Teachin' Cali

108 Sun Salutations

2011-02-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

Finally! The pictures from the 30th Birthday Celebration 108 Sun Salutations! Here are a few to enjoy, more on the flickr stream.

We all moved to our own rhythm.

Counting with a Mala (108 Beads)

Mejin Saluting the Sun.

Ending our practice with some restorative (acro yoga) flying.

Clearing Clutter

2011-02-05T15:59:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of January, a dear friend and colleague who was in between homes came to stay with us at SaltHouse for a few days. Feeling fatigued with the burden of being temporarily homeless and managing her belongings stored in her car, her storage unit, at friends’ homes and in her classroom, she said to us, “I want to get rid of half of my stuff, I’m tired of moving it, I want to be done with it!” This prompted a housemate to loan her the book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, which my friend read in 2 evenings and I quickly read as soon as she was done with it. Inspired to take a look at our current material possession load, Grant and I woke up a Sunday in early January and started our decluttering mission.

The first step was to go over the Clutter Test together as I have paraphrased here:

Step 1: When I look at (or hold) my item, I ask 3 questions:

1) Does the item lift my energy? (Does my energy go up or down? What reactions am I feeling in my body? Trust my gut reaction)

2) Do I absolutely love this item? (Does it make me happy or sad? Does it inspire me? Do I already have enough?)

3) Is the item genuinely useful? (When did I use it last? When will I realistically use it again?)

Step 2: Repeat these words, “It is safe to let go, it is ok that we might be making a mistake in letting this item go, if so, something else will come along when we need it.”

We started easy: Clothes, Books, Magazines, Filing Cabinets, CD’s.

Next step: Old electronic devices and cameras that Grant has replaced with newer or better models, guitars, camping gear, tools and bike parts, the car, excessive worrying and too much email checking.

No, not the car.

At least not yet.

Really? the car?

A month later we are still looking at a pile of cardboard in our bedroom. (pile = boxes full of stuff that we said we don’t want anymore) The book suggests that the first time a person attempts to clear their clutter, they should just get rid of the stuff. But we are frugal here and have chosen to sell things or gift them, which means it is taking longer to actually move things out of the house. We have to get up the motivation to actually take pictures of items, write auction descriptions, and then make many trips to the post office. The latest post office run included an old cell phone that Grant just sold for more money than he purchased it for 2 years ago. Turns out this clutter clearing process has some benefits…except for that broken camera that Grant purchased, took apart to fix, and never put back together again. We’ll lose about $100, but at least the camera comes with a repair manual and all of the small pieces are taped to 8.5x11 inch paper. Want to bid?

Hello 2011... Good bye 2010

2011-01-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

Remember turning 27 when I did 108 Sun Salutations? Yes, we did that again this year.

Remember turning 28 when I went up to Sibley Volcanic Preserve to walk the labyrinths? Yes, we did that again this year also.

Remember turning 29 when we had that big fondue party? Yep. That was this birthday also.

Things are becoming traditional around here.

The only thing that's changing is the tens place in my age... Wait! NO MATH while on vacation!

Some of you will remember this post from the end of 2009 where I answered a few questions about my ups and downs of the finished year and then set an intention for the year ahead? You should read it again before we have a look at 2010...

First of all, God Answers Prayer. Be careful what you pray for! What was I thinking asking God to do some "rearranging"? Huh? Let's just say the last 4 months of 2010 have been filled with a little angst and dissatisfaction because of that minor "rearranging" request - which is still in the process, nothing has been placed back down yet.

My Acknowledgments...
1. Stayed with living in community even though the transition with housemates was a long and hard process lasting almost 9 months. But even with the challenges, I absolutely love living in community and would highly advise it for others!
2. I successfully completed my 6th year at my current school in East Oakland.
3. I've been taking more risks this year (as I am exploring my more playful side). I tried ecstatic dance for the first time, as well as acro yoga classes. I tried contacting some old high school friends (unsuccessfully, but I'm just proud that I got up enough courage to make the first contact!). I fully committed to the process of grieving the loss of my Dad, Grandma, and Aunt all within a 3 year time period. I started 2010 with some jewelry classes to help me engage with my hobby. I ended 2010 with starting a Stephen Ministry training program and I am actually allowing myself to dream about the future.
4. "Parenting" Ezra "Ezzy" Slash Killer Prancer Kinney. We have absolutely the most perfect kitten for us: playful, attentive, full of personality, and super sweet. She has brought us so much laughter and joy.
5. Reaching out to find a community of people outside of my school and church.
6. Embracing my enneagram path towards integration by taking risks, exploring, reaching out, learning about myself.
7. Developing skills as a worship leader at church and at SaltHouse. I would like to post some of my liturgy here in the future.

Needing to Grieve...
1. Feeling like I ended 2010 the exact same way I ended 2009, like there was no significant progress towards major life goals (although I don't know what those major life goals are...)
2. Struggling in the classroom even though I have this National Board Certification.
3. Allowing chaos at home (with housemate transitions) to bog me down.
4. Not finding a sustainable and enjoyable service to commit to, either at church or in the community, and not even having a desire for serving (it was too easy to just be comfortable staying close to home).
5. Not going further with my jewelry even though I took a couple of classes to improve my skills.
6. Letting go of the yoga teaching dream because of my fear of not being good enough, not knowing enough to be able to teach it, not practicing enough to be authentic in my teaching.
7. Not being more welcoming of people into my home.
8. Still haven't found a "tribe" and not sure if such a thing actually exists.
9. Feeling guilty around involvement at church... when I'm not there I don't want to be there. When I am there, I fully want to be involved.
10. Overall laziness in giving myself to anyone else.

What else do I have to say about 2010?
It was a year of laying low and riding out the transitions but also a year of opening up and taking some risks.

I now declare 2010 complete!!

And what about 2011?
At a friend's B-day party I drew the words "Listening" and "Learning" which did not excite me in the least since I feel like I live that already as a high school teacher. Instead I would like to welcome 2011 as the year of "Vision put into Action."

What are your answers?

Newest Member of the Kinney Klan

2010-12-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

How did this post never get posted? It's been sitting as a draft since June 2010!

Introducing Ezra "Ezzy" Slash Prancer Killer Kitten-Boo Kinney

Spring Break 2010

2010-04-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

Friday: Crashed after the longest 4 day week I've ever had. Holy Holy Week Batman!

Saturday: Brunch with Stephanie, Josh, and Paul, friends of Grant's from high school. A rare experience of high school memories. A brief walk through the farmer's market. We now have friends to visit in Santa Barbara - a perfect starting point for an excursion to the Channel Islands. (S&J are you ready for us in June?) Then I worked on the perfect jewelry supplies order - every thing left that I need to start soldering. However, the most important part, the solder, is backordered. Last, I made a to-do list.

Sunday: Jesus Rose from the Dead. This seems to be an annual occurrence on my Spring Break. Secular school district still follows the Christian calendar. Much celebration at FCCO, followed by a lovely dinner at Sarah Eve and Jordan's home, and then a movie with Ryan and Molly at SaltHouse.

Monday: Started with an acupuncture appointment. We're about done with my ankle, now working more intensely on sleep issues. Figured out how to back-up my phone on my computer and download podcasts to the phone. These are trivial things to most folks, but I've only recently had a reason to do this - more bus riding and opportunity to listen to podcasts! Yoga. Dinner. House meeting.

Tuesday: Cleaned the bedroom! Farmer's market and ate pie at Crixa. Then a book discussion group with Seminary of the Street on The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Clairborne.

Wednesday: Lunch with Marisa, pie at Crixa (again!), shopping for backpacking trip, yoga, dinner, dancing with Emily!

Thursday: House breakfast, acupuncture, lunch with Molly as I was cooking Dinner (early cooking because of leaving for Point Reyes backpacking Trip!)

Friday: Stroll along the beach. Sleeping in the warm afternoon sun. Reading about a revolution and contemplating my "in."

Saturday: Woke to threatening clouds and quick winds. so we packed up and headed to Bovine Bakery, then slowly made our way home to where I am currently blogging from. Tonight - Beer Revolution.

Sunday: School Work - so sad. But I feel great that I got to do so much during my break. Now, 10 more weeks of school. The count down in on.

Full Belly Farms Tour

2010-04-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Since oh somewhere around Spring of 2005, give or take a few months, we have been a member of the Full Belly Farms CSA (community supported agriculture). As a member, we receive a box of vegetables every Wednesday afternoon. Now that we live in SaltHouse, we get 2 boxes each week for the 6 of us.

Last month we read in the newsletter about visiting the farm for a tour. In 4+ years of getting vegetables, we never visited the farm and we thought it was about time to see where our vegetables come from.

93 miles away in perfect traffic = about 90 minutes of drive time. So easy, so beautiful, we're planning to come back in the fall for the hoes down party. Co-owner Judith was our knowledgeable tour guide. I didn't get any pictures of her, but you can find her at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers' Market almost every week.

Oddly enough, I didn't get any pictures of the vegetables either. But they do grow them, and we de eat them every week.

