This time last week I was looking forward to the afternoon. Every year the school invites parents who have volunteered in some way to come up for a special volunteer assembly and tea. I’ve written about it before, but basically they send home invitations to all the volunteers and then we show up about 45 minutes before dismissal. The kids all come into the gym for an assembly to thank us for what we’ve done.
This year some of the older kids had prepared short speeches, which was cute, and then one of the classes sand a song for us. After that the principal called out for each volunteer to come up and receive a certificate and a gift, which was a school pen and a pretty notebook. She had asked all the kids to hold off on their applause until everyone had come up and we’d all get a big round of cheering at the end. Still, kids are kids and they get excited easily so some people still got some clapping, including me. I was a little surprised that there was such a loud cheer for me; I must do a good job of hiding that I’m not a morning person when I volunteer for Breakfast Club, or maybe I was just that good at face painting back at Winter Carnival.
After the assembly Hayley scooted off to daycare which is a special treat for her since she doesn’t normally get to go. However, any kids with a parent at the volunteer tea gets to go to daycare that day and she loves it so much that I usually have to practically drag her out when it’s time to go home.
Meanwhile I got to enjoy some nice tea in beautiful china tea cups and stuff my face with delicious treats like sandwiches, mini quiche, and lots of baked goodies. I had a cup of a really amazing honey-ginger herbal tea and it was so tasty that I want to get some for myself.
I don’t volunteer at the school for any kind of reward but it really is nice to be recognized. In the past I’ve only ever volunteered to help out on field trips but this year I’ve done a lot more around the school. I joined the Governing Board and the PPO, went to the Terry Fox run (though that’s not really volunteering, but the kids enjoy it), took the grade one and two kids to see an environmental play, served pizza on pizza day once, helped with fundraisers, joined the Breakfast Club by volunteering two mornings per week, helped out at Carnival, helped with Movie Night, and will be taking part in the annual Play Day the last week of school. A lot of it required me to step out of my comfort zone and I’m so glad I did because I really enjoyed the hell out of this school year. I love knowing so many of the teachers and other parents as well as the kids, and I love that they know who I am too.
I can’t believe school finishes in just eight more days (not counting weekends and a ped day), on June 23rd. The year really flew by and while I’ll be glad for a two month (and change) break from early mornings, monthly meetings, and other obligations, I’m also looking forward to what next year will bring!
Anyone who has been reading me for awhile knows that I have a huge interest in the refugee situation around the world. Every time that I do the Blogathon (a fundraiser where people blog every half hour for 24 hours straight, as crazy yet awesome as it sounds) I raise money for the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR). I’ve done extensive reading on the UNHCR website and in books/articles.
When I heard that Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was setting up a replica of a refugee camp in Jeanne Mance park in Montreal I was all over it. I wrote it on our wall calendar and announced that we were going to go because really, there was no way I could miss that.
Hayley had the day off on Friday because of a ped day so we decided that would be a good day to go; I figured that most people would be in school or at work so it wouldn’t be as busy as a weekend. It also ended up being a good choice because the rest of the weekend was very hot and humid whereas Friday was much more bearable. As I expected, I enjoyed the tour of the refugee camp – if enjoy is the right word, which it isn’t, but you know what I mean – and it was very educational. I already knew a lot of the information that was shared with our group but it’s one thing to know statistics and it’s a whole other thing to actually see it right in front of you. Even though it wasn’t a real refugee camp with real dangers, it was close enough to be humbling.
We joined a small group and met Zelda, an MSF nurse who has been on seven different missions, including Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, and she led us up to another MSF member who was acting as a border guard. Even though the kids were with us, no one sugarcoated anything which I liked; they were very blunt about telling us that by the time we had reached the border we had probably lost a father, a daughter, and other family members along the way. Then the guard refused to let us into his country without being paid off in bribes. In our case he took the bike helmet and purse of a woman in our group before letting us in. He told us that although she could have hers back, in the real late-night border crossings, many refugees give up whatever few possessions they might still have.
Of course we weren’t safe after crossing into a new country. If refugees can get across the border so can rebel groups and that’s when you might stumble across a land mine or two.
They’re unbelievably small, so it’s easy to see how you could accidentally step on one. However, and this made me have to pause and take a deep breath so I wouldn’t cry, Zelda told us that in some countries the rebels had started painting the land mines a bright yellow. Why make them noticeable instead of hiding them? Because the U.S. aid groups had been dropping food packages in bright yellow boxes so they could be easily found in the jungle. Countless children have died or been severely injured because of mistaking a yellow land mine for a yellow care package.
