Yoga Resources

Many people, including myself a few years ago, think that there is only one kind of yogi–long and lean (in the Banana Republic way) and able to contort himself/herself in all kinds of twisty poses (in the tiny Chinese gymnast way). Well, that just isn’t true. There are so many different types of yoga for so many different types of people. Here are a few I’m interested in right now.

Credit: Curvy Yoga

If my Lotus Series (update soon, I promise!) isn’t evidence enough that inflexible, non-skinny people can still practice yoga, Curvy Yoga, a Web site and blog dedicated to yoga for overweight people, should do the trick. According to the site, “One of the primary goals of Curvy Yoga is to give [overweight] people a safe space in which to move their bodies—for the first time in a long time, for many people…Curvy Yoga is not about weight loss but rather about building a foundation of self-care and acceptance that can lead to a healthier lifestyle.” Can’t go wrong with that, right? I regularly read the Curvy Yoga blog and find that Anna modifies many poses, ensuring that all can benefit from yoga’s benefits. Check out her 30 Days of Curvy Yoga that begins in July. With daily 45-minute downloads, an online community subscription, a daily e-mail, and more, it looks like a great deal!

Credit: Yoga Download

Some friends recently turned me on to yoga podcasts from Yoga Download. Many are 20-minute sessions, which can be fit in any time of the day, and the site has just about anything imaginable. There are hatha, hot yoga, kundalini, power yoga, yoga for weight loss, and yoga for beginners sessions, just to name a few. As is true of all podcasts, you can subscribe and get one every day, or you can just download the ones you want. All are free, too! I’ve been doing Episode 22 for hip openers. If you’re new to yoga or are unsure of how to do a pose, you can download a visual guide for each episode, but I find that the instructor explains the poses very well. Whether you’ve never practiced yoga before or are a seasoned veteran, you have no excuse not to try one of these downloads. There are so many to choose from. And there are even more (for a small fee) on the Yoga Download Web site.

Kundalini Yoga. Okay, so I’ll admit this looks a little kooky, but I’m still intrigued. It looks so different from what I normally associate with yoga (triangle pose, proud warrior, etc.), and all the fun clothing and props are sure to promise a challenge. I doubt I’ll be donning a head wrap any time soon, but I think I’ll try one of the 20-minute kundalini downloads. Considering this is my year of learning about yoga, I suppose I should give it all a whirl, right?

What yoga resources are you using right now? Feel free to share a link in the comments section.

Namaste.

P.S. Are you buying that she’s 58 (in the video)? ‘Cause I’m calling a big, fat BS on that one. Not because she’s limber and youthful but because I can’t see a single wrinkle on her face, arms, or hands. And there’s my snarky comment for the day. 

Namaste (for real this time).

It’s Friday, I’m in Love

Ed and I haven’t tackled a home-renovation project in a few months, and I’m feeling the itch. Our last task was pretty successful, but so many areas of our house are screaming to be updated (i.e., kitchen, both bathrooms, hallway, and living room, i.e. further, pretty much everything). We’ve been planning on doing the bathroom next but keep cringing at spending the money. Lately, I’ve been trying to find some DIY options to save us some cash. In the process, I’ve looked at way more design sites than I should and stumbled upon some fantastic finds. Here are my current design inspirations:

1. Young House Love–I’ve recently fallen in love, absolute love, with this charming site. The husband and wife team’s posts are witty and so fun to read, and their DIY design is nothing if not inspiring. Check out this pretty, under-$2000 bathroom redo (click picture):

Photo credit: Young House Love

2. Royal Design Studio–I admit it: I’ve been sucked into the wallpaper trend. I love the all-over graphic prints, the florals, and the damasks. I’m not normally this way, but lately, I’ve become a sucker for a busy wallpaper. But wallpaper is such a disaster–it peels, it goes out of date ever so quickly, and it requires lots and lots of elbow grease to remove. (Enter RDS stencils). Royal Design Studio stencils give the look of wallpaper but are painted on. To be fair, I’m sure getting the stenciled design painted is a time-consuming process, but when you get tired of it, you can just paint over it (way easier than removing wallpaper, glue, etc.). I’m currently loving this one:

Photo credit: Royal Design Studio

3. Home Decorators Collection–I just recently found this site and have had quite a time keeping myself from wasting time at work on it. HDC has stylish furniture pieces and decent prices on some items. This bathroom vanity has my eye right now:

Photo credit: Home Decorators Collection

 

4. School House Electric–I’ve long been a fan of this lighting-fixture company and have big plans for their milk-glass fixtures in my kitchen when I get to it, but I’m loving their wall sconces right now, too. Wouldn’t two of these look so good in a bathroom with a stylish mirror between?

Photo credit: School House Electric

Or maybe these?

Photo credit: School House Electric

 

5. Nature-Inspired Mirrors–I’m not sure the bathroom is the right place for one, but I’d love one of these stylish mirrors:

Photo credit: Amazon

 

Photo credit: Addicted 2 Decorating

I’m partial to the second one but think it may be more suited over the mantel.

Do these pieces all go together? Well, probably not, but I like them all. Is this a decorating blog? Well, no, it isn’t. I’ll put a plant in the bathroom and call it gardening. That’ll work, right?

How many of you are trying to remodel a bathroom? Another room in your home? What suggestions do you have for me? And, even better, what fun Web sites should I visit?

Happy Friday, y’all!

 

 

Post-Yoga Dinner — Salad and Involtini di Melanzana

I’ve had some long days lately, specifically Wednesdays. Each Wednesday, I work from 8-5 then have yoga class from 5:30-7, meaning I leave the house around 7:30 a.m. and get home close to 7:30 p.m. It makes for a long day.

To help me out, sweet Husband has been cooking dinner while I’m at yoga and serving me when I get home. It’s been heavenly!

This week, he prepared a delicious meal mostly with veggies from our local market.

We had a simple salad of romaine lettuce, purple onion, banana peppers, and cherry tomatoes with a lemon, capers, and olive oil vinaigrette (I made the dressing because I like to help).

To accompany the salad, Edmond prepared Involtini di Melanzana (eggplant rollups is my loose translation). He used this recipe from his hero, Mario Batali. It was delicious and ever so sweet of him to think of me. A perfect post-yoga, vegetarian meal full of local ingredients.

Local Ingredients Used:

• onion
• banana peppers
• cherry tomatoes
• eggplant
• eggs
• rosemary (Edmond added this to the frittata because it’s my favorite–see, so sweet)

Dinner is served

If you’re an eggplant fan, give it a whirl.

Or, try my vinaigrette:

Juice of one lemon

1 tbsp capers, chopped

olive oil to taste (less for tart dressing, more for not-so-tart dressing)

salt and pepper to taste

Whisk all ingredients together and toss with salad. Easy peasy.

Hedges, Bushes, and More Hedges

I have openly appreciated our home’s previous owner (the original owner/builder) on choosing complimentary flowering bushes. I’m grateful, really I am, but geez we have a lot of them. I haven’t taken to counting, but I’m pretty sure that doing so would render a number somewhere near 100. Also, these bushes are O.L.D.–landscaper friend has estimated 50+ years on some–and most haven’t been pruned in about five years or so. They are a bit unruly.

So that’s what we’ve been doing–pruning bushes. We have trimmed about a quarter and can already tell a huge difference. See the before of one row:

Row in the back yard

And the after:

Same row, quite a bit shorter

We trimmed about 5 ft. off these bushes and are happy we can now see all the way to the fence line from our deck. We plan to shape them a little once they start growing back.

And to give you an idea of the size of these hedges:

Overgrown azaleas in front of house (I am not a dwarf)

Yes, there is a house back there somewhere. Here is the almost-after:

We scalped 'em

We took a good 6-7 ft. off those suckers and couldn’t be happier with the results. They look a little sad here, but trust me, they’re coming back nicely. All are full of new growth and green again. Here’s what they looked like a few weeks ago:

New azalea growth

And here they are today:

More new azalea growth

And of course, the poison oak has new growth as well. Grrr.

