Nieces and Nephews

I am an only child, which means I have to make my own sisters or inherit cool sister-in-laws from my hubby (hi, Jessica!). Of my grow your own sisters, only Alex has given me nieces and nephews thus far. Despite the fact that one of them is a caterpillar larva, one is a tiny, hellacious minion, and the other is a tweener, they're pretty cool and I love them.

This one is Phoebe, she already likes to be read to by her Auntie Blaine, which is a plus. She also likes to say "No!" to just about everything else. I think I know now why they call it the terrible twos.

This is Max. He's a chill little guy. He's either doing this, eating, or sleeping.

 Max has cute smiles, and acid reflux.

And this is Charlotte, my original niece, who is now oh-my-god-how-can-it-be-we-are-so-old 11. Every time I see Charlotte, it's like she gets cooler and cooler. I can't wait till she's able to drink wine and laugh with me...legally, of course.

When it comes to Charlotte, I got things on lockdown. We can pretty much have intelligent conversations, play games, and be silly. But with the other two, it's a little trickier. They pretty much just sit there and stare or scream "No!" at you.  At this point, I think the only thing they are good for is taking selfies:

Juice Cleanse

I've really been into juice lately, so I decided to try a 2-day juice cleanse. The benefits seemed reasonable: giving the digestive system a break, zapping your body with extra vitamins and minerals, detoxing the liver, and being a little more mindful about consumption for a couple of days.

So I got my juice from my favorite juicery here in in Oregon: 

 12 juices, 6 per day...no big deal, right?

Wrong.

Things started out fine:

I was enjoying the juices that I had chosen, taking selfies, and feeling like a real champ. Then, around 4:00 things changed. My head began to hurt and my vision was blurring. All I could think about was all the amazing foods that I wanted to eat: cheeseburgers, Chinese food, egg sandwiches, burritos, and coffee. 

Then, my mind began to play tricks on me. I saw turkey sandwiches dangling from trees and kettle chips scattered all over the ground. I even thought about trying the dog food. Was this shoddy willpower on my part or the symptoms of malnutrition setting in?

I decided to drown my doubts with another juice and a little internet googling sesh. This resulted in me falling down a rabbit hole of articles about juice cleanses. What I found was that juice cleanses may or may not be good for you. Juice may or may not detox your system. Juice may or may not flood your system with an overload of sugar without enough fiber to digest it, causing your body to produce too much insulin and send it into diabetic shock.

I felt like shit. And these articles weren't helping. By 9:00 that night I was forcing down my last juice and ready to call it a day, literally and figuratively. Why do this to myself? Maybe I would feel better after the day 1 one toxin hangover (this is what pro-juice cleanse people call the shitty feeling that you feel, but I think it's just hunger), maybe I have no will power, maybe I need a lesson in self-determination. Or maybe I'm just really smart and know that my body needs balance. Juice cleanse, I quit.

So, here's what I learned from my 2-day 1-day juice cleanse:

1) Juice is good, but food is better
2) Trying to restrict something from your diet (like food) is stupid and psychologically unhealthy
3) You're not exactly cleansing, if you feel like total shit while you're doing it
4) Too much juice is just as bad as too much of anything else
5) Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (thanks to Michael Pollan for this one)

Happy Birthday, my love

You say poTAYto, I say poTAHto, you like to wake up at 4:00 am to carry couches up mountains on your birthday, I like to sleep in and eat good food on my birthday... PoTAYto! PoTAHto! Carrying couches!

You get the idea. 

For Jason's 31st birthday, he desired a good old fashioned misogi, which I'm still not quite sure what it is, something about waking up early and challenging yourself and your friends to do something really hard like carrying a couch 7 miles round trip up a mountain and back. 

So we did.

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Made it!

After 4 consecutive days of pulling 12-14 hour driving shifts, we made it. We are officially back in Eugene. With all the intense car time, there wasn't much enjoying of the sites this time around, but we did manage to catch a few cool sites.

