Who'da Thunk

Paraphrased at Best:
"Go home, eat the best food you can find, and drink lots of water. As always, practice kindness--And start with the person on the mat first. When your cup is full, let it overflow onto others."

From another angle: "Take care of yourself first--you can't heal others if you're too broken."
[Unless your name is Chiron...]

There's a reason the verb for doing yoga is "to practice." It's been a while, but honestly I can say I feel great. It's slightly frustrating though, and a little difficult to stay positive, because I remember what I used to be capable of... and I'm nowhere near that right now. But thinking of that word, "practice," reminded me of band practice. I think in life I need a thing to practice. I may have stepped away from the music, but I have been feeling a calling lately. Part of it is because of the cruise--they have an open jam every night and I'm hoping I still have the chops to follow a guitarist and fake my way through a song or two. My practice used to be music [and rage, I suppose, haha]. Now, my practice will be yoga [and peace].

In case you missed the bulletin, my favoritest yoga studio moved to a much more acceptable location. I used to be able to jog the mile down to the studio before I left the apartment. Until they moved [opening night was literally tonight], I had to drive over, park down town, pay for that or risk the ticket, etc etc. Now I'm back within walking range. I am so excited for that. I'll be starting a 30 day challenge on my next chance. Goal Pose [just realized that it is ironic]:

If you had told 16 year old me that I'd be heading home from yoga, looking forward to leftover Indian food, and snuggling up to my sweetheart vet ... I would have laughed in your face until I suffocated. Ask anyone who knew me, they'd agree. But now, I couldn't ask for more. [Okay actually I could, but I'm sure it will work out later].

Geeking Out H.A.R.D.

For those of you who don't know [which is far too many of you], HARD is a fantastic photographer gal I know. She is seriously amazing.

Ethereal Sessions. I want her to make a book, seriously.

I woke up in a funky mood and haven't wanted to do anything, all day. I've been feeling apathetic and uninspired. Things like taking out the trash, cleaning out the freezer, organizing anything... Anything that requires me to adult is just not really happening. This mood never stretches out long enough for anyone to consider it "real" depression, but it's just as annoying [see: Dysthymia].

My Amazon cart was full of ideas, and I keep forgetting that the clock is actually ticking. For what, you may ask? Two awesome things. One, the Salty Dog Cruise with Flogging Molly. Two, my turn to do photos with Holly! For some reason, that's all I've been able to think about today. I guess it's kind of a good thing, too, because I've been really dragging my feet on getting the materials together. This means that I'm going to have to rely strongly on Etsy and rush orders, but I did find a couple things on Amazon that are helpful. And Ms. T, just wow. Such a quick response and enthusiasm! The good news is that a couple of the items I need for the shoot I can actually use on the cruise too: strappy gladiator sandals and a nice lacy coverup number, for example.

Which reminds me. I forgot to order spf-vampire-level. Crap. But anyways, do you know how hard it is to buy a good swim suit in February? They aren't exactly out on the shelves yet. So I'm stuck with my friend Amazon... but half of their stuff is shipping from China [which also means Asian sizing, not American]. Yeah, my self-image took a big hit today. Thanks for bathing suit sizes, you jerks. However!! After the cruise two things happen. I start back up at school, and my favoritest ever yoga studio moves to a new location. Meaning, not downtown. Meaning, no parking issues. Which is pretty much the only thing that kept me from going. In fact, they are going to be close enough for me to walk to! Score. Ask and the universe will compromise. I still have to do the hard work of going, but this coincidence was well timed.

PupDate: After the Quest of the Cone, Cassius has officially leveled up! He put all of his new stats into Good Boy Points. He's still obnoxious from time to time, but he's much better behaved now. Not sure why, but whatever. I'll take what I can get. Here he is deciding that the kitty scratcher-tree is now his chew toy:

[finishing touches]

Had a fairly productive day, despite the feeling that I'm coming down with crud and a strange pulled... throat muscle? It's weird. Anyways. Starting Squat Challenge tomorrow, now that my workplace allows and fosters appropriate use of gym time, and doesn't wear me out or eat up so much of my life that it's impossible to self-care. On that note, I wrapped up today with a 30-minute Hatha bedtime routine, and a 20-minute neck/shoulders/upperback release routine. I already feel better.

I figured that after yoga I'd just pass out, but somehow I got the strange motivation to finish up a piece I'd put on the back burner. I was torn between finding a scratchy font or drawing the letters out myself, but today I decided that I'd stick to my style and just do the stamped tissue paper instead. Here's the--still wet--final result. I think the ModPodge helped bring out some of the colors from the failed transfer. I also think that Mr. Brown is going to love it. Now, if I could just sit down and start sketching for the 'little bird'...

