Monthly Archives: February 2010

Keeping busy

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I have to get up early tomorrow morning, swallow down some breakfast, and then go to Hayley’s school to do face painting all day for their Carnival day so I need a cup of green tea (and some chocolate cake!) and my bed. Thus, I’m going to do bullets.

1. George and I celebrated 11 years together yesterday. I can’t believe it’s 11 years. I’m not sure how that’s even possible. Being a Monday and being parents without babysitters, we didn’t go out. We did, however, have a delicious pork tenderloin dinner with potatoes and vegetables, and once the kids went to bed we watched a DVD together. It’s been awhile since we’ve watched a movie so that was really nice and it reminded me of the days when we did that a lot way back when.

53/365 & 8/52 - Eleven

ELEVEN!

2. I’m still progressing with yoga. I’m seriously loving it. I’m almost a month in and I just can’t imagine a day going by without doing some sort of routine. Tomorrow’s going to be weird since I obviously can’t do it before I go to the school since I refuse to get up at 5 am. It will have to wait until the afternoon or maybe the evening if I choose some of the more relaxing, unwinding routines. That will feel strange, but I won’t be able to skip it. I’ve been working hard on Low Crow Pose and can now hold it for over 30 seconds.

7/52 & 49/365 Low Crow Pose

Why yes, it WAS nuts trying to use the timer and then getting myself into that pose. I also recorded it the next day.

Obsessed? What are you talking about?! (My sister amused me today when she emailed to tell me that searching for “low crow pose” on YouTube brings me up as the first result. Ha!)

3. What I don’t plan on obsessing over is the Insanity Workout. There’s something about doing something healthy like yoga that makes me want to do MORE so I thought, let me try some cardio. I tried a few things here and there, but then I decided to give Insanity a try. Let’s just say I’m glad I borrowed it before buying it. It’s just… it’s too much. I’m not trying to lose a lot of weight or look like I’m ripped, I just want good fitness and health benefits. I want to be strong but not THAT muscular. So something like that is way overboard for me. Forty-minute workouts with very few rest periods every day is not going to work for me, especially when my first attempt found me with a sprained back that forced me to just do very basic yoga for two days because I was in too much pain for anything else. I’m sure it’s a great workout, but it’s too high impact for me. (Also I nearly threw up – literally – during the last sequence. Googling “Insanity Workout Puke” reveals that a lot of people actually do. That’s a little bit nuts to me!)

4. Speaking of videos (up in point number 2), I also recorded a video of myself demonstrating the creepy, disturbing, horrifying candy dispenser that George dared to bring into our home.

5. Our friend came to visit for the weekend and that was a lot of fun. He stayed with us and it involved a whole lot of laughing and goofing around. More weekends should contain as much silliness and as little productivity. Although maybe not quite so much late-night poutine because that’s just not good for anyone (but it’s just about impossible to say no when poutine is brought to you at 11 pm, seriously).

Made from Canada

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I know that it’s a common belief that Americans are more patriotic than Canadians are, some idea that we’re too laid back and “yeah, eh?” to get all riled up about our country. Two things proving this wrong:

1. The incredible excitement over the Olympics. I know some people in Vancouver are less than thrilled because their hometown has turned into a crazy party for two weeks, but in general there is a lot of “GO CANADA!” screaming going on and at least some of it has been coming directly from me as I jump up and down like a wild person in front of my television.

2. The amazing pumped-up pride that I felt while watching this commercial.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s a BEER commercial, I know. But seriously. That ad got me all wound up to the point where I want to single-handedly take a tour group across this country to show them how awesome it is.

And that’s all I have time for right now because I have to go and try to scream Team Canada to victory over the Americans in hockey. GO CANADA!

I've become an addict

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Yes, it’s true. I have indeed become an addict but luckily it’s not the kind that requires rehab or interventions. It is, however, the kind that might create the sort of danger where people don’t want to talk to me anymore (or read my Twitter updates or Facebook status) because they get fed up of hearing about it.

