Seven Days of Yoga; Week 47

Wednesday I ended up doing more rest and cleaning - not too much cleaning though.

Thursday I taught my power yoga class, but I was pretty beat afterward, so I opted to take the rest of the night off.

Friday I worked about half the day, then had a baby checkup and then went to see the latest installment of the Hunger Games. I won't get into that here, but I thought it was just OK.

Saturday hubs got up and went to the gym, but it was too late for me to feel not stressed about the state of the house, so I cleaned mostly.

Sunday I also didn't workout because I was helping out at my mom's holiday pottery sale. She collected $2,000 for Doctors Without Borders. She's amazing. I'm so proud of her.

Monday commenced my first official day of leave. I was(am still) a little stumped on how to spend my days, but there is a pregnancy yoga class at my studio on Mondays, so I went back for round 2. I felt better about this class than last week. There were more first time moms, which meant more friendly faces. I actually met a mom who is due the same day as I am. There was another woman there who had just passed 40 weeks and was looking for a class to put her into labor, so every time we were going to do something potentially labor inducing, Kristen, our instructor, gave us 38 weekers an alternative, so our babies would get some more cook time.
After class I took Panda out on a 45 minute walk. We walked veeeeery slowly. She was a great walking partner - not pulling me around, and being a good listening. We only walked about a mile and a half, but it was good for both of us to get outside and breathe the fresh air.

Tuesday afternoon I taught my last power yoga class for a while, and then I took power yoga after. That may have been my last class too, but I'll just have to see how I'm feeling next week. Even child's pose is hard sometimes. It feels squishy and can be difficult to breathe if I'm not in the exactly right position. I have dropped my back knee in the crescent twists now. It hurts my wrist to stay up and support all of my new weight on one hand. I also modified side plank for the same reason. I am still finding ways to challenge myself by working around the wrist discomfort though.

How was your week?

Yoga Baby; Thor's Nursery

We've got just a little time to go before we meet this little guy - ranging from any day now to 4 more weeks. I've been spending a decent amount of time getting his room ready for him. I meant to post this ages ago, but it kept conflicting with other things I wanted to post first!

I hope you had a lovely weekend! Ready for the tour?

This is roughly what you see when you walk in. Hooray for panoramic photos, right?

Currently; November 2014

Reading...
I haven't really been reading much... unless you count instruction manuals, then I've been reading a ton.

Watching...
We did not get to Walking Dead in time, so the episodes have started coming down off AMC.com. Instead we've been catching up on Sons of Anarchy. I haven't loved it. Jax feels so one-note to me, and I am just waiting for everyone to die. We kind of stopped watching after the thing at the airplane hanger with Clay. Hubs was way more into the show than I am and he kinda lost interest after that. I don't blame him, so I haven't been pushing to pick it back up.
I also just marathoned the first season of Orphan Black. I have a lot more free time lately, so I watched that by myself. It's pretty amazing so far. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend. I'm excited to start season 2.

Listening to...
Still super into Serial.

Struggling with...
Hahahahahahahaha. Everything. Even sitting is difficult. Hubs laughed at me when I was moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer last week. That was real.

Inspired by...
The little man. He is amazing... and he is so big. Holy smokes.

Workouts are...
Wimpy. Luckily, my body and I communicate really well, ;) but I've been majorly wimping out on these workouts. If you follow my weekly workout recaps, you may have noticed a steady decline. I'm still getting to power yoga about once a week, and I try to dance or at least get a day or two of light cardio in, but a lot of days I am just too tired, or I wore myself out doing household stuff.

Eating...
There is zero diet happening. I'm not even being very careful about what I'm eating (oops). I occasionally enter things in MyFitnessPal, but mostly out of curiosity. I just eat what I want when I want it. Luckily, I usually crave a balanced meal, so maybe I'll have mac and cheese for lunch, but I'll follow it up with a kale salad, so I'm getting a little of everything, good and bad.

Planning...
I'm mostly just trying not to plan... at least not more than a few days or a week in advance. Since life could change very drastically at pretty much any moment, I'm just trying to get everything ready for our little guy.

