Blooming Cherry Blossoms

How is it halfway through March already?! I guess I'm just not very motivated with this blog anymore, hmm?

The sun has been coming out more and more lately!

March 3: 5 Miles, 9'39" average pace, 50 degrees, sunny

Chai tea latte art

March 6: 4 Miles, 9'46" average pace, 55 degrees, cloudy

A much needed massage - a christmas gift from the in-laws!

March 7: 6 Miles, 10'18" average pace, 55 degrees, sunny

love seeing the cherry blossom trees :)

Total Miles for March 1-7: 15 miles, a 0% increase from the previous week.
Total Yoga Classes: 5 classes: 3 Power classes, 2 Renew classes

March 8: 7 Miles, 9'40" average pace, 62 degrees, sunny

I've been going to a lot of yoga lately and it's been really refreshing!

March 10: 4 Miles, 9'33" average pace, 55 degrees, partly sunny

March 12: 3 Miles, 9'27" average pace, 64 degrees, partly sunny

Total Miles for March 8-14: 14 miles, a 7% decrease from the previous week.
Total Yoga Classes: 6 classes: 4 Power classes, 1 Renew class, 1 Yoga Sculpt class

JW played a gig at Chateau Ste. Michelle, a winery in Woodinville, and we had a blast! We got a bottle of wine and I got to dance the night away, which was awesome! March is going well so far- before I know it, it'll be April... crazy!

Into The Woods

I've been trying to figure out what my next "goal" should be. More yoga?

More dancing?

More races? Too many options??

As for running, I feel really strong. I know I'm running safely and barring anything weird happening, I most likely won't get injured anytime soon. But at the same time, I don't want to push it.

I think I'm going to change the way I "report" my runs - instead of a picture, I might make a summary post at the end of the week. For the last few months, it seems like my posts have been mostly those summaries, and that's honestly because I didn't really have anything to say about running.

I've been pretty busy since the official start of the New Year (which I consider Monday the 5th, when everyone went back to work), and it looks like I'll be keeping busy for a while. After I got the rehearsal schedule for the play that I was cast in, I realized I was going to be able to keep going to rehearsals for the choir I've been singing in since last September - so the first three days of the week were filled with rehearsals.

So, for the next four months, I'll be juggling the following: rehearsals for the play in February, choir rehearsals for the concert in March, rehearsals for the play in April, dinner detective shows every Saturday, weekly voice lessons, and making time to see other friend's shows. I'll also be trying to fit in yoga classes (I've decided to renew my subscription for the next year) and running during the week, as well. Whew.

Here we go...!

Disappearing Teachers and Phantom Pain

On Wednesday, I didn't go to Yoga, but I decided to go on a run. I almost didn't make it out, but made myself take it one step at a time:

Step 1: Change out of pajamas.

Step 2: Change into running clothes.

Step 3: No matter how long it takes, stay in running clothes until you go outside and run.

And honestly, I stayed in my running clothes for about 2 hours before I eventually got outside to go run. But that doesn't matter, because at least I did it, right??

Taken at the halfway point

Highway views

The run was great - it had a big uphill in that third mile, which is why I slowed down so much, but I was really trying to put in the effort to go fast, so I'm happy with my time.

On Thursday, I didn't go to Yoga either - instead, I took a 2.5 mile walk around downtown while I ran some errands. I thought that was better than nothing, anyways. 

I think I feel a little... resentful? towards yoga lately. Ever since I came back from my week and a half vacation, the studio hasn't felt the same. I haven't felt challenged or pushed at all, and I could never seem to get the teachers I wanted. I delved a little further into their schedule and saw that my favorite teachers wouldn't be teaching at all in the next couple of weeks. What gives?!? I know that teachers bounce around from studio to studio, but that doesn't really work for me when my Year of Yoga is to the studio, not to the teachers. Maybe they'll come back? A year is a long time....

My hip has been really acting up recently, and I'm trying to go easy on it. A run probably wasn't the way to do that - I probably should have gone to yoga instead - oh well. I think I might start experimenting with wearing my knee brace- it doesn't seem to be my hip that's the problem, but something underlying, like ankle or knee pain. Maybe I need to get my shoe inserts replaced? I got them less than a year ago, though.. hmm.

