Wiaw and Rainbows

Today is my first wiaw. We what? What I Ate Wednesday. It’s this thing bloggers do. You write about what you ate during the day. I saw it on Sam’s blog Fit for my Fork, and if I understand correctly, it was created by Peas and Crayons. When I saw this, I decided to try. Last Wednesday, I forgot, so today was the day!

I actually wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this at first, because my blog’s not really about food. I don’t have a particular approach to food, except “try to make healthy choices and don’t eat all the brownies”. But hey, this blog is about trying new things. Also, I really like taking pictures.

It was a strange day to do this, because I worked from home this morning, and that never happens when you’re a teacher unless you want 19 small people putting their sticky fingers all over your stuff and their feet on your couch. Also, I ate out. Normally, I make my lunch. It was either do it on this weird day or wait another week. Since I was pretty proud that I remembered to do it today, I didn’t want to waste that.

Breakfast 9:30

Whole wheat toast with peanut butter, an apple and tea with milk. I don’t normally eat peanut butter for breakfast on weekdays, because there is a student in my class who is allergic and I’m always afraid I’ll contaminate something and I’ll have to use an epi-pen. That terrifies me, so I stay away.

Lunch 12:00

Chicken panini on brown bread, lime flavoured Italian soda and a delicious cinnamon pastry thing. I met my friend Julie for lunch at the café next to the school. We actually work together, but since I was at home this morning, we met there. This meal was seriously lacking colour, but it was quite tasty.

We ate outside, which is great for my 30 x 30 challenge.

At the end of the school day, I told the kids we could spend the last half-hour outside, since it was such a nice day. I climbed on the monkey bars, and played soccer and tag. All while wearing a dress and flip-flops. I was terrible at soccer. It’s crazy how much more winded I was than when I go for a run. I think I need to play tag more often.

Snack (early dinner?) 4:30

Tomato and cucumber salad, cheese and crackers. When I go to yoga, which is most days, I don’t eat a big dinner. I don’t want to eat to much before class, and after class, I’m usually not that hungry anymore.

My friend Suzanne and I have a Wednesday yoga date with my favourite teacher, Natalie. When I drive Suzanne home, we always go by this really amazing garden and we decided we would stop and enjoy the flowers today after class. However, it was raining when we left the studio, so we went to Starbucks.

Snack 7:30

Non-fat chai latte and lemon poppyseed loaf.

You have to love the rain/yoga hair. Don’t fight it, embrace it.

When we left Starbucks, it was still raining, but by this point we were past caring. I was in the middle of saying something when I got so excited I forgot how to talk. I was jumping around in the puddles and kind of squeeling. What had me so excited? Well, if you read the title of this post, you might have figured it out. Rainbows! Not just one. Two! It was like Rainbow Bright and Care Bears and Leprechauns all at once.

Suzanne almost choked, she was laughing at me so much. I took some pictures, but my camera is not equipped to capture such magic. I am going to share anyways, otherwise I would feel like I was cheating you all out of this amazing moment.

You can’t really see the second rainbow so much.

Peace, love and rainbows!

What I learned after a week of yoga

This morning I went to a yin class at Pure. It was the perfect class to stretch my muscles out from yesterday’s 108 sun salutations. My teacher was Edith. It seemed like everything she said was directed at me. I was feeling grumpy and she talked about love and kindness. I was sick several days during the week, and she said we would be focusing our poses and our energy on our liver and gallblader, which is where I have problems. Then, at the end of class, she sang. A lot of teachers chant, but this was in another category all together. I’m not sure what it meant, because it was probably in sanskrit, but it was beautiful.

It was also day 7 of my 30 day challenge, which means I have completed number 86 on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, “Do yoga every day for one week.” I can’t believe my week-long challenge has turned into a month-long challenge! I’ve learned so much during the past week. I thought I would share a few things that you will need to know if you decide to take on a challenge like this.

– You will notice a weird smell. It’s your mat. It smells like feet.

– You will stop doing the dishes.

– You will run out of milk and not go to the store to buy more. You will try cream in your tea, but that too will have gone bad.

– You will do lots of laundry because all your clothes is sweaty and smelly.

– You will not have many conversations that don’t have the word “yoga” in them.

– You will stop watching tv.

– You will start saying things like “I have yoga hair.”

– You will eat less junk food because why would you cancel out an hour of core flow with a bag of chips? (This does not apply to the junk food I ate at the movies last night.)

Most of all, you will be happy you decided to do this challenge with a friend, otherwise you might not have gotten past day 1!