As far as being back in Oregon goes, I can't really say too much right now. I think my feelings will slowly be revealed to me as time progresses. What I can say right now is that as weird and transitiony as I feel, it's not a bad weird. I think that's good. Most importantly, right now I feel really grateful. I feel grateful for the love and support of friends and family during this time. I am 100% aware of how completely insane it is to move across the country, move back, and then turn around and go back! Yet, no one ever said that to me (or at least not to my face). The love and understanding that I've received from friends on both coasts has been amazing and ultimately what has empowered me to move through this time. Thank you all for that.

NC to OR Day 2

Can you say "Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri" three times fast? Those are the states through which we passed today.

Hours driven: 10.5

Getting the day started off right: post run and peanut peanut butter banana rice cake Nashville iced Americano while Jason drives (don't worry, I drive too...actually more than Jason today).




Lake side Illinois picnic? Don't mind if we do!





Second day in a row lake side lunching is awesome!




I pretend to channel Lolita on she and Humbert's cross country adventures:






"Deep Thoughts" from the road today:

Are people from the Midwest made of corn? I can't help but think that they are. There are big skies in the middle of America. Big skies that touch the plains and trick your eyes. Those big skies and that big sun grow big folks.

What are people from the East coast made of? What do people from other parts of the USA think we are made of?

What are people from the West coast made of? What are people from the East coast who move to the West coast made of?



After last night's disgusting night at the Days Inn in East Nashville, tonight we lodge at the the Stoney Creek Inn in St. Joseph Missouri. We are about 30 minutes from the Kansas and Nebraska borders in the hometown of Jesse James AND the starting place of the Pony Express. So, that's cool.

And there's a moose outside this place that looks curiously like my daughter, Edith:




Great way to finish the day: cold beer, cold/clean room.





Tomorrow: long time Nebraska...

30 days til 30

That's right, folks.  In 1 month I will be officially...30.  What does one do in the last days of their 20s?

Acupuncture

So, for the past week I've been dealing with what I think is a yoga induced over-usage injury in my shoulder and neck.  I finally decided enough was enough and got some acupuncture.

It was my first time, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  At first, it was much like getting a massage:  the requisite questions about stress, tension storage areas, and nutrition; laying face down on a massage table in a cold room, someone gentle touching your trigger points, and then OUCH!

"Was that a needle that you just stuck into me"?

Oh, yeah...that's was acupuncture is.

I'll be honest with you, I thought I'd like the treatment much more than I did.  I thought I would be OK with the fact that someone was inserting tiny needles into me, and at first I suppose I was.  But as my body began to sweat profusely (I'm still not sure why this happened, I'm hypothesizing that my body must have gone into some kind of fight or flight mode) and more needles were going into me, some larger that their predecessors, I began to feel a low deep annoying type of pain, a scratching of nails on a chalkboard pain, or someone diddling a nerve in a busted tooth pain.  It was weird.  The doctor left the room, and I tried to concentrate on breathing and relaxing, but all I could think about was a myriad of needle injury possibilities. What if I took too deep of a breath then causing a needle to move, which then leaves me paralyzed or even dead?  Sharp thing are kind of scary.

So, do I feel better?  Well, much of the tension that was associated with the neck/shoulder injury is gone.  So, I guess that's good. The main injury is still there, but methinks it just needs time to heal.  Here's the weird thing:  for the past couple of weeks, my allergies had been gone.  I was going outside again, running, and feeling good.  Then, all of a sudden after the acupuncture, they came back full force.  I'm sneezing, snotting, and eye-watering all over the place all over again.  Not cool. Did something new tree begin to pollinate or did the acupuncture trigger some strange reaction?

Acupuncture.
Would I go back? Never say never, but...
Would I try to find another option first?  Probably
Would I rather get a nice deep massage?  Definitely.

The best analogy I can think of is that it was like watching a scary movie for me.  I just don't like scary movies.  Some people do.  Some people really like being scared.  I hate being scared.  Like...a lot.