Boo on poison oak.

I will deal with the above soon, or because of my relationship with it, I’ll have Husband do it.

And here’s the true after:

Newly trimmed hedges

Funny thing about trimming hedges: the weeds love all the extra sunlight, air, space, etc. and take over. Must weed-eat ASAP.

Although we do have an electric hedge trimmer, we did all of the above pruning without it. A good pair of hedge shears and pruning loppers will get you a long way. Save the hedge trimmer for shaping.

We’ve been spending the weekends in our recently purchased, swanky baby pool, but have another bush area to tackle soon.

Hello, Weekend Plans.

I’ve also got to figure out what to do with the front of our house now that it is visible. Any suggestions for making it not so sad looking?

Wedding Anniversary–All Class in the Delta, All Trash at Home

Today is my third wedding anniversary, but we’ve been celebrating all weekend. After the market on Saturday, we headed out to Greenwood, MS for an anniversary weekend in the Delta. It was super classy.

We loaded up the car and headed out to Greenwood via back roads–my favorite way to get any place. About two hours later, we arrived at our swanky hotel, The Alluvian. This hotel is a bit of a celebrity in Mississippi, and I had just been dying to meet her.

What is it with fancy hotels and telephones by the toilet?

After checking in and admiring our pretty room, we went to lunch at The Crystal Grill, another famous landmark in Miss. To say this place has an eclectic menu is an understatement. They have everything from beans and greens to spaghetti and meatballs to frog legs to tamales to lemon ice box pie to a million other things. I got the vegetable plate lunch and asked for turnip greens, broccoli casserole, salad, and german potatoes. I received greens, salad, yams, and corn. The greens were definitely good. The rest I could have done without. All in all, I wasn’t so impressed with this place, but I’d be willing to give it another try. I will say that the homemade pies looked decadent, and had we not had dinner reservations, I would have definitely ordered a piece of lemon ice box. Didn’t want to spoil dinner and all.

We drove around the sleepy little town after lunch and saw the Viking Cooking School and sales store. Believe you me, I wanted to go home with some cookware, but refrained from that as well.

Excellent zinfandel from my step-sister and brother-in-law

After getting ready for dinner, we went down to the hotel bar and restaurant Giardina’s for before-dinner cocktails. Then we walked to Delta Bistro for our anniversary dinner. It is a BYOB establishment, so we brought along a bottle of wine we received as a gift at Christmas. We booked the chef’s table, which turned out to be a little more casual than we expected but absolutely perfect. We received excellent service and enjoyed getting to watch the kitchen staff all night. The food was delicious, and all in all, it was the perfect evening.

We had planned to stay for two nights–the first to do all of the above, the second to lounge by the pool and relax. The Alluvian doesn’t have a pool, so we were moving to a different hotel. The pool there just looked sad. Just sad. Also, Greenwood turned out to be a much smaller place than we expected, which would have been fine except that our Sunday dinner options were limited to Chinese buffet, Mexican, and Pizza Hut.

We decided just to go on home and enjoy relaxing there. Somewhere along the way, I had a brilliant idea for how we could spend the rest of our anniversary weekend.

Here’s a hint

 

Wait for it….

 

 

 

It’s coming…..

 

 

 

 

 

It’s almost here….

 

Boom

 

We got a baby pool. I won’t lie, it’s awesome. It even has cup holders. It’s 80 inches across, which is plenty big enough for two people, and it is about two feet high. Best $25 we’ve spent in a while.

 

 

The setup

 

Just to show you how redneck it is, I’ve captured our hangout. We have two chairs (still haven’t bothered taking off the tags), an ice chest full of Coors Light and Miller High Life, and hot sauce- and dill-flavored chips. What you can’t see is the boom box blaring Tom Petty and/or the Stones and the lazy dogs lying around.

So, we’ve had one super classy, completely decadent night in Greenwood and two trashy, also decadent days in our backyard. Happy anniversary to us.

 

We're so happy.