POST MLK DAY UPDATE

We went to the Barrett - Jackson car auction.  Even though most of the big, high profile and money cars sold the day prior; it was still very cool to see the old cars.  I have decided I would look great in a Packard.

 

 

After the time at the auction we hit a sports bar to watch the Patriots v Broncos game.  We lived in Boulder for 5 years so I am a Bronco fan so I am not as devastated that my Patriots lost.

Thank goodness Seattle won.

 

 

 

 

The hubby got the light - all ball- installed and it looks great.  We put a soft LED bulb in it.  He also fixed the leftover cracks and we got an umbrella to go out on the front patio where the entry used to be. 

 

 

Had a fine MLK Day off.  Did some yoga.   

 

Had a miserable week at work; shorthanded and drama-laden.  I am really not feeling it. 

We went to see "The Taming of the Shrew" done by Southwest Shakespeare are at the Mesa Arts Center.  It was an amazing production.  Love the show and this was one of the best productions of it I have seen.  

I taught my 2ndyoga  class at the Farmer's Market.  The daughter and her fiancé came to class.  It went pretty well.  We shall see if the business picks up as the weeks go on.

 

 

  

I Teach Yoga

OMG!  I am a yoga teacher!   2 students - Mary and Emily - came and had a great time!   Loved it!

  

  

HATHA WITH HEATHER

I start teaching yoga tomorrow.  Bright and early; 9 am Hatha With Heather will be at Central Farmers Market.   I am excited and terrified.  

Missing Yoga Practice

Last week was kind of crazy with the hubby's b-day and work schedule issue.  Because life got in the way I missed practice.  Ack!  I vowed (NOT a resolution - I don't do those) that I would start this week and go to daily practice after work again.  Get into the groove, the schedule, the Zen of it all.

HA! The Universe ROARED!  HA! 

I got some sort of virus thing that has been roaming around the cubicles at work despite the cold temperatures in the building.  There has been hacking, wheezing, sniffling, sneezing and all the other activities that go with cold and flu season.  Last week seemed to be a contest among some as to who could be the sickest one there at work.  Kids were being sent home from school and daycare with this nastiness so of course the parents go it.  Many of them also came to work feeling rugged because they'd had to use the time to take care of their sick kids first.  They hide it and tough it out. 

Needless to say I acquired a small case (compared to others) and spent the weekend flat on my back either in bed or parked in front of the TV watching the NFL Divisional Playoffs.  Saturday I drifted in and out of lucidity while I watched the Saints fall to the frightening Seahawks. The hubby came home from a day with the guys and fed me soup and 7-Up.  I sat pie-eyed and watched the Colts fall to my beloved Patriots.

 I had slammed back some, Tylenol, Wal-born and zinc lozenges.  I went to bed.  Felt a tad better on Sunday but pretty much followed the same routine with different teams (Broncos over Colts and the Panthers falling to the stinkin' 49'ers.  I hit the hay and got up this morning ready to seek vengeance upon those who had infected me - I went to work.  Dammit.



Of course yoga was completely out of the question.  I would not do that to my fellow practitioners. 
However, I miss it so much but know that I am not doing anyone any favors if I don't wait until I am 98%. Face it - at my age I will never be 100%; just close.

Playoff Football

I might be under the weather (I think - I am still in denial) but I can still get excited about some Playoff Football.   The hubby is out in Wickenburg at a friend's ranch for the day so I am going to hunker down, drink lots of fluids and watch tv.  Go Patriots!

A New Year - maybe some posts?

 

Wow - the last time I posted was May 2012?  Good Maude - where does the year go?

 Decided that this year I would really work on the ol' blog.  Post it up big time; give the few meager readers I got a major thrill.  It all sounded like a good idea but was in NO WAY a resolution because I don't do those - dammit.

So I pull up the blog here and realize that in 2013 I posted nothing.  Nada.  Bupkiss.  Zip. 
I also realize that the few meager followers I had were probably gone too.  Rebrand my ass; rebrand as a dang slacker.  I felt something I had not felt - blogger shame.  I had experience blogger remorse, blogger backlash and even blogger fail but never shame.  That kind of made me feel more ashamed.  However, I realized that was only making it worse so I had to IGNORE MYSELF and just accept my dereliction of blogging and move on.



