Tag: yoga

Happy New Year with Old Navy!

Old Navy (through Crowdtap) was good to me in 2012. Just before Christmas, I got another go to try out the active wear.

I love active wear. Especially from Old Navy! I’m a yoga teacher in my spare time, and it is really fun to go in dressed the part in something that fits and moves with me. I love the colors of their new tops, and I picked up a gray pair of pants.

Then it makes me wonder why it has taken me so long to get a pair of charcoal pants for yoga. I have black pants. So it is good to branch out a bit.

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My sister-in-law went with me, and she got a blue shirt and black pants. I haven’t talked her into joining me  for a yoga class yet, but now she’ll be dressed for the part.

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I’m excited to start the new year with new things to wear to my new yoga class! I’m going to post again soon about my new resolutions and what I’m expecting to accomplish with writing and yoga and all the other things I’m going to attempt.

 

 

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Stretching for Goals

I read Yoga Journal, and I found this quote:  “Failing is a part of success. To make goals effective, you have to fail at them 50 percent of the time, or they didn’t stretch you far enough.” Chip Wilson, courtesy of an article by Ella Lawrence called Set Your Course.

While I make goals and I keep track of them, I must not be stretching myself enough according to that standard. I often choose smaller goals and see if I can do more than just the minimum. I also realize that it isn’t possible to do everything I want to and have interest to attempt. Not even close. But I do prioritize and make an effort on the things that matter to me – though it is often something I know I can do if  I put a reminder in front of me.

So what is the change if I allow myself to fail at a goal here and there? It opens up a lot of possibilities. I can call it a work-in-progress and remind myself that there is wiggle room. Yet it’s also good to remember I only have a couple hours a day when I am doing things for me and not my children.

Writing takes up a lot of that time. I won’t apologize for it, because it’s what I love to do.

I’ve been struggling to get back to my daily yoga practice post-baby. Part of this is because I don’t have somewhere to go do it yet, and my toddler takes it as an invitation to use me as a jungle gym. It greatly increases the difficulty of a pose like Warrior I when you have a small child standing on your back leg.

My challenges this month are to go back to yoga every day and to edit a novel and to keep up my writing streak and prep another novel. Those are big goals considering my newborn is 7 weeks old. He just slept a little over 6 hours, which is called “through the night” by the professionals… and I woke before he did. Somehow I was wide awake and starving at 3:30 in the morning.

If this keeps up, I’ll have plenty of time to practice yoga when my children are sleeping. And edit my novel. Probably a bunch of other things, too, but six hours isn’t really enough sleep for me on a regular basis. While I can dream of things like bottling time, liquid sleep, cloning, and delegating roles to an army of bored people who procrastinate their time away, I know that we’re all given the same time and it’s what we do with it that sets us apart from the rest.

I don’t have time to be bored. If I finish those novel edits, I’m going to dive back into writing that novella I think I have a handle on completing. There’s always another project that I’d like to tackle – even if it’s just knitting another rug for the bathroom floor.

What do you do for your goals? How do you know you’re successful? What do you think of the 50 percent and stretching quote from Chip Wilson?

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Stay-at-Home Mom?

I read a lot about SAHMs. For a time, I might even have been one. It’s just an interesting term because, in my experience, one rarely stays “home.” I suppose you could, and many do, but there’s only so much to do in the house.

So how do you decide if you’re staying at home or not? Does it count if you pack up the kid and take her with you at least five days a week? Does it matter if we’re headed to the gym or a playgroup or just out grocery shopping? Yes, that would be a lot of groceries, but it’s a place to go. Don’t forget the pool and the library to mix in with the other errands that should only take 5 minutes each, right?

Some of them used to take 5 or 10 minutes, before I started dragging the munchkin with me. If it isn’t her meandering path that takes three times as many steps as we’d need, it’s someone else stopping us to talk about how cute she is or how old she is. It’s not that I mind the attention or begrudge her the exploring time, but nothing takes 5 minutes anymore. Except things that used to take a minute or less, like climbing the stairs.

Assume that it’s going to take half an hour when I stop somewhere, and I’m a lot closer to reality. I grab a diaper bag and the toddler and pack them in the car, along with my purse and keys. Still haven’t figured out the best way to keep my stuff and her stuff in one bag and have it organized and useful, so I carry two and keep the bare minimum in both. Then the garage door goes up, because she’s excited enough about going outside that I can’t open the door before I pack her in the car. So I wait, then back out. There’s five minutes or more already, depending on how cooperative she’s feeling about going wherever we’re going.

That kind of activity just keeps going, in reverse for getting her out. Sometimes I can direct her to go where she’s going, but most of the time I make sure she’s last out of the car so she doesn’t wander off without me. It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s no reason to let the first time be in traffic.

I have been thinking that not working full-time means I’m a stay-at-home mom. So I try to say that with an introduction, but then I keep addending it. I mean, I’m also a writer. While that may not be a paying gig most of the time, I do have paying jobs in tutoring math and teaching yoga. Both of these are part-time, but it still means I need to go somewhere at a specific time and place for a specified duty.

Which of those parts means I’m not a SAHM? I’m not exactly sure, but I think the answer is a little of all of them. You can find me outside the house nearly every morning (Sundays being the exception) and between two and four evenings a week. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like I’m at home that much.

I have made it a high priority to be home during naptime, or if not with me then let the little girl rest with someone I trust. She’s much less cranky when she gets her scheduled nap. I also put her to bed at a specific time and she generally wakes within a few minutes of the same time every day. I can’t say it’s the best for every kid, but I know it works for mine.

I know all mothers are full-time mothers, but I wonder if I’m not the only person who tries to define the quality of staying at home by whether or not the mother has a full-time job. There has to be a different way. What do you think defines a SAHM?

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A Sustainable Question

How often do we think about the products we use with regard to sustainable materials?

I know Gaiam has several items and there are directories (EcoSherpa is one) where you can find things for yoga. There is SpeeSees for children’s attire. Larger cities often have boutiques geared toward this niche market.

Yoga led me to look at a bigger picture, though I must admit I still use harsh cleaning products. (For now, I keep thinking about going greener in my house and I’ve been reading up on how to do it.)

I don’t often think about it, but when I see it I like it and I will purchase it, provided it isn’t cost-prohibitive. Not saying it has to be less expensive, but sometimes it’s really hard to say yes to buying something ten times the price because it doesn’t hurt the environment. The pocketbook doesn’t always allow that!

I do like seeing companies that make an effort on that front and I am more likely to support them than their counterparts who don’t.

I loved the idea of flushable diapers, but unfortunately my new house has toilets that won’t work with it. (Or so I have been told.) My washing machine also saves too much water to be able to really clean cloth diapers. This really limits my options toward being eco-friendly in that department.

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