We were then shown some examples of the most common “housing” that refugees have when they live in a camp. Home sweet home.
While they may not look too bad – and these ones were “good” tents, made with canvas or tarps along with the straw – there are a few things to keep in mind. For one thing, in many cases these tents might house up to 6-10 people which might require arranging to sleep in shifts since they’re not big enough for everyone at once. Also, many of us in our first world countries like to camp out in a tent for a couple of days. These refugees are living in them for great lengths of time. Some refugees have been living in these tents for years, decades, and have no end in sight.
Like I said: Humbling.
Our guide Zelda had just returned three weeks prior from several months in Haiti. She showed us this square tent and told us it’s a very accurate representation of how people are currently living ever since the earthquake destroyed so many homes.
The block out front is to show us the tiny amount of space between tents. The width of the block is the width of “space” between neighbors. There’s absolutely no privacy whatsoever. Haiti is also going through its rainy season right now and she told us that while she was there the first big storm hit causing flooding (the camp she was near was on a bit of a hill so the water just streamed straight through everything) and there was a lot of lightning hitting. She said that they laid in their tents not too far away from the camp and all they could hear was people screaming all night because they were terrified. She told us that she hopes she’ll never have to go through another night like that ever again because it’s awful to hear that while being completely helpless to do anything for them.
We were also shown how to get our food and water. If MSF is responding to an emergency and haven’t fully set up yet they hand out nutrition bars – one per person per day. They’re the size of a granola bar but have all your calories for one day. I got to taste a piece and it’s not bad but it’s very dry and it’s not something you would choose to eat for long periods of time. Once MSF does get set up, this is what your daily ration of food would be.
And if you’re super lucky you’ll also have enough water to cook your rice and dried beans, as well as enough firewood to cook it all. These are logistics we just don’t have to think about in our fancy kitchens. As for the water, most women (and sometimes older children) walk as far as 5 km away to fill up huge 5-gallon jugs which they then carry on their heads back to the camps. Not only is it heavy to carry such long distances in the heat, many women are at risk of being raped and/or kidnapped along the way. Because although rape is always a matter of power in these cases it’s also used as a weapon of war. Nice, right?
Aside from the land mines being painted yellow, the other moment that nearly made me burst into hysterical tears was the section where they showed us some examples of art therapy that MSF does with the children in refugee camps. There were six drawings done by children in Colombia who have grown up knowing nothing but guerrilla warfare and fear. While I tried not to cry, I told the woman standing next to me that my kids draw butterflies, rainbows, and flowers. This is what refugee kids in Colombia draw.
It’s beyond chilling.
We also got to see a clinic setup, a vaccination center where they try to prevent measles and malaria, a recovery center where they treat people with cholera (the number one killer disease in refugee camps), and a special nutrition area where they treat malnourished children with extremely nutrient dense food in paste form.
Zelda told us that out of all the places to work in a refugee camp, the malnutrition station is her favorite even though it’s difficult to see children who are so sick. She held up a card with a small hole in it and asked Breanna to try to put her arm through it; it was just a bit bigger than my thumb so of course Breanna couldn’t do it. She told us that in a refugee camp, a four-year-old just like Breanna could easily slip their arm through if they were malnourished. However, it’s a good place to work because the results are very quick to see. If the kids are brought back every day for the special food, they start to fill out and get better.
The entire experience was very somber and educational. It wasn’t a happy, fun tour. However, it was exactly what I wanted it to be. I’m not in a position to go to a war-torn third world country for 9-12 months at a time no matter how much I might want to help. I’m not going to leave my family. The next best thing is to help out in other ways and for me that includes learning as much as I can and helping to spread the awareness.
I have a few other photos over here if you’re interested in seeing them. I’m so glad that I went and would definitely go back if they do it again here next year. Meanwhile, if you want to educate yourself about the things that aren’t covered very well in the mainstream media, you can check out the MSF website and UNHCR website for a lot more information.