I have, over the past few weeks, become completely and totally addicted to Yoga.

And all I can say about that is, good lord it’s about time. I think if I could find all my jotted down New Year’s Resolutions – whether it’s online or in a notebook – I could probably go back at least five or six years and find “start doing yoga” every year.

For reasons that I can’t even understand, I never got around to it. I know resolutions aren’t often kept but that was one that I almost never even seemed to try. Many years ago, back when VCRs were more prominent than DVD players, I bought two yoga videos. I did one of them twice and I think the other is still in the shrink wrap.

I think I always had trouble getting into anything fitness related for various reasons. Mainly though, I don’t like exercise that is easily identifiable as exercise. That’s why joining a gym for me is the equivalent of taking a couple of hundred dollars and flushing it straight down the toilet. I joined a gym once. I went a handful of times and never returned. I don’t like having to go somewhere to work out and I don’t like the nature of the gym. That’s why doing kung fu worked for me. Yes, I still had to leave home to do it, but it was so much fun that getting in shape was like a pleasant side effect. That was the time when I was in the best shape of my life, my body was like a rock and I was strong, but it was something I did (six days a week, two hours a day) just because I loved learning forms and learning how to be a total martial arts machine.

I think that’s why yoga, now that I took the plunge, is working for me. I could take a class, and actually I would love to do a drop-in one day, but I can do it at home. I can find someone to teach me online or via DVD and I can do it at my own pace. I can decide how much I want to do on any given day. And it’s FUN. It’s not using weight machines, running on a treadmill, or climbing 80 flights of stairs on the stair master (which was actually my favorite thing about the gym).

I started near the end of January. On Tuesday, February 16th, it will be 21 days. They (the elusive expert “they”) say that it takes 21 days to make a habit. I think I’m already there. I’ve become obsessed. I read about yoga. I watch videos on YouTube. I got a couple of DVDs to make longer workouts.

I started at random. I had wanted to do yoga because a) I wanted to get in shape – I’m not overweight but I’m not fit, and I wanted to change that, b) I wanted to tone up and strengthen my muscles a bit, and c) I wanted something to fight back against my panic attacks. Exercise in general is good for that, but yoga especially so because of the balance and breathing.

One day my calves were hurting me. Anyone who’s been pregnant knows that ache you can get in your calves, the one that is caused by compressed nerves and then goes away when your baby is born. After Hayley, it was gone the same day. With Breanna… Well, she was born in 2005 and I’m still waiting for those aches to go away. I always thought yoga might help with that. That day when my legs were hurting yet again, I impulsively looked up sun salutations on YouTube. It was the best thing I could have done because I found Dashama demonstrating a basic Sun Salutation. I watched, then I tried. I followed this one:

It was love at first sight. Hmm. First stretch? Whatever.

Dashama is a teacher who travels around the world to instruct people about yoga and she has a 30 Day Yoga Challenge. I loved doing the Sun Salutation (shaky balance and lack of flexibility and all!) so I signed up, which meant I would get a link to a yoga video on YouTube every day (sometimes with bonus videos). I started off doing three rounds of Sun Salutations (or 6 altogether – 3 for each side) followed by the video of the day.

These days I average about 30-45 minutes of yoga because I go back and do some of the old videos as well, creating my own workout depending on what I feel like doing. Today I did my Sun Salutations, a round of vinyasas, inner thigh stretches, another set of different vinyasas, and my daily video which was a variation of the Sun Salutation that required a lot more balance than the basic type. I had to force myself to stop at that point because I was hungry but I was tempted to do shoulder stretches too.

Some days I throw in some cardio and some ab work for fun. Most days I don’t really need abs because a lot of the yoga works the core so hard that it’s not necessary for extra effort.

I don’t know where this yoga beast came from but I’m loving it. In just three weeks I can see so much difference. My balance is improving – I never could have done the Sun Salutation variation before because there were so many moves that required core strength to stay upright but I did it extremely well. My flexibility isn’t perfect but it’s much better. I can now do Downward-Facing Dog with my hands and my feet flat to the floor and my knees perfectly straight, and my next goal is to be able to fold down so that my forehead can touch my knee while doing leg stretches.