Ever had knee pain that presented itself as hip pain?

Snow and Random Acts of Kindness

Was anybody else as excited as I was when it started to SNOW on Saturday night???! As a Texas girl (and especially since all of Texas has been getting snow days for what feels like the last few weeks!), I always get way overly excited when I see snow fall- and Saturday was no exception! Unfortunately, I was stuck inside because of Dinner Detective, but luckily (or maybe unluckily), it was still coming down when we were released!

It was also ALL OVER my car!

I don't think I've ever seen my car that buried in snow. Don't worry, I had an ice scraper in my car that I used to get all the snow off. The drive home was uneventful, thankfully!

As a result of the snow, all the yoga classes on Sunday were cancelled. Bummer. That's when I usually take my second Yoga Sculpt class of the week, so I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to get my sweat on. But, I figured I probably needed a rest day anyways, since I hadn't taken once since February 1st. I spent the rest of the day double checking addresses and putting addresses on envelopes.

Today in yoga, one of the teachers had been on vacation in Europe for 2 months, and today was her first day back. I was pleased to be present for her very first power yoga class back at Get Zen Yoga. It was a little unconventional, which I expected, but I remember from my 1-month Groupon last year that I really liked her style, so I still enjoyed it.

She usually guides us through a meditation around the end of class, and today it was more of a pondering - she said that everybody is born happy- everyone. About 50% of that happiness is always inside us. The next 10% is finances: someone who makes 50K a year is only marginally happier than someone who makes 50 million a year. And then there's the rest of the 40%, which she says comes from helping others. Quiet acts of kindness make up 40% of happiness. Having a bad day? Go help someone else. You'll feel 40% happier. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is a lot if you think about it!

Finding beauty on a cloudy day

She said our brain doesn't know the difference between pleasure and pain - and though I don't really agree, I agree with the message she's trying to convey. It's our reactions to what happens to us that drives our feelings. If we are met with an obstacle, we can either bitch about it or laugh at it. Happiness is a choice!

So, today I decided my random act of kindness was to give blood.

What will yours be?

The Yoga Mindset

Yesterday my friend Sam posted an article on her Facebook and tagged me in it, asking me what I thought. The article in question is about a girl that goes to a pay-what-you-can yoga studio, and how she felt that only skinny, white people attended class, and the plight that a "heavy-set" black woman who, in the author's eyes, "tried" to take class must have felt. Basically it was an extremely condescending and presumptuous article with traces of racism subtly woven through. But I digress--that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk about what I'll call the Yoga Mindset. This is something that I imagine being at the ultimate peace with yourself and others - something that I'm sure everyone strives for, practicing yoga or not. Who knows if I'll ever achieve this kind of zen, or if anybody ever really does, but for the purpose me talking about it, that's what I think it is.

Get Zen Hot Yoga has been an awesome experience so far. The studio and the teachers are really great, the classes are wonderful, and I'm always a sweaty mess afterwards. I always leave with a good feeling of accomplishment. The studio is growing - with the combination of New Year's Resolutions and Groupons, I'd say the attendance size just about doubled in the last month. Now, this is both bad and good. Good: Lots of energy to feed off of, you can fade into the background if you want, and the room is always nice and warm because of all the body heat. Bad: It's super crowded in class, filled with people who don't quite know what they're doing.

A crowded class - can you find me?*

I understand that there are beginners and we all have to start somewhere - that's not what this is about. But, being a beginner means that you don't necessarily know the rules right off the bat. That's fine. That's why the teachers encourage you to ask questions and to read the little signs printed outside the two entrances to the Hot Room. Most of the rules are common sense (bring a towel, yoga mat, and water; don't leave class before it ends), but maybe not to the newbies who have never taken a hot yoga class before. That's fine! Just... read the rules before you start something new. Follow directions. Be respectful.

Last night, I went to Yoga Sculpt. This class is a different animal entirely, as it's more of a body pump class than a yoga flow (vinyasa) class, and it involves weights. At Get Zen Hot Yoga, they use upbeat music during their Vinyasa classes- and naturally, the Yoga Sculpt class follows suit. If Yoga Sculpt happened to be your very first class at Get Zen Hot Yoga, I could understand that maybe you thought it was a different kind of class altogether - not a "normal" yoga class that you think of when you think of the word "yoga" (meditation, "ohms", no weights/loud music, etc.), so you thought that maybe the regular yoga rules wouldn't apply to this class?

