The Point… is Flex…

So after not attending a single yoga or pilates class in all of 2008, I recently had a full physical. My results came back this week and I learned that a normal people have a score of 32 on this flexibility test I did. My score was 19. Yikes! (In good news, pretty much all else was highly positive and my muscular/cardio endurance were scored as excellent, whew.)

So I went to yoga today – I did a 1.5 hour Hatha class.

I was really bad! But it was good. I’m patient about this sort of thing (probably the only area in my life where patience legitimately arises, hah) and get that this will take time to rebuild. The class was small and my instructor was really helpful, spending a lot of time helping each person directly to ensure proper form, etc. It was also followed by half an hour of Yoga Nidra, which is effectively a guided meditation. So calming! So cozy!

I really want to get back into it. It’s hard to fit in classes during the week with my work schedule – not even just because of the hours, but because of working outside of the downtown core. If I want to attend even a 7:30PM class, I have to do the following:

• Arrive at studio at 7:15.
• Arrive at home by 6:45 to drop off car, get stuff ready, and walk over.
• Leave work at 5:45 to ensure I get home for 6:45 with traffic constraints.
• Be done work at 5:30-ish so I can get out the door by 5:45.

This? Not so do-able. Now when our office moves downtown, I think it will far more feasible as the steps will change as follows.

• Arrive at studio at 7:15.
• Leave work at 6:45-7 with yoga stuff in hand, walking over.

The official office lease end-date is May of 2009, but the real estate consultants think we’ll likely be moving more like March. Location and office selection should be complete in November/December.

God, I can’t wait. My phsycial flexibility is dependent upon this work flexibility!

In the meantime, I will do my best to go on one weekend day and Tuesdays, when I’m already downtown for the day at school.

Six more months…

Yoga Also Rules

Okay, so I am suffering in a crazy way right now with sore legs, ass, abs, and arms, but sweet lord above. I feel amazing.

After the thrill of yesterday’s pilates class, I decided to venture all by my lonesome once again to give power yoga a shot. My mother-in-law (an avid yoga-babe since the 70s) warned me that, among all the related classes she’s ever taken, power yoga was the one she never tried twice. Did this discourage me? Of course not, it indeed spurred my sick competitive nature forward. Besides, it’s yoga. How freaking difficult could it be? I can run my heart out for an hour or more without thinking twice — surely it would be stretching my body into unusual and challenging formations, but there was no threat of exhaustion. Right?

Sigh.

I arrived to meet the teacher and only one other girl in the class. The other girl was explaining that she’d done a headstand for the first time yesterday. Um. No big deal. Another girl arrived and I was pleased to discover that she too was new to the art. The teacher looked ever-so-slightly concerned, but it was time to start, so off we went to grab blocks and get going.

After something like eleven minutes (okay, exactly like — I was checking the watch like a crazy person), I was convinced that there was no.flipping.way I was going to make it through.

By some miracle, I pushed. And I pushed. And I pushed more. And I breathed. And I shook like crazy. And I balanced in a seated position on one foot with my in-the-air-ankle on my floor-leg-knee. And I did it. Pose after quick movement to new pose after staying in some other pose for what felt like days, an hour and fifteen minutes was over. Sure I couldn’t keep my heels on the ground for downward dog, and sure I lost my balance and knocked over my own block on some single-footed-other-foot-high-in-the-air thingo, but I did it.

Joy.

Not just at being done — though that miracle, in and of itself, was worth celebrating and feeling exceptionally tough over — but at how great it felt.

In short: I am a convert. I can’t wait to go again.

Pilates Rules

I love it.

My friend cancelled for ballet today as she was out really late last night, so I went to a second pilates class instead.

Between the two of them, I’m sore, but it feels amazing.

I have a two week pass for a nearby studio now — they do both pilates and yoga — and I’m hoping that I continue to love it. If so, I’m thinking that this can take over as the strength part of my workout routine.

Ballet is back to next Saturday for now.

And with all that healthy stuff done, I’m now ready to get going to the beer festival.

My New Mission

What is it? To try new things.

(1) Going to a pilates class on Friday.
(2) Going to a preliminary ballet class on Saturday.
(3) Yoga is next on the list.
(4) Signed up for a 5K run in September.

Whee!

I Run!

I get a huge kick out of how my adorable niece talks, and in my recent attempts to learn basic German, I’ve discovered that, in Wiesbaden, I will be linguistically equivalent to a two year old. It’s hard when you’re trying to translate in your head and still have limited vocabulary, people.

“I Canadian! I student! I work!”

And today I will add: I run!

