Learning to Fly

Remember all those bruises I showed you? They are all by-products of the talents and skills I'm trying to develop as part of my New Years resolutions. I have taken up Aerial Acrobatics! This is me - sitting in a hoop, and on the silks doing a move called Straddleback: There is this wonderful gym/studio/whatever-you-want-to-call-it/building that I drive by every morning on the way to work, and one day while waiting to turn at a stoplight it caught my eye. So after I finished work that week I dropped in to check it out and instantly fell in love! The first time I remember seeing aerial acrobatics like this was at a concert (thank you, Cher!), and I was amazed. I never thought it was something I'd seek out to do. I first signed up for the silks (fabric) class and started attending weekly. A few weeks in however, without my knowledge, the studio switched up their schedule and added a few more classes, including hoop. When I showed up for what I thought was my silks class that week I discovered they were really setting up for hoop. I wasn't so sure about it, but one of the employees encouraged me to try it out (you can try one class of each type for free), and then attend my normal class the hour afterward. I stayed...and have never been able to give it up! I take back to back classes every Tuesday night - hoop followed by silks - and while it can be exhausting I see myself improving every week, and have really come a long way in the few months I've been taking classes. I got a couple of the studio assistants to take pictures for me during hoop, but they take the silks class with me, so I don't have any more pictures of that class for now. Here are some things I was working on this week in hoop (excuse the blurriness - it's not the type of activity where one holds still very long!); I actuallly do more moves than these few, there's just not time to do everything in one class! Single knee hangs

Splits and Bananas (these need work...)

Straddle-ups (yay pointy toes!!)

Mermaids

Amazons

These next two were from a new move I was learning this week but couldn't quite get the hang of (no pun intended)... the bruise on my right hip is a lovely shade of eggplant because of it though!

Okay. Now that you've suffered through the blurriness I'll leave you with one photo that actually turned out well - it's a bonus that it was on a move that actually requires some skill, and just looks stinkin' awesome!!

Feelings.

I have felt pretty invisible this week. That is all.

Battle Wounds - Or In Other Words - I'm Not Being Abused

Feet:

Arms/Elbows:

Hands:

Hips:

Legs/Knees:

This is just a taste of the marks and bruises I come home with on Tuesday nights. There are other bruises that are on other areas of my body too, but those would be incredibly inappropriate to show on a blog.

Some of you already know how I'm receiving all of these colorful additions to my body, and no matter how much you may want to spoil the surprise for others, PLEASE don't reveal the secret by posting a comment that lets the cat out of the bag!! For those of you who are still in the dark... don't worry. I'm planning a full post with pictures to explain. I promise you'll like it!

I'll give you one clue: it has to do with all the New Year's resolutions I made. =)

Januarian, Vegetarian.

I have officially completed one of my New Year's resolutions! I mentioned this one a couple posts ago, but didn't give any details other than the fact that I started on January 4th, and since it was a month-long goal I successfully finished on February 4th. Did you gather what the goal was from the title of this post? I went vegetarian. Why? Well, for many reasons: I had never tried it before, I wanted to learn how to cook more vegetable-based dishes/experiment with cooking, I only cooked 1 to 2 meat dishes a week anyway (who wants to wait that long to cook a meal when you get home from work and you're starving?), I have a roommate who is vegetarian, and I was just curious.

Let me make sure I clarify the definition of a vegetarian here (thanks to merriam-webster.com):

Definition of VEGETARIAN
1
: of or relating to vegetarians
2
: consisting wholly of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, and sometimes eggs or dairy products

So, no meat. Of any kind. Now if you're still tempted to ask "did you eat fish?" I urge you to look at the definition again and ask yourself if fish is a vegetable, fruit, grain, nut, egg or some type of dairy product.

My results? I felt slightly healthier in some ways (nothing dramatic in my case), I had to plan ahead to have a balanced meal, I enjoyed feeling full on produce, and I never once cheated or slipped up on my goal! It really wasn't a difficult talk for me either since I was used to not having meat every day. The only time I wanted to break my goal was when I was down to the last 8 or 9 days and my boss took everyone out to dinner - at a sushi restaurant. My coworkers seated close to me all gave me a ton of grief (I am the only female employee of the company), and tried to convince me to throw in the towel early and just order the sushi. I resisted anyway, and I had some sympathetic waiters who took pity and brought me some excellent vegetarian dishes, some that were on the menu, and some that weren't.

Grilled vegetables (over a live coal) and edamame (of course)

Seaweed salad wrapped in avocado and topped with other greens, served on a slab of stone (cool!)

I think my favorite was the dessert platters they brought out for everyone to share.

It was an interesting experience - one I'm not likely to repeat, but I do know that I'll continue to eat little meat (1-2 times a week), and I plan on adding more vegetables to each meal. I like veggies, so this shouldn't be hard. I also got better at controlling how much I eat; noticing when I'm actually full and not feeling like it's necessary to always have seconds. Goal 1 - Check.

A Change of Hue.

Before:

During:

Waiting:

Loving:

Just because.