Oh Chooch

I swear to you neither of these are staged…

Tummy time…

And the most perfect Up Dog pose there ever was.  So perfect that I am showing you my living room in a messy moment.

36.5

Meh I’ll take a picture for next time.  SORRS.  It really is pointless because I could take it, but then by press time I’d be like 4 pounds bigger.  The third trimester tummy is some serious stuff, folks.  The one observation I will make here is that you really never realize how many objects you drop on a daily basis until you are carrying around a large, globular orb between your chest and pelvis.  Yoga has been extremely helpful because picking something up off the ground requires me to perform either a yogi squat or this really ugly interpretation of Warrior 3 where I just sort violently fling one leg behind me to make a space for Frogson as I bend.  It’s attractive.  And has resulted in many objects just sort of… staying on the floor.  Because I just stare at them and reflect on how far away they are and how much exertion will be required to move them.  Any day now would be great, nesting instinct.

In very exciting news, we officially are 100% in possession of all the necessary objects to clothe, bathe, diaper, and drive Frogson around in the car.  It feels good to have all those boxes checked.  The American Express corporation is funding its Christmas bonuses because of us, but whatever.  Pending three shelves being hung in the nursery, we are ready.  Boo ya.

I continue to have caloric needs comparable to those of a large marine mammal.  Last week I was working from Panera and treated myself to a little lunch action.  They have one of those scenarios where they offer half salads and sandwiches and you can make your own combo or whatever.  It’s billed as the “Pick Two” menu.  I went up to the poor cashier and was like, “Umm, I know it says pick two, but may I… pick three?” (You can.  I like having a big baby belly.  It costs you less dignity when you make these kinds of requests.)  Three items also qualifies you for TWO sides.  So for lunch that day, fetus and I had half a sandwich, half a salad, a cup of soup, chips, and an apple.  With peanut butter.  IT WAS AWESOME.  He kicked and flipped and lurched with delight afterwards, as if to say YOUR OFFER PLEASES ME, HOST ORGANISM.

What else. I know I proclaimed weeks ago that my belly button was about to pop, but the belligerent little effer continues to hold its innie ground against all odds.  It’s all die another day suckahs, INNIE FO LIFE.

That’s it for now.  I’ll be back later, probably e-sobbing about my Group B strep test, because I have a really bad feeling about it.  I have had every form of strep infect my throat about 90 times each, so I’m pretty convinced this is going to be a bummer.  Enough whining.  First world problems.  Smell you all later.

 

Blurbs

Hi.  Misc for you today.

1.  I need some perspective here.  I never thought of myself as a grouchy old lady who hates kids– I love kids! I’m loaning my body to one!– but our neighborhood’s roving band of kiddies is working on my last nerve.  So, we live in a townhouse community, meaning we knew we were taking a hit on privacy… and I would forgive a reasonable amount of trespassing because it’s hard for all of us not to be all up in each other’s bidness… but I was not prepared to have groups of kids playing in our driveway (running between the cars!) and corralling right in front of our big living room window.  (Our window is big and low, so when they do this and we’re on the couch, we’re eye level and separated by like 9 feet.  It’s really uncomfortable). I do not even know who to whine to because I have no freaking idea what adults these effers belong to.

Yesterday it reached new levels of crazitude.  Some kiddie was again playing right up at the window, and Chooch is understandably flipping the eff out, and the window was open… this kid turns right to the screen and starts, like, interacting with Chooch! THEN he starts calling over to ME, sitting innocently at my desk in my living room! I mean the kid was a sweetheart, just asking a bunch of questions about Chooch, but WTF… going up to strangers’ windows and starting conversations with them between the screen?! What if I was Jerry Sandusky??

I don’t know… do you agree that’s inappropriate kid behavior or am I being grouchy? I remember being a kid and being tempted every day to cut through yards to shorten my walk from the bus stop… except I was TERRIFIED at the thought of it and assumed I’d be shot immediately.  I think once I did cut through a yard because, I don’t know, there was a tornado or something… and I was consumed with guilt and thought I was on the fast track to a life of crime and jail time.  And here these guys are having parties in my flowerbed! KIDS TODAY.

2.  Holy poo, I am a walking pregnancy stereotype right now.  You know I’ve never really felt strong cravings in that I’ve needed something specific NOW (except maybe for french toast day that I mentioned)… but there have been a handful of foods that I’ve been oddly attracted to and eaten irregularly large amounts of (chocolate milk, grilled cheese and tomato soup, bread dipped in olive oil, garlic bread).  NOM.  Also sort of on that list is burgers… I’ve had a few burgers in these last few months that have been life-changingly delicious, and a few that have nauseated me horribly.  So strange.  Anyway… boring… I just want to put on the official record that last night I ate two turkey burgers and two bowls of ice cream for desert.  The two bowls of ice cream may have also been topped with oreos.  5.5 oreos.  Possibly 6.5 oreos, the math is hazy. If I get to January without turning into Honey Boo Boo’s mom, I will be really proud of myself.