So that's what I am doing.

I am not even going to give you a "year in review".  That would be just cruel.  To everyone.

Suffice to say that 2013 was a transformative year.  If references are made this year to things that happened last year I will try to give a "back story" to keep you few meager readers in the know.  Otherwise I am starting from scratch with this year.  Keeping it current, keeping it real.

To say that I am disappointed that the Central Farmer's Market has not contacted me to do some yoga classes at the Saturday markets would be an understatement.  I took those classes and am almost half way to yoga teacher certification and by golly I would really like to teach some classes.  I would also like to earn my tuition back and hopefully get a leg up on what I hope is my 2nd career after retirement from the State.  They seemed so anxious for me to start before the holidays.  I didn't because I was still finishing up my teacher training and also finishing up my Christmas shopping.  I put them off until the "new year".  Probably a foolish move.  They are no longer interested in Hatha With Heather.  Bummer.

I will keep practicing and training.  I am motivated and feeling physically better since doing yoga.  Mentally and emotionally I think it helps too.  I hasn't solved all my problems - but close. 

The hubby and I are still adapting to the empty nest syndrome and it gets easier every day.  We took lots of weekend trips last year.  Some successful, some not.  Our big vacation to New England for my father's funeral was terrific which is weird to say but it was. The trip was bittersweet. A hard reason to go back but it brought back great memories and a feeling of going back to my roots. The kids went and there was even a proposal!  So we've got the daughter's wedding to look forward to this year.   Like I said - the year was transformative.  

So this year will hopefully bring more posts.  I downloaded the mobile app and that should help. 
Just be patient with me.

I am still transforming.

Bikram Yoga

Today is the first day off of yoga that I have had since Sunday.  I went to Bikram yoga for five consecutive days after work.  I worked myself deeply but yet I still feel slight pangs of guilt that I didn’t go to yoga today.  Instead I stayed home and cleaned house but I found myself thinking about yoga several times throughout my chores.  I had to work at staying present and focused on my tasks which were important and not thinking about missing today’s Saturday Community Yoga class.  I know full well that I am MORE than entitled to take some time off but somehow it feels as though I am only cheating myself in the end.  The way I feel after doing a yoga class is far better than the way I feel after cleaning house.  Yoga has replaced housecleaning as my preferred method of physical prayer and meditation.  It has become my physical mantra.

I bought my first Amazon Local voucher for yoga classes back in November thinking it would be a good thing to alleviate any holiday stress.  I never got around to using the voucher until January and it just wasn’t a good fit for me.  The studio, although lovely, was further from home than I wanted making it difficult to motivate.  I used what I could of the voucher and was just about done when the next offer from Amazon Local came in – a smaller downtown studio called Yogini’s.  The name sounded fun but this time I decided to do some research and found they were a hatha yoga studio and did the Bikram – hot – yoga that I was interested in trying.  I looked up the schedules and they had a beginning Bikram class at 4:30 which was perfect with my work schedule.  I would be able to hit the place after work.  I looked up Bikram yoga and read what I could about it. I read the schedule and decided it had perfect timing for me after work and I thought the hot aspect sounded awesome after a day in a cold building; air conditioning blasting down on me plus I could get a good 90 minute workout in and be home by 6:15. Almost too good to be true. I was excited about finally having a way to work out on my way home and Yogini’s sounded reasonable if I found I liked them. I decided it sounded like worth a try so I went ahead and bought the voucher for 2 months.   With classes that would work with my schedule downtown I was excited to start taking hot yoga. 

I showed up for my first class unprepared at best.  I showed up all excited and found that I was the only student that night.  I met the owner Kim and her daughters Roz and Ruby.  Roz did the class with me that first night where I stumbled through the poses but enjoyed it.  I found that my mat was useless without a towel because they heat the studio to 104 degrees and increase the humidity as well.  Kim put some essential oils in the humidifier which was terrific.  She was patience as she explained the hatha yoga practice.  Since it was my first time doing hot yoga she gave me a bottle of water on the house but let it be known that the next time it would cost me a buck.  I did the poses the best I could and although I sweat like a mule I felt FANTASTIC afterwards!  I was ready to sign up forever right them but wanted to do the 4:30 Beginning Bikram listed on the schedule on the website.  Kim explained that was a silent Bikram class and that until I knew the poses I should focus on some of the Synergy classes listed until I was familiar with the poses and hot environment.  I thought that sounded reasonable so I started going to the later classes at 6:15 to learn what I could about the practice of hatha yoga.  I bought a used copy of Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class at Ruby’s suggestion. 