I did get a picture of the chicken tractor... one of the co-owner's daughters was explaining how it works... every night the chickens go into the "tractor" for the night, then they close the doors and move the electric fence and chickens to a new field. In the morning, the chickens have a new home of fresh grasses and bugs, or whatever chickens eat.

They also lay eggs, but not enough for the CSA members to get them weekly... maybe someday.

After the tour, we enjoyed a picnic lunch. Three of us from SaltHouse were able to go (me, Grant, and Ryan). We packed a beautiful lunch - but alas, no pictures of that either.

After lunch, we wandered around looking for the creek which is one of Full Belly's water sources. On the way, we heard the cute cry of piglets - so irresistible that we had to go check them out.

oh farm life. So tempting. We're starting with our little plot of garden out in front of the house. Pictures to come of that soon... or not so soon given my track record with blogging.

Goodbye 2009!

2010-01-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I asked my party guests to answer 4 questions posed by a favorite blog that I read fairly often. After we noshed on the cheesy fondue and before we dug into the chocolate ice cream cake, we said goodbye to 2009 and opened up to the possibilities of 2010.

Here are my answers for the universe.

Things that I want to acknowledge about me in 2009:
1) Trusting Grant w/financial matters and allowing myself to go part-time for the 2009-2010 school year.
2) Moving into a house with 2 other couples, even though I was feeling really worried and scared
3) New level of love and commitment with my beloved partner Grant, better communication then we've ever had.
4) Understanding more of my own needs (for alone time, activities, spiritual practices, creative outlets, etc.)
5) Receiving my National Boards Certification in Adolescent and Young Adult Mathematics
6) All of the work I have done as an educator (my level of reflection, planning, and implementation), my growth as a result of my national boards work and my work with my coach.
7) Creating more creativity in my life: jewelry, painting, journaling, and home yoga practice.
8) Transitioning from "It's my job" to "It's my calling and ministry" to work with impoverished urban teens in Oakland, CA.
9) Knowing that I could be a much better teacher/leader if I worked part time.
10) Finishing my Masters Degree from National University in Instructional Leadership

Things that I grieve or need to forgive myself for:
1) Not moving more towards finding real happiness in my vocation or making goals/future plans about life in CA or elsewhere.
2) Moving was scary and hard, I grieve some independence of living by ourselves in the apartment
3) Feeling like I'm just treading water in regards to developing and sustaining spiritual practices
4) Dropping tasks at church, not being as reliable as I would have wanted to be.
5) Feeling sad because we've lived here for 5.5 years and I still don't feel like I have a real Tribe of supportive women friends and still not sure how to create that for myself.

I declare 2009 Complete! No more looking back at that vision painting that I completed back in July 2007 and feeling sorry for myself that I have not moved forward on any of the goals that I thought were on my path to full aliveness!

In 2010, I invite God to do some Rearranging. As I take a closer look at how I spend my time, what do I value, what do I think I need to live, what I think is missing from my life, what do I think I need to be happy and successful, what do I think I need to be loved and to love others, what do I think I need to give myself or give away, what I think about or focus my attention on, I invite God to come in and give me her advice because listening to the ways of this world hasn't gotten me very far.

How about you?

Another Year Almost Over

2009-12-28T16:58:00.000-08:00

In about 2 weeks, I will be starting an online class called Mondo Beyondo. I will be dreaming big for 5 weeks. I'm excited and very curious. As a capricorn and a 1 (enneagram), dreaming is not easy. Hopefully this class will open up some deep reflection and inspiration! Who knows what the future will hold? I just need to allow myself to be able to vision it, to dream big and see what happens!

Yesterday, I decided that I would modify the P90X into a P30X workout program. New goal: get moving for at least 30 minutes a day. Today I was successful in getting up and doing the Cardio video first thing. Unfortunately, I pretty much bummed around the rest of the day. Still on vacation from school, so I can't do too much in one day. At least I accomplished one positive thing!

Three days ago, Grant and I celebrated Christmas by taking our dear friends to the airport at 4:45am, then came home, ate bagels with cream cheese and lox, went back to bed and watched a movie. We slept for a while, lazily got up, called the parents, and then headed over to my best friend's boyfriend's house for Christmas dinner. The day after Christmas was even better, just hanging out with Grant the entire day, playing games, watching movies, eating yummy leftovers, and enjoying our time together.

About two weeks ago, I finished the last class in my Masters of Instructional Leadership program at National University. Now I wait until I can get an official transcript that says I earned my degree so that I can take it to the HR department and get my bump on the salary schedule. Hopefully it will go into effect this year. Super bummer if I have they make me wait until next school year!

About 3 weeks ago, during a house meeting, we set up a new blog. There are not very many posts on it yet. Hopefully that will change in the new year.

About 1.5 months ago I got an email from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards to let me know that the scores would be posted the morning of November 20, the day that we would start Thanksgiving break. I would finally know whether I had achieved boards or not. The morning came, and I checked online in between my 2nd and 3rd period classes. Yea! What a relief! I passed! I am now a National Board Certified Teacher! Now what? I would ponder this for the next month (and I am still pondering this question into the new year).

About 6 months ago, we started to earnestly look for a new house to live in. Had to have at least 3 bedrooms. If only 3 bedrooms, then it had to have two common areas that we could use for a living room and for a work space. Storage would be great. A garage would be awesome. In a good neighborhood (for my sake - I didn't want to live in the same neighborhood that I taught in). We looked at Craigslist daily (even hourly). We made phone calls to set up viewings. We drafted applications. We learned a lot about each other's financial backgrounds. We drove around. We met potential landlords. We fell in love with several houses. Then Grant and I left it all to chance (well, not chance, just deep trust of Evans and Emily, our future housemates) by starting our trip on the John Muir Trail.

We Learn the Most from the Challenging Situations

2009-09-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I started freaking out with the whole prospect of video taping my class for the National Board Certification. Was I crazy? Why did I pick my worst teaching year to complete this project? My most challenging kids to put on camera? Turns out that challenging students had the most interesting things to write about as I analyzed my video tapes. What could I have done better? What will I do differently next time? How did my knowledge of students affect my in the moment decisions? So many decisions, so many possibilities. What is important? The National Board process combined with challenging kids really threw me for a loop producing my second most formative year as a teacher (besides student teaching and the first year of solo teaching!). Last year, I matured more as an educator... I'm not just treading water anymore, trying to survive in the water's whim. I've built my own raft (based on content area knowledge, pedagogy, and knowledge of students) and now I am navigating the waters to where I know the river needs to go.

About 9 months ago, we had our first dinner with Evans and Emily, two folks who lived in San Anselmo at SFTS. I had never met them before and here they were walking into my apartment for dinner. We made pizza for them, they brought a salad. We had wonderful polite conversation, sipped our wine, and started to get to know each other. Evans was in the middle of his 2nd year in seminary. Emily was training to be a massage therapist. They were interesting, nice folk. Many similar beliefs and life desires. One of the best things was Emily was from Michigan, about 35 minutes from where I grew up!

About 2.5 months ago, we got our first housing rejection email. "You sound like great people, any landlord would be lucky to have you." "Too many people in the space." "This house is too old for a group, so we rented it to a small family" (as if kids running around are better than careful adults!). It was a big blow to our excitement. Back to craigslist for more houses!

Today was a good day at school. I had the students sort out 2-step equation puzzles, then we took notes on the proper steps and justifications. (properties of equality and inverses). I forgot to bring my phone numbers home... lucky for the students who I told I was going to call home on! (too much talking is the sin of the teenager, especially when they're not allowed to use their cell phones!).

Worlds Collide = God's Message for Work in My Life?

2009-09-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

About two and a half years ago: Grant and I had dinner with our friend Ryan and dreamed about what it would be like to live in community. What would it be like to raise your kids with another family? To have one large nursery at first... then maybe a huge boys room and a huge girls room? (not quite like The Duggar's)

About one year ago: I was teaching a yoga class at Oakland Yoga Studio every Wednesday afternoon from 4:30-5:30pm. Grant could never come because he had a schedule conflict (school or work or something). My best friend, Marisa, was my loyal student. We spent some good quality time together. No one else seem to realize that I was teaching a class there. Hmm. The owner of the studio gave me an incredible rate. I gave myself 3 months to try it out. August, September, October... then I came to realize that the schedule was too hard to maintain. I could not run from staff meetings on Wednesday afternoons to yoga teacher mode.

About 6 months ago: I did something really crazy... I sent in my portfolio for certification with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. This is the cream of the crop in teaching credentials. Most teacher strive to meet the minimum requirements it takes to get into the classroom legally. The national boards are for teachers who want to take their commitment to continue to grow as a professional to a new level. Only after 5 years in the classroom could I have even dreamed that something like this process would have been possible. But wow. I am certainly a better teacher for having done this... and did I mention how hard those students were last year? I'll know in December whether I passed...

