Yoga Sunday

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Sherry

Today we were planning to have some of George’s family over for supper so after brunch he and his sister took the kids out and ran some errands and did a bit of visiting. This left me all alone and I had just finished reading a book so I decided to fill my time with some yoga instead. I spent 45 minutes just doing whatever I felt like, not bothering with DVDs of YouTube videos, just running through sequences and poses including my rapidly improving Natarajasana or Dancer’s Pose.

(Yes, I know, legwarmers. I wear them without apology for yoga but promise to not wear them out in public a la 80s.)

It turned out though, that what I left like doing was mostly inversions, and I have to tell you that if you learn to throw yourself upside down and balance you’ll feel strong enough to do just about anything. First off I discovered that my Full Wheel pose has improved.

I haven’t even tried it in ages but I’ve been working on other poses that involve a bit of back bending and apparently my spine is gaining some flexibility. Seeing how well I can do this now compared to my early attempts has me wanting to do it more and more to really nail it down.

Then after playing with some fun variations of Side Crow pose…

… I practiced Fallen Angel. It looks insane and impressive but if you can do Side Crow you can learn to do Fallen Angel. This is the first time I’ve ever gotten my legs this straight and it felt amazing.

After finishing all my poses and routines I spent some time lying flat on my back in Savasana and marveling over how strong and relaxed I feel after doing yoga. I know that going in but it still takes my by surprise to experience just how powerful it is.

As a result I had plenty of energy to do a quick vacuum in the living room, made some fresh carrot-apple-celery-ginger juice for myself and my sister-in-law (who has now gotten me so eager to get a Vitamix that I could just about cry over how expensive there are, but ohhhh I want one!), shared cooking duties with George, and had a lovely evening.

I think it’s going to kick off my week quite nicely!

Impromptu Saturday plans

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Sherry

One thing that I love about living in a house instead of our old apartment is that it’s much more conducive to entertaining. In our old place we used to have people over for birthday parties and once in a blue moon we’d have one person over for supper, but that was about it. We’ve already entertained more here in the past five months than we did in five years.

Something that I’ve always loved is impromptu plans. I loved having nothing in particular to do and then suddenly being invited over for dinner and laughs with good friends. This weekend George’s sister is in town and we picked her up from the airport with the intention of just hanging out, having some tacos, and maybe having a couple of people over for a couple of hours.

Instead we ended up having a houseful of people, including two kids for Hayley and Breanna to play with, we all ate supper, and nearly cried from laughing so hard at all the joking around that was going on. Had I planned ahead I probably would have been mildly stressed (not too much, but a little bit I’m sure), but since it was all an impromptu afternoon and evening it just ended up being a good time without any worrying.

The rest of my weekend involves a little more of the same; some brunch with my family tomorrow morning, relaxing in the early afternoon (maybe some yoga?), introducing my sister-in-law to the carrot-apple-celery-ginger juice, and then having some people over for a good old Sunday night roasted something or other dinner.

That works for me as far as weekend plans go.

Learning to read

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Sherry

I still remember back when Hayley first started to learn to read back in 2008. It was so exciting to hear her putting those words together and making the connections of the sounds.

(And wow, is she ever small in that picture!)

Breanna doesn’t quite read fully yet but she’s starting to recognize words and as a result of that combined with some memorization, she’s just about there. Every Monday morning each kid in her class picks a small basket of books for the week. From that basket she picks two books to bring home to read.

Since I’m not home to do reading at bedtime I read to her every morning before school and fill out her reading log for her. Sometimes, though, she reads to me. She got a book called Hedgehog is Hungry on Thursday, practiced it a few times at school, then read it to me this morning when we finished doing breakfast and getting ready.

I love listening to her read to me.

If you’re curious, Hayley does all her reading at night. She reads chapters in her books or flips through a handful of her old favorite storybooks. Therefore, her thing in the morning is that she gets ready for school and as long as she’s all done in time she can play on the computer for about ten minutes.

Growing up is sad sometimes because you kind of want them to stay little, but learning to read is pretty exciting.