I talked my sister in to going to a month of classes on another voucher since she worked a couple days a week close to the studio.  Her first visit she was surprised and excited to see a picture of Yogananda, on the wall since she’d been reading his books for many years.  She learned that Kim and her family had studied with Yogananda for many years they were a very spiritual group of women.  My sister bought me a copy of “Autobiography of a Yogi” and I read that while she and I would meet for classes a couple days a week and then I would go by myself the other days.  Despite getting home – again – close to 8 pm it was a spiritual awakening for me.  I was inspired by reading about Paramahansana Yogananda and it did help with my understanding of hatha yoga  to learn of his journey in kriya yoga.  His  brother Biksnu Ghosh was the guru of Bikram Choudury so it all had its roots in hatha yoga.  I knew that I had been lead there to practice Bikram yoga and I wanted to take that 4:30 Silent Bikram class!

After her month was over my sister started going to a place close to her home and she encouraged me to go ahead and go to the class at 4:30 since I already knew the poses and it would be fine – I had this.  By the time I got around to telling Kim that I was going to start showing up for that class she had decided to make that a Beginning Bikram class with a Silent Bikram class at 3 as there had been so much demand for a Beginning Bikram class.  She’d been running a lot of different social media coupons and it was working out for her new studio.  More and more students had started coming in the time I had been going so it was fun to watch this local business grow. 

It was also fun to be a part of something greater – a community of other people committed to the practice of hatha yoga.  It felt very strongly spiritual for me as I started learning the poses and by the time I started going to the Bikram classes it started to feel like a personal mantra that I do with my body.  It is a way to renew my body and also my spirit.  To be still, to enter the stillness with intent to heal and practice peace while sweating and using the heat of the studio to go beyond my edge is very fulfilling for on a spiritual level.  Although I am not really excited by the Hindu/Self Realization Fellowship aspect it does have some Zen things that give me a great sense of peace.  The meditational aspect of it and the staying present worked into my Buddhist leaning Unity faith. 

So now it’s a part of my schedule.  I get off work and drive a couple miles down the road to Yogini’s and I do 90 minutes of yoga and sweat like a fool then I come home and change/shower and decide what we should have for dinner.  I wish I could say I have lost a lot of weight but I haven’t.  In Bikram’s book (which is very funny!) he says that your metabolism levels out where it wants to be because the poses have stimulated those glands.  I do see that my arms and legs are firmer.  I do so wish I could say the same about my stomach but I think it’s just something that I will have to live with.  I have the stomach of a 53 year old mother of 2 because I AM a 53 year old mother of 2.  However, I have taken this step as one of many with the intention of in improving my health both physically and spiritually. 

I do love the staff and the studio.  I love the smell, the feel and the light in the building. I love everything about it and even after 2 months of going I still get excited to think about going there after work!  I have met other women there and even took one class next to a man my adult kids had as an elementary school choral music teacher.  It’s been a liberating experience just like the hubby said it would when I first started taking classes at the place that didn’t work out.  He was right.  It’s been a journey of discovery into what works for me to meet the need I have in my life for a practice of yoga.  It took a while but I found a home at Yogini’s.  I signed up for membership and I am enjoying my daily routine of doing my full body mantra. 

Now I just have to figure out a way to let myself have a day off without self-judgments.  I am doing great.  I am doing something.  That is more than most and there are days when showing up is the hardest part of my day but afterwards I am grateful, so grateful, that I was able to do it.  That my body is able to move into these poses and postures that do work on the inside of my body and mind is truly nothing short of miraculous.  I am so grateful for this body which is a vessel for my spirit.  I am also extremely grateful for the spirit that is inside me and everyone, everything else in the Universe.   Yoga is one of many things that make me realize just how vast our knowledge and breadth is. 

We are expansive.  We are but a small part of something bigger but no less important than any other parts.  When I go back to the basics of breath I can see that.  Yoga has taught me that.