Couples Yoga

In honor of Valentines Day, my yoga instructor held a partners-yoga class. Four of us begged and badgered our husbands into attending. It was fun. Even the men who were hesitant about attending ending up enjoying themselves. 

We did a number of simple poses that required leaning against your partner as a prop. The best part was being instructed in Thai massage. This involves a gentle pulling and lengthening of the muscles. Blair had me in stitches. As I would pull on a leg or arm, he'd be mouthing the words, "Help me."

He did well, though. As the youngest man there, he was also the most flexible.

My body seems to be on some sort of protest or strike this week. My left hand feels arthritic and swollen and I've got an unexplained pain in the arch of my left foot. My right hamstring has been growing steadily tighter over the past 6 months and is just now starting to pinch even when I'm just sitting or standing. It will probably need looked at sometime soon. Olivia bit my right index finger yesterday, drawing blood (she was aiming for the comb, missed and got me) and I woke up this morning with a huge crick/pinched neck, again on my left side.

"That's what running and yoga and eating healthy will get you," Blair informed me. "Look at me. I ate a bag of Tostitos last night for dinner and I feel great."

Smart alec. No more Thai massage for him. =)

Plays Well With Others But Does Not Follow Directions

Here's a question: Do people not read directions or do they read them and then choose just to do whatever they want anyway? I suspect the later...

I'm putting together a tri-board that requires 5x7 photos of members. Instead of having people send me potentially huge image files, I set up a gallery on www.kodakgallery.com and asked them to post their pictures there. I provided step-by-step instructions on how to do this, including giving them the login and password to access the album. The final line of my e-mail asked that they please not send photos to  me as my computer doesn't do well with image files.

How many people do you think e-mailed me their photos directly?

Let's put it this way: more than one. It makes me nuts. In order for them to know I need a photo, they have to have read my e-mail. So WHY are they sending  me photos directly? If they're confused about how to work the gallery, why not e-mail me and say they're confused, versus potentially locking my system with the photo they're sending when I specifically instructed them NOT to send it to me?  I just want to beat my head against a wall and then turn, grab them, and beat theirs. Is it really that difficult?

That's all. Just blowing off a little early morning steam...

TV Banishment

I have gotten really off target with my New Year's goal of only one hour of TV/day. One hour has been sliding into 75 minutes, then into an hour and a half. The odd part is, I'm not enjoying my time in front of the TV, even when I cheat to get it. Blair and I watched a movie on Saturday and by the time it was over at 10:30, my head hurt and I was too wired to sleep.

So today I begin anew. One hour of TV/day, max. I do NOT need to watch an episode of Friends for a break at 5:30. I have plenty to keep me busy. In fact, I've pulled together a list of short tasks that need to be done around the house. And there are bonuses to be had. Yesterday I was doing one of these small tasks, the one which involved emptying out and wiping down the silverware drawers, and discovered that this is where Blair has been hiding the dark chocolate from me. (We buy a box of dark chocolate and he doles out a piece a day to me. I can't be trusted to have the box available to me as I'll eat it all in one day. I've been looking for his secret hiding place for months, so yesterday was a big score for me.)

I also need to get my butt out the door and running more often. The Massacre Marathon Relay is on Sunday. I ran the course on Saturday with two of my teammates and it is a hilly 1.6 mile loop. Not huge hills, but enough to put me out of breath if I'm trying to run them fast. I'm aiming for an 8:30 or better pace for my laps.  Go Supergeezer Team, Go!

Ignoring My Last Post

In Friday's post I wrote about making writing a priority and saying no to others. However, if I had followed that advice I would not have attended the outstanding Foster Friends writing workshop yesterday. And that would have been a severe loss, indeed.

The Foster Friends network of NC is sponsoring an art and essay contest for children in the Foster Care system in our area. First prize is a $500 savings bond. I was asked by a friend in the program if I would facilitate the 2-hour writing workshop held yesterday. I said yes, and a friend from my writer's group, Daniel, who used to teach Jr. High English, went with me. Thank God. Daniel is a teaching whiz and quickly connected with the kids. For example, to demonstrate the importance of using specific language, he did this marvelous peanut butter and jelly exercise where he had one student instruct him how to make a PB&J sandwich. When told to take the bread out of the ziplock bag, he ripped at the opposite end of the bag that had the zipper. When told to put the peanut butter on the bread, he stacked the jar on top of the bread. And, when told to "squish together" the pieces of bread that had the peanut butter on one and jelly on the other, he left the jelly side up and squished his hand into it--to the great delight of the kids.

The kids were... brilliant. Open and communicative and serious about writing. Ages ranged from 8 to 16, yet the room jelled. I came home and told Blair only half-kiddingly that there is now an 8-year-old boy out there I want to adopt.  The 8 year old boy came with 2 paragraphs already written for the contest which Daniel read over and helped him with. A 10 or 11 year old girl asked me to read the 2 and 1/2 pages she'd written. The essay is private so I won't share the contents here but... oh my God. Simply but beautifully written, heartbreaking, honest. It was an honor to spend time with these kids. I never would have wanted to miss the chance to work with them.

So I guess the lesson is... be careful what you consider saying no to or you might miss out on some really special opportunities in life.