Today: I attended a seminar about how I will work with an interdisciplinary team of 9th grade teachers to diagnose our students' learning needs based on inquiry of their current learning conditions and trying out new and different strategies. We do this alot anyways, but now we're talking about it as a team. We'll be tracking the progress of a select group of focus student to help us focus our work as teachers. The conversation about priviledge and oppression, and about the class and racial dynamics that take place in the classroom strangely correlate with the intercultural work that we are engaging in as a church congregation over at FCCO. Hmm. My worlds collide again.

A New Format

2009-09-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

About one year ago: As an experienced math teacher, I was highly encouraged to teach the most challenging class at my school -- 9th Grade Algebra 1. I taught all freshmen, all day. They (meaning the students) really did make it challenging. One of my hardest years was 2008-2009. Another reason why this blog went un-updated for so long.

About 10 months ago: Grant met Evans, a student at San Francisco Theological Union, another person who was interested in living in community.

About 1 month ago: I moved all of 6 blocks away from our apartment. I am soooo thankful that we're still in the same (approximately) neighborhood.

Today: Spent the day at a PD getting excited about how to make my classroom more exciting.. (for me and the students). We practiced some Kagen strategies (to get kids working in groups and talking about their learning). I got some (embarrassingly so) public recognition for the work that I did last year with my freshman (moving students out of Far Below Basic and Below Basic into Basic and Proficient categories for the state standardized testing. Tomorrow, I head back into the classroom to hang out with kids, teach a little math, and celebrate the retirement of a beloved secretary. (you know, it really is the secretaries that run the school, right?)

Happy 09!

2009-09-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Fitting that today is 09-09-09 and the last day I wrote was 08-08-08. What a crazy and interesting and challenging year, month, and day it has been! I wish I had included you all in it. I'm about to change all that... a new goal for myself... to write at least one post per week. With my part-time-self, I should be able to find the time to do at least that. To increase your anticipation of posts to come, I will leave you with THIS LINK, and let you wonder what is going on.

Happy 08 All!

2008-08-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

108 minutes left of 080808!
Enjoy it while it lasts.

2nd Class Reflection

2008-08-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

I had my second yoga class earlier this evening at Oakland Yoga Studio. It was surprising how nervous I got before class. I have taught more than 30 classes to my high school students over the last school year. But something is just a little different with adults. (I think I've said this before somewhere). Anyways, I had 3 students today... 1 returning and 2 new students. I knew all of my students before they were in class. They either came from church or from my advanced studies program.

Here is a story and two pictures to describe more about how I feel... right now and about teaching in general...

So, I had a plan - cut the nectarine in half, eat half for breakfast and half for lunch. I used a sharp knife and started to cut down the middle of the fruit. I hit the pit and continued to turn the entire nectarine around until the slit went all the way through, except for the pit. Then I grabbed one half of the nectarine in each palm and tried twisting the two halves apart. This did not work.

Next, I decided to try cutting the fruit into quarters. I cut another slit all the way through, turned over the fruit. Started twisting again. This did not loosen any fruit off the pit.

My third attempt included putting the knife blade against the pit, like a wedge, and then wiggling the knife back and forth. This did work! First I got one quarter off... then another quarter off... and then look!
Not quite what you expected, huh. Well, I didn't expect it either! But that is the way with teaching. You have a plan. You implement the plan. You modify it spur of the moment. And if you're lucky, you are successful in doing what you set out to do.

You just have to be open to the possibility that being successful, might not look like what you thought it should have when you first started planning your lesson. And you have to be open to changing the plan as you go and knowing that sometimes there needs to be wiggle room for your students to bring in their own interpretation of the lesson.

I was successful with cutting the fruit. I ate half a fruit at breakfast and half at lunch. The fruit just had a different idea of what half and half should look like. I was successful in teaching my second class. It really did go well. But my sequence was too long and I had to modify and shorten to fit the most important poses and instructions into my hour long class.

Hope to see you all next Wednesday!

Grounded and Courage

2008-07-31T15:03:00.001-07:00

The first of (hopefully) many yoga classes that I will teach was a fine class. I had four lovely students join me for an hour of hamstring lengthening, hip opening, and chest expansion. Yeah! And I know that there were other people out there who will be coming in the next few sessions, so it looks like we're good to go for August.

Following advice from my lovely husband, I journaled my internal experiences as I practiced my teaching sequence yesterday morning so that I would have words to express the feelings to my students. As I was going through this process, two words came to mind: Grounded and Courage.

It seemed simple enough to me. Courage, yes, I was starting a new class. Must have courage. At 4:18pm when no one had shown up yet and I started to worry and wonder about what I would do for an hour with no students. I didn't run away. I didn't hide in the bathroom. I had enough courage to even show up to the studio, unlock the front gate, and prepare myself for whoever would arrive. Being grounded (or grounding) was some of the work we did in class preparing for some challenging balancing poses. But how else do these words work together?

One thought: The student must focus on grounding the standing leg before entering poses like Tree Pose. The top leg is more interesting but the bottom leg (the leg actually keeping you up) is more important... rooting down as you lift up through the torso and arms. This strength in being rooted to the earth enables the student to have courage to lift up one leg and stand on the other... to risk imbalance for a moment.

Is this true?

Here are my still unanswered questions:
Is it easier to have courage (to risk change, to step out into an unknown, to challenge oneself) when one is grounded (when one knows who they are)?
Does being grounded inhibit courage?
Is there some resistance to change that happens because you are grounded/rooted?
Is it easier to have courage when you are not grounded in anything at all? (having nothing to lose? or don't know the difference) Or is that just being reckless?

Perhaps it is true for me. I need comfort, dependability, stability, small steps, very controlled risk, very planned spontaneity. That is the comfort that Yoga gives me (or at least the kind of yoga that I have been practicing). I can see the goal ahead and I know that the steps to get there might be very small as my body learns to move in new ways. But from that strong foundation I will be able to challenge myself to do things I never thought I would have done before starting my practice... like headstands and handstands and ... teaching yoga!

Let Your Life Speak

2008-07-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Do you know what these are?

Before Grant left for work today, he set these on a book that I am reading. Perhaps as a hint that he wants me to do something with them sometime today.

If someone asked you to do something with these things, would you know what to do? Incidentally, the book is called, "Let Your Life Speak - Listening for the Voice of Vocation," and so far I have not been inspired. I've been listening and I have heard neither the answer to what to do with these little rolls that say "exposed" on them or what to do with my life vocationally (I wish that was vacationally) to let it speak out.

Another HINT... Grant and I went for a walk last night around the neighborhood on the way to our tea date. Nearing the top of a hill he stopped walking and pulled this thing out...

Muttering something like... I have 3 more to go... just three, then we can go have tea.

Well, I also have three more to go too. 3 more hours to just hang out and bite my nails and worry and wonder and get excited for my first adult yoga class. Could this be my life speaking?

Grant's Sermon -- Listen Online

2008-07-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

Delivering another moving sermon, fresh with insight from his chaplancy internship, Grant Kinney did an excellent job of leading worship and holding our church together on Sunday when both our senior pastor and music minister were gone.

Please listen to Grant online at the First Congregational Church of Oakland Website!

Sledding Down and Climbing Up

2008-07-24T21:45:00.001-07:00

Just posted some pictures from this summer's backpacking trip to Kings Canyon National Park.
You can see them HERE.FIND GRANT AND WEBB! Click on the picture above to see a larger version.

OK God, I get it, the class will be great.

2008-07-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Included in the lectionary verses for this upcoming Sunday are passages from Genesis, Matthew, and Romans. Grant is preaching on Sunday. For those of you on the this side of the country, you should come listen to him. For those of you on that side of the country, I'll post the link to the sermon when it is uploaded to the church's website.

So yesterday was a LIFE group night and since we were meeting in the comfort of someone's home (instead of a noisy tea shop like last time) I thought we'd actually do what were supposed to and... read the bible!I thought, wouldn't it be great to read a passage that Grant will be preaching on so we can get our thoughts going before hearing what he has to say? Great Idea everyone thought. I found out later that Grant is not preaching on the one passage we chose to read, but that's ok. God wanted us to read it anyways. God urged me- I'm sure of it - to read Romans 8:26-39 with my LIFE group. It wasn't like anyone was talking to me, but it was the first thing I turned to as I was walking to group last night and I only had to read the first line to know it was going to be perfect... and it was. As I heard the groups' check-ins unfold, I got more excited about the word we were going to be talking about.

So OK GOD, I get it. You're all around and inside and now I am totally stoked that I am one of few Christian Yogis out there and starting Wednesday, we will be creating length and space and openness in people and you will be there to fill them and heal them. And they wont even know what is happening to them. It will be great.I noticed my name on the sign by the studio on Monday night. I was with 3 friends and we just walked out of class and I turned and pointed at it and we all giggled. Today I rode past in on the way home from swimming and took a picture of it.

New Community Yoga Class!

2008-07-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

I am super excited, extremely anxious, a little bit scared, and a little curious of myself for this bit of news...

Starting Wednesday July 30, I will be teaching a community yoga class at my beloved yoga studio. (not the studio I did the 200 hour advanced studies / teacher training at, but the one down the street from it).

