the roosting hour

So it seems my new habit is waking up at three every morning. or what some people call the "witching hour". (midnight is also called this in some cases.. who knows, i don't make the rules.) all i know is that i spring awake at this time every morning all "emily rose-esque" and cant seem to go back to sleep. what is one to do when they are the only one conscious on the entire planet? this morning I did laundry and watched Gypsy on TCM. After I finished pretending I was a burlesque dancer while folding my delicates, I googled "waking up at 3 am" and was disturbed with my findings. And I'm still completely clueless unless you count spirits trying to contact me and my wooden liver (are you kidding me?!)

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about Chinese medicine and holistic healing, but I'm going to need some education on that one. So in the meantime I am very thankful for my dogs waking up to hang out with me. It seems whatever wakes me up is waking them up too.
During Duke's belly rub yesterday I noticed he was starting to acquire dog/man/boobs of a sort.

(who would've ever guessed such an active individual could acquire belly fat?)

 So I've decided to start running in the mornings again. (since it is finally a tolerable temperature outside *haaaaaaallelujaaaah!*) I haven't been in the habit of running in the morning since high school. Now that I'm thru with late night study sessions and paper writing, I expect it should be a a little easier to keep a schedule.
 So early Duke and I set off this morning around 5:30. If we leave at this time we get to watch the sunrise on our way back, which makes being up that early totally worth it. While trotting thru one of the surrounding neighborhoods a ROOSTER CROWED. Let me let you in on a little secret about me: I am terrified, TERRIFIED of birds. I won't get into this now, but just understand.. if it came between touching a bird or spider, I might actually hug the spider. So mid stride I have a slight panic attack and Duke may or may have not shadoopied in his pupperoos. I have to ask myself.. WHO in their right mind has a rooster in the middle of an extremely condensed neighborhood? Poor neighbors. My heart goes out to them. If any of my neighbors decide to invest in poultry of any type, we will be having a lovely chat. So I leave you this morning, thankful for my dogs to keep my company thru my insomnia  and that my neighbors don't have any mcnuggets running around their back yards.. what are you thankful for today?

business ventures

Now that I have signed the papers, written the checks and acquired the keys it is time to share with the entire world (or the two people that visit this blog) that I am opening a yoga studio! My intentions with this blog were to write daily, but now it seems I will be sharing when my job and renovation tasks allow me to do so. The location is a 2350 square foot store carcass that I am hacking, without much grace i might add, into what will hopefully become a serene oasis.. or at least a building with pretty wood floors. Today after contracting tetnus and mesothelioma it occured to me that I could apply yoga even in this process of the studio. Im sure I didnt look like the cover of yoga journal with my protective eyewear and crowbar in hand, but hey ill take what I can get. The point is, I enjoyed the work because I knew it was for such a great purpose. Also, it doesnt matter if youre in an adandoned closet in north east arkansas or an ashram in india.. you can always be in the moment. And be thankful for what you have. Two months ago if someone had told me that I would be opening my own business at twenty four I would have laughed in their face. Now when I tell people that is exactly what Im doing they laugh in my face, but that only makes my competetive butt work even harder. At least if I'm going to mess up my credit Im doing it while I'm young enough to fix it, right? ... I digress...
Today was my first demo project and I have to say... HOW LIBERATING. If i had the oportunity to rip apart a bunch of built in furniture every day I doubt I would have any stress related tension and some awesome triceps! Lord knows my arm balances could use the help, HA!
Its a little intimidating not working by the hour or knowing I'll be recieving a set yearly salary. I definitely take my work home with me and work long crazy hours for now. There is a  long road ahead but so far things are still falling into place. Im surrounded by so many supportive friends and family members. As long as they all decide to become dedicated yoga students I think Ill be in the clear. Lol!
Most of all I am so thankful to be given this opportunity. After graduating college I was beginning to slide into freak out mode thinking I didnt have a purpose and wasnt ever going to find a job. I clearly had no idea what was in store for me. But so far this seems to be perfect for my personality. My happiness depends so much on my ability to have a purpose. As long as I have something to work on and a to do list in hand I find it almost impossible to seriously complain about anything. I now have to do lists coming out of my ears and projects I havent even thought up yet, so it seems I will be content for a while :)
I will be posting before and after pictures soon. The contractors begin in two days and after that the floor will be put down. Better believe I'll be there camera in hand! For now I'm going to look at pinterest until i fall asleep drooling on my keyboard bed, but as I promised I have a question for you:

What are the things in your life that give you purpose? Your faith? Your friends and family? Your job? Remeber to appreciate these things and be thankful!

Renovation: Endings & Beginnings: In That Order



The time has come, as I have promised to the few friends that come here, for me to reclaim my place in the blogging world. I fell away from blogging while finishing my degree because, well lets face it: studying and eating only microwaveables and takeout just doesn't make for a very inspirational blog. So here I am, degree in hand and nothing but plans for the future. To catch up the few of you that I don't text on a secondly basis, lets review the past few months:

-In August I graduated from Arkansas State with my bachelors in Exercise Science.

