7 Random Things About Me

This one is from YogaLaura! I found this a bit challenging because everything is random!

Here we go...
1. I am a rocker (just like YogaLaura). Welcome To The Jungle by Guns and Roses was the most requested (by me!) song at my wedding reception.
2. I have very inflexible toes and a very flexible body - does that make sense?
3. I love barns - looking at them, studying them, imagining what it was like in that barn 50 years ago, 100 years ago. One of my dreams has always been to have a barn.
4. Hiccups hurt me - really. I have them right now. Ouch.
5. I must have at least 4 pillows to get a good night's sleep. I have two at my head and one on each side. I tuck them in around me and fall happily asleep
6. I don't like the word "swig". I have no idea why...
7. Jamie Oliver is my hero

Now I want to here from you - especially Play Daze :-)

Farmer's Market PINK!

For the Holiday Weekend - Flag Etiquette

When I was a little girl our neighbors across the street, Mr. & Mrs. K, always flew a flag on all of the "flag holidays". I loved the bright colors and how it fluttered in the wind or did nothing at all, so still yet so vibrant. "Can we have one too?," I asked many times. The answer was always no.

When my husband and I bought our first home, the flag was one of the first things I purchased to adorn the outside. When we moved into our second home another was added to be flown from the deck. They are both displayed almost everyday of each summer. In fact, my next project is to put a "real" flag pole in the back yard and fly the flags I will collect from my favorite places. (That is a thrilling thought!)

Why am I posting about my flag fetish? I wanted to be sure that I was following proper etiquette for Memorial Day and thought it would be nice to share. On Memorial Day, flags are flown at half staff until noon, then they are to be raised to the top of the staff for the rest of the day.

Time to get out your flag (or purchase a new one) and get it ready to fly!

Thoughts that thrill...

I subscribe to the Abe Blog so every day I get lots of inspiring quotes showing up in my feed reader. This one is spectacular:

"Hold only thoughts that thrill you."

Just thinking about holding a thought that thrills me - thrills me!

What thought thrills you? Hold on to it!

Recommended by Jane

I used to knit. In fact, this blog was originally called "The Knitting Yogini". Way back then, (ok, last year) I was on a quest to find all blogs knitting. It was during this time I ran across a blog authored by Jane Brocket called Yarnstorm. I fell in love! She is not only a knitter, but a baker, a reader, a traveler, a (book) writer, and she takes spectacular pictures. (The first time I ran across her blog I saw a picture she had posted with flowers and her painted toes. "I take pictures like that," I exclaimed. Wow - soul sisters!) She is pure inspiration for me. (The only difference is that I do yoga, and as far as I can tell, she does not. I am willing to overlook this based on EVERYTHING ELSE.)

The latest inspiration came from her mention of a book she was reading on the train headed to a meeting in London. I immediately put it on hold at the library and picked it up this afternoon - 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.



It is a series of letters written over a twenty-year period between an American writer (Helene Hanff) and a British bookseller. Loved it, of course. It was the perfect afternoon read (short, ~ 100 pages). In the sun, on a lawn chair in the back yard. I laughed and cried and then wished that I had not read it so fast! Now I must purchase a copy for myself.

Read it then let me know if you like it as much as I did :-)

Tree and Sun

This little tree is in the far corner of my garden. Each spring it produces these beautiful and very fragrant flowers. Many pictures were taken on this evening, just at the sunset. Can you see the light between the branches? It was stunning.

After spending the whole day outside - pruning, planting and watering - what a gift it was to have time to spend with this tree, smelling the sweetness, and watching the spectacular performance put on by the sun. After the show, I slept like a baby.

Duckasana

Why is there no yoga pose named after a duck? Or is there?

Book Meme!

I found this Book Meme from YogaMum - she has the best memes! This is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Mark the books you have read with bold, underline books you read in school and italicize books you started but did not finish.

I have to say that I don't remember a lot of the books I read in school :-( And I couldn't figure out how to underline them so I just put SCHOOL next to the book. Also noticed that I started but didn't finish many books. Maybe I could get through them now?