So what does this all mean? I'm official. (here is the front of the postcard I've been handing out)

I've been teaching teens for almost a year, in the safety of my classroom at school. I knew each of the students before they walked in the door. They are teens- willing to try new things, their bodies are tight but not too breakable. They didn't know anything about yoga coming in, so it was easy to be the "expert."

Now, I'm treading into teaching adults! People who may be very experienced at yoga. Or may be complete beginners. All in the same room. People who may have physical conditions that I don't know how to deal with. People who I don't know and don't know me. People who might come for a few classes and then never come back again and not say why. People who might be incredibly annoying and fall in love with me and come every single week.

I know most of you out there probably will not be able to make it to the studio on a Wednesday at 4:30pm... so, instead please lift up good thoughts that other people like you will find out about the class and will show up!

Favorite Double Date

2008-07-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

Back in July last year, Grant and I discovered how close Sonoma valley was and we decided right then and there that we would be back for a morning champaign excursion in the near future.

Well the future took a little longer than expected but we did return bringing friends Molly and Ryan. It was a champaign toast of a morning to good friendship and sad goodbyes as they leave us for a year in Ohio. (we fully expect them to move back here so we can continue with our plans of marrying our marriages together and raising all kinds of kids together- or something like that)

The first winery we stopped at had a bunch of free food to taste (which made up for the $5 fee to actually taste their wines).The second stop was at Gloria Ferrer Sparkling Wine Caves where we pulled out our picnic lunch and shared a bottle.
Amazingly beautiful weather.We will miss you Molly and Ryan!

MORE on FLICKR

Photography Is UP!

2008-07-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Grant's Photography Show are up on my flickr. Please check them out and then go straight to www.grantkinney.com to secure your own prints of this fabulous work. Here Grant is making a final adjustment to the frame before the reception started. It was a long road to get to this point! I am very proud of my guy!

Anniversary

2008-05-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

"Grant and Robin: The Marriage" turned 4 on Thursday May 1. We are officially out of newly wed status and fully into complete admiration and appreciation stage. I wake up loving him more every day... more than I ever thought I would love someone.

We have had almost a week long anniversary. Last Tuesday we went out for a quiet romantic dinner just for the two of us. On Thursday Grant came home from work to find these lovelies on his desk. (I was at class until 9pm but made a quick stop at home between yoga classes)
On Saturday we enjoyed our local farmers' market before heading up to the park for a BBQ with friends.

Hey! Ya still out there!

2008-04-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

Where have you been?

Hiding?

We were worried. We thought you were never going to come back!
.
.
.
....

ya still there?
I got more to say... click on the picture to see.

Songs for Math Teachers

2008-03-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

My kids remember the quadratic formula because we sang a song about it over and over and over and over again. We even sang it just before taking a test. Now after a weekend of skiing in Yosemite (that's right, we might not have enough snow to go skiing every weekend, but when we do go skiing, we go to Yosemite National Park... beat that!) I came home to an email with a new math song for you to listen to. You don't even have to like math to enjoy the song. Ya'll will recognize the tune.

6 Years and counting...

2008-02-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

Sometime this week in 2002 (I don't remember the exact date) in Saga (the dining hall at Alma College) I looked up across the table and saw this man...
He had less facial hair then, but I knew he was the ideal man for me!

Happy Anniversary... even though we don't really celebrate this one.

(the picture gets better if you click on it!)

Yoga Mat Secretz #2

2008-01-29T22:37:00.000-08:00

Although I appreciate the complement given by Laurie in her most recent post, I do understand the limitations of my writing. I blame it on lack of practice since becoming a math teacher, but really it's just me and I am the luckiest girl to have a wonderfully bright and articulate husband to edit my papers!

Honoring Laurie's request for a yoga reflection, here is my contribution to the conversation in a more creative fashion. I challenge you, you, and you, to do the same with your next posts.

At the recent Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco, Grant purchased his very own yoga mat which I'll introduce to you in this installment of yoga mat secretz. It's the green, orange, and yellow mat. Mine is the plain lavendar mat who is not lonely in the mornings anymore!

Articles for Laurie D

2008-01-27T20:54:00.000-08:00

and anyone else who would like to read them!

This is continuing the conversation from Laurie's blog and Tim's blog.

Continuing on the argument that there would be less desire for abortions if we reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies... through, duh! sex education that actually talks about sex! and starting a new conversation about sex with youth who, duh! want to have sex!

Here is where I first heard of the article and here is the article itself.

Bloggers for Choice

2008-01-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

This day just came up so quick! Before I knew it, I had arrived on Jan 22, 2008, the 35th anniversary of Roe. And the question I'm supposed to answer is, "why do you vote pro-choice?"

And my answer is, how can I not?

I trust women. I trust them to make the correct decision for their situation, every time.

End of story since I'm blogging on my lunch period.

Love for the Home State

2008-01-16T13:32:00.002-08:00

I've been uninspired lately to post... but I'll get back into it soon, probably on Friday night when Grant is on call at the hospital.

Until then, you can read this blog post about my lovely home state and how Michigan is voting for "uncommitted" to be the next president! I'm loving it.

See ya on Friday.

Stuff Give Away Dilemma

2008-01-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

I have a dilemma about a bag that I've had for 4+ years.

It is a very nice bag, given as a gift for joining the staff at Davison High School in Davison, MI. I worked there 2003-2004. I used it to carry my school stuff for a whole year. It is a nice blue color. Has a nice strap. But I don't want it anymore and I don't know what to do with it.

There are two problems with the bag that have prevented me from using it since leaving Davison and from getting rid of it before now.

1st, the bag is embroidered with Davison High School and a lovely red cardinal. I felt awkward starting a new teaching job in Oakland, back in 2004, with my nice bag from my previous job for which I was mourning. Crying as I carried my bag home from the first few awful months at my new school, thinking about what life would have been like if I had stayed at the old school, the constant reminder with that little cardinal.

2nd, the bag is also embroidered with my full maiden name. This would be confusing to students. "Who's bag are you using?" "Who is Robin Levere?" I don't think they knew my first name that year and they certainly did not know my maiden name. They still don't know my middle name and this fact has frustrated several students for over a year now. They keep guessing Penelope. Why Penelope?

So, I have a bag with some identifying information on it that I don't use, don't plan on using in the future, and I want to get rid of it but feel weird doing it.

Here are some options I have been thinking of...

1. Cut out all of the embroidery, then reconsider the worth of the bag, and make final decision about giving it away.
2. Just keep the bag forever and ever and ever (or shipping it to a parent's house for storage).
3. Send it back to DHS and hope they can reuse it for a new teacher next fall. Hopefully with a first name of Robin or a last name of Levere.
4. Keep the embroidery the way it is and just give it to Salvation Army and then wait to see if anything happens. (a long lost friend discovers it and recognizing the name decides to search for me?)

Other ideas?

1/08

2008-01-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

108 Sun Salutations Completed!

We did several variations of Sun Salutations to keep us engaged the entire time. I mostly flowed through them doing what my body was feeling at the time. Sometimes adding an extra pose, sometimes skipping a pose. Here are my stats for yesterday's session:

216 Tadasana (Mountain)
216 Uttanasana (Forward Fold)
108 Planks and lunges moving from uttanasana to chaturanga or down dog

~150 Adho Mukha Svanasana (Down Dogs)
~80 Chaturanga Dandasana (4-limbed staff)
~90 Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Up Dogs)
10 Virabhadrasana 1 (Warrior 1)
8 Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2)

4 Virabhadrasana 3 (Warrior 3)
4 Utthita Trikonasana (Triangle)
2 Parvritta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle)
6 Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch)
8 Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (One legged King Pigeon Variations)

I set up my camera for interval shooting to capture us in different positions. The camera caught us from two different angles (I should have done more!) and was set to take 24 pictures at 10 second intervals. You have been viewing some of my favorites.

We are a perfect cross section of my current life. From left to right (and front to back) we are Gina (from my Advanced Studies Program), Tosca (a teacher at my school who I share the kids yoga class with), Robin (the birthday girl), and Inge (a dear friend from my church community).

As you might guess, I'm pretty sore today. But I'm still full of the excitement and thrill and joy of completing such a wonderful tradition. We stopped every twelve salutations to share visions of how we wanted our 2008 to be. It was a truly meaningful experience to share with three beautiful women. Thank you!

PS A special thank you to our excellent neighbors who graciously allowed us to take over their apartment for a few hours to do this.

Party Prep

2007-12-31T15:55:00.001-08:00

We're having a fondue party for my birthday in three kinds... cheese...Tomato marinara (for the vegan and lactose intolerant)...
and chocolate for dessert...All of my friends are graciously bringing the bread, veggies, and fruit for dipping (THANK YOU!)

And we're using pretty plates borrowed from our church...
YUM YUM!!

All in celebration of me! I'm a lucky girl!