Back to my point.. so I went to class and it was really crowded, which I was prepared for. I unrolled my mat and set my water bottle down in the front row, and then left the room to put the rest of my clothes with my stuff outside. I came back just as someone was laying down his mat next to mine. This wouldn't be of interest, except for the fact that it was SO CLOSE to mine that it was almost comical. And there were plenty of other spots in the room. It completely baffled me why he would set his mat SO close to someone elses... I realized he probably must be new. Fine. So, I moved my mat farther away from his and it was fine. A small hiccup.

As I was sitting down, I noticed that there were two distinct groups of people chatting... inside the Hot Room. Most of the time I think some quiet greetings are okay, but these were full blown un-hushed conversations that I could hear every detail of. I mean, what?! I was annoyed, to say the least. I just wanna get my yoga on and zone out, I don't really want to hear about how your mundane day went. So, I just laid down like I usually do before class, closed my eyes, and tried to tune them out.

Then one of the ladies snickered, "Oooh...whoops. I guess we're supposed to be meditating," in what I can only assume was in response to seeing me trying to relax before class. And that just made my blood boil. She had the gall to make fun of me (because I can only assume that's what she was doing!) for doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing - not talking - while she was doing exactly what she wasn't supposed to be doing - talking. And devaluing my yoga practice in the process. How dare she?!

I understand that people can take out their insecurities in different ways. I'm pretty sure this was one of her first classes - she was in the back row, and I mean, the incessant talking at the beginning of class showed a clear desire to not be focused for the class ahead. I've done that kind of stuff before - trying to distract myself from a huge looming commitment. I see now that she was clearly nervous about the class and took out her anxiety on seeing me trying to focus. And of course now I'm not irritated anymore. But damn. When will people learn that their words and actions affect others??

Back to The Yoga Mindset and that article. This is the response that I wrote:

"i really dislike the assumptions the author makes in this article about the woman in question. what if she was just having a bad day/was sick/just came back from vacay and wanted to relax in a hot room with awesome energy all around her? who is the author to say that she was "glancing around anxiously, [...] looking wide-eyed and nervous"? has she never heard of Bitchy Resting Face? sometimes our faces echo feelings that our brain doesn't feel. and i don't know about her, but i spend a good 30 seconds adjusting my clothes before class starts to make sure everything is straightened out before i'm drenched in sweat. "I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body." well yeah, she could probably feel you staring at her for the last hour, how would you feel?! regardless of size, shape, color, level.... just respect the person next to you (this applies to y'know, life as well), whether they spend the entire class in child's pose or whether they're doing all the crazy modifications. it doesn't mean they're tired, it doesn't mean they're showing off. just let them be and focus on YOU."

One of my favorite ideas is "you do you, and I'll do me". As long as you're not hurting someone else, I can respect whatever you do/believe, as long as you also respect what I'm doing/believing. If I want to lay on my mat and close my eyes for a few minutes before an hour of Yoga Sculpt, respect that decision. If I look over and see you in child's pose for 30 minutes out of 60, I will respect that decision and not judge you any further. Who knows what you wanted out of class that day... maybe that's what you came to do. Who am I to decide? Why is it any of my business? Who really cares?

The Yoga Mindset, something I strive for and hope that everyone else strives for, is just this kind of thinking - I'll do me, and you'll do you, and we'll respect each other and love each other for it. And that'll be that. No conflict, no disrespect. Mutual respect. No idea why that's so hard for people to recognize.

Rant over!

*You can see me in the top left of the picture, front row, through the mirror. I have a blue water bottle next to me. :)

Admission Wednesday: Weights On and Off My Shoulders

I admit... My diet has not been going well. Wedding Stress has lead to bowls of ice cream, desserts at restaurants, pastries at Starbucks, and wine. I'm trying to get my nutrition back to what it was in December (though not as strict as South Beach), but moderation is sometimes a hard pill to swallow for me. I frequently think "Go Big or Go Home", and need to separate myself from that mindset.

