Category: Yoga

Where in the heck have I been?

~ mindyqs ~ Leave a comment

Parenting has been a little intense lately. H has been sick – cough, runny nose, not eating. He is skinny to begin with and so his not eating has been a spot of worry for me. I’ve been obsessing over getting this child to eat something. Anything. Preferably full fat. However, all he wants is liquids. I can’t say as I blame him what with his cold, but come on, kid! EAT!

So, he’s on the mend and is gaining weight again.

Mark has a big, huge, colossal project due at work. He’s been working on it since before Christmas and he will be done with it tomorrow. (Yay!) But he’s been leaving really early and coming home late a lot of nights, so I’ve been doing a lot of solo parenting.

Hence no posting on quilting or other sewing projects.

But I’ve been working on a commission and have 2 more projects lined up. One has a deadline and one does not. But there will be pictures and postings in the future.

In the meantime, I’ve been progressing in my yoga practice. I can tell my arms and shoulders are getting stronger.  My shoulders have really needed some work.  I had a bad accident when I was 16 and my shoulders have never been as strong. In my home practice I’ve been working on Plank position and then moving myself to the ground.   It’s like a push-up but more controlled…. or supposedly more controlled. My weak shoulders occasionally have me plummeting to the ground only to catch myself just before my nose hits the floor.  And as much as I hate, hate, hate Plank I know it’s good for me and will help me in the long run. (As will all the lunge positions, but that is another post….)

This is the first time I’ve really tried to sustain a home yoga practice.  Because I’ve had a lot of accidents in my life that have done some permanent damage, I need to do something that helps me remain flexible and improves my muscle tone.  I still walk and get in cardio, but I’m really liking the results I’ve been getting with yoga after just 2 years of classes.  I can tell when I haven’t done yoga in a while.  My right leg starts to ache a little – I damaged my knee in a freak Salsa dancing accident.  No, I am not kidding.

Plus it gets me out of the house ALONE once a week.  And puts me in proximity to a Starbucks.  Who wouldn’t love that?

All’s Quiet on the Quilting Front

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If it seems like I’ve been quiet lately don’t be fooled.  I’ve been running, shopping,  quilting and yoga-ing up a storm here.  Just no fabric drama and no finished projects to brag on. Plenty of family drama, though…..

E, the son #1, vomited everywhere on Thursday night.  It was epic.  Every surface in the bathroom, with the exception of the inside of the toilet, had vomit on it.  Epic.

And that meant that he was home on Friday and my plans for fabric shopping and sewing had to be modified.  No biggie. He’s my son and he comes before the quilting. I just had to take a minute over coffee on Friday morning to come up with Plan B for the day.

Plan B had to include ways of keeping E and H, son #2, away from each other.  I really didn’t want 2 vomiting kids.  So, E got my laptop set up in his room with every DVD he owned next to it and he watched movies for almost the entire day.  H hung with me in the living areas.  And there was lots of hand washing.

Thankfully, H was not thrown off by E’s presence at home and he took his usual nap so E could come out of his room for awhile.  E got to play with his toys and I got to play with mine – my sewing machine!  I got a surprising amount of work done and E got to show me how much better he was feeling.  This boded well for the weekend.

And, yes, he had a great weekend. Mark took him and H to swim lessons and then to the library. Leaving me a very quiet house where I could work.

Quilting is a lot of preparation and staging. You wash the fabric, then iron it, then cut it, and then you finally get to sew. And there is more ironing between the sewing.  Layering it and quilting it is a whole ‘nother job.  Lots of quilters just stop with the tops and create a bunch of UFOs (UnFinished Objects).

This weekend because of the quiet, quiet house I pretty much sewed and quilted and shopped the entire time.   As a result I’ve got two finished tops sitting here ready to be layered.   I’ve decided that I’m going to back my Christmas Log Cabin quilt with flannel to make it extra cozy.  And my Autumn quilt is just about to get a pattern drawn on it and then assembled for quilting.  The way my day is going so far, my Autumn quilt will be the project I work on today.

I’ve got two weeks left. Just 2 weeks.  I think I can… I think I can… I think I can…

And there will be pictures posted soon. Promise!

What a Weekend!

~ mindyqs ~ 2 Comments

This weekend was loaded with all kinds of wonderful things! – My yoga retreat, a visit from a friend who currently lives in France, and Halloween.

The yoga retreat was amazing. The theme for the weekend was Discovery and Transformation. Our instructors did a great job of encouraging us to play with poses that we wouldn’t normally do in our class and give ourselves permission to play with the poses.

The biggest thing for me was that I ACTUALLY DID A HANDSTAND!!! I haven’t done a handstand since I was in grade school. My arms need some further strength, but with the assistance of 3 other people I was able to get my toes above my head and stay there for awhile. It was one of the more terrifying things I’ve done in recent memory.

All together I did 8 hours of yoga this weekend – 5 hours in one day. I’m sore, but very pleased. And the food was A-Mazing. Any hopes and intentions of actually losing weight this weekend were completely tossed aside one I had the first dinner.

The whole weekend was what I had hoped it would be: restorative and rejuvenating. I got to meet some really cool people, bond further with my teacher and her daughter, and push myself. I am definitely going to sign up for next year as soon as possible.

And then our friend Liz came to visit for the evening. Liz is currently living and working in Paris, France. (Yes, it is a sweet gig.) But she brought herself and a bunch of students here on an educational trip about Washington, DC. And then she had an evening off so she came to our house for some truly American ribs and the joy of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. It was wonderful to see her, although we missed her husband, Alan, whom my husband went to grad school with at Berkeley. But believe me, seeing her is just as good. It was really fabulous conversation, good food, and some really cute trick-or-treaters. We can’t wait until they come back here to live.

And speaking of trick-or-treaters, out little trick-or-treaters were adorable! E was, of course, a dinosaur. The Concavenator Corcorvatus to be specific. It’s a newly discovered dinosaur with a hump on its back. I made the costume since none of the stores were up to date with their dinosaur costume varieties. The Little H was a Japanese Samuri Warrior. Mark’s friend, Kim, lived in Japan for awhile and brought this back for our first son. We decided it would be a waste for us not to use it again for H. It’s really a wonderful outfit.

We saw some great costumes this year, although we didn’t have the crowds we had last year. That means we now have plenty of candy in the house. I’m going to do my best not to start sampling it. Once I start it’s hard for me to stop.

I love Halloween. It’s all about fantasy and really cute pumpkins for me. I think that’s what it is about for the kids, too, so far. I think next year it might be about the candy for E. He was really jazzed about getting it once he was home, but he didn’t want to gorge himself on it. (Clearly he gets this from his father.)

But here are their costumes.

It was quite a busy weekend, but I feel very rested and relaxed this morning typing this up and sipping my coffee. I think this week will be fun, right up until Mark has to leave for a 3-day conference.  🙂