Crunch Time

Haven’t check in with my blog in a while so I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a few updates about my resolutions.

Basically, I’m sucking so bad! I’ve done three yoga classes this month (two of which were this week) and there’s only 8 days left in the month! I’ve embarked on a mini challenge and am determined to squeeze in all my required sessions by the end of the month, which of course means I’ll be doing yoga pretty much every day for the next week. What could possibly be wrong with that? Let me tell you what’s wrong with it: I hurt. My back hurts, my legs hurt, my neck hurts, even one of my fingers hurts. And I’m not really sure why. I think I’m getting sick again (really? twice in one year- that NEVER happens to me). Indeed, I fell asleep last night and could barely move my body I ached so much. I woke up this morning and my head was all stuffy. Not to mention that I’ve been battling a nasty headache off and on for the past few days. It’s possible that the fact that I’ve been riding my bike to work in the 30 degree weather is contributing to this, but one gets the common cold from a virus, not cold weather, so that’s unlikely (I gave up driving to work for Lent; I’m not Catholic, but I believe that self-reflection and sacrifice are important virtues and should be practiced. Plus it’s a lot cheaper than paying $18 to park every day).

Another reason doing yoga for 10 days in a row sucks is because apparently my yoga studio offered a deal on Groupon that allowed a huge discount to newbies for a certain amount of classes. Talk about a shit show. The room is so crowded that there are 4, sometimes 5 rows (as opposed to the normal 3), people in the back row have no chance of seeing themselves in the mirror, newbies are unprepared for the heat that’s exacerbated by the increased amount of bodies, and parking is a bitch and a half. Sure, I love when newbies come to yoga- makes me feel like a bad ass when I can do a particular pose and sort of show off. I’m all for new students- just not all at once. Last night’s class (with Jeremy, who’s my favorite instructor after Justine and Elle) had 56 students. FIFTY-SIX! In a room that’s built to have maybe 35-40 people comfortably. Which I guess explains why we’re not comfortable.

Speaking of newbies, I brought a friend to yoga last night! Like me, she works in the Capitol, although she works in another member’s office. She used to do Bikram when she lived in Colorado but stopped for a few years. When she found out I practiced she was excited about starting again. I told her I was going last night at 6:30 and she decided to come along. She did alright but I could definitely tell she was beginning from scratch (all the more reason for me to not lose momentum!). There were a lot of poses she couldn’t do (mainly in the balancing series) but I especially noticed that she wasn’t doing well in the floor series where she looked miserable. Finally, after I noticed she’d run out of water, I offered her my second bottle (which wasn’t an easy thing to do considering I was nearing the end of my water supply). Later when I asked her what had happened she confessed to not having eaten or drank anything all day. ALL DAY! She had half a cup of coffee at 5:30am and nothing else. That was seriously 14 hours without sustenance (if you can even call coffee sustenance). Talk about a rookie mistake! Still I’m glad to have found a yoga buddy who will go with me and force me to go even when I don’t want to. The biggest problem that I see is that she loves 6am classes, and as I’ve mentioned time and time again, I’m not a morning person. By any means.

I’m determined to finish my damn classes and will take it as a lesson for the future about the perils of waiting until the last minute to do things. They say you should have a reward for yourself when you complete these types of things, and I’ve already got mine in mind. My friend’s engagement party is in a few weeks and as the Maid of Honor I feel it’s my duty to look fabulous. Thus, a shoe shopping spree is in order! Can’t wait until I finish my mini-challenge so I can head to Macy’s and check out the spring collections!

As far as my book resolution goes, I’m doing alright in that area. I stopped reading that book about feminism, mainly because it put me to sleep and didn’t quite pique my interest for a long enough time for me to really get into it. Saturday though I went to Barnes and Noble with my mom and she bought me a couple new books that looked pretty good. So far I’ve read about 120 pages out of maybe 350 in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air which is about the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest. Apparently the author was actually there and so he wrote a sort of historical/adventure book about it- it’s pretty good so far. It’s not so gripping that I can’t put it down, but I can stay engaged with it enough to read a chapter or two before bed each night. I don’t have plans for after yoga on Saturday so I’m thinking I may shower up, have some lunch, slip into my pj’s and lay in bed and read all day. Tell me that doesn’t sound fabulous.

No Mistakes!