My Husband, the Yogi Master

So, Hubs had been bugging me to do a class with him at the gym.  I am seriously not the gym class type.  I get anxious about what to wear, how my fitness compares to others, remembering moves, etc.  There happens to be a couple of yoga classes on Wednesdays, Patrick's day off.  I gave in and agreed to go with him to one of these yoga classes the first week of January.  I figured, at least in yoga, our fitness levels would be a little more evenly matched.  Wrong.

I am totally addicted to these classes now, which I'll get into later, and have since dragged P to one every week.  This last week, we attended one taught be a tiny little blonde lady, more fitness instructor than yoga enthusiast.  Well, I think she thought she was going to show off and try and teach us all the "Firefly" pose, thinking no one would be able to do it except her.  Hmm, I guess she hadn't counted on my World Championship Athlete of a husband showing up.

Not an actual picture of P. Downey, but pretty close. 

She actually walked up to him and said, a little dumfoundedly, "Have you done this before?"  He, while still in the pose, answered calmly and sheepishly "Nope."  I love that man.

And I love yoga! Seriously, I thought I knew yoga.  Patrick and I have a few DVDs; Yoga for Athletes, Yoga for Pregnant People or something like that.  I figured I was going to this class to spend time with my husband, but I knew what I needed to know about stretching.  Dude, I get it now.  I am a total addict and want to do it everyday.  The DVDs aren't going to cut it anymore.  The girl that teaches our class on Wednesday evenings is exactly how a yoga instructor should be.  Long messy hair, maybe a dredlock or two, several piercings, trendy thick rimmed glasses...I love her.   I think her name is Eden or something.  She takes her job very seriously.  The lights are low, the room is hot, and she walks around breathing loudly and softly correcting our poses.  She gives us yoga meditations at the end to think about as we relax.  I'm learning what "Vinyasa" and "Pranayama" means.  You'd think that me and my semi-hippy lifestyle would have discovered this earlier in life, but whatever, here it is, and I love it!

P is also slightly in love with it, but he insists he needs a badass mat to set himself apart from the other males in the class.  He is desperately searching the webernet for a black mat with flames or a Metallica symbol or something.  Harder to find than you would think.

2012. Here We Go...

Whoosh!  Did you see that? That blur of tinsel and melted milk chocolate?  That was the holidays rushing past us!  We had a great season here in the Orrick household, but boy howdy are we ready to get back to "normal."  As evidenced by:  My son asking for turkey and crackers for dinner the day after Christmas.  What?  Normally, if he was going to request a dinner, it would be cookies, chips, and pizza.  His craving for turkey and crackers proves he had his fill of holiday junk food.

Who's that?  That's Santa, in front of our fireplace!  I found a website (through pinterest, of course) where you download a pic of your Christmas tree, fireplace, living room, whatever, and then photoshop Santa into the scene.  You can pick from dozens of different Santa's and poses and then adjust his size and shadowing to fit your picture.  I was probably a whole lot more excited about this than the kids, but maybe in a few years these pictures will keep the Santa doubts at bay.

So what's on the agenda for 2012, you ask?  Lots!  My good friend and fellow goal maker, Hillary, and I spent a day at work planning for 2012 (No, we did not ignore the sick babies while we were making New Year's Resolutions).  I have two triathlons on the horizon: the classic Tinman in Topeka (Hubs has a history of doing very well at this race, he better make Momma proud); and the all-woman's Smithville race in Missouri.  I am planning on doing super duper awesome at these races.  What's my secret?  Clipless pedals!!!!

 

Aren't these just the most beautiful things ever?  And at the same time, so scary.  So when you're wearing these, you have to clip your shoes onto a little lock on your pedals.  These allow you to push and pull faster when you rotate your feet.  The scary part?  When you stop, at a stop light or intersection, for instance, you have to remember to unlock your feet!  Or else you fall flat on your face. 

"You're going to fall in the beginning, it's going to happen!"  This is the advice my super fast bike racer uncle gave me.  Awesome.

The other big race I'm planning?  The Warrior Dash!  Yay!  This is the race that you climb through mud, up walls, under barbed wire, and through fire!  I'm so excited!  And then at the end, you get free beer.  When I first got excited about this race, I thought it was just a 5k with some novelties thrown in for messiness.  Not exactly.  I'm going to have to do some serious upper body strength training if I have any hope of finishing decently.

On the home front, I've renewed my subscription to good old E-Mealz again.  It's nice not to have to search the internet for new recipes every week, and I signed up for the low-fat plan, so maybe I can get my calorie intake back on track.  I've also discovered (thanks to Hillary) www.motivatedmoms.com.  For a little bit of money, you can get a whole year's of "to-do" lists to print out and have ready.

The system doles out routine and non-routine tasks like "trimming the kids nails" and "cleaning the refrigerator shelves"  in an orderly and non-overwhelming manner throughout the year.  Plus you have a list of daily tasks, like wiping out the sinks and taking your vitamins (!) to check off everyday.  It's kind of satisfying to turn the page at the end of the day and know that I got a heck of a lot accomplished.  It is also quite exhausting.  I've declared bedtime at 9:00 these past few nights and the Hubs asked if I was feeling okay.

Another interesting component of the Motivated Moms daily list is the bible verse.  By the end of the year, if you stay on track, you will have read the whole Bible!   Those of you that know me well, know I
am not a churchy type person.  I have read the Bible on a couple of different occasions, but more so I could be good at answering Jeopardy questions.  Having said that, I really would like to be more of a churchy type person, but have yet to find the right church.  Hubs and I took the kids to a new church on Christmas Eve, and my goodness, I think we were both a little affected.  Hubs said it was the first time in his history of church going that he never once looked at his watch.  So, maybe this new church combined with daily bible verses will get us on track to being more churchy people...