-I enrolled in Yoga Teacher Training through the Yoga Circle Shala and am just starting to learn what yoga is really all about.That will be a whole post - or series of posts- of its own. I'm 50 hours into my 200 hour certification. 

-Thanks to a good but unexpected friend (that's where the best ones come from anyways huh?) I started tumbling over mildly bumpy terrain and feeling like a boss for it  mountain biking.

- Traveled to the Bahamas twice. Swam with sharks (wild ones, at night, at Treasure Cay. No amount of Shark Week will prepare you for that...).

- Went snowboarding a few times and can now confidently board a blue run. By myself, because my entire family refuses to get off the green and bunny slopes.

-Worked an internship in cardiac rehab and non invasive cardiology, which further proved to me that I need not bother applying for a clinical job. *Faints*

-Joined Pinterest. you might not think that qualifies as a big enough event to make the list, but if I'm honest about how much time i spend looking at all the random pretties, then yeah... i have to include it..

I'm sure there are many many things I'm forgetting but I'm not exactly a picture taker so my scrapbooking consists of me saying "hey remember that time we...?" 

Which brings me to why I am here. A lot of things are going to be changing in my life with my completion of college and leap into the real world. I want to keep my closest friends, who now live farther away from me than anyone, up to date. Also this will be a place for me to ask questions, rhetorical and to my readers, and coming back here will be a nice way to look back on the lessons we've learned. One of biggest ways yoga has changed my life is by teaching me to always live with inquiry, especially with an unbiased view point. Since I am so random I've decided to keep one occurring trend with this blog. With every entry I will ask a question, because as long as we keep asking we'll never stop learning. So keeping in fashion with today's thoughts, let me ask you: Why is it we do the the things we do? Is it because they make us happy? Are we mindful of our actions and do we perform them with purpose? Imagine how productive we can be if we can always act with purpose.

Snow Day (again!) & White Chili

I woke up this morning, before my alarm even went off, to a magnificent snow covered back yard... again! School and work are canceled and we're expecting to get up to a foot of snow, IN ARKANSAS! 

Brr! Doesn't it even look cold?!

I decided I would still go to work this morning, just because with the snow and sickness last week, I hadn't been since wednesday. I wanted to make sure everything was still intact. Its quite fascinating, all the things that can go awry in a gym with no attendant. 

On the way home I decided I would go by the grocery store and get some goodies just in case everything freezes over, cause we all know it would be so unlike me to be prepared. haha. 

Upset that I had left my entire pile of "recipes to try" on the kitchen table, I started looking through a pile of magazines I had in my car to take to to work for the cardio section. I found a very simple White Chili recipe in the February issue of All You. 

Step one:

Heat one tbsp of oil in skillet and cook chicken breast (I used 3)

Step two:

 Chop and Saute 2 onions and 4 cloves of garlic :

chop:

saute:

Step three:

Add all ingredients to slow cooker (*mine is too small so im cooking it in a big pasta pot on the stove)

2, 4 oz. cans of roasted green chilies

1 tbsp of Cumin, which i think smells like mexican restaurant dumpsters and arm pits.. but i wont argue with a recipe.. (for some reason this picture just WONT rotate.. sorry!)

also add:

-1 c water

- 2, 14 oz cans white beans

-4 c chicken broth (preferably low sodium)

Step four.. 

put the lid on, turn stove on low and wait...

for SIX hours..

(oh and stir twice during this time)

in the meantime, I am going to be making something all crafty and cool. Also, I bought the dogs busy bones and havent seen them in well over 30 minutes, so im off to investigate what they've gotten themselves into.  Pictures later, along with the chili review! Hope everyone enjoys their snow day!

surgery and cereal extravaganza!

Due to the fact that I have been asleep, pretty much consistently for the past two days, I am just now having the chance to update you on the recent happenings. Wednesday afternoon (3ish) I started feeling not so good. For those of you who don't follow me on twitter, I will copy and paste my posts as a timeline. Haha! As the afternoon went on, I started feeling worse and worse. Around 6 I went to go eat with my aunt. 

Tweet 1:

does not feel good :(

7:28 PM Feb 3rd from mobile web
After this I had just enough time to go home before things got ugly:
Tweet 2:

yes the fetal position on a dog bed in the bathroom floor is the most comfortable option right now. its clear that death has come for me.

8:42 PM Feb 3rd from mobile web
Soon after that, I attempted to take a nap, and woke up crying like a two year old. From about 9:30-10:30 I did my best to talk myself out of it. I kept telling myself things like "you're just being a baby" and "it doesnt really hurt that bad" ...by 10:45 the sick part of me was cussing at the tough part and trying to come up with some options. After a long discussion with google search, my mom, a nurse, and my cousin I finally gave in and went to the ER. Thank goodness I did, because I have a gallstone...yay...Finally made it home thursday morning around.. 5 maybe? im not really sure at this point. Slept all day yesterday, all night last night and today until noon. Anything I've eaten has almost immediately come back up. Already, I've lost 8 pounds, but i'm quite positive thats water weight because I feel like a camel lost in the desert with a hangover from too much jagermeister. So at this point, im pretty much ready to get my surgery scheduled and get this thing outta me. Then once I have recovered I plan to visit every buffet in the tri-state area, because I'm stinking hungry!!!I will be spending the next 3 days on the couch, so I wont have anything amusing to talk about aside from cable television and the newest issues of cosmo, womens health and marie claire, so I will leave you with an amusing video of my dogs. In my mind, I think this was their way of cheering me up.. or helping me cross that line into a suicidal mind set.. haha jk! i love myself way too much for that!Enjoy!P.s. I bet if you leave me comments, it will make me feel better : )

its only tuesday???