3.  UGH Pennsylvania Yoga blows.  It’s so exhausting to start from scratch finding classes and teachers you like, especially since I’m already picky and now extra critical having been teacher trained.  (Ugh I am also doubling down on finding actual classes to teach.  It’s no longer cute that I haven’t made money doing so yet!).  In the event any of these unnamed institutions want to hire my fine self, the below complaining will self destruct.

So, first I excitedly tried out a prenatal class.  We have one prenatal place in the area so I was pretty determined to love it.  MEH.  The flow made zero sense to me.  Newsflash, instructor chick… poses that require your tummy to fold flat against  your thighs are rendered impossible when a fetus has gone and occupied that space! Forward fold to a runner’s lunge? Huh? IT NO WORK.  Umm, we also all hung out in eagle pose forever.  I mean the poor 3rd trimester chicks couldn’t even get their leg over their belly; I could still manage to wrench my leg over but I’m standing there wondering why I’m CLAMPING my legs together in a prenatal class.  Dude if I have any chance of birthing without getting sliced open like a salmon, then I have 3 months to stretch my Justin Bieber hips into BURTHIN’ hips.  Hit me with some squats or something.  Sheesh.  Oh, we also finished class in a deep supine twist which, as I was taught at least, is flat out bad for pregs.  I left pretty bummed. 

I went to another place and it was otay but nothing to write home about.  I am excited that earlier this week I think I found a studio that might be “the one.”  One hypothesis I have about the Yoga “scene” around here– sorry to use that word, I sound like a douche– is that while there are not a lot of people who do it, the people who go are GUNG.  HO.  Like, everyone knows each other and it has been truly awkward walking into these classes because everyone gawks at me, and I get the impression they don’t see a lot of new faces.  Like, the class earlier this week, there were I think 7 people in the class… me plus a handful of other women, all most definitely in their mid to late 40′s, maybe older.  And while I have to stick to the company line that Yoga is not a competition, I must say these broads making menopause jokes totally kicked my butt!  I mean they are popping up into headstands in the middle of the room, shooting from crow to chatarunga, plopping down into full splits (or whatever the sanskrit name is)… mostly while I’m gazing in amazement from the comfort of my child’s pose (wide legged of course.)  I remarked to the teacher afterwards what a strong class it was, and she’s all “Yea, we’ve all been doing this class together for like 10, 15 years.”  Dayum, Pennsylvanians!

Sadly, I’ve had the best experience doing my own practice on my back deck while praying nobody happens to walk by and get an eyeful of me in a sports bra doing goddess pose.  With a big old bump. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.  And probably would get me a HOA citation or something.

How to Make a Life

Re-blogged from Jen Pastiloff…

———————–

First:

Take everything you’ve ever learned and everything

You’ve yet to discover and place it in a box labeled Thank You.

Second:

Take a picture of your face and remember

That in many years time you will be amazed at how gorgeous you were.

Be amazed now.

Third:

Find someplace to live.

Make sure it has the ability to let light fall

Across the room in such a way that every so often,

You’ll stop and mouth the words “Ah, sunlight.”

Before you finish dusting the books.

Don’t let the books get dusty.

Open them and reread your favorite sentences

Or give the books away.

Fourth:

Fall in love.

Touch. More than you think.

Have a child if you want one.

If you don’t, don’t.

Let your child out into the world

Discovering for themselves just how magical

It is. Or it isn’t.

It’s theirs to decide.

Give your child a lot of books.

Fifth:

Get a job.

Remember this job is not who you are.

You get to open the silk door of You,

And decide, over and over, as many times as your socks,

Just who you are.

You get to say your own I am.

Sixth:

Do yoga.

Let your body discover what it’s like to move

without your brain holding its hand.

Tell your brain to take a hike.

Let your body believe fully in its own powers.

Let every person you’ve stored inside your muscles out every so often,

to breathe.

Lastly:

Do things that make you feel good.

Let your joy be contagious and spread through

Your home, your job, your children.

Let it spread through the world

Like a virus so that when you forget it,

Every so often, you’ll catch it from someone else.

More Gratuitous Yoga Footage (Sorr Not Sorr)

Breakthrough!

PS this time Jeffrey was home so I made him tape me. Embarassing. Single men, take note: this is what your life will someday look like. Being asked to tape yoga stuff. Get pumped.