Tall People

2007-12-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

(I'm 5'0" so just about everyone seems tall to me, but I am specifically writing this letter to people greater than 5'10" and who have predominately tall friends)

Dear Tall People,

I understand your desire to stand in the front row, because everyone should be able to stand in the front at some point and everyone wants to have that privilege. However, God and your genes made you tall and with that comes some responsibility. Please follow some sincere advice that will help you on your way.

The first thing you must always do is look around you. Tall people, you usually take up more room (I'm know there are many short fat people around the world, but still, even thin tall people have more mass than thin short people) and since you take up more room, please be careful when you move around. Look to your left and right. Look behind you. And most importantly, look down, because when you are a tall person, most of the world is below you, vertically that is.

The second thing you must do is yield the front row to the shorter people around. Even with a short person in front of you, your face will still have a front row view. Does your whole body have to see what is in front of you? I don't think so. That is why your eyes are close to the top of your body. Kindly let a shorter person, whose eyes are lower than yours, move to the front.

Lastly, tall people, you must not clump up together around a short person. It is very claustrophobic. Give us some space. It makes you seem like you have no awareness of anyone else's physical presence but your own. You are big. Your shoulders are like a wall. Your butt is too high. (probably because your legs are too long). You must be careful about what you do with these body parts!

Tall people, thank you for the things that you reach and the sites that you can see before anyone else. Thank you for telling us about the weather. I know that I will see better behavior in the future, if you follow my advice above. You will have many more short people as friends... just wait and see!

Thanks,
A short person

On Vacation

2007-12-30T15:21:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts around here. We have been very lucky to have Grant's parents visiting us from Michigan for the holidays. We spent the last couple days in beautiful and wintry Yosemite National Park -- pictures to come soon. Today was spent so far enjoying a Kwanzaa worship service this morning and cleaning the apartment for my birthday party. Soon we'll be heading out to a play, dinner, and stopping by my church for Singing for Your Life - an amazing 12 hours continuous circle singing event.

For New Years and for my birthday, which is on Tuesday, I'm having a party and I am challenging myself and others to complete an old tradition of 108 Sun Salutations to welcome in the new year. For my distant friends who can not join me in person, you can still join in for the sun salutations. Do as many as you can or desire. Give up some thank-yous for another year ending and a new one beginning. Do it as a meditation and prayer, reflecting on who you were in 2007 and discovering the path you want to take into the new year. Do it as a celebration of your beautiful God-given body.

I'll be turning 27 on Tuesday, January 1, 2008. 27 is the natural number following 26 and preceding 28. Twenty-seven is the smallest positive number that requires four syllables to say in English though it can be defined in just two: "three cubed." (3x3x3) It is odd and has many odd friends like 1, 3, and 9. It is a perfect cube. It is the number of books in the New Testament. It is the 28th (and 29th) digit of pi. It is the number of moons of Uranus. 27x4=108, a significant number in many traditions, and therefore the number of salutations I will try to complete.

Believe it or not, there are actually several people who want to do this with me!

And then there are the others who will be just coming for dinner after... yummy fondue!!

Yum, That's Some Good Baby Food!

2007-12-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

Not really. I would not recommend adding baby food to your normal diet, unless you're a baby.

So on Tuesday night we emptied all of those jars of baby food that I showed you on Monday night into some plastic containers. We purposely picked out baby food that we thought we might enjoy, like applesauce, pears, and bananas. The apples and pears were ok. The bananas were questionable. And surprise! who stuck in that jar of peas? (still untouched in the fridge)

The jars were quickly washed and baby food labels were removed
As of Thursday labels appliedand homemade presents emerged... a little sampler pack of teas for the Grandparents (I think it's safe to post here... do they read my blog?) We had three types of tea but I forgot to get pictures of the other two once they were done.

How Old is the Baby?

2007-12-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

Seeing these on the conveyor belt tonight at Whole Foods, the cashier asked us how old our baby was. We looked blankly at her, what baby? We don't have a baby. Why would you ask such a thing? No, we didn't actually say that. We thought that the question made perfect sense since we were buying baby food after all. If we did have a baby though, the baby would be "4 months & up."

No, we don't have a baby.

No, we're not expecting one either... don't get those ideas in your head!

Surprise! It's a Celebration Dinner!

2007-12-15T07:43:00.000-08:00

Robin picking up Grant from work on Friday night and heading out for dinner in the city.

G: Which restaurant are we going to?
R: I picked the furthest away of the three that you picked since you're not on call tonight.
G: Good thinking.

Robin and Grant arrive at the restaurant to find it empty... well, it just opened a few minutes earlier...

R: I guess we didn't need reservations
G: It was good to have them just in case.
R: Why isn't this place busier? It looks really nice. There should be a line. I guess it's just early.

Robin and Grant look at the menu, the server is very, very attentive. Robin and Grant discuss how to best use the gift certificate that his parents gave him. Moments later he decides...

G: To hell with it! I being way too serious. Let's just have a good meal.
R: I should have planned something for us to celebrate. What are we celebrating?
G: I've had a long week. Let's celebrate surviving the week!
R: I know, happy 3.5 year anniversary!

R: I feel like I'm dating you again.
G: Because we haven't had a real face-to-face conversation since Tuesday?
R: That could be. So how was your week?

Robin and Grant continue talking about Grant's week at CPE and figure out what they want to order and their server was more than ready.

First Course
2005 5 Rivers (Central California Coast) Pinot Noir
Mixed Green Salad with Beet Tartar, Pear, Goat Cheese Mousse and Pecans
Butternut Squash Soup (served in the cutest little espresso cup)
Bread and Butter

Robin and Grant's server walks up to the table, then steps back and allows two other gentlemen to actually set the plates on the table.

Robin and Grant's server tries to give them extra plates. They look at him confused. Robin puts her plate under her bread dish and continues to eat the salad from the plate it was served on. Grant does the same, only he doesn't move his plate.

Second Course
Gambas al Ajillo (white shrimp, garlic, chili and olive oil)
More Pinot Noir (we got a whole bottle and it was yummy!)

Grant tries a few shrimps, decides they are not for him and Robin slowly enjoys the remainder throughout the rest of the meal.

This is Robin's super hot date:Robin and Grant's server takes all of the silverware and plates away and then places new silverware on the table, steps back and the other guy sets the plate of ravioli and cauliflower on the table.

Main Entree
Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter, Sage and Amaretti (this could have been dessert)
Roasted Cauliflower with Capers and Lemon

Robin pulls out her camera from her purse... the camera that she always carries around with her.

G: You're going to take pictures of this.
R: Of course! This is a great meal!

Robin suddenly feels self-conscious of taking pictures of her food in a fancy restaurant, so she decides not to use the flash and will put up with a slight blur in her pictures.

This is our YUMMY Ravioli:
Robin notices that fancy spoons seem to have appeared on the table out of no where. She then wonders about current state of mind as Grant gentle slips her wine glass away from her.

R: When did we get these spoons?
G: I'm not sure

Robin breaks out into giggles.

Dessert
Chocolate Pudding with Cream and Port Soaked Figs

Robin and Grant almost die with joy after their first few bites of dessert. They then ponder the implications of licking the bowl when the pudding is gone...

By the end of the evening we were just giddy with delight of our excellent meal together. What an unexpected treat! Besides reading the menu online, we really had no idea about what we were walking into. Palmetto was a great choice. See more here.

Robin and Grant start getting ideas in their head that more fancy restaurants might be in their future...

Thanks Mom and Dad for the certificate!

Dealing with Stuff

2007-12-12T17:24:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post I shared my frustrations about dealing with all of the stuff in our apartment.

Last night, Grant and I were sitting on our couch and I was sharing with him about my frustrations with our current stuff management plan.

G: What bothers you the most?
R: Cardboard. I hate cardboard.
G: Ok.
R: If you lived alone, do you think your apartment would be full of cardboard boxes?
G: Not that I would like it, but yes, it probably would be full of boxes.

The easiest thing I can think about doing is moving apartments and then being really selective about what we choose to take with us. But neither one of us wants to move yet, so we're stuck going through everything and trying to thin it out. Either that or I will never feel comfortable in my own home.

How many towels should two people own?

Is it really necessary to have a back-up for all toiletries? Or can we just buy stuff as we run out of it?

Why are we still holding onto the nativity set? It has been 3.5 years since the wedding. The nativity is ugly and we've never set it up (not that we have a clear surface anyways!) Why are we keeping something I really really hate?

Would any of you be willing to come over to my house and scan all of my notes from college so I can recycle the paper?

Do I really really need that Abstract Algebra textbook?

Does he have to fill each desk drawer with wires? Wires wires wires... and only one would fit into the camera... and that was the only wire that wasn't in any of the desk drawers... it was in the closet... in the cardboard box that the camera came in... I'm NOT SELLING the camera... CAN WE RECYCLE THE BOX PLEASE?

There are two desk drawers not overflowing with wires. Those drawers hold files in carefully labeled file folders. Labels made with the label maker. Because everyone needs a label maker.