Todays Workout:

5 m run

&

arm day

Finally went to ASU's new fitness center. Here is my review. 

Parking: it would've been wise to have considered this when they built it. All of the parking i've found so far is either resident or faculty parking. Thanks to my blatant disrespect for ASU parking services I just parked in the dorm parking lot. If anyone knows where we are SUPPOSED to park, im taking suggestions, cause im starting to rack up the parking tickets this semester...oops

OK, Im going to rant for a minute. When I went in today the lady working at the desk (who barely spoke english) told me that I had to have a towel to go in, and so in seeing that I didn't have one she offered that i could use one of theirs for $2. TWO DOLLARS to rent a stinkin' towel?! Anyways, since my goal of the day was to get at least past the front desk I complied and told her to put it on my student account. Which she didn't know how to do. So i offered to go to my car and get two dollars cash to pay her. Apparently, they don't accept cash, so I would've had to walk to the union and pay someone in the offices. RIDICULOUS! 

After giving her the STANKIEST stank eye I could muster up, I walked back to my car and drove back to my house, you know the place where I have my own treadmill, and got a towel, so that I could turn around and drive all the way back. 

...

Finally I was back and allowed entry (ASU you're really not as special as you think you are, I promise.) and made my way to the fancy smancy treadmills I had been obsessing over since I first laid eyes on them.  

Of course, the only one not occupied was not only in, but directly facing the sun. But I was determined! 

It was completely worth it. This treadmill is THE treadmill of all treadmills. I had died and gone to ADHD runners heaven. I could push buttons the entire time and not get bored. 

Here is a screenshot I took from the website:

Sadly, I felt like a 3rd grader in graduate school trying to use this thing. I made a user account and logged in, by the way, my "password picture" is of a rabbit, in case I forget. I ended up doing three different "workouts" according to the log. All i know is if i pay thousands of dollars for a treadmill i better be able to listen to my ipod AND watch tv on it at the same time. But, sadly this isnt an option. However, I did get to charge my ipod and watch espn at the same time, so I was appeased for a short amount of time.  I was under the impression it was going to send my workout to my email, which didnt happen,  soo thats a battle for another day. 

The past few days north Arkansas has had a plethora of snow, and of course same as last year, everyone was completely under-prepared which means SNOW DAYS! I got off school and work Friday and Monday . My house is seriously cleaner than it was when i moved in. And all of my homework is done. Its very weird not having a never-ending to do list. So I think tonight I'm going to give the dogs a bath and maybe stare at the wall for a bit. Wee! 

my pilgrimage... or something like that

This morning I went "rucksacking" for my first time with my friends Jason and Zach. What an experience. Thank you Jason for truly verifying the fact that I am indeed not cut out for the military.

Anyone that picks up rocks (like the size of your head) and puts them in a backpack to go for a run is obviously a masochist. However, I know I am made for running because I had an awesome time and can't wait to go again. We went to the park here and did the trails that go thru the woods.

I attempted to take a picture of my watch, its a little blurry tho. For you non-garmin users, we went 4.13 miles in 1 hr 30 min. Seems so slow, but when you've got an extra 30 pounds on your back it really makes a difference.

To say that I chose the wrong type of shoes, would quite possibly be the understatement of the century. It has rained stormed here for the past few nights and the trails are pretty muddy, to say the least..

I also could've used a different pair of pants..

but im absolutely not complaining!

(jeez, someone could benefit from some self tanner, or SOMETHING)

That was by far the best full body workout I've had since high school. So now I'm on a quest for new shoes. Would I be looking for hiking shoes? Trail shoes? I have no idea..

But I know this is my new favorite workout. For sure.

Oh and just for kicks and giggles, some of the quotes from the trip:

"Forty pounds doesn't seem that heavy"

3 miles later:

"I think Satan is riding in my backpack"

"My only choices here are the ice capades or thorn bushes"

"woah slip 'n slide!" followed by..

"haha crocodile mile!"

"I thought I was gonna get yelled at by a beaver back there"

"Busted out my ninja warrior skills just then"

"Thats not gay, its teamwork"

"dang i left my snorkel at home.."

Anyways, just wanted to share that experience. Im off to "do homework" (play guitar). Ive decided I want a new one for my birthday. Needy little thing, arent I?

I've had my eye on this one for a while.

Ovation Elite T 2078

and for anyone who cares, you can see/hear it being played here:

Ovation Video

 want to buy it for me? ill love you forever!!!