Yep, a site I love is doing a virtual running clinic (props to Changa) and I’ve thrown my little self into the midst of it. Seeing as I will be without anything close to a gym for over three weeks, I thought I’d better come up with a secondary plan of attack, and this shall be it.

I went for the first time tonight and it was all kinds fun. Google Pedometer tells me that I ran just over six and a half kilometres, which thrills me endlessly. I’m going to try to throw this in as cardio twice a week ’til I go away, then by the time I get there, it should be all easy-peasy. I forgot that running outside has this awesome thing about it where you start to feel like you’re flying around the twenty minute point — the whole world just feels like it’s disappeared and it’s just you and the wind and loud music in your ears. I like that very much.

I also noticed tonight while running back through the park that the tennis courts are officially open for the summer. I will so be harassing Dave about that this weekend. Whee!

Ten Little Updates

I haven’t updated in forever. I keep starting and then closing the window. In order to get back on the wagon, I must present ten little updates.

(1) The loft is mostly set up. We still have to buy a coffee table, another living room chair, and some artwork, but it’s pretty peachy. I can’t get over how lovely and quiet it is here — no jerky upstairs neighbours screaming at each other, no crack pipes in the backyard. Ah, this is the life, baby.

(2) Pam came to visit! The triumvirate of fun — gossip, libations, and sneakiness — came together fabulously for her trip to the city.

(3) Jen and I went to ‘ho school (or at least that’s what my charming boytoy called it). Please note: that is not — I repeat, not — us in the picture to the right. In fact, however, those women are effectively the other twenty or so women who were in our class. You know the ones. They’re the professional dancers and athletes who — instead of making silly faces and doing stupid dance moves when they can’t do a flying backwards spin around a pole with one leg gracefully out in front of them — have the instructor come over to show them said move more carefully, then proceed to practice it for two minutes only to master it as if they’d been on the pole for ten years. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more deflated or taken more of a self esteem beating in my life, but the stories were worth it. Despite the humiliation, I managed to heartily entertain my husband with a few flashy moves when I got home, after which he couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes then followed up with a request that I never, ever, under any circumstances bring these moves forth in the boudoir. Mission accomplished?

(4) We had to replace our new mattress with a second, less fluffy new mattress. The original mattress was pocket coil + memory foam pillowtop. This sounded dreamy, and felt altogether cozy in the store. However, upon getting home, we discovered that said mattress was altogether delicious for lying in, it was not at all made for sleeping. After waking up about ten times every single night for a month then finally sleeping soundly the two nights we spent on a mattress from the 70s at the cottage, we knew a switch was in order. The new baby arrived yesterday and our whole sleeping situation is now conducive to the sweetest of dreams.

(5) I finished my first year (apparently the toughest of the three, in terms of volume and intensity) of my dastardly MBA. It may make me crazy, but I am a sucka for the madness. Last semester was a complete bitch, as our poor little group had dwindled down to three. By some miracle, we still completed everything (no thanks to a boatload of bullets) but I’m relieved to know that the school has reorganized all of our groups so I’ll be back in a decent sized lineup next semester.

(6) We booked our trip to London to see a fun band in July. I don’t know what we’ll do the rest of the days, but I’m pretty sure we’ll think of something. I haven’t been to the UK since I was fifteen, which was a distressing thirteen years ago. I spent so many years of my life not being able to afford travel, it’s just thrilling to finally be able to jet around when I feel the urge.

(7) My sister’s wedding shower is in a few weeks, and I’m making the trip home to enjoy gossip, delicious dips, and mimosas. Strangely, this will be the first trip to Cape Breton since Christmas 2004. My parents have painted my old bedroom for the occasion. My sister and I plan to recreate our famous Three Pub Crawl on the Saturday night.

(8) My beloved little Mini uses just over half a tank a week. Hah! In a world of ever-increasing gas prices, this makes me want to kiss that car every time I get in it. The Saab used just under a full tank a week, and I really felt that was effing awesome. I do a lot of driving (to work, home, to work, to school, home, to work, to meetings outside the city, to warehouses, to suppliers, to meetings downtown, to work, to school, home, etc.) so this freaking rules.

(9) I started meditating to reduce potential for emotional responsiveness. I am generally not someone who responds emotionally, but given how stressful things are with work and school (and given the fact that my MIL — who has meditated religiously since the 70s — looks ten years younger than she is), it has to be worth something. Serenity now!

(10) I’ve worked out for 60+ minutes every day for five weeks. I haven’t lost an ounce, but am down 1.5″ each in the waist and hips, and 1″ each in bust, arms, thighs, and calves. I can’t really tell via the eyes, but for every four weeks of commitment, I am nonetheless rewarding myself with a decadent purchase. This time, I won myself a pair of Fidelity jeans.