G: There are times when I think it would be wonderful to have a nice, clean, orderly apartment. But that is just not who we are. We would have to change a lot of our habits.
R: You mean that habit about collecting cardboard boxes? I have an idea. Stop buying stuff off of ebay.
G: Make a list of where you want to focus on in the apartment.
R: Item #1 of 1 - Get a box. Put all of the other boxes in the box. Recycle the box.
G: OK, but you have to find a new organized way to store all of the stuff that was in the boxes.
R: UUGGGGHHHH!

Yeah for Poland!

2007-12-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

I got my first blog visitor from Poland today... around 11:30am. I don't know what s/he was looking for but I'm glad they stopped by! Hope they'll come back again!

7 school days until Christmas break... I'm so ready for a break! 10 days until the bonus parents come to visit! A trip to Yosemite! Being a tourist in SF! Lots of fun to look forward to! 19 days until my birthday... at first I was sad, but now I'm warming up to the idea. 27 is such a cool number and I have some exciting ideas about how to spend my special day.

Are You Reading This?

2007-12-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

If you haven't started reading the No Impact Man blog, you're really missing out. The reflections on how life is after the project is done, in my opinion, are even more powerful than during the project. READ IT!!

Why NOT the Other Things

2007-12-10T00:34:00.000-08:00

Why not Running?
Are you crazy? Running? Yes, I love the lake BUT I love my knees more and I really love that breathing thing. NO RUNNING FOR ME.

Why not Cycling? You have a really nice bike!
The streets are too busy. There are too many lights. It's all stop and go. It takes too long to get to the good places to ride. Long curvy roads with gentle hills. I have to wear my special bike shoes, so we better not stop anywhere where I would have to walk while we're on a ride. No bikes on single track trail? What are those guys doing in all of those pads? They call that mountain biking? That's just hurling yourself down a large hill. Cycling is not my sport. Cycling is just transportation to places close by where I don't have to carry much stuff.

Why not Kayaking? Isn't it worth giving up your closet space?
Come on. You already know how hard it is for me to regulate my body temperature in a heated room with adequate clothes on. Now you want me to wear a rigid and tight wet suit (plus paddle jacket and PFD and helmet and cap and gloves and rubber shoes) and you want me to sit out in the sun (which is in the 70's) on the water (which is in the 50's) with the waves that make me seasick? All that after I've already been driven crazy by all of the gear we had to pack and carry out to the car and unload and walk to the shore and then we had to assemble the yaks and talk to the people who stop and look at us putting together the yaks and then pack the yaks. NO WAY. Maybe in like 20 years I'll have the energy to do all that... plus we'll have an old enough age to actually fit in with our kayaking club. But I just can't bring myself to sell the boats.

Why not join a gym? There's one down the street and you friend teaches pilates there!
Ah yeah. You don't remember trying that 3-month special teacher summer membership thing that you did this summer? How often did you go. Yeah, I thought so. Big waste of money. Too many people caring about how they look when they're sweaty.

Ok, Ok, so why do you have those skis in the closet?
For long weekends away to Lake Tahoe or Yosemite! But you won't find enough snow in the bay to make skiing you're primary exercise.

Why Yoga?

2007-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite regular readers recently asked a great question... why yoga? Of all activities that I've participated in, why would I choose this one to focus so much of my attention on?

This question will take a long time to answer so it will be something that I will have to come back to in future posts. Let's start with how I discovered it.

In Alma (winter 2002), I had this boyfriend who's dorm room with just across the way from mine and I would watch for his light to come on... he was home... and I would visit him and he had this wonderful book, Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Silence that he would read and then move his body. Sometimes he would let me join him.

In Berkeley (spring-fall 2004), walking down Shattuck Ave or Telegraph Ave, we would walk by several yoga studios/schools. They would have flyers outside their doors and occasionally I would pick one up and ponder attending a class. I never did.

In Berkeley (spring-summer 2005), we lived about 5 blocks away from an Elephant Pharmacy which had a video rental section. $1 DVD rentals for 1 night. Every time we went there I would notice the shelf with all of the workout videos. Pilates, Yoga, Kick Boxing, Step. I was already interested because the store had this huge display right by the entrance of all of their fancy workout equipment: mats, straps, blocks, balls, books, and dvds. Not wanting to buy anything without trying it out first, I opted for renting a couple dvds. I would watch them over and over... and eventually I would do the sequences without the dvds... and the cheesy background music.

In Oakland (may 2006), I asked around to a few friends for yoga studio recommendations. One friend talked about her Bikram experiences. But she said that a beginner shouldn't really attend. Another friend recommended Piedmont Yoga Studio to me and then took me to a couple classes with her favorite teacher. He quickly became my favorite teacher too and I have attended classes with him ever since. I even purchased my own yoga mat at a Long's Drug Store.

In Oakland (summer 2006 and after), I started to read yoga journal's website and started to practice on my own at home following sequences that I found in articles or some that I made up on my own. Eventually, I got my own subscription to yoga journal magazine. I made a commitment to myself to take one class a week (I allowed myself to spend money on myself... that's certainly a topic for another post) and I started purchasing a class "package" or "series" every two months.

In Oakland, (spring 2007) I applied for the program and we all know the story from here.

So, next before I write about why I chose yoga, I will start with why not other things.

Math Warm-up

2007-12-09T07:13:00.001-08:00

I start every math class that I teach with a warm-up. When the kids are working on the warm-up, I have the opportunity to take attendance and check-in with each kid about their homework. I get a sense of how the class is doing and I know what to give more attention to as we check our homework together.

Here is the warm-up for Monday for my Advanced Algebra students. It ties in directly to what we are going to be working on for the day... finding the the roots of parabolas.

Warm-up: Write the following sentences as an equation. (HINT: only one equation and you've seen it before!) X is the sum of the opposite of b plus or minus the square root of the sum b squared minus the product of four, a, and c. All of this is then divided by 2 times a.

You can leave your guess as a comment and I will post the answer in a couple days. (give the name or the equation)

Giving your 100%

2007-12-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

At my PYS Advanced Studies Program this week, our instructor, Tony, asked us, "How many of you are giving 100% to your yoga practice?" and no one raised their hand.

Ya'll thought I was just kidding with that Yoga Mat Sectrez on Monday, but it is sort of true.

This question came after Tony spent 10 minutes lecturing us about our behavior so far in the program. Regular people may come to public yoga classes late or leave early, but you're "advanced studies people" you should be more serious than the public... come on time! pay attention! don't leave early! do your home practice!!

So last night, home alone, as my husband was on call at the hospital, I returned to "the bible of modern yoga," to help give me some comfort and encouragement.

It worked. This morning I read through the appendix of the book (thank God my Sanskrit has improved and I actually know the name of the poses!) where Iyengar gives you a work out schedule for the next 180 weeks. Using this as a rough draft, I am going to create a practice schedule for myself. I've picked some key poses that I want to work on and then I'll build in some creative time to do poses that I feel like doing but aren't on the list.

Ok! Here we go... ready... set... YOGA!

Yoga Mat Secretz

2007-12-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of lolsecretz and postsecret, I bring you Yoga Mat Secretz, the next thing in community blogging. Here is your first secret from the life of a yoga mat...
Please send me pictures of what your yoga mat is saying and I will post them here for the world to see.

The Yoga Journey Continues

2007-12-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday was our fourth 6-hour Saturday class for the advanced studies program at PYS. We were sooooo lucky to have an amazing teacher for the whole day. Someone who has had an amazing journey with yoga and meditation. You can see more about Mary here.

The first three hours were spent on meditation and asana. We started with a 15 minute guided seated meditation followed by a long supported supta baddha konasana. Then Mary had us stand in Tadasana while we continued to focus on our breath. We did a very slow sun salutation, mostly with our eyes closed. We were the most careful to watch our breath during the transitions from one pose to another. There were times when I felt disoriented with my eyes closed, especially when I transitioned from uttanasana to a lunge. Like always, I doubted myself in my movements. So there were times that I cheated and opened my eyes to check on my foot and hand placement. Then, we had lots of fun trying to find our lower abdominal muscles. I thought this exploration was wonderful and enjoyed every moment. There were many other poses that we explored, then we ended with another seated meditation.

After our dinner break, we came back to class and talked about Mary's favorite topic: joints, especially the hip joint and its happiness in our body while practicing poses such as trikonasana. She gave us permission to explore how we placed our feet and hips in our practice. She told us to break the rules... a refreshing instruction from a yoga teacher.

At the very end of the class, we talked about teaching and did a 5 minute practice with a partner where we talked someone through a pose. This wasn't so bad for me since I teach every Thursday. The pressure is different since the person I was talking to was an experienced practitioner and I wasn't sure what to say to help her in a pose that she had already worked hundreds of times. So this prompted me to ask Mary about her inspiration for teaching. I asked her, "When you teach your classes, do you focus more on what your students need or are your instructions coming from what you are learning in your practice?"

