Hey…Thanks!

The past few days were filled with holiday hustle and bustle.  We would be hosting my small family for Thanksgiving and the preparations began last Saturday with the TWO turkeys vacating the freezer.  Yes, I know – two turkeys?  Sounds pretty gluttonous.  Everyone loves leftovers, so why not?!  The hubb and I jokingly (but in all seriousness) decided to have a turkey-off.  Our turkeys blossomed through the days – my turkey, rubbed in salt, relaxed in the refrigerator for a few days while the ‘other’ soaked in a honey salt bath.  My turkey, butterfly style, was massaged with a soft fresh herb butter and tanned in a high degree oven.  The ‘other’ laid out on the grill and got stoned.  Clearly, mine was more sophisticated.  Nevertheless, we, along with the children, enjoyed a lovely day with my parents, my bro and his dame.  I’m thankful for the time that we spent together. 

There is SO much good in my life that I am thankful for.  Here’s a summary:

Family.  Friends.  My skills in the kitchen (enhanced by good genes and the ability to Google).  Strong coffee on a rough morning.  A beautiful home.  Befriending a wonderful group of ladies to share frequent early am runs; my husband for watching the ladies on long runs.  Finding my yoga, again (or maybe it finding me).  My job – no matter how challenging, or frustrating, I am employed and building character.  Snoozes on the couch by the pellet stove.  Getting up for seconds (or thirds) on dessert.  My late mother-in-law’s blossoming Christmas cactus.  Sharing good music and wine with my Dad.  Text messages from my Mom (a recent activity in light of her new iPhone). 

I am thankful for all of you who read my blog.  Since college, my writing is a little (ahem, a lot) rusty – My punctuation is all over the map, I can’t stick with the right tense through out a piece and I pepper paragraphs with flowery language.  This blog gives me another outlet.  Thank you for being supportive.  I’ll remember you when a major publication picks me up. 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

By the way, my turkey tasted better.