Teaching...
As of today I am teaching one last class before taking the next couple months off. Mommy & baby yoga finished up on the 12th (oddly the day I usually post my currently posts, but my schedule's been a little off, so I spaced on that. oops), and I've stopped trying to get subbing gigs for the time being. I did some more subbing through the

What are you upto?

Yoga Baby; Week 38

Week 38

We are full term. Now the waiting begins...

Here's what's happening with me and the tiny one...

Cravings: Same old same old. Mac, peppermint/chocolate things, lemonade, french fries. I don't always want them. but if presented with them, I will eat them without fail.

Aversions: I've been better about this. Luckily hubs does most of the cooking, but I've started frozen meal prep, so I can't say I'm averse to cooking. ;)

Energy:  Everything is exhausting. 

Seven Days of Yoga; Week 46

Wednesday night I did Dance Central Spotlight for 45 minutes. Some things are harder and some things are easier, but it's nice to get some cardio in - even if it is just mellow dancing around in the living room.

Thursday night I skipped my workout on purpose. I opted to hang with my mom and sister for a bit in the evening after I taught my class. Teaching was actually a lot of work that day. I had to do quite a bit of demonstating.

Friday night hubs and I went to the gym together. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill, and 10 on the recumbant bike before we decided to call it a night. I was doing about 3mph, and it was hard at times. Hubs came by and told me he thought I was going too fast. My little sister showed up when I had about 10 minutes to go on the treadmill and walk/jogged with me for a bit. I like having her at the gym now.

Saturday we had more time at the gym because of the bama game. I ended up doing another 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 more on the recumbant bike.

Sunday afternoon I went to prenatal yoga. I love seeing the same familiar faces every week, but I missed some of the girls who are at about the same place in their pregnancies as I am.

Monday morning I tried a new prenatal yoga class. It's actually the class at the studio where I teach, but I haven't been able to go until now because it conflicts with my work schedule. It's so interesting how different the groups of women are at the different studios. I feel like the women at the Sunday class are much more similar to me - working women, most of us pregnant with our first, really open and friendly and talkative with everyone - whereas this class I took Monday *seemed to be* a lot more stay-at-home moms (most of them in their 2nd or 3rd pregnancy), and a little more clique-y. I feel weird saying that, but I think it has a lot more to do with the time of class than the location.

Tuesday night I went to power yoga. Now, you may be thinking "Alyssa, you have 2 and a half weeks to go before that baby comes, are you sure power yoga is a good idea?" to which I reply - a little wishy washily - "Yes." It seems scary - like there is the potential to push myself too hard or hurt myself and my newly achey wrists, knees, and hips, but when it comes down to it, my body is really good at telling me what I can and can't do. I talked about this a little bit before. I brought a friend along to a vinyasa flow class a couple weeks back and the teacher told my friend that I know and am really good at listening to my body. I don't always think that's true. I think my body is very talkative. :P Anyway, this week power yoga was really hard. I skipped a lot of stuff, didn't go very deep in much of anything, and took all the breaks. I was still a sweaty mess when I left  - I think the room was hotter than usual. I hope I can go back at least one more time, maybe next Tuesday, but we will just have to see.

How was your week?

A Shower For Thor

The weekend before Halloween some truly wonderful women, whom I've had the pleasure of knowing most of for more than half of my life, threw us and our little man a beautiful shower.

It was a gorgeous day - not Fall-like by any stretch of the imagination.

They had a gorgeous spread of delicious food, including a cake (torta, actually) made by my mama, an adorable onesie decorating station, and a fun game so folks could guess how big I am - thanks to everyone who cut shorter strings ;) - and everyone played bingo while hubs and I opened presents.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the afternoon.

Seven Days of Yoga; Week 45

I don't have any workout related pictures from this week. I barely have any photos at all, so you get a picture of my saturday morning project - an assembled baby swing.

I started Wednesday off teaching my mommy and baby class. We had one little guy who just needed to dance the whole class, so we spent a good amount of time dancing around in a circle, totally rockin out. Ended up working up a bit of a sweat, which was much needed. The rest of the day kicked my butt. I was exhausted, so if I got home and opted to snuggle with my pup on the couch, I wouldn't feel bad about it, but I ended up having the energy to do 45 minutes of Dance Central Spotlight. Hooray!

