Insta-Yoga

Thanks to instagram Chad and I have a new hobby of sorts. I'm following a bunch of awesome yoga girls and guys. They are crazy strong and bendy and super motivating. After a day of climbing you can usually find Chad and I rolling around on our living room floor, smashing into walls and seeing if we can do the crazy poses too.

To spice up our hikes we've started taking yoga pictures wherever we go now too :) It's been fun combining our love of nature, photography and yoga!

Bang!

For New Year's day we went climbing! (shocking, I know) Starting the new year off with a bang! Chad climbed his beast of a climb, practiced falling (yikes), I practiced belaying the falls (kinda fun!) and then I tackled my first lead climb. Basically I slide my rope into clips along the climb, which means that it's gonna be a fun time if I fall above one of the spots I've clipped in at. Luckily, I did not practice falling that day. I don't have the mental strength for that yet. Phew.

I was sure I would fall the first time but halfway through my second climb I was really having a good time. It felt amazing to know that I climbed up that wall on my own accord. If a mountain lion attacks or the zombies come I can climb up that wall to sweet, sweet safety. Yes, I'm crazy. Either way I felt strong and absolutely awesome.

Friday was also Ah-Mazing. I tackled Puppet Strings out in Green Valley. There is an overhang that is my nemesis. It took me a bit to figure it out but I did! I got up and over that beast! I may have bloodied some fingers along the way, but I did it! Chad also climbed his project 3 times, a champ I tell you.

Saturday we hiked in a bit to a different spot, Shotgun Alley, where Chad first taught me to climb. We each climbed a few pitches while Rukia was able to splash through the river all afternoon.

Sunday we were beat. I could barely get my legs to move, between a slightly pulled muscle on one side and my son of a gun nerve on the other, it was quite pathetic. So we only spent an hour or so up at the Chuckawalla Wall before calling it quits and relaxing the rest of the day. And by relaxing I mean having a yoga/gymnastics fest with Kieli and Nikki on facetime. Oh facetime we really do love you.

It was sad to go back to work and school on Monday after such a fun weekend (and Winter break for Chad) but it's a little easier knowing that Ash and Pat will be here late tonight for a week filled with all things VEGAS! Not a bad start to our year at all.

On Failing and Facing Fears

I started rock climbing a couple months ago. I also started a little yoga challenge on instagram last week. These two things alone have started to create a lot of failure in my life.

Let me start by saying that I do not like to try new things. In fact I really hate new things. New experiences, new people, new places, new jobs, new whatever. I don't like the unknown. I don't like not knowing what I'm doing, feeling like a fool, and then failing.

As I'm getting older, and married someone who loves all the new things, I am slowly starting to accept this whole trying new things "thing". Slooooowly. Chad's really had to be patient with me.

Obviously failing is no fun. It's a blow to your ego, it just doesn't feel nice and it's even less fun when it's in public and you feel like everyone is watching. If I'm going to fail miserably please let me do it in private where no one can watch me cry.

Rock Climbing has really made me face all my failure right in the face. And scary? I was terrified when I started. Terrified. There were melt downs. Multiple. Some days are good and some days I make it 5 feet off the ground while a 10 year old girl zips past me on the route next to mine. Talk about some serious failure, in front of a bunch of people no less.

Then there's my yoga challenge. I take pictures of certain poses and post them to my instagram account. Again, no hiding there. Also a bit intimidating when there are people doing full on one handed handstand backbend thingys. See, I don't even know what any of these things are called. And to be honest, I still can't lean backwards with this back of mine, let alone bend backwards.

I'm a new climber and a new yogi. I am a beginner and don't know much. But I'm trying and I'm getting better and stronger. We all have to start somewhere and I am starting at the very beginning of these 2 awesome activities. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with trying hard, learning and yes, even failing along the way.

As Tony would say "Do your best and forget the rest". Wise words Tony, very wise indeed.