2014: the year of Renewing, Reviewing, and Revisiting.

2014 is also the year of divorces amongst my people. But aside from that. I've been dealing with a lot of things and going through a lot of changes, and as such, blogginess has sadly fallen to the back burner. So like any good woman, it's time to get back in the kitchen and cook some -ish up before things get charred and burnt [sorry, work joke].

So. There's some things I can discuss freely and some things I can't just yet. But let it be known to the world that I am happy, safe, and sound. And much much better after a period of relative darkness. You know how after a while in the dark, your eyes adjust to night vision, and if you're lucky, you don't even know you're in the dark anymore? That's sort of a metaphor for what happened to me emotionally. However, someone held a lantern up and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. With a little encouraging, I was able to take a step towards it. Then a giant leap. Now I'd say I'm nearly there, working at a slow but steady pace.

I'm working on it, okay?

So, less metaphorical and more specific. This specific revamping struck me after another small step into my past. [I'll explain that later] I went back to hot yoga. Oh, how I missed it. And I will not say I'm "out of shape" because we all have different shapes, but apt to the venue, let's call it "out of practice." Heh, yoga joke. That made me realize, I'm also out of practice on writing. And I am having so many thoughts and ideas these days that I really should get back into it. Thus, this post was born. Now, it did take me a good two days to get around to writing it, and I hope to remedy this delay in the future. But the next few weeks are going to be pretty hectic and stressful, so it may take a few attempts before I am updating regularly again. [assuming anyone besides my wonderful Auntie is interested in following my exploits, teehee!]

...in case you needed an injection
of your daily dose of cuteness

So. I forget the actual word that's on my mind [PS there's a word for that, too]** But I know it starts with the prefix RE. Returning? It's not retrograde, because that generally has a more negative connotation. But I have been putting a lot of work into understanding myself and my life, and coming up with some answers I spent years ignoring. I am not only adhering to my medication, but also embracing my life as a whole. This means LOTS of previously absent self-care. I lost who I was along the way and became someone I never thought I'd be, and never wanted to. So, definitely something with the prefix re-. I am looking back at the past to the times where I know I was happy [some times, up to 6-10 years ago! Thank you, dysthymia...] and working on getting elements of those times back into my life. Crafting. Gardening. Learning. Writing. Yoga. Running. Gaming. Loving. Cooking. Kitties. Organizing. I have earned my karma... as the saying goes, sometimes "you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light."

Some of these you'll notice are not new themes for me. However, I am making them a higher priority now. As someone close to me repeatedly reminds me, "You have to help/take care of yourself before you can help/take care of other people." And helping and taking care of other people does bring me a lot of joy, too. I am much happier now. Exponentially, even.

**PS. For the dirty lexophiles who care, this is that word:

For more free vocabulary lessons, as well as touching, uplifting, and completely depressing thoughts, I HIGHLY suggest you check out Word Porn on Facebook. 

Haze Grey +7

Oh, damn, I see… I’ve been doing it wrong all along.

First day of mandatory PT today… I understand the “working out til you feel like you’re going to puke” kind of thing now. I still don’t like it and I still hate working out. After an hour or so of that I did 2 miles in 22 minutes, keeping with my 11 min/mi average… BUT. My mile is about 12 minutes, and my 1.5 mile is at 17. That’s one minute over fail, and two minutes over my goal. Again, I use either a hill climb or a cross-country program for shits-n-giggles, I’d probably be a little faster on a flat course. I got myself coughing on the elliptical; that’s good, right? I can say now that running to TV is more entertaining but running with music is more effective. But it’s hard to manage electronics and I don’t want anything to get stolen or broken, so I’ll just trade off I guess. I definitely missed watching Tara today while I ran. On off days my goal is to do 5 miles. On PT days I’ll cut it down to 2 miles. I might just cry tomorrow. I also tried to do a bit of yoga afterwards, if nothing else to stretch out my poor legs. It’s really not as worthwhile without a good instructor, and I miss the 104* room at Expand Yoga in downtown Tacoma. I really noticed a difference when I went. When I get home again I’d like to go at least once a week, maybe twice. Plus it’s another excuse to run… it’s about 1.4 miles from my house.

They’re doing a rally-cross course on Top Gear [yeah we always watch the BBC actually]… if I didn’t love my little car as much as I do, I would jump at the chance to do that kind of craziness with it. I bet she would rock.

Today is the second time in a row that I have walked off and left my water bottle somewhere, then had to go back and get it. I should come up with a solution for this problem.