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Waterfront lunch

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Sherry

Yesterday when I got to work I was about 50 minutes early, as I usually am. I got off the bus and decided I didn’t really feel like going in just yet so I decided to walk a block down and check out some shops (window shopping only, alas). Once I was done browsing around a cute little store I felt a bit hungry; I normally bring a lunch with me to eat before my shift starts but I didn’t want to go sit in the lunch room to eat it.

It was a beautiful sunny day, the temperature was quite nice, and I was bundled up enough that I thought, “you know, one of the reasons I love living here is being near the water, but what’s the point of being near it if I never go SEE it?” And so I continued walking straight down to the waterfront, plopped myself down on a bench, and ate my lunch while looking out at the harbour.

Now our lunch room is perfectly lovely, as far as lunch rooms go, and I can sort of see a bit of the water in between buildings if I look out the window. However I’m sorry, the lunch room’s got nothing on a bench down at the waterfront.

That was the most relaxed lunch I’ve had in ages and I still had enough time to take my time getting back to where I needed to be. I think I might have to do that again soon.

Making time to make space

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Sherry

Ever since starting to work I’ve been finding it just about impossible to fit in the amount of yoga that I used to do. Back in the not-so-distant past I would usually do it in the evening after getting the kids off to bed and it wasn’t unusual for me to do a full hour. These days I get home too late to get started with a yoga routine (although I sometimes do a quick before-bed gentle routine right in bed) and I don’t really have the time to do an hour every morning because I’m busy tidying up the house and getting ready for work.

However, if I convince myself that no, I really don’t need to wash my hair today (my hair is pretty dry, it’s really only necessary to wash it every second day) and that I can just hop in and out of the shower then I can find the time to get in 20 minutes or even half an hour. The time that I don’t have to devote to blowdrying my stupidly thick and overly long hair is time that I can devote to getting my Om on instead.

This morning I was showered, dressed in yoga gear, and back down in the living room by 9:30 and I generally don’t eat my breakfast until 10 (otherwise I’d be starving by the time I actually get to work!). That gave me half an hour to roll out my mat and run through some routines. I did a round of Sun Salutations, a balance sequence, a de-stressing routine, and topped it off with a strength building routine. The only thing I forgot to do – and I just remembered now – was to end it all with a Savasana but maybe I’ll throw one in before I get changed into work clothes.

I’ve had to let a lot of things slide since starting my job but this is one of those things that I just can’t ignore. I did let too many days pass without yoga at first and the side effects of that were quick and obvious. My legs started aching, as did my hips. The latter is probably due to sitting. My shoulders began tightening up because of my unintentional hunching (I try to catch myself doing it and straighten back up) and then not opening them up with yoga. The biggest thing was feeling a sense of anxiety start to creep back in and that was definitely what kicked me in the ass to get me back on track again.

I may not be able to do an hour a day six days a week anymore but I can do what I can during the week and then do something longer and more intense on the weekends. It’s important enough to me and to my overall well-being that I can’t afford not doing it. As long as I can carve out even five or ten minutes and do something most days I’ll be fine.

Namaste! 🙂

Fright Night

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Sherry

Today is the first day of NaBloPoMo, a tradition I enjoy wherein I (along with other participants) will post to my blog daily throughout the month of November. I’ve found it harder to keep up with stuff online since I started working but I want to at least give it a try.

With yesterday being Halloween and my work shift being into the evening hours I was saddened to think I would miss taking the kids out trick-or-treating. Luckily for me I have an awesome manager who understands what it’s like to try to juggle work, family, and life and so she told me I could come in for an earlier shift as long as I put in my full eight hours. I was home in time to shovel a sandwich down my throat and get the kids dressed up for collecting loot. Hayley decided to be a devil and Breanna wanted to be a bee so badly that I was very happy to find a black and yellow striped t-shirt to go with her wings and bee hat.

It turns out that our new neighborhood is awesome. There are a lot of families so there were plenty of kids out trick-or-treating and almost every house was lit up with candy to give out. In fact, so many people were giving out treats that after only going up and down two streets both kids had overflowing bags (and they each had two bags so that’s saying a lot). Both Hayley and Breanna saw some kids from their classes too so they were happy about that.

