Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Month of Yoga- Complete!

I completed a month of yoga! Six days a week for the entire month. I did whatever routine I felt like I needed at the time- sometimes it was my hard core (well, hard core for me...hardish coreish let's say) Rodney Yee Yoga for Strength video. Sometimes it was my half hardish-coreish/half relaxy-stretchy Baron Baptiste Yoga for Athletes video. Sometimes it was my mellow-out AM Yoga video. Sometimes it was realizing that I need more than three videos if I'm going to practice yoga six days a week. :) 

I feel good. I haven't weighed myself, I haven't been worried about what I'm eating (as long as I continue working to eat as vegan as I can), and my clothes fit good enough and that's good enough for me!



So...I think I want this to continue, and since my Month of Yoga has been a success:

I'm going to do another one!

December!  Another Month of Yoga!









 My yoga road continues...








 


Namaste my friends. NAMASTE.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thankgiving!

Farm Sanctuary sent the profile of my sponsored turkey! Meet Harley!  He lives at Farm Sanctuary's California shelter, he was rescued from a factory farm, he's spirited and playful, and his favorite foods are pumpkins and yams!

Happy Thanksgiving Harley!





And Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! :)


Love,

Hope and Harley

Monday, November 22, 2010

10 In the Rest of 2010 Update: I Adopted a Turkey!

I can cross the first thing off my Ten (in the Rest of) 2010 List! I adopted a Turkey through Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project. The below turkey is Daphne, but I don't know which turkey my sponsorship will go towards. You can choose your turkey, but I wanted my sponsorship to go toward the turkey who needs it most (maybe one of them didn't get as much love, and I can't have a turkey feeling sad and not as loved!) so chose the "pick for me option". I'll let you know which turkey I got when I get the e-certificate from Farm Sanctuary.


I do think Daphne's the cutest though. Shhhhh, don't tell the other turkeys...

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Ten Things to Do In (The Rest Of) 2010

There are some things I want to do before the close of 2010, so instead of letting the end of the year just zoom by like it usually does, I thought I'd put them into a list and blog on them as they occur.  This gives me something to blog about as well as helps me complete my list. WIN WIN!

So here's the list (brought to you by my friend here, Mr. Guinness Guy In A Kilt):


  • Send (and actually mail) ALL the Christmas Cards I intended to in the first place
  • Adopt a Turkey from Farm Sanctuary
  • Read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  • Make a Victorian Christmas...something
  • Write one post a week to finish up the year at The Queen's Scullery
  • Make a pillow for my mom
  • Help Cameron make a Christmas present for his godmother and my aunt
  • Bring my plants inside before they freeze to death
  • Finish reading Black Beauty 
  •  
    And last but certainly not least...

    • STAY AWAKE TO WELCOME 2011!!!

      I know, I know! I'm a party a minute! Try to contain your excitement while waiting for the posts on my list completion!

      Sunday, November 14, 2010

      Update: Month O' Yoga

      The Month of Yoga is going well. I've practiced six days a week for the last two weeks, and it's definitely helping me both mentally and physically. Physically, it's making me feel more balanced in my body. I can already see a tremendous difference in my strength and flexibility from when I started November 1st. It's also made me feel more comfortable in my skin. I feel happy that I'm doing something good for me, and the feeling of strength and relaxation stays with me through the day.

      To help nurture the positive body-friendly feelings and to not give negative thoughts room to grow, I have made a conscious decision not to weigh myself during this time. (Sorry, boring weight discussion is about to follow, I apologize in advance.)

      Usually I weigh myself every few days (I know, I know...), but it's not so much to see if I'm losing weight (I'm for the most part good where I am), but to make sure I'm not gaining anything significant.  Catch problems before they occur and make changes when only small ones are necessary, that kind of thing.

      I feel that's a relatively healthy mindset and one that usually works for me. Until this the other day.  After making solid progress into my Month of Yoga,  I weighed myself as usual, but this time I found myself getting discouraged by what I saw (which was essentially, nothing). 

      Hmmmm...now why would this be I wonder...?

      So to find out, I had a brief conversation with Myself. It went as follows:

      Me: "Self, why the discouragement?"

      Self: "Well, since I'm doing yoga (which is exercise dontcha know) six days a week, I figured I could at the same time, lose those last ten pounds of baby weight still sticking around. You know, kill two birds with one stone, if you will."

      Me: "Well, Self, first of all, we don't want to kill birds- we want to improve the health of our Body Mind. Losing weight isn't the point and if stepping on the scale minimizes the good feelings gained by our yoga practice, then we need to step off the scale and let it collect dust until the end of the month. Capiche?"

      Self: "Eh, ok. I don't really like that scale anyhow. It's sort of a bummer."

      So yes, no scale for me and Self this month. I'm doing the Month of Yoga for its holistic benefits. Losing weight, although it would be welcome (those last ten pounds are pesky), is not why I'm doing this- and if numbers on the scale lessen the joy of accomplishing my goal for the month, then they ain't worth knowing about.

      So there.