Yoga Blunders

Too many times for me to recall a wardrobe malfunction during my own practice.  When teaching yoga, I spend more time demonstrating poses and giving verbal/hands on assistance that I don’t get a full practice.  This is the point, though.  I’m there to lead you.  In most cases, my wardrobe isn’t as much of a problem during teaching because I’m not doing the majority of the poses.  But, it’s a whole new ball game when you’re the practitioner.  I’d like to take this space on the interwebs to share my wardrobe mishaps.  Maybe it will make you feel more human.  Maybe it will make you laugh.  Maybe it will do both.  Maybe you’ll decide to donate some money in order for me to get some new clothes.  Regardless of the outcome, I need to get this off my chest.  No pun intended.  :)
Assists/Adjustments
During my teacher training classes, we spend a good portion of time discussing the options when offering an assist to a practitioner.  Sometimes the assist is a verbal cue; oftentimes, in my experiences, this assist is a hands on adjustment.  The end goal is to help the student create some space and relax all the while maintaining great alignment.  Some assists will help the person get into a pose they’d might not be able to do on their own.  Such is the case of my handstand assist blunder.
I’m unsure of my strength when it comes to doing a handstand.  I think that’s what holds me back.  I can do a headstand without any issues…hands is a different story.  During a Wednesday evening class, my trainee group started talking about the art of flying from one pose into the next.  One of the transitions between two poses happens to be handstand.  I usually skip over the preparation pose for handstand – almost pretending that it doesn’t even exist.  We got on the topic of doing a handstand and before I knew it, we started getting into the prep pose.  Great. 
The first trick is to jump the feet off the floor with the knees pulling into the chest.  Ultimately, the hips need to be in line with the shoulders to keep the alignment in the body.  The assist for this hop is to spot and hold the student’s hips above the shoulders as the knees draw into the torso.  Easy assist.  My mental block prohibits my hips from getting high enough; I’d feel comfortable with my teacher helping me the rest of the way.  I planted my hands firmly on my mat shoulder width apart and focused on a spot between my hands, just past my finger tips.  I was ready.  I hopped lightly three times before my teacher caught my hips and guided them up in line with my shoulders.  Wow.  What a light feeling…as my boobs fell out of the top of my shirt.  I immediately dropped to the floor and tucked my fun bags back into my top.  Guess there wasn’t enough spandex to keep those puppies guarded.  Dang. 
Movement
Believe it or not, the majority of our class work doesn’t involve us actually doing a lot of yoga.  We spend most of the time in lecture, discussion and observation.  Of course, one goal of the training is to make us comfortable and competent in providing safe yoga instruction.  The yoga school built a few free community classes into the schedule for the trainees to practice their teaching.  Thankfully, if it wasn’t our time to teach we could take the class.  Yay!  I love taking classes.
As I continue to reshape my body, my clothing choices decline.  I don’t always have time to crank out a load of laundry, so my few ‘go-to’ tops might not be readily available.  Such was the case on this fateful Sunday morning.  I found a top with a stretched out shelf bra, but it still fit okay.  The problem with the bra was that it didn’t have any padding.  For the clueless out there, no padding = ‘you must be cold’.  Thankfully, I found two clean cups that normally fit into my running bra and carefully placed them in the top’s shelf bra.  I did a few stretches with no awkward cup shifting.  Perfect. 
At the start of class, I walked to the front of my mat and prepared for a few rounds of Sun Salutations.  Towards the end of the first round, as I walked my feet to the front of my mat in the forward bend, I took a long exhale through my nose and tucked my chin gently towards my chest.  Here, my chin was met by not one, but two cups that had wiggled halfway out of my top and met in the center of my chest.  One false move and those babies would be popping out onto my mat.  Oh.Crap.  Just before I came up to standing, I reached into my top, balled the cups up in my hand and tucked them under my sweatshirt that was on the floor beside me.  I don’t think anyone noticed, but I was aware of my inability to turn off my high beams. 
Sun Salutation
Today I had attended a community class.   This is the last community class I get to take before teaching next week.  Stuck with the same laundry dilemma, I dug through my drawer to find an older sleeveless yoga top.  It’s been a while since I had worn it and I noticed that my torso didn't have as much meat to fill out the arm holes.  Clearly, never learning a lesson, I proudly put the top on and left for class.  I stationed myself in the back corner to be a visual aide for some of the new participants in the back of the class.  The instructor led us through some gentle stretches before we moved on to the Sun Salutations. 
I stepped forward to the front of my mat and took a long exhale.  Inhale, arms up, exhale fold forward.  Inhale, head lifts, exhale walk or hop back to low push up.  Inhale upward dog, boobs out, exhale downward dog.  Breathe for five breaths.  Focus on your left nipple.  HANGING OUT OF YOUR TOO BIG TOP.  WTF.  I adjusted my top and continued on.  With each Sun Salutation, my boobs fell out of my top.  Those upward dogs let my little raisins shine to the heavens.  Dear Lord!  Interestingly enough, this malfunction didn’t disrupt my practice too much.  I incorporated subtle top adjustments to minimize the showing of boobage.  I didn’t throw out the top.  I probably won’t.  Maybe next time I’ll wear another bra underneath; maybe not.  Who knows?
I do know that these three blunders won’t be the last.  Let’s just hope I keep the situation isolated to the top.  I don’t want to imagine how my pants could malfunction. 

Crap

Crap. 
I guess I haven’t posted anything since the end of September.  Yikes.  Well, I guess the three of you who read this crap are pretty pissed.  Or, you’re relieved that I haven’t had the time to produce this shitty blog.  Sorry to disappoint…this post is going to be published.  So much is going on.  I can’t pick just one thing…it’s possible that I could have forgotten more than I remember, at this point. 
Let me get you up to speed:

• I continue to run my little arse off which has resulted in me breaking PR’s.  (yay). 
• I’m about 10 months of being 98% Paleo, resulting in little to no discomfort/pain and a loss of roughly 10 more lbs.
• I am seriously reconsidering my career.  This process is dragging my emotions through the hot coals, but I’ll emerge a stronger person (as long as I don’t destroy myself – a delicate balance).
• My yoga, now more than ever, supports me.  Another segment of my teacher training is in the books.  One to go! 
• I found a wonderful group of women who actually like to run at least three times a week at a good pace EARLY IN THE MORNING. 
• I survived two weeks of single parenting (and working full time) while the hubbs romped around Europe.  Kudos to me for preparing home cooked meals every week day!
• I just ended a two day (what was looking like four day) jury duty.  I sat on a trial that ultimately ended with the defendant pleading guilty.