At first she told me that this was an excellent question and that I should ask every teacher the same question. Then she went further in her explanation saying that we teach for ourselves and we practice for our students. But she also went deeper to say, we teach for ourselves and we practice for the universe. If we bring our sincere intentions to our practice, then the fruits of our practice will transpire in our teaching and our students will feel the benefits. This explains how sometimes it feels like all of the yoga teachers I study from seem to have weekly meetings to game plan their teaching for the week. But it's really something greater than them... our connection to each other... is this purusa? I will have to think more on this, a great topic for another post.

More inspiration to get that consistent home practice going!

On a very positive note, I completed my first pranayama exercise this morning and wrote a journal entry, just as the pranayama book instructed. Yeah!

Witness in the Neighborhood

2007-12-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

Warning... this post has some angry words in it. Sensitive eyes should proceed with caution... make wide turns and look both ways.

Dear Owner of the Red and White striped GMC Jimmy that parks on our street,

On Friday night just after 5:00pm, my husband and I were parking our car and we saw a very large (15 passenger size) white van pull out of a driveway and hit the back driver side of your vehicle. This extremely large white van was being controlled by a little old lady who didn't seem very with it when she hobbled out of the van to look at the damage she caused. We asked her if she was going to leave a note and she said no. She said, "I'll catch him later." We're not sure what this means. Does she know you?

Here is an example of the type of van that I'm talking about. We were trying to leave a note on your windshield to tell you what happened, but a very angry man walked down the street (someone who knew the little old lady in the huge white van) and stopped us. He tried to play it like he was the owner of the GMC Jimmy (with the red and white stripes that was hit by the little-almost 100 years old-lady in the extremely-out-of-this-world-big white van). We couldn't tell if he was telling the truth. He said, "Just go on your way, you mother fuckers, this whole neighborhood is a bunch of mother fuckers." We knew that he would take the note off of your windshield if we left one, so we decided to come back later. Later in the evening, you went out. But on Saturday, I saw your truck again on our street, so I'm assuming you live near by... in that case, you must be one of the MF's in the neighborhood. It's a nice place in our neighborhood, isn't it?

Anyways, I took some pictures of your truck. If any of these scratches are new as of Friday November 30, 2007, and you want more information, then please email me at someonehityourcarandran AT gmail DOT com.Sincerly,
Your Neighbor

PS You have many nice stickers on your truck.

Yoga Class Update

2007-12-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

We just finished our 12th week (24 sessions) of teaching yoga to high school students in East Oakland. Our official average student attendance is 10.6, however, that number is bolstered by 3 really great weeks in September where we had 17-18 students each time and brought down by November where we hit our low of 4 students twice.

At first we were pretty strict about attendance. We told the students that they needed to attend 30 sessions by the end of the semester (Jan 25) to earn one semester of credit. (6o sessions for a whole year of credit). Now that our numbers have dropped slightly, we've extended the deadline to the end of the school year. So the students that could only come one day a week might still have a chance of getting 1 semester credit over the course of the whole year or our students who are athletes, could come during the off season even though the dates don't line up with the academic semester. Unfortunatley, this change in policy hasn't resulted in the surge of student attendance that we anticipated. We'll have to go back to other marketing tactics... signs on the walls, announcements over the PA's and encourage word of mouth by the students who attend regularly.

Just to be clear... there is no chance that the class will be canceled since we do have student who are depending on us for credit. It would just be nice if we could keep our numbers up and build the program up and keep it going into the next semester and school year.

A really great thing about the students who want to get credit for the course is that they are coming every time (we have 6 that will for sure get credit for the year if they keep up their attendance and another 5 that will definitely get semester credit) and on Thursday we did something special for the first 30 minutes of our yoga class.

You'll remember this post where I showed off my new collection. We decided that it was time to bring the collection to the students. We knew that if we showed them pictures of Iyengar (and his crazy poses like this) at the beginning of the course, the students would freak out in their usual teenager ways. They would make fun out of their nervousness and some lack of cultural acceptance and appreciation. But, after 23 sessions of exploring their own practice and learning several poses, they were incredible to watch as they thumbed through Iyengar's Light on Yoga and Light on Pranayama and all of my Yoga Journals, amongst the other books that we brought in. Their excitement was inspiring. There was so much of "look at this" "can we do that?" and "how does he do that?" All Tosca and I could say was... serious home practice, dedication and hard work. Like anything, if you really want it, sometimes it requires a lot of your time and attention! (something which is hard for our teenagers... in a world where TV changes camera angles every 5 seconds, it's hard to give your full focus to much- but that's another post).

Hmm, time and attention to a home practice. What a good idea.

BTW: Newest book on the coffee table is Richard Rosen's The Yoga of Breath: a step by step guide to Pranayama EXCELLENT! I'm about 50 pages into it and am looking forward to this new exploration in my practice!

Thanks Timmay!

2007-11-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks (or no thanks) to Timmay! over at Take 2! I got sucked in to the freerice.com where you answer multiple choice word definitions to donate grains of rice. Although, since I'm flying solo... no slade family to back me up... my vocab level has peaked at 34 with 3020 grains of rice. Please remember that I'm a math teacher that spends a great deal of her free time on a yoga mat.

Amongst my favorite words were bifurcate and hemidemisemiquaver.

Any guesses as to the definitions?

Spell checker doesn't even believe that hemidemisemiquaver is a word. Do you see the red underlining too?

One of them means forked and the other means sixty-fourth note. I think you can figure out which is which.

Yoga Proof... it can be done anywhere

2007-11-27T19:14:00.001-08:00

So yesterday I complained about my lack of yoga activity over the weekend while camping because of the cold... but then I remembered a 10 minute stretch of time on Friday that Grant captured on film... I mean CCD chip. We were walking along the beach at Sonoma Coast State Park and Grant got interested in some waves or rocks or something while we were waiting for the sunset. I got tired of walking around so I decided to "hang out" and just watch the waves. Grant noticed me and came by to see what I was up to, so I gave him a little show.

I have one yoga teacher who says that us westerners rush things too much. We jump into beginner yoga classes and try to do our best at some pretty intense and advanced poses. My teacher says that if we really want to get something out of poses like triangle (utthita trikonasana) we need to work on the basics for 3 to 5 years. One of those basic poses is squats, as shown below. But who wants to pay $15 a class to do 90 minutes of squats? It seems that yoga teachers have to encourage a variety of interesting poses because they need students. Thus we have one of the many yoga debates that needs to be worked out as we in the west figure out how the practice and business of yoga will look for us.One of the poses that is not basic, and is not something that I'm even close to doing fully yet is an arm balance called crane pose (bakasana). I got caught doing it on Friday, on the beach. In the full version of the pose, my arms would be straight and my knees/legs held easily at my sides. In this picture, I'm just struggling to find the balance point for my weight front to back.
My feet really are off the ground... if only a 1/2 inch... I couldn't hold the balance for very long on Friday although today I held it for a whopping 4 seconds!

Anyways, that's my proof... no excuses! Yoga can (and will) be practiced anywhere. It's just a matter of time until yoga weaves its way into you and places thoughts in your head. You'll catch yourself om-ing in the shower or at the ocean and even worse... you'll catch yourself breathing! Watch out!

First Day Back...

2007-11-26T21:57:00.000-08:00

I am not your typical yoga student who has fancy yoga gear. I have not purchased the special props that you see in the yoga studios. My "block" that I use at home is some left over mini cell foam from when Grant and I carved out seats for our kayaks. I don't have special yoga blankets, instead I carefully fold some camping mats and some rugs we don't use anymore. I use a belt as a strap, and pillows serve as bolsters. Even my yoga mat is strange. I got it at a Long's Drug Store on a whim because I thought it was required to go to a public class. (did I really want to use a mat that had other people's feet on it?) and it is a pink-purple color and says "Bally's" in one corner. I have never seen another student's yoga mat the same color as mine.

I definitiely do not have any specifically designed for yoga yoga clothes or a cute strapy bag the perfect size for a rolled up yoga mat. I don't even roll up my mat anymore. A rolled up mat, when bungeed to my bike rack, sticks out too far and flops down over my red flashy light that hopefully keeps cars from running me over in the dark. So my mat gets folded into eighths and squished into a firm pile of stickiness and strapped down to my rack.

On Thursday when I got home from my yummy 2.25 hour Thanksgiving class, the mat stayed in its position, on my bike, ready for me today to go to my Monday night inversion class.

I felt slightly disappointed in myself for letting my mat just stay on my bike all weekend. (I mean for not practicing yoga all weekend... well, I was camping for most of the time) As expected, when I unfolded it at class, there were a ton of wrinkles in the mat from the folds and the bungee. I tried to smooth them out and all I could do was smile at my mat and acknowledge that this is just the way I am. Never quite fitting in with the other students and all of their cute yoga gear... and then not really wanting to anyways. Wanting to have a consistent yoga home practice, but then never quite able to keep it together for more than a couple of days at a time.