I admit... I watched all 3 Lord of the Rings movies with the cast commentary while I addressed envelopes last week, and I will never get bored of that trilogy. Even though I binge-watched it with my Dallas friends for 12 hours at the beginning of this month, I'm still not sick of it. Never ever.

I admit... When I sent off my Save The Dates on Monday, I felt a huge wave of relief... immediately followed by the next weight on my shoulders, The Invitations. Ack.

I admit... Speaking of weights, Yoga Sculpt is one of the hardest things I've done in a long, long time. We spend most of the time in a squat (chair pose) while we do various arm exercises (with weights), and then kill our legs even more by doing squat pulses and lunges. My whole body is always on fire after that class, and I take it only twice a week.

I admit... Leaving my apartment is the hardest thing about going to yoga. Even though I know in my heart that it always makes me feel better. Even though I seem to have some kind of injury every time I write these posts (this time my lower back kind of hurts, though my jaw and shoulder from previous Admission Wednesdays have totally healed). I have to remind myself I really do feel better overall.

I admit... I made a fool of myself yesterday in class trying to do a handstand against the wall and never nailed it. On Monday, the teacher helped me with it and I held it for a few seconds, so I guess that's something?

I admit... I'm getting really excited about our honeymoon! We met with a travel agency yesterday and talked all about it, and should be booking soon. And I don't even care that it's probably going to be at some all-inclusive resort that thousands of couples have been on, I'm just excited that it'll be someplace warm, tropical, and romantic. Less of this weather would be great:

I admit... Seeing friends always makes me happy and I should do it more often. I love our group. We're all gonna get together for the Superbowl and it's gonna be awesome!! It hasn't been since like, 1995 or something that my city's team has been in the game (poor Cowboys...).

Photo Taken by Sam's awesome phone :)

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

I admit... I need to think positive more often.

Previous Admission Wednesdays:

January 22: Yoga and A Bunch of Wedding Feelings
January 15: Yoga and Pain

Awesome Weather, No Outside Running

Friday must be my day to run, because I took to the treadmill again last Friday and pounded out 4 miles.

I really hate the treadmill because I feel like it's making my Nike+ misrecord my actual time. Google is telling me that misrecord isn't an actual word but whatever. According to the treadmill, 4.25 miles in 42 minutes and 31 seconds is an Average Pace of 10 minutes a mile, almost to the dot. But that's of course after I had already slowed down. But, according to Nike+, I ran a 10'11" mile. Not accurate!! I feel anal about it because it's messing up my totals, haha!

Even though we've had some awesome, AWESOME weather this past week, I still can't force myself to go outside and run. I've grown so tired of running around downtown, even though the last time I did it was back in November.

There's just something about running around the same buildings, getting caught by the same red lights, dodging around the same smokers, that really just makes me tired even before I walk out the door.

But damn, you really can't beat those views!

Yoga is going well - I've been every day (sometimes twice a day) since I started on January 13, for a total of 16 classes so far. I'm doing good and can feel myself getting stronger! Makes me SUPER sweaty though...

Ick- practically see through!

I know you wanted to see that!

How are your workouts going?

Admission Wednesday: Yoga and A Bunch of Wedding Feelings

I admit... I tweaked my shoulder from doing too many chaturangas this week. I go too far down, to where my shoulders are lower than my elbows, which is apparently terrible technique. In class yesterday, a teacher I had never taken before took the time to show us how to correctly perform the chaturanga dandasana, which is to only go so far down as to where your elbows are in line with your shoulders, then push up to updog without touching the floor. I had always been going all the way down, touching the floor, and then lifting everything for updog. Totally wrong technique!!

This is my current state:

An icepack under the robe :(

I admit... I am absolutely dreading addressing all these Save The Dates that arrived yesterday. Even though I said yesterday that I was excited to get this done... I mean, who really wants to address these things all day?

I admit... I'm also at a total loss as to who to send these to. My mom says to send them to people who we really want to come to the wedding, and family. I mean.. okay. That's our whole invite list. Why would we invite anyone we wouldn't really want to be there? JW says to just start addressing and seeing where we end up. I'm just worried that I'm going to screw something up and offend somebody.

Soooo many to address...