So I'm trying to be at peace with all of the failing currently happening in my life. I'm trying not to let fear hold me back from trying. I may not be able to do something perfect, but I can push pass the fear and try. I can do my best.

Love Hate

I have a love hate relationship with yoga. As I'm doing it, I pretty much hate it. All of it. Except corpse pose, I love corpse pose. But really, everything else is awful. Especially now. Any sort of backward bending is a nightmare. As I went to do my P90X yoga hell on Sunday morning I rationalized that there wasn't really any sort of backwards bending and I would be fine. Until I started and my body started screaming at me. Upward dog is all about a gentle back bend. Upward dog is now my nemesis. I quickly learned that all the warrior poses are also all about a disguised back bend as well. Tricky yoga.

Granted part of the whole "hating it while doing it" may have something to do with the fact that I didn't eat or drink anything before doing it. I have a nasty habit of just jumping into my workout on weekend mornings without eating anything, mostly because I just want to hurry up and get it done. So I wasn't feeling super awesome 20 minutes in. Little vomity...

I stuck with it though and after 90 minutes of deep breathing and making strange noises during the back bending portions I was done... and all of a sudden I loved it. Especially after I got my act together and got something to eat and drink. My back and sciatic nerve were just a little happier with me the rest of the day.

Yeah, my favorite nerve still screams at me all day long and I still want to cut off my leg once or twice a day, but at least it's just once or twice. I'm hoping that a little yoga everyday and a lot of yoga on Sunday will help to strengthen my back and whip this nerve into shape.

Any free yoga video recommendations? I've got my trusty P90X lineup but am definitely not committed to doing something that intense everyday.

Oh Tuesday...

Today was full of:

Which was followed by a lot of job hunting. I hit up every medical office I could find in St. George that was in any way vein related. After that I went into a D.O.'s office. His practice sounded really interesting and the person in charge of hiring was also from Michigan! We chatted for a minute even though they weren't hiring and said she'd put my resume at the top. We'll see how it goes. After a long afternoon here's how I ended the day....

Déjà vu

We are big believers that while your birthday may only be one specific day, you really should be celebrating for at least a week :) So that's what we've been doing! Last night we continued the birthday celebration with presents!

Present #1 was a Jillian Michaels yoga dvd. We've been attempting to do yoga every morning and hopefully this will help, our other options are P90X and P90X-2. They are way too long (1 hour and 1 1/2 hours) to try to fit in before Chad's classes so hopefully this one will help us be more successful, it's only 1/2 hour! Plus we're addicted to the Biggest Loser and it's somehow wonderful hearing Jillian yelling at me.

Present #2 was a surprise, a tanning membership! I know, I know, I'm gonna get cancer and all that jazz... Chad bought me a tanning membership last year though and I LOVED it! I was brown and beautiful and hello?, 15 minutes all to yourself, laying in a warm bed with nothing you have to do and no distractions? All women should love tanning. Am I right Noelle? So excited about that one!

Present #3 was more shoes! A lot of you have seen my shoe collection, it's pretty expansive, but I haven't gotten new shoes in a long while, unless of course you count the barefoot running shoes I got for Christmas :) whoops. That's more athletic "gear" though, right? Chad got me some cute new shoes to replace my gross, old, I'm a six year old girl shoes that have hearts all over them. They are as much a present for me as they are for him too.

After all the exciting presents we went out for sushi and killed time before we went and saw a movie. We tried getting pretzels from Costco but we got there 10 minutes before they closed and they didn't even have pretzels! What? bummer. Who closes at 8:30 anyway, random time. So we went to the "mall" to find pretzels instead. I guess we were spoiled by having a bunch of malls so close to us, especially Great Lakes where we could walk around the mall and shop to kill time before seeing a movie there. It's a sad, sad mall here. Very small, very disappointing. They did however have pretzels! Score 1 for the crappy mall! After finally finding some pretzels we went and got more junk food to sneak in and saw the new Mission Impossible movie. It was a fantastic night, thanks Chad!