And then again, this strange aversion to the whole experience makes me wonder if perhaps I do need indeed need acupuncture.  Sometimes we find ways to obviate the things that we need.

Not a Competition

Yesterday was the demonstration at Bikram Yoga Durham.  There was about 14 of us who got up in front of our yoga peers and demonstrated the progress of our practice.  Though it wasn't a competition exactly, it held the format of a typical Bikram competition sans scoring and judging.  Basically, this means that we had to include the 5 basic postures designated for competition and 2 postures from the advanced Bikram series.  We had to bow before and after our routine, and announce the names of each posture before we did it.  There are also weird rules about which direction you have to face when doing whatever posture.  That was hard to remember.  I went last which was extremely nerve inducing as I had to watch each of the others demonstrating, finishing, and plopping down on the floor in relief.  I had no idea how nervous I would be once I got up on the podium.  I was shaking, folks.  It's one thing getting up in front of people and speaking, or singing, or whatever.  But getting up in front of people in tiny little shorts and trying to balance?  Scary.

My Routine:

Standing Head to Knee Pose (not the full expression, I guess the camera-man missed that)




Standing Bow Pulling Pose



Bow Pulling Pose




Rabbit Pose





Stretching Pose



Bound Lotus Pose





Headstand with Lotus Pose (Again, my camera man missed the full expression of this one, but got me "gracefully" moving into it)




The group who demonstrated. This was an awesome group of people with whom to do this.  Representing a variety of levels and ages, each and every one of us have such unique practices and are on such different yogic paths.  It was very inspiring to share this experience with each of them.





What a learning experience!  My postures are not perfect, in fact I could probably go through and pick apart each one, but that is not the point.  The point was to share my progress, and demonstrate my experiences and love for the yoga.  I feel honored to have been asked to participate and I would do it again in an instant!

Shoulda been a song writer

I'm a naturally born song writer, people!


My talents lie within a very specific genre: spontaneous jingle commentary.  Meaning, I write songs on the spot about what is happening right now.

Currently on my hit list:

1)  Everybody, Everybody
2) Ima do my jobby job
3) Put it up
4) Time to go

But let's not forget the old classics:

1) I am talkin' to all of ya'll
2) I don't wanna go
3) Vegan chocolate chip cookies
4) Shut the f**k up!

I can smell my next Grammy...which will actually be my first Grammy.

Top 1%

I get the feeling that rather than changing the fact that 1% of Americans hold the wealth by redistributing the wealth in America, most people are more concerned with how they can become that 1%. I find this a little bit concerning because 1) it's not realistic 2) it's not sustainable 3) it's not very humanistic.

I'm not saying that I think we should be communists or anything, but I am saying that this new form of extreme capitalism is very very scary for our future.

But, hey, you don't see me sleeping in a tent on the street.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

A Potential Problem

When you are 1/3 part of an awesome trinity such as ours (see brunette attack below) you sometimes do things the same without even knowing it, like secret telepathy or something.

And, sometimes the mere sight of a trinity member having something cool immediately sends you out into the world in a 5th grade style "I must have what she has" copy-cat mode. I don't know why this is. Maybe it's our similar loves and styles meeting in a trinity-only collective unconscious that goos around in space. Maybe we have no individuality and can only truly decide if we like something if someone else has it. Maybe this is a way of feeling close to one another since we are ostensibly spread out across the country in a triangular fashion. Or maybe we should really just go back to 5th grade. With this said, I present to you my new purse: A 100% trinity plagiarism.

Here he is accompanied by another trinity trifecta possession (the Hobo wallet).

Exhibit 2: Sister shirts, sister leggings, sister boots:

Exhibit 3: Sister stripped shirts and jeans:




The Potential Problem is this: while it may be fun to have a "trinity purse", "sister wallets", or "sister boots", this habit can altogether prove detrimental to ones individual style and possibly lead to death via suffocation in credit card debt. But I suppose this is a risk worth taking to feel close to my ladies, right sisters?