Gratuitous Yoga Footage, Sorr

This is what happens when it rains all day (Sunday), you’re alone in the house due to hockey play-offs, and you’ve been corrupted by too many Pinterest pictures.  You experiment with some fun Vinyasa action and, not wanting to waste being all warmed up, one thing leads to another.  Oddly I did not expect this to be successful in the least, since the only way I can achieve lotus legs from sitting is picking up a foot and wrenching it on top of the other, but I must make this PSA for any Yogi-types who might be reading- Lotus leggies are MUCH easier from upside-down! The physics make sense when you think about it, so just goes to show you shouldn’t assume you can not do something Don’t get too excited, I obviously cheated on proper form (a lot).

I hate to put up anything smelling of “self-congratulatory” but whatever, I won’t be able to do this forever.  Also I only taped it because the self-timer didn’t afford me enough time to pain-stakingly wiggle my foot in there before snapping.  (Total pro action right there, lemme tell you!)

Oh and that would be Chooch flinging his bone at me in the first one. And the musical stylings of Fleetwood Mac and Springsteen. (Things got crunk.)

 

 

Hi

I haven’t found a lot of time to write this week, due to a few factors… Some productive like working late and social commitments, and other things less so, like staying up late editing 4 hours worth of a bootlegged Bruce Springsteen concert (9/19/1978 in Passaic, New Jersey OH MAH GOD IT’S INCREDIBLE).  I meeaaann….. paaaayying the Apple corporation for my music……. ahem-hemmy-hem.

So here’s a really irreverent Yoga meme I made.  Patanjali is shaking his fist at me right now but it could not be helped.  I saw this picture in a book and this was all I could think of.

Photo Dump: Yoga School Edition!

Our super talented co-yogi Cheri is also a fledgling photographer and was sort of our official historian throughout teacher training.  Because she is super awesome she shared all these with us and I am going to post some highlights.  I feel awkward posting a bunch of pictures of myself but it’s my blog and I’ll _____ if I want to.  The blank in this instance being “post gratuitous Yoga pictures.”  Kind of a critical piece of my biography at this point.  Plus I think people I know are probably wondering what we did all that time…

Our very first night! Remember I said it felt like yesterday!? The tans remind me it was a whiiiile ago…

Snazzy Down Dog assists…

Guest Instructor Jamie analyzed our stances/posture/gait… so fascinating!

 

Snazzy plank pyramids! Spotting is our intrepid teacher and Guru, Padma… My only hope is that someday I will have deltoids like hers

Sugar Canes (thanks Jenn!)

Y’all we even learned Tai Chi! So cool…

Partner Yoga day was so cool… (with guest apperance by Mr. Padma!)

Guest Instructor Indeira came all the way from her home in Costa Rica where she runs a Yoga retreat center (be jealous!!)

In November we went off to rural Virginia for a weekend retreat…

One morning we were sent separate ways on the “grounds” for individual walking meditations… it was so gorgeous and relaxing and a memorable moment of the experience.  I stood watching a mom and baby deer for like 20 minutes.  Oh gawd did I really just say that? No I really did, but I’d like to think it didn’t come across as that idyllic and sappy in real life?!

See that sky!?

We made energy balls…

My poor husband started dating a Republican campaign staffer six years ago, and now has on his hands a nutbag wifey who makes energy balls, reads Deepak Chopra, and has public freak outs in the produce aisle about pesticides.  It’s kinda funny. 

This was the morning we started at 6:00 and watched the sun rise… Adore this shot!

And we graduated!

Our group shot again (Cheri’s came out far superior to the Droid’s)

Holy Crap We’re Yoga Teachers!

We graduated today!

It seems like just yesterday it was August and I was bounding off to our first class, and now here we are 200 hours later- official RYTs! (Registered Yoga Teachers… wow).  And as noted on facebook, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that 84% of my excitement here is that it rhymes with PYT.  Kidding.  Ish.  I’m ready to see what’s next, but will miss seeing these chicas all weekend every weekend!

And if you’re interested in Yoga instruction for your next bridal, corporate, or private event, please inquire within!

Important PSAs: Did everyone catch this full hour documentary on the world’s only orphanage for baby sloths? No? Drop what  you’re doing.  

And how about this video of a driverless golf cart gone bezerk at a football game? Again, you are welcome!

Uhhhh I Taught a Yoga Class

Let’s talk about my first Yoga class over the weekend.  My inclination is to not talk about it, but since this bloggles is sort of my life memoirs, my hope is that someday I’ll be happy I swallowed my pride and documented the milestone.  

 

The gist of the story is that… well…. I survived. I thought it would go much better, which we’ll get to, but in the 2 days since I’ve chilled out a lot more and realized that hey, it happened, we did Yoga, people inhaled when I told them to inhale and exhaled when I told them to exhale (which for the most part alternated in a proper way), and I saw a lot of pink sweaty faces gazing back at me in the room, so I know that Yoga did indeed happen.  We savasana-ed, we Om-ed, I left them with a nugget of Sanskrit wisdom, we went home.  It wasn’t just me up there talking gibberish like the Swedish Chef while people confusedly looked on with Pug Head Tilts before I started sobbing and bolted for the exit.  Which I guess would constitute a true train wreck of a first class.  So, I did exceed that metric, which should count as some degree of success for my very first maiden teaching voyage, right!? 