Sometimes I really like planning things out and knowing what I’m doing over the next several days. For instance, I like knowing that on Wednesday and Thursday morning I’ll be at the school to volunteer for Breakfast Club, Wednesday evening I’ll be back at the school for a PPO meeting, and that Friday I’ll be going to check out a replica of a refugee camp that’s being set up in a big park by Doctors Without Borders. Throwing in some sort of event into the middle of all that could potentially throw a monkey wrench into my life. It’s not that I’m a control freak, I just like knowing what to expect and think that my anxiety issues are at least part of the reason for that. Let’s put it this way: The worst thing in the world anyone could do for me would be to throw me a surprise party. People with anxiety issues don’t need surprises, thanks.
However, all of that being said, life would be very rigid and dull if you never did anything spontaneous and so this weekend we had two totally impromptu outings. On Saturday I knew Hayley already had plans and George was going to be busy as well. The weather was calling for a lot of rain on and off all day so going to the park didn’t seem to be very likely but I wanted to have something fun for Breanna to do. Out of nowhere I decided that I should take her to the library since she had never been. I had to get a new card since I lost mine over two years ago (yes, it had been a long time since I had gone). Breanna was actually old enough to get her own card as well so she was really happy; she even got to sign her own name on the back.
She loved the library and was really good, even remembering to whisper or talk quietly. She thought it was cool that I could find specific books for her on the computer and then find them on the shelves. She requested some Caillou books and I suggested a few Dr. Seuss books as well (I confess that I like when the kids get those because I just really love reading them out loud), then she picked the rest of her haul based on what looked good to her. Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?
We left with 12 books for her and 5 for me. We can each take a maximum of 15 but that was plenty for now.
(No, I’ve never read any of the Sookie Stackhouse books, so I’m giving them a try now.)
Our second unexpected outing was on Sunday evening after supper. I had given Hayley her bath and washed her hair in the late afternoon because I thought that maybe we’d go outside to play with some bubble toys in the evening. However, after taking the dog down for a quick pee, George pulled me aside and asked what I thought about taking the kids out for some ice cream. It was really warm on Sunday and somehow it seemed like the perfect way to end the weekend so off we went.
We tried one ice cream place and the line was so ridiculous that I’m not sure we would have actually been served until well after bed time so we left immediately. Next we tried a Dairy Queen nearby but it was pretty packed too and there was nowhere to park; their parking lot is very small and there’s no parking on the street so it wasn’t looking good. Luckily there’s another Dairy Queen not too far away that isn’t usually all that busy even on the hottest days of summer, so we headed over there and had no trouble at all.
Hayley surprised me by choosing pistachio ice cream (and she loved it), and requested that ginormous waffle cone with chocolate. Of course it was huge and she wasn’t able to finish it all but she enjoyed it! Meanwhile Breanna had really wanted banana ice cream which they didn’t have. She was disappointed but the cashier saved the day by suggesting some vanilla soft serve with some banana-flavored syrup on top – perfect and she loved it.
I stuck with a Blizzard, trying out their new waffle-caramel flavor. It was pretty good and had chocolate pieces in it as well, but I’m still hoping they’ll bring back their midnight truffle flavor from last year because that is seriously awesome. As always I couldn’t finish it even though I took the smallest size; they need a “smaller than small” size! George wasn’t in the mood for ice cream himself so he just got a grape slush which was good since the ice cream made the kids thirsty!
We dropped in on his parents for a short visit on the way home and I ran down to the basement to watch the last ten minutes of the first period of Montreal vs. Philly with George’s dad and, well… that was a truly awful game. I didn’t even watch it all once we got home, choosing the finale of Survivor instead. Here’s hoping we have a better game on Tuesday night!
We managed to get home before bedtime and got the kids quickly changed and off to bed. Breanna was exhausted and fell asleep quickly but Hayley listened to the game on her radio for awhile before finally giving in and drifting off.
Game trauma aside, it was a really good weekend and while I’ll stick to making plans for most things, I do love the spontaneous moments too. I hope your weekend was great too!
The more that I improve my overall health (yes I’m still doing yoga every day) and the more I learn about digestion, meat, and the factory farming industry, the more I like the idea of vegetarian meals. The thing is, I know that it’s not a change that I can make overnight because the truth is that I do love meat.
Luckily for me I also do love vegetarian foods so when my friend Kathy told me about Meatless Monday I was on board. The basic and fairly obvious idea is that one night a week meat-eating families forget their usual burgers, roast chickens, or meatloaf and eat a meat-free dinner.
