ezmy writes

Two things to note:

1) I will have a yoga challenge progress update for you shortly.

2) I simply cannot believe that this is the first pre-The Office conversation I’ve written up, given how many times A. and I have watched the seven seasons that we own (*cough, 8 times, cough cough*). And this one isn’t even about The Office. It just happened before it.

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(Scene: A. and Ezmy are in the kitchen preparing to go downstairs for a little pre-bedtime episode of The Office. This preparation almost always involves gathering together a light bedtime snack of some sort. For Ezmy, this will be steamed soy with honey. For A., this will be chocolate. Any chocolate will do…)

A.: *surveys the cupboards and locates half a bag of chocolate chips* “A ha!”

Ezmy: “You know, if you eat those I won’t be able to make you chocolate chip cookies tomorrow.”

A.: *strikes up a conversation with himself* “Hmm would you like cookies tomorrow or chocolate chips now?” “Um, yeah chocolate chips now.” “Woot.” “Wingbang.” *grins like a little kid and walks away*

Ezmy: “Hehe.”

Hmpf, this morning was only meh. I woke up just stupid tired because I stayed up too late last night. Determined to kick off the day with some blood-flowing yoga, however, I grabbed my mat and went upstairs to meet Mr. Yee.

Within about 10 minutes, I realized the difference between yoga and other forms of exercise. With running, I find I can push myself to finish the run even when I’m not really in the mood to be there. And I always feel better for it. With yoga, I can still say things to myself like “come on, Ezmy, buck up!” but you simply can’t force someone into mindfulness and calm breathing. So I did my hour, sure, but I felt resentful and grumpy most of the time. Lamesauce, as my cousin Fialonia would say.

I suppose that’s a clear sign that I need proper sleep in order to have a good yoga day. Ah well, better luck tomorrow, right? And perhaps my meditation during Budsie’s nap will go extra specially well.

In much better news, this is how my day looks today:

*breakfast fun with little man

*play with rocks and sand outside with little man

*read stories with little man

*lunch and chats with little man

*cuddles and nap time with little man

*meditation

*thesis page or two

*SEXY AB ARRIVES!

So despite having a meh yoga day, I sense things will get better quickly. Off to make a cup of coffee and say good morning to Budsie!

Day seven went by smoothly on the yoga front, not so much on the meditation front. Yes, I sat there for the required 15 minutes but I had troubles reaching a sense of calm and peace because the “landscapers” were here in full weed-whacker force. (These guys – if they spent half as much time cleaning up the cigarette butts that forever seem to be in my backyard, or weeding the flower beds as they did weed whacking and blowing grass around the parking lot, this place would look amazing. I swear they fight over who gets to wander about the property with the leaf-blower, randomly blowing things about. Sigh.)

Anyway, so the lesson of the day was learn to tune out the noise. This will take some time, I think, as I am easily brought out of concentration. Except when reading, oddly – hmmm, must figure out how to apply this skill beyond reading.

In non-yoga related stuff, I made a batch of blueberry muffins today using table cream instead of soy milk. I had leftover table cream in the fridge, see, and since we don’t really use cream for anything except the odd pasta sauce, I thought why not? Well. Now I’ll never be able to go back to vegan blueberry muffins, at least not the way I was making them before. Holy scrumptious batman!

Right, off to chill with Ewan in the park. It’s a beautiful day in O-town, folks! Get outside!

So day six was not a full hour. BUT in my defence, A. telephoned part way through and since a) he is in Halifax and b) today was his gran’s funeral, I thought best to pick up the telephone.

At first, I was mildly irritated with myself for leaving the yoga until the end of the day – I baked this morning (emergency muffins and pancakes in lieu of bread), and I did work for Mum during nap time so technically I could have been yoga-ing it up during those times, thus avoiding the disruption tonight.

But then I thought, pfft. This is what practicing yoga is all about for me after all – achieving balance in my life. And balance in one’s life sometimes means taking those important calls to support a loved one, or baking muffins at 6am because your little man needs something to breakfast on and he can’t eat yoga poses.

So I still feel successful with my 40 minutes. Tomorrow is a new day – early morning yoga, thesis, park fun with the Budsie, and a spot of early housecleaning because sexy AB is coming for a visit on Thursday. I have a spare yoga mat – I wonder if I can drag her into the challenge?

Day five was another evening yoga session because Budsie ended up sleeping in my bed last night. Hmmm, perhaps ‘sleeping’ isn’t the right word – he didn’t actually fall asleep until around 2am. He woke up at around 11pm with nightmares, see, and then demanded to see his Daddy, who isn’t here right now. No amount of story reading or singing would get him to settle down, so he picked up his new favourite dog, ‘SauSau’ (Sausage, a rainbow-tummied Valentine’s Day dog), his teeny ‘po po’ (pillow) and toddled down to my room. Early morning yoga is impossible with a toddler sharing your bed because they wake up to the sound of grass growing. So we ‘slept-in’ until 7:30am.

