laughter on the playground

I talk about yoga lot here, and I think about it a lot in my life. If I could go to yoga at a studio every day, I would consider my life most perfect. Meanwhile I try to make time at home for yoga a couple times a week, if not more, and then go to the studio when I can fit it into my schedule.

On Tuesday, I was going to Ana’s in the evening, but because I get off earlier than everyone else I had three hours to kill and didn’t want to drive home to drive back to the Valley. Enter 5:00 pm yoga class, and heaven.

It was a mixed community class, and I wasn’t sure what to expect – would it be too easy? Would it be too hard? Was it enough time (most classes are an hour and a half, this one was just an hour)? It was perfect, per usual. It was vinyasa flow, and it made me sweat, try some new transitions, and challenge myself.

At one point, we were in revolved side angle pose, and our teacher wanted us to move into a one legged balancing pose I had never encountered in my practice, something like revolved half moon but with your hands in prayer instead of bound or spread.

revolved side angle pose

Basically from this, but with hands in prayer, then shifting your weight forward into this:

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And keeping your heart open to the sky whilst doing it.

Anyways,  the first side was balancing on my right leg, and as I went to take the leap forward to balance on one leg, I slipped and tumbled forward on to my mat, giggling all the way. It is always fun to try your hand at a new pose, because it’s fun to see what your body can handle, what it can’t, and how to get yourself to trust yourself enough to just lean in. It’s like on my wedding day when Lauren tried to get us into baby grasshopper pose, and I just was laughing my head off.

10706836_296518060548103_1120497072_nThe happiness emulated in this photo is everything – I was with my best friends in the world, I was about to get married, I was trying a new yoga pose, and my heart was light. I laughed and laughed at the progress I could feel and all the places I had yet to be and the effort it had taken to get where I was and the effort that it was going to take to get where I wanted to be.

But back to yoga class – the teacher in the moment whipped her head around to see where the laughter was coming from and said, “YES! YES EXACTLY. This is a playground. We should be hearing that – we should be hearing laughter. This is a safe space for you to explore. YES!” And it was so uplifting to me to be lifted to a place where I felt safe playing and laughing and learning. Later in the class I did a headstand for the first time in a class without a wall, and I felt an immense sense of accomplishment. I have so far to go, but I’ve come so far.

Happy Friday, friends. I hope you have time for yoga this weekend. Namaste.

bones on bones

Running back and forth to the airport and constantly looking at weather here and there and wherever I go next has been my life since the beginning of April. It was a whirlwind month of LA –> Vegas –> LA –> Montreal –> LA –> Oxnard –> LA –> Palm Springs –> LA.

It was gorgeous seeing everything I saw, but I am glad to be home (for two weeks…) and I am glad to see everyone. I haven’t seen many folks as a result of my traveling, and I feel like I’m a million miles away in a vortex.

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Kate was in town so we had adventures about Santa Monica and had really good coffee.

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Montreal – old town. It was beautiful and made me heartsick for Boston.

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I went to Oxnard and picked avocados from the trees. It was magical.

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I popped up to SF for the day for work, and loved every second of the mild weather.

11192757_661240380675863_74038115_nPalm Springs pool. 100+ degrees, but the pool stayed cool.

Now that I am back, after a few days of going to bed too late and getting up too early, I am headed into a weekend staying in LA (well, mostly, minus a tiny trip to Malibu) and excited to hang with friends and smush their faces (if they’ll let me.)

Last night I got back on the exercise train, too, and did yoga to find space. I hadn’t been sleeping great this weekend, and I just needed some stretching (hip flexors be damned) so I can get back into both yoga (serious headstands to come, y’all) and into running. During my class, the teacher said something about alignment and making sure I was standing up straight, “bones on bones.” And that’s all we really are, isn’t it? Bones on bones. Trying to make something out of this life.

Happy Friday, folks.

whatever you got on, girl, stay in it.

Happy Friday lovelies. I am in a great mood today and I am excited for this epic weekend that we have planned around these parts, so here are 5 good things to cruise into the weekend with:

1. This weekend is our famed Heart Cake shoot – we are making lots of crafts and getting lots of our friends involved (pretty much our MO for all things that seem overwhelming) and it’s one of the labor of loves that I really, really enjoy doing (especially surrounded by so many lovely friends!)

heartcakecollage-1200x800Here are some outtake photos from last year’s shoot – all the fun!