After those two streets we dumped out the bags and drove over to George’s cousin’s house so the kids could see some of their family and I ended up taking them up and down his street too – more for the fun and less for the candy.

After coming home we had so much candy and so many mini chip bags that it’s pretty much ridiculous. No one could eat that much and survive so it will be carefully stored out of sight to be doled out in small amounts. Eventually I figure we’ll have to just toss most of it or we’ll never live through the sugar rush and crash cycle.

It was really weird to be going out for Halloween without our friends back home but we had a good time. I am so grateful that I got to be there to take them out and spend the evening with them.

How was your Halloween?

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In case you feel like clicking for me, I have been nominated for the Top 25 Canadian Mom blogs and I would love if you could throw a vote my way! You can vote daily over here. I won’t post about it every single day because that would be annoying but I’ll mention it from time to time throughout the voting period and you can also click over with the link in my sidebar. I’m currently in second place so that’s pretty exciting!

Five(s) by four

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Sherry

While catching up on some blog reading I found Angella’s list of fives. Today is one of those days where it’s beautifully sunny but it’s only about 5C (35F) outside, so I feel like doing things around the house. I have plans to start pulling out the warmer clothing while packing away summer clothes, doing inspections of winter gear so I know what still fits everyone and what needs replacing, cleaning the guinea pig cage, and watching a movie on Netflix (The Secret of NIMH) with the kids. I figured doing my own list would be a nice fit for a half-lazy, half-productive Saturday at home.

Five things you don’t know about me:

This is kind of hard, really. I’ve been writing online for so long I’m not sure what great revelations I can give you but since not everyone has been reading since day one (which is good because some of my old writing makes me cringe), I’ll throw out five random tidbits.

1. On my commute to work I keep anxiety at bay by listening to guided meditation on my iPod.

2. I really enjoy gospel music and if I’m not in the mood for meditation I listen to my Kirk Franklin playlist, particularly this one:

3. I have a huge burning desire to go to Prague. I wouldn’t mind seeing other parts of Europe if I had a chance but Prague is absolutely on my bucket list. I’ve had several dreams about being there and whenever I wake up I always feel a strange and vague homesickness.

4. I have a conversation with myself at least once a week about how I’m going to give up my daily cup of coffee. This conversation is usually followed by sitting down with my daily cup of coffee.

5. My celebrity claim to fame is hanging out with Corey Haim back in 1999 (maybe 2000? I forget which year). He was in Montreal to do some work on a movie (that went straight to DVD, alas) and he had an urge to record a song. A mutual contact suggested coming to the studio where George and I worked and I ended up sitting in the studio while he recorded it, and had pizza with him and his mom/manager. His singing was not particularly great and he didn’t really know what he wanted to do so George and Dino pretty much did it all for him, but I didn’t care. I’d spent my teenage years with his posters all over my wall and his movies on my “must see repeatedly” list, and it was NUTS to me that I was hanging out with him. He was incredibly nice, super polite, and a chatty person. I was so incredibly sad when I heard that he had died, he was way too young.

Continue reading →

Beach time! (In October? Yes! In October!)

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Sherry

Despite the fact that this is Canada and it can get pretty cold in the winter, and it is in fact starting to get downright chilly (I have the space heater churning away behind me as I type!), Thanksgiving weekend found us enjoying unseasonable October weather where it felt more like summer than fall. What else to do on a gorgeous, sunny, hot day than hit the beach, am I right? Admittedly it felt strange to be driving to the beach and passing tons of trees with changing leaves.

But I can deal with strange if it means that 15 minutes after walking out our front door I can be confronted with this:

When people would ask me why I would want to move to Halifax, I always like to joke that it’s because the ocean is here. In reality the reasons are much more complex than the scenery but I must say that it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the Atlantic just a little more than a stone’s throw away.

As much as I love Crystal Crescent Beach, it really doesn’t matter where I am. When I take the bus to work and I see the harbour as we drive along towards downtown Halifax, I still feel so much happiness. Even if I’m having a day where I miss people and things back home, seeing the water brings me back again. That never seems to change. It always makes me feel exactly like this:

Beach time in October? Oh yes. Yes please.