Now that we’re all caught up…
This past Saturday, I decided to save myself from irresponsible mother of the year, by taking Ava to the local library.  She had renewed a book from her school library, but I wasn’t able to finish the read before it was returned.  In order to keep the story rolling, and make for a fun activity, I pulled the family together after breakfast for a trip to the library.  Just out of gas, we pulled into the bustling parking lot.  Of course, there was a weekend event at the community center consisting of bake sales, a craft fair, silent auction and a used book sale.  Much to my dismay, I parked in the ‘staff only’ lot and we moved quickly through the cold into the front of the building.  The library was situated immediately to the right, just between two mobs of people.  We split the middle and crossed the threshold. 
Years have passed since I set foot in a library.  If I remember correctly, I used the library to hang out or sleep, not as a place to actually get work done, or even (get out!) read.  While studying English during my undergrad, I occasionally sifted through the types of careers possible with my background.  Being a librarian (or whatever fancy name they have now) never crossed my mind.  I didn’t think of it as much of a career and I certainly couldn’t figure out that decimal system.  Numbers were never a strength for me; not sure why I would be interested in mixing numbers and letters. 
We walked to the children’s section, but soon realized we had no clue how to find the book.  I found a PC close by to search for the book in question.  As an IT professional, I found it annoying that the machine was SOOOOO SLOW.  With time, the search returned a few results, but none seemed on the money.  A link was presented to try the search on Google, but the library’s network had all search engines blocked.  FOR.THE.LOVE.OF.NANCY. We decided to ditch this method and go back to Plan A – just start looking.  Of course, we found the series of books, but ‘#1’ in the series wasn’t there.  Ava settled on another volume and Allison picked out a dinosaur book.  We quickly maneuvered through people and displays to wait in the check out line. 
We decided to get three library cards – one for Ava, one for me and one for the Mr.  The lovely, and thorough, woman (we will call her Mulva) behind the counter took our driver’s licenses to begin the address verification process.  She handed us three applications for us to complete.  Although Ava is only five, she needed to sign her own application.  She was excited to help fill out the form.  During this time, an older man stepped in line behind us.  He actually decided to bypass the true end of the line.  He waited.  And waited.  And waited.  He stood so close behind me I swore I felt his stale breath on the back of my hair.  I could almost feel him losing his patience.   Mulva, still taking her time, continued to enter our information into the computer, when Mr. Crotch let out a sigh and firmly asked, ‘What’s going on here?’  Yes.  I was waiting for this moment.  I informed Mr. Crotch that we were getting library cards.  ‘Cards?’ he asked.  ‘Yes, Mr. Crotch (implied), library cards.’  I can’t recall what he said in return, but he couldn’t believe that it was taking *this* long.  Not soon enough, Crotch was helped by another person behind the desk – pissing off the group in which he cut.  Good time.  
Mulva asked me and the hubbs if we’d like to authorize someone else to pick up books for us.  We both declined.  Then Mulva informed me that although Ava is five, she needed to ask her the same question in order to maintain the appropriate level of privacy.  Ahem.  Excuse me?  Since when did the library regulations become so stringent.  And really?  I am Ava’s legal guardian.  At this stage of the game, I can trump her decisions.  Ridiculous.  Of course, Ava didn’t really understand the question which prompted me to re-state with words Ava would understand.  Thank GOD she gave me the authority to pick up books for her.  Really?
But wait…
It gets better.
Proud Mulva handed me Ava’s library card and gave Ava a sticker that read “I got my library card today.”  I knew, as any parent with more than one child, that Alli would be upset if she didn’t have a sticker, too.  In an innocent tone, I asked Mulva if I could get a sticker.  She kindly replied that the stickers were for the children.  I informed Mulva that I also got a library card and should get a sticker.  Nope.  Apparently, she was going to be a stickler for enforcing the age limit (whatever the hell that really means).  So much for that angle.  I just blurted out - “Then, can I just have a sticker for her younger sister even though she didn’t get a card?”  Mulva, in all seriousness, responded, “I guess I can break the rules this one time,” as she handed me a sticker.  Really?  W.T.F.
I still can’t get over this library situation.  I find it amusing that there’s a privacy component.  It’s fascinating that in the world of health care (in which I’m most familiar) I make all the decisions for my five year old little girl, but when it comes to library services I’m a piece of crap.  Oh, Mulva…is that your real name?