In the meantime, I think about yoga and talk about it more than I’d ever imagined possible. I read about it on blogs and in articles on yoga websites. I’ve joined a few groups on Facebook that revolve around it. I find myself randomly doing Tree Pose while standing in the kitchen, waiting for supper to cook. It’s definitely a habit by now.

Oh and my calves? Interestingly, they haven’t hurt in that annoying ache at all in at least two weeks. The only time things ache in my body now is when I’ve worked a muscle group really hard and that’s they kind of ache I like, the kind that says, “hey, I *did* something!”

So that’s what’s been going on lately. I get up, do the school routine with Hayley, have breakfast, wait 20 minutes, and then I do my yoga. Every day, without fail.

There’s no 12-step program for yoga addiction is there? Because I’d like to avoid it if there is.

God forbid we ever let kids just be kids

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I have two girls, as you already know if this isn’t your first time reading here. They are four and seven and they play with dolls and dinosaurs, blocks and puppets, and they love the cartoons on Playhouse Disney. Every once in awhile my seven-year-old says or does something that is a clear reminder she’s in school and influenced by those who are older than she is; sometimes my four-year-old says or does something that she’s learned from a sister who is three years older than she is.

Overall though, my girls are girls. They aren’t acting like tweens or teen or tiny little adults. They’re girls, they’re kids, they’re children.

But GOD FORBID the world should ever let kids be kids. And as soon as I type and post this I think I’m going to talk my oldest into taking down the one remaining Miley Cyrus / Hannah Montana poster she has up in her room and replacing it with something else. Because at this point I don’t think I want anything in our home that is in any way, shape, or form related to the name “Cyrus”.

Aside from doing that, I wish I could go grab Miley’s parents by the shoulders and give each of them a good shake while shrieking, “Billy Ray! Tish! LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU MORONS!”

No, this time it’s not about Miley. Miley’s kind of off my radar ever since her pole dancing at the VMAs and when I saw her at the Grammys she was dressed pretty appropriately for her age instead of an oversexed 16-year-old made to look like she’s 25.

It’s her sister, Noah. Who is NINE. Noah has already been seen on video doing pole dancing of her own (her sister does it, so it must be cool!). She’s also been seen on YouTube singing “Smack That” while slapping her own ass. Did I mention she’s nine?

Anyway, as if that weren’t all appalling enough, Noah and her equally young friend Erica are going to promote and model for a children’s lingerie line.

Can you let that sink in for a second? A lingerie line. Designed for kids. KIDS IN LINGERIE. Pardon my potty mouth but what the fuck? Who EVER sat in a board meeting and uttered the words, “A line of lingerie designed for pre-pubescent girls, that sounds awesome!”?

The Emily Grace Collection is described as such:

“ [The line has a] trendy, sweet, yet edgy feel, reminiscent of Emily’s true personality. She is collaborating with Ooh! La, La! Couture designers to create versatile styles that can be worn with sweet ballerina slippers, funky sneakers or paired with lace stockings and boots for more of a rock and roll look. Emily’s collection will appeal not just to little girls – the line also has an exclusive Teen Collection available to a size 14.”

Lace stockings and boots? For kids? REALLY?

Check this out, this is Emily and Noah talking to Noah about the line:

LOVE that Emily is wearing fishnets and leopard print. Because that totally screams “little girl” except not. I’ve seen someone wearing leopard print dresses with fishnets before. She was standing on a corner outside Burger King waiting for some guy named “John” if you get what I’m saying and I think you do.

Why do we live in a world where people think it’s okay to make thongs and lingerie for kids and reward little girls for acting like they’re 20 years old? Why are there shows about creating some sort of phony “perfect” pageant girl? It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s not charming. It’s disgusting and dangerous and immoral.

I can’t wait until school lets out this afternoon so I can sit on the floor with my kids and put on a puppet show. You know, things that kids are supposed to do.