Things look good

I’m in a spectacular mood today, and I can’t really figure it out. I was up before the sun to play with the dogs (they’re early risers too) and then I scooted off to the gym for some cardio and weights. Before I went to bed last night I laid out my clothes for the gym and work because I find that if I do that I am more likely to actually make it to the gym. If the clothes aren’t ready, then I talk myself out of going with arguments like "well, if I get ready to go, the lights will wake Rich up and I don’t want to make him grumpy…" or "If I have to find all my stuff, then I won’t have enough time to actually work out". So, I’ve been practicing yoga in public more (which is totally different from practing at home, all alone), working out, running, and trying to eat better… and somehow I’ve gained five pounds. Oh, and please don’t remind that muscle weighs more than fat, because I"m not really bulking up. If anything, it could be water weight, since I’m drinking oceans of it daily.

Yesterday I got it in my head that I wanted to cook, so I went shopping and bought a bunch of random stuff to throw into my crock pot and rice steamer, so that I could cook without actually cooking. Into the crockpot went a few cups of beans (a total of 15 different legumes/beans/lentils + corn), some crushed roasted tomatoes, some intense chipotle salsa, and some garlice and onions. Into the rice steamer went some rice and a mixture of sweet onion soup, more chipotle salsa, and some soy-half and half. It came out like sweet onion-chipotle sticky rice and is extremely awesome. Side note: I have managed to make some awesome things in that rice steamer with very little effort. I kind of feel like a kid with a chemistry set when I pull it out, because I don’t know what I’m going to put in there or what’s going to come out, but it has consistently been a whole lot of awesome.

The dogs are doing really well. I gave them all baths last night because they like to play under the house during the day (it’s shady and cool, and the temperatures have lately been in the 70s and low 80s) . They were DIRTY, but now they’re clean, they smell good, and because of that are allowed to sit on the furniture and crawl in bed with us. Yay!

My sister and little nephew are doing well also, she just mailed me a bunch of pictures and I can’t wait to get my hands on them. He’s an adorable little guy; my sister and mom keep saying that he looks just like me, but I don’t realy see a resemblance besides the awesome golden honey tone of our skin.

Oh, and I think I realized why I was so ‘popular’ last Sunday; I have been feeling really good about myself. I haven’t really suffered too heavily or often from a lack of confidence or depression, but this past winter was pretty bad for me. I seem to be coming out of my funk.

teaching news: I think I just got my own regular Kundalini class at the yoga center. One of the owners has a class that he has been subbing out a lot lately (he’s a very busy guy), and I have been making it known that I WANT that class and will do just about anything to get it. He just called a minute ago and said that he needed help subbing it out tonight, I said I’d take it. The woman in charge of scheduling just told me that he wants to give it up, and I kinda pulled the Diva card and let her know that I wanted it, and as a lead teacher/teacher training faculty member/teacher for the past 8 years that I should get it. Selfish, I know, but I really want to teach this class regularly. Of course, I didn’t put it forth that bluntly or selfishly… it was more like ‘I can do this, I want to do this, and if you let me do this then you don’t have to spend a few days auditioning people and making your life crazy."

Okay, I have to get to work… later lovelies!