PS: I should’ve made it eleven little updates, as I just changed the visuals of this blog. I know you’re mocking me in your head, but I think my fourteen-year-old-girl-style rules.

Spilling My Guts

Alright, I didn’t spill ‘em. But a piece of them that was here last time I posted is gone now.

Last Monday, I woke up at 4AM with horrid abdominal pain, which, after a rushed trip to emergency, an hour and a half of ultrasounds by three different doctors, and a few bags of morphine, turned out to be acute appendicitis. I had surgery the same day and spent the week in and out of sleep, on and off of percocets, tylenol 3s, morphine, gravols, and naproxens, and antibiotics for one post-surgical infection, which had me in and out of the hospital again.

In any case! I’ve been healing since then. It’s a pain in the ass when you’re impatient to be a… sickly patient? (That was tragic writing, I apologize. Ridiculous. Yeesh.) So, yeah, here’s what I’ve been doing: Lying on the couch. This includes sleeping, trying to do weakass exercises, pointing and flexing my toes, watching bad TV, reading gossipy magazines, and (again) sleeping. I’ve sat in the shower. I didn’t get to shower for the first four days. I am so unproductive and sad, it’s just not right. I feel like an elderly person. I’m embarrased!

However, despite all the suckiness of doing absolutely nothing productive and guilt for missing work and terror of missing school, I have discovered one most excellent thing: my husband is even more darling, sweet, dreamy, wonderful, and awesome than I had suspected before this. He’s been a most excellent caretaker.

He’s made me laugh so much it hurt when I wanted to weep from the pain. He’s coined the Helping Hug, a crafty manoeuvre that helped me get up to standing position when I couldn’t by myself. He’s held my hand, pushed my hair out of my face, provided me with a big ziploc container to vomit in (and cleaned it afterwards without vomming himself), and set me up in bed so my abdomen would be in the least painful position. He’s made me breakfast in bed, sat with me for entire days in the hospital when I was so drugged up I was the least entertaining company evah, and made sure my lip gloss, painkillers, at least one crappy magazine, and water were set out beside me and within my reach wherever I was. I love him!

Truly, I knew he was le best boy evah. But this? This is like level of best boy evah that I didn’t really even realize existed. Aw, l’amour.

Between this and the five pounds I’m sure I’ll have lost by the time I’m really back on my feet, I guess spilling my guts wasn’t so bad after all.

Ka-CHOO.

Holy crap. I wish I’d kept track of how many times I’ve sneezed today because I’m pretty sure it would be a record.

My nose is so grossly red and runny, I am mortified that even my husband to has to see this hideousness.

I don’t feel sick, per se. Just frustrated and fluffy-headed. And slow. And, um, okay. It hurts. Why?

I can feel the sinuses behind my cheekbones!

My right ear will not pop!

The puffiness level of my eyes cannot even be fixed with Clinique!

I am patiently waiting for the Tylenol Cold to kick in, but I fear that I should’ve taken the night remedy instead of the daytime dosage. It’s been nearly two hours and, um, nothing is happening.

This’ll be gone by tomorrow, right?

Right?

Damn you, ever-changing weather, lacklustre immune system, and overly-jam-packed lifestyle.

Bah.

Sensitivity Training

So I decided to go to the dentist a few months ago. I had a dream of whitening these otherwise dreamy teeth (thank you, braces) so that there would be no turning back. The dentist was actually insistent that (a) laser whitening was “bullshit”, (b) professional whitening should be a last resort, and (c) Crest White Strips were great and are a cost-effective alternative that generally works pretty much as well as the pro treatments for most people. However, she also discovered my extreme level of dental sensitivity. She recommended a course of action: use at least one entire tube of Sensodyne F (and continue using it forever), then give the strips another shot before booking an appointment for the pricey whitening treatment. So after finishing the tube of paste a week ago, I started trying to get up the nerve to do it again.

Well, I got up the nerve. And now the nerves of my teeth want me dead. No, the pain isn’t life-threatening, but it sure seems like a lot to go through just to pretty up. I’m only on day two of seven, and I’ve only done one of today’s two treatments. That’s only 3/14 of the way through! I have to do one more today and am avoiding it like the bloody plague. It’s just so… gads, gads, gads, I have to press on them to stop the ouchness. I have to stop thinking about it. I have to train myself to stop listening to these icky signals. I desperately want to get through three days of this crap so that I can start seeing results and then maybe switch to just one treatment a day, but I don’t know if I have the will power.