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As an aside, someone (don’t know who, but thank you!) nominated me for the Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs. I’ve never ever won anything like that so if you could vote by clicking right here or on the badge in the right menu, I would so appreciate it. You can vote once every 24 hours. I’ll try not to harass you too much!

Catching up #2 – Visiting York Redoubt

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Sherry

A couple of weeks ago we hopped in the van and drove down to visit York Redoubt, a historical site that dates back to 1793; back in the day it was a major defense site that protected the entrance to the Halifax harbour.

It was an absolutely beautiful day to be walking around looking at all the cannons and old buildings. The view from up there is pretty spectacular too, and you can see why they chose that location to keep watch over the waters.

It’s a great place to go as a family to just explore. There’s a doorway that leads into a tunnel that goes down to the lower path, and the whole tunnel is made of damp rock. It’s sufficiently creepy!

One of the buildings still has some of the original equipment; in one room we saw a tiny pot-bellied stove (that is sadly crammed full of garbage because so many people suck) that was used for cooking food for the troops. The other room had a larger stove for heating cannon balls and the tools used to manipulate them. That was pretty cool to check out.

I’d love to go back one day when we have more time to hike along the trail that winds through the woods all the way down to the water’s edge. Breanna was up for it, as she always is when you stick her on a path in the woods, but they close up the door to the tunnel and the gates out of the parking lot right at 6 pm sharp and we didn’t want to risk taking too long to get back. We’ll go another time but that likely won’t be until late spring since the days are getting a bit chilly now.

It was a great visit though and it was nice to spend part of our day absorbing the history here. (You can see the full set of photos over here.)

Catching up#1 – Hayley’s 9th birthday

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Sherry

Between learning a whole other brainful of new stuff at work and the fact that I’m now on a 1pm to 9pm shift, I’ve been sadly neglecting this site. I always mean to update in the mornings or on the weekends but mornings are when I try to squeeze in my yoga before catching my bus and weekends have been filled with other activities. By the time I get home from work I am definitely too tired to update at that hour and I prefer to spend the two hours before bedtime hanging out with George. Still, I hate losing so many days that I really do want to remember so I’m going to play a bit of catch-up over the next several days.

All the way back in September, September 20th to be precise, Hayley entered her last year of single digits by turning nine years old. It was a school day but she didn’t mind because she had already made some really good friends and one of them even gave her a few gifts, including a book and a necklace. The principal gave her a special birthday pencil and she got a notepad and card from her homeroom teachers.

As for me, luckily I was still on either my 8:30-4:30 or my 9-5 shift (I forget which now) so I was home in plenty of time to watch Hayley open presents and to enjoy a birthday dinner with her. George’s parents were still in town as well because they had come down for George’s cousin’s wedding, so they came for dinner along with George’s aunt, so we were able to have a little family party.

Breanna picked out a cute little princess set with fancy shoes and a handbag; so many kids are growing up so much faster than we want them to so I’m very happy that Hayley still likes to play dress-up with princess gear.

She also got some nice clothes to wear. That’s always handy because now that she doesn’t have to wear a uniform to school, I have to think more about what she’ll put on each morning. Then she opened her present from us, which was a pretty big hit. Since Hayley loves to sing (she even joined the choir at her school, I’m so happy about that!) we got her the Disney Karaoke game for the Wii which comes with a USB mic. She knows quite a few of the songs and has done pretty well in the scoring.

(For the record I’d like to point out that I belted out Nick Jonas’ “Who I Am” and the Wii said I was – and I quote – AWESOME. So there.)

She also got a few, er, monetary gifts. I love how insane she looks here.

She ended up using most of her birthday funds to go and buy herself a nice mp3 player that also plays video and has a camera (both still shots and video).

After a nice supper of pasta, as per the birthday girl’s request, we sand “Happy Birthday” to her and she got a nice big piece of cake.

All in all, she had a great day from morning straight through until bedtime.

Still, though. Nine. NINE. I haven’t quite figured out how that’s possible, but nine it is!