But no matter. The yoga happened this evening, all 60 minutes of it and the meditation session immediately after. This is turning out to be the best way to do things, since I’m already sitting at the end of yoga anyway. Today’s efforts were placed on elongating everything – back, chest, arms, legs, you name it, I elongated it. Felt good. But near the end, I started to feel a little groggy and here’s where the next step in my path to yogarificness comes in: yoga fuel.

My diet is a mixed bag. Having completely abandoned hardcore veganism once I started breast-feeding (you gotta eat what the body wants you to eat during times like these), I’ve settled now into an odd low gluten, bit of meat here and there, boatloads of vegetables and yogurt sort of diet. Lots of water, etc. There are gaps here somewhere, though, because I simply do not feel appropriately fuelled for my practice. This evening I’d go so far as to say I felt stodgy, if a person can feel stodgy. Of course it might not be a food thing, but a timing thing. Either way, investigation is clearly in order.

So that’s tonight’s little task. I have to write a grocery list/menu for this week anyway – might as well tie in a little research on what to eat to fuel my yoga times. Can’t spend too much time here though – there’s a thesis to format (my mother’s, not my own) and sleep to be had. Any tips from my readers (I’m looking at you, lovely EH) would be greatly appreciated.

Today’s yoga session was all about awareness, specifically awareness of my feet. I tend to forget about my feet, choosing instead to focus on my breathing and relaxing my neck (I’ve never been good at relaxing my neck, much to the chagrin of numerous dance teachers). But today I tried to really focus on my poor feet, being sure to plant them firmly in standing poses, to not scrunch my toes in balancing poses, and to keep them active and flexed during floor work. Phew! That was a lot of foot mindfulness. It did pay off though – I felt stronger in my standing forward bends, for instance. Another yogarific day.

In non-yoga related news, I recently purchased a basil plant. Now before you start fearing for Stewart’s life, you should know that Percy is thriving. He’s doing just splendidly. And he has two other friends who also seem to be enjoying life as a plant at Ezmy’s: Violet (a small, purple African violet) and Walter (a yellow-spotted plant of some kind). Hopefully Stewart will feel equally at home.

(You’re wondering why I didn’t mention Edmund, aren’t you. Hmpf. Well, Edmund survived more than one year. And he isn’t dead…per se. He is, however, a little worse for wear. He currently resides on the balcony, so as not to depress the other plants. Also, I think the weather might be more his speed here. We shall see…)

Anyway, I’m going to try my hand at herbs again. Starting with Stewart and hopefully moving on to Rosemary. Fingers crossed.

Day three was almost NOT a success. I slept through my alarm, see, and fitting yoga in during the day is tricky business, between thesis-ing, meal-preparing and toddler-minding. Workouts usually occur between 6 and 7am when I am almost 100% guaranteed to have a sleeping kidlet.

So I started the day with a hmpf. But then I thought, meh, move on and stay focused – you’ll get there. So I went out to work on the thesis, came home and scoured the kitchen, made a tasty dinner for my menfolk, tucked the little dude into bed and, at 8:30pm, finally got around to yoga and meditation. Success! Also awesome? Whilst balancing in a version of triangle pose where the back leg is lifted (I don’t know the names of things), I was finally, FINALLY able to look all the way up at my upper hand. I’ve only ever been able to do this while in regular triangle pose. This will mean nothing to most of you, but I don’t care. BALANCING MILESTONE!

Right, shower and reading time. I’m feeling super good about myself today. *beams*

A quicky post as Friday is house cleaning day: day two = total success on both fronts. Lotus pose meditation for the win!

New Budsie saying: “Very, very soon” Hehe

First day of yoga challenge = success. I mean, it would be pretty sad if it wasn’t, right? The 15 minutes of meditation turned into sleep. Quite by accident – having spent the morning running around after an angry, over-tired toddler, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. A nice 15 minute sitting snooze was just what the doctor ordered, however, because I’m raring to go now! Time to do some writing (and deleting…and then some more writing…and deleting).

On the home front, Budsie has a new phrase: “mmm mmm TASTY!”. Everything is “mmm mmm TASTY!” these days. What a great life.

When not thesis-ing and looking after a now very dramatic little boy, I spend my time yoga-ing. I usually get in 3-4 sessions each week, depending on my mood and the weather. I do so love my moments with Rodney Yee and feel most comfortable when I’m balancing on one leg, or working on a new pose.

I’ve had to stop running for a little while, so my mornings have just been freed up quite a bit. What better time to set up a little yoga challenge for myself? So here goes:

For the next 30 days, I aim to practice yoga for 1 hour, and to meditate for 15 minutes each day. The meditation is where things are going to fall of the wheels, I suspect. Not having the money for classes, I have to be the one who convinces me to sit still for 15 minutes. And I’m a difficult meditation student, prone to wandering about the house picking up socks and cleaning Crayola off of the walls. But meditate I must! My best writing is done post-meditation, to say nothing of the fact that I could use the 15 minutes to re-group after a day of being told “NOOOOOOOO!” even when the question is “Would you like to go to the park and eat snacks?” (the way toddlers enter the world is strikingly similar to teenagers…this is both amusing and terrifying to me…).

Anyway, so this is my yoga challenge. I will, of course, post updates here. Yogarific!