I went one better and actually went meat-free all day. In fact I had two meat-free days in a row. Both days I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast and both days I had veggie and cheese wraps for lunch. On Sunday we had macaroni noodles with tomato-alfredo sauce (and salad on the side – I am ALL about salads lately). For Meatless Monday I made Cheesy Vegetable Pasta.
It’s not 100% healthy because the sauce is made with a canned soup but other than that it’s delicious, easy, and definitely vegetarian. It’s not vegan of course, but I love cheese and yogurt too much to go vegan without a fight.
-1 1/2 cups dry macaroni noodles (give or take)
-2 cups mixed frozen vegetables (I’ve used fresh too but frozen is just convenient)
-1 can cream of celery soup (I used reduced sodium)
-1/2 cup milk
-1 cup (or more) of shredded cheddar cheese
-1 tbsp prepared mustard
-Garlic powder to taste
Cook noodles and add vegetables in last five minutes of cooking time. Drain. Stir in remaining ingredients, mix well, then heat through. Serve with additional cheese if desired.
I add pepper to mine and George adds hot sauce. We also added some grated parmesan cheese.
It worked out well. I asked around on Facebook and got tons of great recipe ideas from vegetarian or veg-friendly people but if you have a favorite vegetarian meal to suggest I’d love to hear it!
Recently our car started giving us a lot of trouble and it was on its last legs. Er, tires? Anyway. It was to the point that George didn’t feel comfortable driving it too far from home. It was time to retire the Nissan Altima and find something better. We liked having that car, it was a good ride but we moved on to something just a little bigger. This statement will cause the Universe to revoke whatever “cool card” I had left (and I think I lost most of it post-college anyway) but here’s the truth: I love our minivan. LOVE.
We ended up with a (used) Plymouth Voyager and it’s just fabulous. I never thought I’d say that ever, but it’s true. I love the space inside. It seats seven with two bucket seats behind ours and then a bench in the back. Even if I sit in the back I have tons of leg room. Hell, I sat in the front and put my giant camera bag on the floor in front of me and had plenty of space. It’s just awesome.
To celebrate our new-to-us vehicle we wanted to take it for a decent drive rather than just the local area so on Saturday we got up at 7:45am and got ready to head out to Ottawa (the capital of Canada for those of you who aren’t from around here!) for the day. We had invited some of our friends to join us so it was really great with all of us driving down. Despite our new spacious van, Hayley elected to hop into their car with her friend. Alas, it all ties into that post about holding on when you can because you don’t always get the chance! (On the other hand, it meant far less Justin Bieber in our ears, so that was just fine thankyouverymuch.)
We were welcomed to Ottawa with a giant cloud of thick, grey smoke very close to our intended destination, the Museum of Science and Technology. Luckily we weren’t planning to be outside while we were there so we didn’t have to inhale the (what turned out to be) toxic fumes thank goodness. Back at home I looked it up and it was a fire in a car yard. Yikes!
The museum itself was great. I’d been there many (many) years ago when I was in high school but I didn’t really remember much about it other than the Crazy Kitchen. I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked to dawdle and read all the exhibit information but I saw everything and it has some awesome stuff. I loved the big room with the trains. It was a bit eerie, like some sort of train graveyard. Maybe the trains are haunted! Or maybe I’m just weird. It could go either way.
My favorite part though – and this is not much of a surprise I’m sure – was the space section. It didn’t hurt that you entered that area by walking through a tunnel that looked exactly like the Enterprise. Hello inner Trek geek.
I may have squealed but I’ll never admit it one way or the other. I also got to pretend to be controlling the space shuttle and since that’s pretty much as close as I’ll ever get (sigh, all those lost dreams of my youth…) I was pretty damn excited about that too.
The kids had a blast running around because it’s a very hands-on museum. They encourage going inside stuff, touching everything, pushing buttons, and really learning. It’s definitely a kid-friendly museum and I highly recommend it. Though I also recommend eating BEFORE you go because goodness, the cafeteria was pricey and while it was tasty it wasn’t quite THAT good. That’s par for the course with places like that though.
One part that was a big hit with Hayley and her friend was a section that taught about networking. You climbed up dark staircases that were lit up with moving multi-colored lights and followed certain paths depending on whether you were following the “copper” trail or the “wireless” trail. At the top – the second floor – you eventually came to the end of your path only to find a hole in the wall. Using my flash I discovered that yes, it was indeed a slide but it was enclosed inside the wall, went down in long winding circles, and it was pitch black. Like, total darkness. It was creepy as all hell. Hayley wanted to try it but was scared so I put on my big girl panties and went down with her. It kind of freaked me out because it doesn’t let you go very fast and I couldn’t see a thing at all. Once she did it the first time she was fine and she went back up with her friend another three times.