2. Guys, I have pretty much blown this up all over the Internet, but I am a headstand doing fool. I have been popping headstands all over the damn place, because I can. I am so excited to be getting stronger and doing more inversions, and it’s giving my confidence all over the place in things related nothing to yoga. Up next – forearm headstand, and of course I am working up to a pull up because killer arms, hello.

headstand

3. I am now in love with Sam Hunt, so I will be exclusive with him for a bit musically speaking. I had dabbled in him earlier, but he’s everything I love in tunes: singer/songwriter, a little R&B, a little rap, hilarious lyric, and he’s even a little country. Plus, that hair? I’m in.

4. Mat Kearney’s album comes out soon, and after my torrid love affair with Sam I will slide back over to Mat in February and then get to see him in March with a slew of great friends. Talk about lucky. This year is going to kill musically.

5. This baby and animal combo post makes me happy and smiley. Enjoy it as much as I did.

Happy weekend, y’all. I hope you have the best one yet, whatever you’re doing.

to be her is surely blinding

Well friends, I did it! Today was my second 10K and, true to my previous post, I finished. And I PR’d (1:18:36, off a little more than 4 minutes from my last 10k, or about 42 second a mile)! No one stopped me for directions. And, I did get brunch afterwards, and Dunkin Donuts, and also a turkey sandwich for lunch later from our favorite Santa Monica sandwich spot.

Overall the race wasn’t too bad – the weather was beyond, my playlist was out of this world (Thanks Cor and Lauren!) and I was feeling it with all the running and yoga prep I did. Plus, being surrounded by other runners and supporters doesn’t hurt!

BIG thanks to Mike, who not only LET ME BORROW HIS SUNGLASSES FOR THE RACE (which is like, a really big deal here in the bright + beautiful LA) but also waited for us to finish, stood around while we got drinks/water, and also took a million photos for us!

More photos to come, but here are a few:

 

10k

dunkin

 

we felt like the luckiest ones

We’ve been bouncing around this summer, making plans every weekend and counting down until the wedding. Now that it’s August, I can officially say that I’m getting married next month (!) and so we’re gearing up and winding down all at once.

This weekend we’re headed to Montana to see Sierra and Dan get married, and I cannot wait. SS was my freshman year roommate, and she’s been dealing with my crazy for 10 years now. Dan and I also met freshman year, and Dan and Sierra started dating early on, which was cool for me because we were all friends and it made my life easier.

In 2006, the spring of our sophomore year, I made Sierra go to the Kasteel Well with me, leaving Dan behind in Boston. Lucky for us, he wrote to both of us frequently to keep us company, and he came to visit us halfway through our stay. We were supposed to go to Berlin, but Dan’s flight was delayed so we end up going for the weekend to Rotterdam. I don’t really know why I had invited myself on this weekend trip with Sierra and her boyfriend who had come all the way across the ocean to see her, but it seemed reasonable at the time (plus, let’s be honest, Dan was half there to see yours truly.)

So we headed South to Rotterdam, and we got a last minute hostel, and we tried to figure out what there was to do in Rotterdam. Turned out, there wasn’t much. So, one of our days was spent visiting the Euromast and obviously making a snowman.

DSCF8223 DSCF8195 DSCF8184The photo above of us in a reflection is the only one of the three of us I have from that trip, but I’ll never forget how much fun we had, despite being poor, cold, off-plan, and probably hungry (and under caffeinated!)

A few years later in 2008, we traveled together for spring break, heading to Los Angeles to see Jeff and potentially see if I could live there (I decided I could.) Here’s another horribly bad-slash-amazing picture of the three of us. What are we doing?

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I am so excited to be celebrating these two nearly ten years after I read them the entire list of ingredients in my multivitamins, interrupting their first date and being the classic annoying freshman year roommate. Sierra and Dan are two of the bests, the reals, the forever-friends. Though we see each other only a couple times of year, if that, we don’t let that stand in the way of this truth: they are my family.

I can’t wait to watch you two get married this weekend – I am so lucky to have such a great two friends in this world who happen to also love each other. Let’s maybe try to get a better photo this weekend, yeah?