I admit... I'm getting frustrated about my bachelorette party. We're planning a getaway to La Jolla, CA to tour some wineries there and generally just have a little mini vacation in March. I sent out a feeler e-mail to all of my 15 prospective guests to see if that would be something they would be able to do money-wise, and most of them responded with enthusiasm that they couldn't wait and it sounded awesome. So my sister and I went ahead and rented a house to cut down on hotel costs (of course that's dependent on how many people come)... and now I've only gotten 5 Yes RSVP's. All the other responses have been no, for money issues. This would have been okay if people hadn't initially said that they were totally excited to go! Now the house is going to be twice as expensive for the people that can go.... Ugh. /rant

I admit... I sound really whiny sometimes. I promise I'm so grateful for the friends that are willing to fly to another state to meet me and celebrate me becoming a Mrs. I'm so grateful that I have that opportunity as well. I really am extremely understanding of all my other friends that can't come because of other obligations or money issues... I promise I understand, I do. Even though I'm admitting to a feeling of frustration over things I can't control (because that's really the issue here), that doesn't mean that it's merited. Just being honest.

A building being demolished outside our apartment today. Random but oddly relevant... metaphor for being honest and chipping away at my "tough" exterior??

I admit... I don't feel very much like a ~*Bride*~. Maybe no bride really does? But I feel like everything is super stressful and I'm freaking out about everything and I have to go out of my way to get things done. Aren't things supposed to be done... for me? It sounds completely selfish but I mean, just like birthdays, this is the only time in my life I can be really, really selfish and picky and everybody understands. Maybe it's because I don't have a wedding planner (who wants to pay for that?!), but lots of responsibilities are being placed on my shoulders, where I feel like they shouldn't be. I don't mean to discredit my mom and my sister - they are doing so much for me and I am so grateful - but.. I don't know. There's a general feeling of stress and worry that I'm carrying that probably won't go away until after the wedding is over, that I feel should not be there.

Chocolate, the ultimate healer (Chocolate Martini from Dilettante in Seattle)

I admit... I want to care about the wedding day, and I want it to be perfect. But the amount of effort, planning, and money it would take to make it "perfect" makes me want to not care about the wedding. And then I get a little depressed about it - because, isn't this time in my life supposed to be magical and what I've always been dreaming about since I was a little girl? Shouldn't every aspect of it be meticulous? Shouldn't I bask in the engagement phase and treasure this time? Well, if I'm supposed to, I'm not - I'm just anxious for it to be over, really. I feel isolated out here, so far away from my family as well as where the wedding will take place, and I feel so displaced sometimes.

Seattle: Wet Streets and Sunlight (go figure)

I admit... Despite all of the above, I am happy, and I am in love with the best and most supportive man I have ever known, and I cannot wait to call him my husband.

Silly guy.

Trying to end on a positive note.. got any wedding planning advice?? :)

Previous Admission Wednesdays:

January 15: Yoga and Pain

Treadmill Miles Lately

I've ran on the treadmill three times since I last posted about running, so I decided to bunch them all in the same post. Honestly it's nothing of consequence - just some speed runs, to make sure my running fitness stays the same.

Once I started daily yoga on the 13th, I hadn't touched the treadmill. 6 days total! It had almost been a whole week of no running, but because of my new resolution, I forced myself to go to the gym:

For this workout, I started at 6.0 and went up in .5 increments every .5 miles.

Mile 0-0.5: 6.0 mph

Mile 0.5-1: 6.5 mph

Mile 1-1.5: 7.0 mph

Mile 1.5-2: 7.5 mph

Mile 2-2.5: 7.0 mph

Mile 2.5-3: 6.5 mph

My pretty face after all this was done:

Yumm, the taste of sweat.

Yoga's been going really well - I went to two classes yesterday, Hatha and Power, 6 hours apart from each other. It felt great. I can tell that I'm getting more flexible, my jaw pain is gone, and it's slowly etching away at all the stress that's accumulated in my brain from all the wedding stuff.

Wedding To-Dos For January: 

Finish Registering (We spent 3 hours at Macy's on Saturday... still not even halfway done!)

Find a Florist (nobody is e-mailing me back!)

Find Speakers/Sound Board for Reception

Book Honeymoon! (this is a HUGE stress)

Talk with our officiant 

Address and Send out Save The Dates (these should be coming in tomorrow! Can't wait to get this done..)

How are your work-outs going?