The things you do for your kids. Luckily for me Breanna had zero interest in the slides because of the darkness factor so I only had to do it the one time. Sheesh.
You can see the full set of photos over here. It was a lot of fun. I’d like to go back next year and try the simulators but I think Breanna was a bit young for it.
We had intended to head on to Byward Market to wander around since it was nice and warm but the second we had put coins into the parking meter near the market the sky opened up and it started to just pour. If it had been a light rain we could have survived but it was way too heavy to be walking around. What a shame. We want to go back because they have another museum that has a lot of dinosaurs but it was closed for maintenance, so if we head back to visit that one we can try the market again.
My friend and I stopped at an LCBO (liquor store) and picked up some Ontario wines that we can’t buy here at home, then we headed back to Montreal. They invited us to come over and hang out, but we were all so tired that we suggested we’d just order something in so that no one would have to cook. Despite that, when George and I got to their house (we’d stopped on the way to let the dog out), there was a nice little spread of wraps, cheese, crackers, olives, bread, olive oil with balsamic vinegar, and cucumbers. It was much more delicious than anything we would have ordered!
The kids played, the guys went downstairs, and my friend and I enjoyed one of the wines – a Merlot called Fat Bastard – and chatted. It was the perfect way to end what had been a wonderful Saturday, rain and all.
It feels like summer festivities have arrived early!
So I know that blogging about blogging is redundant and also cliche and all that, but have you ever gone so long without updating that you a) don’t remember how to go about it, b) don’t know where to start, and c) have no idea what to write about anyway even though you clearly did *something* over the past couple of weeks?
Yeah. No, me neither. Cough.
So let’s see what happens if I leave this window open and just write whatever pops into my head. Ummm. Wow, do you hear crickets chirping?
Okay, here’s something! You probably know that I wrote about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at a site called PittWatch. Due to some changing around of this, that, and the other thing, I now write the same sort of thing over at a new site all my own, so if you have any interest in celebrity life (and specifically Brad and Angelina’s life), you can check out JoliePittWatch.
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Last week was March break. During March break which was, if you count the weekends, nine days long, I discovered how many times two sisters can argue over the television, the computer, the Wii, the blocks, the bathtub, who gets to splash in which puddle outside, who has more pine cones collected, whether we’re going to walk in this direction or that one, who’s bigger, smarter, funnier, prettier, smellier, etcetera etcetera ad nauseum holy frickin’ run-on sentence.
That’s not to say the entire week sucked. It did not. Specific moments certainly did and there were some evenings where I was counting down the seconds until bedtime (often aloud) but overall it was a nice week. It was great to not have to get up early in the morning even though the kids clearly have different concepts of what constitutes “sleeping in”. It was also nice to not have to rush through the evening for an 8 pm bedtime, and it was awesome to not have any homework to deal with for a full week.
The weather was odd but really nice. We call it March break not only because it’s (duh) in March but because it was ridiculous to refer to something as Spring break when there were snowdrifts taller than we are lingering around. This year has been the year of Very Bizarre Weather though, and as a result we had almost no snow on the ground at all and temperatures above freezing. Let’s put it this way – one day Hayley insisted that she wear snowpants even though I had walked the dog and told her there was more grass (and mud) than snow. She carried on so much I went ahead and put them on her and we went outside where she discovered I was right and she was way overdressed. Guess who needed to have mud washed out of her snowsuit?
I’m mostly enjoying the weather because this is Eastern Canada dammit, and we don’t see this weather until at least late April if we’re lucky. It’s hard though because every day that they say it’s going to be 7C and sunny when we should be buried in our 83rd snowstorm feels like it’s one day closer to the apocalypse.
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Speaking of the apocalypse, I watched 2012 the other night. I regretted not seeing it in theaters on a huge screen with massive surround sound but I still really enjoyed it. Naturally it was over the top, had many highly unlikely situations, and was ludicrous, so I loved it. Honestly, one of my favorite types of movies is the “holy shit it’s the end of the world mega-disaster say goodnight Irene” movie. It doesn’t matter if it’s natural (2012, Armageddon, Dante’s Peak, etc) or if it’s man-made (I Am Legend), if 95% or more of the human species gets wiped out, I’m all over it. It was a fast-paced movie, they surprisingly didn’t ruin it by showing all the good stuff in the trailers, and it didn’t feel as long as it actually was.