Thursday I had a dinner planned with an old friend, but I bailed because I was feeling stressed about the amount of stuff I needed to do that night after teaching and before my guitar lesson. I ended up with just the right amount of time to get everything I felt like I needed done that night.

Friday I ended up teaching two classes and by the time I was home from round two, I was beat.

Saturday was a busy day. Lots of baby prep. I taught an afternoon class. I thought about walking on the treadmill after, but I forgot my shoes, so we just went home.

Sunday I taught again. Since these classes have mostly been gym classes, I've been doing a lot of demonstrating. So, I've actually been working quite a bit when I do these classes - not so much as if I were taking them, but still.
Later I went to prenatal yoga. We talked a lot about low back/sciatic/piriformis pain/glute pain. I am working on relieving the tension I carry there - because apparently I carry so much tension there that I barely even notice it. Now that I'm trying to work it out, I'm noticing it and it huuuuurts.

Monday night I rested again, ran a couple loads of laundry, and generally overdid it on household stuff. My body was not happy with me.

Tuesday night I went to Power Yoga. It's hard to come back after taking a week off, but as always, I was so happy to be back. We talked about more piriformis stretches, but so many of them require forward folds and general squishing. I ended up in pigeon at the wall, which still gets a little squishy, but I can adjust as necessary to get as deep as possibly without squishiness. I also loooove supported bridge and supported shoulder stand for this and will sometimes/usually rock side to side to hit points with the block in my glutes. It feels awesome.

How was your week?

Yoga Baby; Week 36

Week 36

Wednesday marked one month to D-day. That was utterly terrifying, but also wonderful. I'm desperate to snuggle this little guy in my arms instead of inside my belly. 

As of today, we have just about 4 weeks to go. It feels like a waiting game now... a waiting game in which I dress about everything that still needs to get done!

Here's what's happening with me and the tiny one...

Cravings: No cravings. I have noticed I eat a lot of peppermint flavored things and mac and cheese. I don't outright crave them though. They just happen to be available and I like them better than other things. . 

Aversions: I still am not into cooking. 

Energy:  Waning. I'm not as sleepy as I was in the first trimester, but I sure do get winded quickly.

Seven Days of Yoga; Week 44

Wednesday I skipped my workout in favor of having snazzy photos taken. ;)

Thursday night I went to Power Yoga. I know I've said this before, but it gets harder and harder every time. I was able to stick with most of it. All of my vinyasas were from my knees. I think - of the 20+ vinyasas we did - I maybe did 2 from my toes. I still managed a handstand at the end. I thought about forearm stand, but my right elbow's been bugging me, so I thought handstand would be better.

Friday was Halloween. I thought about a quick trip to the gym, but instead I went to my sister's and ate Thai food - probably too much Thai food, but whatevsies.

Saturday I had a 1st birthday party to attend. In my mind I got up early and took a yoga class, but in reality I slept in. Then I came home and tackled lots of baby prep stuff. I think that counts as exercise. Yep. Totally counts.

Sunday my back was killing me. :( I woke up that way. Sitting made it worse. So, I spent the first half of the day waiting for prenatal yoga. Hubs got home from a mini man-cation around 11, so we got to spend some time together and I got a little much needed back massage before heading off to yoga. By the end of the day, back massage plus yoga made me feel so so so much better.

Monday night I had planned to dance with the xbox on Dance Central Spotlight, but I had a majorly crankifying experience buying bottles with rewards points at Babies R Us, so by the time I got home, I was not feeling it. I opted to sit at my computer and work on my hospital playlist instead. It made me feel better.

Tuesday was another weird night. Teaching power yoga, followed by a trip to the chiropractor, picking up the pup and voting. I rescheduled my guitar lesson for a different night so I could exercise and not feel stressed out, but I ended up just coming home and doing some cleaning and organizing of baby things. I walked up and down the stairs a few times. That counts as exercise, right?

How was your week?