Sunrise Yoga....you kill me.

I have decided that it's time for me to get into shape. I swear that this has nothing little to do with the advent of shorts weather. This decision has come about because I'm feeling like a slug.

I jog...occasionally. I used to jog a lot more, but I have fallen off. Truthfully, I'm not very good at it. I'm not going to break any land-speed records. I just kind of just chug away. I don't even jog outside much. I'm always afraid that someone is watching me and laughing at me shuffling down the street exactly unlike a runner should. Treadmills are more my style. I have a nearly foolproof method of motivating myself to get on the treadmill. It involves television shows and movies that I really, really want to see. Usually programs and movies with lots of running in them work well. Explosions are good too, but not necessary. I have an arrangement with myself: if I begin a movie on the treadmill, I must finish it on the treadmill. So, if I want to find out what happens to Jason Bourne, or James Bond, or Doctor Who, or Optimus Prime I have to get back on the treadmill and run/jog/stumble slowly. This keeps me distracted enough that I don't pay attention to how bored I truly am.

But it's not working for me right now. I need something new. There are no movies or television shows that are holding my attention. There are only so many times I can watch Iron Man. I know the dialog by heart, and as sweet as RDjr looks in that movie, his smugness has begun to wear on me.

So I needed a change of pace. Luckily we have a membership at the YMCA. We've used it so far to get the kids swimming, and to take a Tai Chi class (which I dropped out of when we began homeschooling. There's only so much I can do.) I tried lap swimming, but it was like jogging without the television. I also kept running into a certain breed of swimmer who thinks that the Olympics unfairly passed him by in 1980, but he's going to keep training to show someone something (usually it was just to show me that he could kick water into my lane.) But I decided that it was time to step up. I thought a step class might be fun, but there were no step classes at convenient times.

See, that's the major problem. We haven't had to put the kids in daycare because George and I work at different times. We've managed with a few hours of babysitting here and there, but one of us is always home. One of us. That means that I have to find someone to watch them if I want to do something for me. The kids are getting old enough that they can be left alone for a few hours at a time, but I'm still worried that I'll come home to find Caleb tied up in the basement, or Hannah locked out of the house. There are times that my children get along like best friends, but there are other times when they get along like brother and sister.

There are a few  hours in the day that I've found, however, where both George and I would be home. No, there still isn't a step class at a time when I can step, but there are other classes that I've discovered that some kind soul has scheduled for the convenient hour of 6:00am. With school just about done, I signed up. I signed up for three classes. The first was Monday morning at 6am. It is appropriately titled Sunrise Yoga.

This is what I'd like to think I looked like. Probably not.

I will not go into details here--you can read all about yoga everywhere these days along with anyone's personal private journey yoga took them on--usually to India or Tibet, or Hawaii, or Pago-Pago--and that they just have to share with the world because their lives were changed, and they no longer smoke (good for them) engage in destructive relationship habits (hooray) or drink coffee (crazy-talk.) Good for them and their wonderful journey. That's not the journey I'm on though, so I'll just say that I had a good time. When it was over, I was as tired as someone who had worked all night and thought that 6am was a good time to engage in moderate physical activity should be. I met some wonderful chipper people. It seems that most people see Sunrise Yoga as a time to prepare for the day. Not being a morning person, I couldn't relate. I was seeing it as time to unwind from the day. I was also probably the youngest person there. Some of those 80 year-olds could probably kick my butt though, so I didn't point that out to anyone.

I just want to know where she gets her hair done.

When it was over I dragged through the rest of the day. When you have to work until 5:30am, 6am is not necessarily a good time to start a workout. It's an even worse time to suddenly remember several errands that you have to run and phone calls you have to make and, heck since you're awake you may as well make them now...I didn't get to bed until after 8am. The "normal" world was already up and working, but I was past due for bed. I believe that Namaste means "go to bed before you fall over." It was the last thing the instructor said to me before I left, so it makes sense. I just trust that this will get easier as time goes on.

We'll see what happens in my spin class tomorrow. I just hope that I'm not the youngest one there.

Hannah and the TorNATO

We had the NATO conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Hannah began drawing a cartoon for me. She had no idea what NATO was, but she watches a lot of storm-chaser shows. After listening to the news, she decided that Chicago was in for a torNATO. Here is her artistic interpretation of our week in Chicago. (And yes, Hannah is a HUGE manga fan.)

We watch a lot of weather shows. The story starts with the meteorologist predicting the weather...

Read from right to left. These two are police officers. You can tell because they are wearing badges...sorry the quality isn't great. I'm doing my best here.

On the left, cut off in the picture is lightning and a note that we are now downtown

Of course, the storm isn't the only thing getting violent downtown!

Our intrepid police officers off to help their comrades!

...and from behind the buildings downtown comes a ???
(the word is VOOM...some people have interpreted it incorrectly)

Luckily the officers stop in time!!

Yes, the torNATO has arrived. If you look closely you can see that all the protesters are inside of the torNATO along with several protest signs. The big one in front reads "We are the 99%" (Of course, she pointed out that we are kind of like the 50%...we aren't super-rich, but we aren't poor either.)

And finally, left alone, the officers are a little bit freaked out. The meteorologist, however, is pretty pleased with himself.

And there you have it! A ten year old's interpretation of NATO! She wrote the script, she developed the characters, she drew and shaded the pictures. My photos really doesn't do her work justice. She did a very good job with black and white shading, characters, concept and execution. She was very organized. Very thorough...and she used correct spelling and punctuation. In the whole thing, only one apostrophe is missing (the apostrophe in "let's", and honestly, that's a difficult one.) She figured out all the spelling and grammar herself. I am pleased with her commas, but I'm just a geek.

No...I'm not just a geek. I'm just a proud (and geeky) Mom. That's my girl. She made me laugh.