On the other hand, watching it on the same day where Chili was hit by an earthquake so strong that it shifted the planet’s axis and caused massive tsunami warnings… well, that might not have been the best idea ever. I was a little more, shall we say, TENSE while watching it considering what had been on the news.
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Speaking of 2012, I’ve given it some thought and wonder just how plausible it is that the world might really end in two years’ time. Because if it’s going to happen I’d like to have some notice so I can stop paying my bills and bothering with housework.
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So. What’s new with you? Anything exciting? Seen any good movies lately? Who do you think was best-dressed at the Oscars (Sandra Bullock, IMO)? Tell me a story!
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.
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.
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).
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.
Friday: Breanna had been very upset on Thursday afternoon when she found out I had gone for a walk in the woods with the dog without her. I mean REALLY upset. That kid loves the woods as much as I do. I promised her we’d go on Friday and so that’s what we did. Hayley went straight to her grandparents’ house for the afternoon and evening after school so she didn’t realize we were going out somewhere without her. Walking in the woods with a four-year-old wearing snow pants is a lot slower than just going by yourself with the dog, but it was fun and the weather was outrageously beautiful.
I ended Friday by sobbing into a pile of tissues while watching “Hope For Haiti Now”. What an amazing telethon and George Clooney is truly an incredible person for getting it organized so quickly.
Saturday: It was meant to start off quietly but instead it ended up finding me and the kids still in our pajamas (George pulled on sweatpants), bare feet stuffed in boots, standing outside and wondering if our building was on fire. All the tenants were out, though not everyone came right down – some stayed in their hallway, the alarm blared, the kids cried, and the fire department showed up. I would have taken some photos of the firemen traipsing up and down the stairs with their axes and fire extinguishers but I discovered that despite what I used to think, I actually will NOT go retrieve my camera from my desk in the case of a fire. My bag was by the door but I had dumped photos the night before so the camera was too far away and the alarm was too loud and I said, “you know, eff that, I can’t afford a new camera right now but I can’t take pictures if I’m dead either so…” Alas.
Turns out that there was no fire, someone’s smoke detector was defective, tripped the system, and set off the building’s main alarm. Whew. Still, when I got up on Sunday I put on jogging pants so I wouldn’t have to stand around with my neighbors while wearing my snowman flannel PJs, gah.
That ended all hopes of peace but I did manage to take both kids and the dog into the woods yet again for a two hour walk. They argued with each other most of the way so the woods were less quiet than usual but at least it gave them exercise and helped them sleep later.
With the kids bickering non-stop all day long I had posted to Facebook saying that I was undergoing a personal tragedy because while it was a definite “wine day” I had no wine and didn’t foresee acquiring any. A friend read it and since George was down in her basement at that moment, helping her husband with reno work she asked if I’d like to bring the kids over for supper. Upon arrival she practically immediately poured me a glass of wine – yay Facebook! We had delicious chicken fajitas but the best part was truly just escaping my own home and having some adult conversation with a friend I hadn’t seen for awhile.
Sunday: Today I expected a lot of crappy weather since I woke up to weather warnings in my email from the Weather Network (I know, geek) but it was actually pretty nice out all day long. I took the dog into the woods for a walk for the fourth day in a row, but solo this time and it was a good way to unwind from the whole weekend, especially since I spent much of the day cleaning the kids’ room out.
Tomorrow is technically the beginning of the week but it will feel a little bit confusing to me since Hayley has a Ped Day. That means I’ll be off all week long.
I’ve said it before, but I really don’t live in the right place. I need to live on a good acre of land, surrounded by a forest, out in the middle of nowhere. A log home would be a nice bonus. I don’t have that but at least I have some woods within walking distance.
Yesterday George took the kids to visit his parents for a couple of hours and since I found myself alone, and it was really nice outside, I grabbed the dog and went walking in the woods for about an hour. I had my iPod (playing a whole lot of Ke$ha, and I am so far out of her intended age demographic but damn if I don’t love her musc, no matter how bad it might technically be), I had sunshine and vitamin D, and I had fresh air.
Spending time outside is always good but being near the ocean or being in the woods is what really calms and grounds me. Since I am nowhere near an ocean – for now – the woods fill the void quite well.
