Downdog thankful.

So I said that I would be blogging each day about things I am thankful for….Well I am thankful I did not blog yesterday. Because not blogging yesterday is due to the fact that after dinner Phil and I spent about 3 hours lying in bed talking, cuddling, and doing devotions together before going to bed early. It was wonderful, and I am very thankful for the time I got to spend with my best friend. If I missed your call, I plan on calling you back this morning.

But on to what I planned to write about yesterday. Something that I have grown increasingly thankful for this Fall…

In the midst of my strange respiratory problems that banned me from running for about two months I turned back to yoga. I had not regularly done a class since my first year of grad school, and am incredibly happy I finally found my way back to it. There are so many things about yoga that simply jive with my personality and beliefs.

Practicing yoga takes out so many of the negatives that are so easy during other sports. It is NEVER a competition. You are taught to respect your own body and honor it by not comparing it with others, or pushing it beyond what is comfortable. I love how nurturing and supportive most yoga teachers are. In my classes there is almost always an older man or woman who has to stop frequently and rest. The teachers not only come over and check on them, but then praise them for listening to their bodies.

I love the pace of yoga. Matching each movement with a breath (even if have not mastered it yet…ha), creates such a wonderful flow. I love how it stretches me out and makes me breath deeper. I love that the lights are usually turned off and that soft music plays throughout the class. I love that you spend the last 8 to 10 minutes lying in rest. Rest that is so good I have been known to fall asleep. I haven’t fallen asleep lately, but have enjoyed a few quiet snores from those around me.

It is a busy world. It can be a stressful world. Yoga is one of several important ways of balancing this out for me. When I am there I put the stresses of my job and life aside and dedicate that time to being peaceful. We are told to pick a thought and meditate on it. I usually meditate on some aspect of God, and it really does not get any better than that.

I say all of this, to say, I sure am thankful for yoga. It has been very good for my health and mental health over the past month. I am also thankful that it is something that I get to share with people I care about. Saturday morning classes are often the only time throughout the week that I get to see my precious friend Allison, and they are something that Phil and I have started to do together. When my friend Becca returns in less than a week (!!!!!!!), it is probably something we’ll do together as well.

It is all wonderful, and I am thankful for all of it.

If you feel inclined to join me, please do. I can be found in the Chester YMCA studio about twice a week.

Have a blessed and peaceful day friends.

Thankful.

Hello my friends, and a Happy Thanksgiving week to you all!!

With the start of the week, I thought I would challenge myself and you all to live in thankfulness throughout this week. However it make look for you to live in thankfulness works. For me my goal is to spend more time each day thanking God for his/her many blessings, I plan to blog about things I am thankful for, I plan to talk with my coworkers about things I am thankful for, I plan to spend time with people I am thankful for, and I plan to spend time doing activities that I am thankful I can do.

So to start giving thanks here are a couple of things that come to mind:

1. Jesus. Simply, purely Jesus…because of everything.

2. My husband. A thousand thankyou’s to Jesus for this one.

3. Food. I love it, and plan to eat lots of it this week.

4. Harry Potter. It brings joy and imagination to my heart, and gives Phil and I a fun date night.

5. The sound of Sunday football from the other room and my neighbor using a leaf blower. Ohhh delicious Fall.

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On tap for this sunny, Fall afternoon is a Shady Hill Thanksgiving picnic, grocery shopping, paperwork, and Thanksgiving cooking. I have never really done any Thanksgiving cooking, but this year I am simply in the mood. I probably won’t make anything for the family celebrations, but instead my vision is to have some good, savory food hanging around all this week for Phil and I. On tap will be my first baked mac and cheese (courtesy of Mister Jamie Oliver), second will be a baked sweet potato and parmesan pie-like thing that will hopefully be almost as good as the one my friend Stephen can make, and lastly I am going to roast/carmalize a butternut squash. I cannot wait to smell my house over the next few days. Perhaps we’ll roast some garlic just to have a little more to be thankful for!

Until tomorrow I hope you all have a blessed day filled with thankfulness, for we all have so much.

tick tock.

Time. I could write a whole blog about what I have been learning about time in the last six months. Specifically how I have discovered that some of the things I care about take a lot of time, and therefore have not gotten nearly as much attention as I thought they would in the midst of my 40+ hour work weeks, and Phil’s packed work/school/volunteer schedule.

With that said I consider it a success that this past Sunday afternoon Phil and I did venture out into our backyard to plant something in the beautifully plowed rows we have thanks to my Dad. We planted garlic, which is delightfully easy to plant (break garlic into cloves and put them about an inch below the surface- see I told you it was easy), and have great hopes that come May we will have a harvest of delicious, fresh garlic. In the midst of a hectic life, little by little I am getting better at reaching out into time and pulling it in a different direction than logic would me. I planted garlic with a cute boy, I woke up unnecessarily early to spend a leisurely hour and a half with the Creator, I started reading a non work related book (Our Babies, Ourselves), I blogged even though I should be in bed, I spent an afternoon making soup and cooking green beans when I should have perhaps been writing case notes, Phil and I stayed up late watching Harry Potter on a weeknight, I met a friend for my first yoga class in about a year.

Little things. But big things when you consider how time flies past us and overwhelms us with our “responsibilities”. Have I discovered some perfect balance to it all? No. I don’t believe in balance anyways. I don’t think it is something God designed for us to have. Instead I believe in grace and discernment. All those moments I mentioned above were times of grace in the midst of a hectic world that will have you go and go until you collapse or self-medicate to deal with it all. I believe in discernment from God to know when to go to your back yard and plant garlic and when to balance your checkbook instead…when to write case notes, and when to blow it off so you can make out with your husband.

I pray lots of grace and discernment to us all.

********************************************************************************************************* On a side, side note. Since this is my place to periodically vent:

How can it be possible that the American people are sending men like Rand Paul to Congress???????????????????????????? Seriously people. Bigtime sigh. If we elect Sharon Angle then I might just cry. Geez the Tea Party clocks my life.