I would have a lot more bold if this was a YOGA BOOK Meme - what a great idea!

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey - SCHOOL
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The [A] Tale of Two Cities - SCHOOL
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales - SCHOOL
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath - SCHOOL
The Poisonwood Bible
1984 - SCHOOL
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince - SCHOOL
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye - SCHOOL
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Sweet Home Alabama

Vacations are wonderful - especially when you are allowing yourself to forget about everything and enjoy the precious time away. Unfortunately, the first 5 days of my recent Alabama vacation I was unable to ground myself into my new surroundings and my yoga practice was anything but consistent.

Fortunately, when we travel, my husband reads and reads and reads. We make many trips to the book store. One store had a display with books by Southern writers. I found two books about the area written by authors who also live there. The first book, Point Clear by Jennifer Paddock, was written so vividly about Point Clear and The Grand Hotel I just had to visit. It was exactly as she described it and so fun to be there.

The second book, The Poet of Tolstoy Park by Sonny Brewer, was set back in time in the real Alabama town of Fairhope and gave wonderful descriptions about the area and the history. It is a wonderful read and for that very reason I have chosen it for our next book club read.


After reading these books and visiting the nearby towns I was able to fully appreciate the history and the beauty of this area.

I was also finally able to fully integrate my yoga practice into my "vacation life". I did poses on the balcony, I did poses on the beach and in the water. I find it so interesting that once I took the time to learn about the history and about the area, my asana practice bloomed. I was grounded!

And a side note - I love reading about the south and especially Alabama in particular. I found a book about an Alabama author which I highly recommend. It is called Mockingbird written about the life of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Remember that book from 8th grade?

Do you know of any other good books about the south? Always looking for good reads in the summer time :-)

Happy Mother's Day!

Alabama Pelicans - The Movie

Starring Peter and Polly Pelican in an Alabama Bayou

Today's Meditation...

Squeeky Sand

I fight: Savasana

I like to think that I fight nothing. My last post really opened my eyes. It was written before my restorative yoga class on Wednesday night. After that experience, how would I write that line today?

i fight: a long Savasana

When I first started to practice yoga the reason I went back time and time again was because of Savasana. I found it amazing that someone (my yoga teacher) was inviting me to lay down (with a blanket!), close my eyes, in a quiet room, in the middle of the day and relax. Lovedeveryminuteofit! Now, not so much.

The first 5 minutes are good, however lots of adjusting, then the fight begins. I have a theory that maybe only a piece of what is going on. I am very flexible. My joints are very open. As I lay there and my muscles start to let go and surrender, I start to feel very unstable. Whispers of pains and aches get louder. There is a feeling of dislocation in one of my shoulders. My eyes do not relax but move around inside the closed lids. I often feel energy racing out of my hands and feet. No wonder!

I want a redo on that line - i fight: the feelings of instability in Savasana by accepting them and trusting that I will learn whatever they are here to teach me.

That feels much better.

Great Meme

Yogamum had this meme on her blog and I love it - here it goes:

i am: feeling great
i think: it is time to eat breakfast
i know: that I am here to inspire
i want: to sit in the sun by the ocean with a really good book
i have: more than enough
i wish: for peace
i hate: noise
i miss: homemade granola
i fear: gaining weight
i feel: calm
i hear: the humming of my laptop and my little dog swallow
i smell: lemon water
i crave: a good massage
i search: for knowledge
i wonder: when I will find my perfect house
i regret: nothing
i love: my dogs
i ache: in my big toe
i care: about my friends
i always: check my emails
i am not: sitting up straight – oops!
i believe: that anything is possible
i dance: and feel alive
i sing: and breathe
i cry: for abused animals
i don’t always: floss my teeth
i fight: nothing
i write: always
i win: when you win
i lose: my focus easily
i never: drink soda
i confuse: effect and affect
i listen: when the birds sing
i can usually be found: on my computer
i am scared: in a small, dark space
i need: peace and quiet
i am happy about: my life

I'm tagging! Marya, Laura, Beth, Tammy and SARAH (yes you! too).