wouldn’t do. I decided to turn the bag inside out. All I can say about that process is be very careful. Turning a paper bag inside out without ripping it to shreds is harder than it looks. So once that was accomplished I did some artistic arrangement of the bag and viola:

Errrrr, k not exactly what I’d envisioned. There is no way I can give the people who saved our lives this monstrosity. On the other hand, there is a nice, tasty bottle of wine inside and isn’t there some saying that it’s the thought that counts?? As I was weighing my options I saw it. Blue tissue paper just waiting to be wrapped around the wine bottle and secured with a hair tie, tape, rubber band…I wasn’t sure but I knew I was on to something. I still had some odds n ends from the last time I tried to get crafty and found some ribbon. In a jiffy I had a beautifully dressed wine bottle. Mission accomplished! Impulse to shop at Target thwarted, package wrapped and all is right with my little world. Now surely there’s a bottle of wine for me around here somewhere?!