 

Here’s the thing about my existence.  And I’ve talked about this here before, and of course if you know me it comes as no surprise, but generally I run around like headless poultry just trying to keep up with life.  Part of this complex is that I am never giving due attention or preparation to important things, always throwing things together at the last-minute and “winging it.”  And it’s a terrible feeling, all those times in my life where I went into everything from a beam routine to a final exam to a job interview to even the dentist, bracing myself for impending disaster because I once again, with no good excuse, failed to adequately practice/study/research/floss. 

 

But the thing is… it always works out! I always expect COMPLETE failure only to be pleasantly surprised that I stayed on the beam! I got an A! They offered me the job! And “Beautiful teeth… keep doing what you’re doing!” Uhh, you mean only flossing on the 12 days preceding my visits with you? OKAY!

 

I did the opposite and took the time to prepare well for my class.  Mostly because on anything else that I procrastinated on, worst case scenario was that I embarrassed or dis-serviced myself.  That I can deal with, but the thought of letting down a group of people with expectations and valuable time was not acceptable.  So, I carefully crafted it, scripted it, rehearsed it, thought I could do it in my sleep, and had this crazy, rare feeling of being ready and prepared.

 

Whooooooa!

 

So now I had the opposite mentality.  For once I did what all the motivational speakers and life experts say you should do, and I visualized success! Thought positive! Believed in myself! If I always ended up doing OK even when I was unprepared, imagine how well things would go if I actually worked at it!  This was gonna be epic! I was going to be James Van Der Beek leading the West Canaan coyotes to victory! Wars would cease, water would become wine, the blind would see! Humans all around the world would weep at the sheer beauty of…. Sarah Becker’s Yoga class!  

 

Umm, CHEA.  Instead humans were subjected to two triangle poses on the same side.  (Among other assorted blunders).  WHOOPSIE DAISY.  

 

 

So then I felt crushed when I didn’t live up to the perfection I had set myself up for.  Then, my mind just went wackadoo.  Did it only feel terrible because my expectations were so high? Did all those other things just feel successful because my expectations were low? Were my mistakes just garden variety mistakes that any first time teacher would make or indicative of an underlying lack of teaching talent?! Was it truly as awful as I thought or was I being unreasonably difficult on myself? Am I the dunce of my class!? Would I ever work in this town again?!?! Cue hyperventilation. 

 

Again, I’ve realized since that my thoughts weren’t the most rational that had ever paid a visit to my conscience.  I’ve calmed down with the help of a few things….

 

1.  On Sunday morning, so after my ill-fated performance but right before our class reconvened for the first time since, I caught a bit of Forgetting Sarah Marshall which we had from the library. I had watched it earlier in the week but somehow missed an entire scene where they go to a Yoga class!

 

Jason Segal’s head stand schtick CRACKED me up.  I honestly felt like discovering this scene I somehow missed was some sort of small consolation from above.  (Fist bump, God).

 

2.  Over the weekend we also had a guest instructor teaching us, a woman who seriously knows everything about everything about Yoga and bodies.  Like, just a total pro.  She told us that the beginning of her teaching career was a “horrible and terrible” experience and that she was so paralyzed with nervousness that she, today, has literally no memory of those 1-2 years.  Not that I’m delighting in her past misery, but it did comfort me that maybe someday I can look back at how far I’ve come since the day I… you know… put people into triangle twice on the same side.

 

3.  The students did have to fill out little evaluations which we got back.  Our teacher did collect these first so that she could screen out anything over-the-top critical, so I’m HOPING no censoring was required for mine, but whatever either way.  Honestly I was expecting mine to just have skull and crossbones drawn on them.  But, happily, surprisingly, everyone indicated they would be, to varying degrees, receptive to taking class from me again! Everyone with the exception of one crazy yahoo who said “not really,” but then gave me the highest rating for all the other questions.  So, I at least did something right in their minds? I guess?

 

So, anyway, that was a REALLY long-winded way of walking you through my emotional world in the last couple days.  Sorry.  You’re welcome.  I’m glad I told the story

 

Also, because I couldn’t possibly not document this for the record… The playlist!

 

Twilight Serenade, Jason Myles Goss

1963, Rachel Yamagata

Jack Straw, Grateful Dead

Soolaimon, Neil Diamond

Brighter Than the Sun, Colbie Caillat

ET, Katy Perry

I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues, Elton John

Fins, Jimmy Buffett

Dog Days Are Over, Florence + The Machine

Love of Our Lives, Indigo Girls

Be Careful, Patty Griffin

Thought I Had Died, The War

 

Phew.  Dear God.  The End.