But yoga (and my mat) are forgiving. After a few downward facing dogs, my mat was stretched out and the wrinkles had all but disappeared. My body was happy again after feeling tight during the day. I smiled and welcomed myself back to yoga, just happy that I got myself to class tonight and it was a great class. After several warm-up type poses, we worked on headstand and shoulderstand variations as well as plow pose (which usually scares me). Yeah for using chairs as props to make things a little easier. (the explanation of this will have to come in another post)

This was also my first day back to school after a week long Thanksgiving break. By lunch my head was cloudy from too much energy usage. The kids were nice enough... if not relieved to be back to a structured routine. It will take me a couple of days to get back into the groove. 4 school weeks until Winter Break!

Past Hobbies

2007-11-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

There must be a message in here somewhere.

A week ago Sunday, we attended a pre-Thanksgiving dinner celebration hosted by a new friend from my PYS yoga program. Many of her friends that we met at the dinner are connected by a common activity: rock climbing. The only difference is that they still do it on a very regular (at least once a week) basis and they all have memberships to the local climbing gym. One person had pictures on his phone of their most recent trip to Waco, TX. Much of it was bouldering.

On Thanksgiving, we were talking to another new friend about his emerging rock climbing hobby. He told us of how he is just starting to purchase some gear and is thinking about joining the gym close to where he works. We also talked about how there is a new gym opening soon about 1 mile from our neighborhood. (The friend lives about 4 blocks away) . And then we were like, we should make a date to go climbing! Wouldn't that be fun?

With all of this fresh in my head, on Friday, I was walking on a beach north of here in Sonoma and I noticed these rocks...and part of me just really wanted to climb around and see what it would feel like. Grant was off somewhere down the beach taking pictures and I just paused to look at the shape of the wall. Of course, I didn't do anything... for 3 not so good reasons... First, I was wearing chunky sandals. Second, the rock was rough, much much rougher than my yoga mat and I didn't feel like getting any scratches. Third, I let my mind and my self-conscious talk me out of it. But the thought was there and on Saturday, I knew that the thought was in Grant's mind also, because he challenged us to climb up this pile of rocks...

Thanksgiving Day Report

2007-11-25T14:14:00.000-08:00

Just like all other bloggers out there, I must tell you about my Thanksgiving.

First: the place. Our dinner was held in the home that a friend of ours, Paul, is house-sitting for the next month. Before dinner, we sat outside and watched the sunset and we saw...Second: the people. Neither of us have any family out here and we would rather not travel during the busiest travel weekend of the year. So we either joyfully gather with friends or go camping for Thanksgiving. This year we did both, we just left for camping on Friday morning. But on Thursday night, 8 of us brought together by our hostess, our very dear friend...
ATE and ATE and DRANK and DRANK. Grant and I made biscuits and smashed root vegetables. Other people brought sweet potatoes, greens, cranberry sauce, salad, brussels sprouts, and pies. Everything was great, even the nibble of turkey that I tried... until I got tired and needed to go home so that we could rest before our cold camping trip.

(As always, click on the photos for more photos!)

Hopeful Waiting

2007-11-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

I proudly wear this sweater...waiting for the snow that will never come to Oakland.
The days get darker and darker, earlier and earlier. Yet the temps stay about the same.
The cold just will not come.
No wind chill, no flurries, no snow days, no ice, no white outs, no salty roads, no slush, no sledding.
Just the snow flakes on an old sweater take me to memories of seasons from my youth, grounding me in a place where one month fades into another without much notice.
Except at the market...
New arrivals of oranges, persimmons, and apples. Goodbye avocados! We miss you already.
Hopeful waiting, but acting as if.

Tomorrow we will have dinner with some close friends and early Friday we will leave for a quick camping trip north to the Sonoma Coast. Hope you all enjoy your holiday where ever you are and who ever you're with.

Nature Fights Back

2007-11-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning hike in SF's Land's End we ran into many fenced off trails that lead down to the ocean. This path in particular leads to a cliff overlooking the golden gate bridge. On this cliff there is a labyrinth made out of rocks. Grant and I planned to walk the labyrinth until we met this gate, protecting us from the oil that may have washed up onto the beach. Grant and I both took the photo opportunity seriously and then promptly went on our way.
I love spider webs, especially when there is a fresh dew clinging to the delicate threads. When processing this picture, a thought came to me. It is amazing and sad; the way in which humans and the rest of the natural world interact. We are always pushing in on nature. We're really good at rearranging and destroying. We have some good attempts at restoring, but nature is never the same again once humans get involved. Even when humans try to make it seem as if they never got involved in the first place, they still leave their mark. But deep down inside, nature has a resiliency, a desire to keep living and an ability to negotiate around us humans. Even when we do horrible things, like spill oil all over our precious bay, a spider can find a new home.While on the topic of human interaction with the world, the family over at No Impact Man just finished their year long project. As I read their reflections, I'm starting to question our living habits and impact. At home, the most we've done to reduce energy consumption is installing CFL's in the light fixtures and sending Grant to work during the day (at least $5 a month right there!). Our refrigerator got replaced over the summer which had a positive impact on our electricity bill. For fossil fuel consumption, we try to get the majority of our produce from local farms and we drive a biodiesel car. But what else can be [easily- without too much stress or inconvenience] done? The next thing I'm thinking about is cleaning products. Any ideas out there?

This Week I will be...

2007-11-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

No teaching services will be provided until Monday November 26, 2007.

(picture was taken inside the bathroom of the "CPE on call room" at St. Francis Memorial Hospital where Grant works and has to spend the night about once a week)

Thursday Thank You's

2007-11-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Oakland Unified School District for giving us a whole week off for Thanksgiving.

In previous years I have thought about how ridiculous it is to have a whole week off. Why not give us a long weekend and then let us out a week earlier in June?

Oh yeah, you're right. We have been in school for 12 weeks straight with only 1 3-day weekend. That is a long time with out a break. I guess we do need a whole week off.

Amazing Yoga Hours

2007-11-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

Since starting the advanced studies program at PYS, I have been keeping track of the number of hours I've been practicing yoga at home, at school, or at public classes. As I have added up the hours, I have also been keeping track of the amount of money spent or earned.

*** BTW We're starting the "thank-yous" early with a big Thank You to Veteran's Day for giving me the day off from school! Only 4 school days left until a week long Thanksgiving Break! ***

The first category is the advanced studies yoga program which costs about $13 an hour (plus the expenses of books). The program is 200 hours over the course of a year. We are currently 42 hours into the program.

The second category is free yoga classes that I get to take because I'm in the advanced studies program. I usually count these as money I've earned paying back for the program. My goal is to take as many free classes as I can to pay back half the expense of the program.

The third category is yoga that I teach to my teenagers at school. On Tuesdays I do the poses with them and on Thursdays I'm walking around giving directions. But I count the whole 3 hours a week as time I am participating in yoga activities and am getting paid an excellent amount... $50 an hour... yikes!!

The fourth category is public yoga classes that I pay for because my favorite teacher is not a part of the advanced studies yoga program.

The fifth category is yoga practiced at home. This is free yoga and I am not doing nearly enough of it. My computer calendar has a reoccurring event on it for 6am yoga. I usually miss it by not getting up until 6:30am.

I keep all of this organized on excel. I put in formulas to add up all of the hours, add up all of the money and then divide. I'm not trying to impress anyone here... I'm just feeling amazed. Since September 1, I have logged in 96.5 hours of yoga and I am currently getting paid $6.99 per hour. Later this afternoon, I'll take another free class and then it'll be 98 hours = $7.04 per hour. (note: this is slightly inaccurate b/c I need to save some of the money I've earned teaching yoga for paying taxes which weren't taken out of my check... I'm not sure how much that should be)

Yikes I've just thought about other things I could explore... like how I could find the daily $ over the last two months or I could figure out how many hours I would need to break even or to make money from the program.

This is what happens when a math teacher gets into yoga. You can all laugh now.

Thanks for reading.

Life Upside Down

2007-11-11T13:57:00.001-08:00

Finding room in our apartment for all of our favorite activities (and their associated storage needs) has been challenging. Many rooms have double purposes. The living room doubles as a photography developing and equipment storage area. The dinning room is like the basement work area. The table is the workbench, complete with stains from both cooking muffins and experimenting with alcohol backpacking stoves. The wall has piles of boxes, several old magazines that we're "saving," and a car jack set. The bedroom closet doubles for a garage, holding 2 kayaks (and all the gear), backpacking gear, suitcases, and a tiny space for clothes. Looking at our linen closet, only one shelf is devoted to sheets and laundry. The rest of the shelves hold a variety of tools. Some for the house, some for the bikes, and the rest for the car. Candles stored next to air filters next to bridesmaid dresses next to the vacuum next to the cooler next to a pile of board games.

So it is no surprise that finding an adequate space for my yoga practice can be a challenge. If I want floor space, I need to be in the living room, where I distract and get distracted by my lovely husband. If I need a wall to lean against, I need to be in the bedroom where I get even more distracted by my reflection in our mirrored closet doors.

Doing yoga in front of a mirror can be beneficial. In poses like warrior 1 or warrior 2, when I think that my knee and thigh are at 90 degree angles, it is nice to look over in the mirror and see what is actually going on and then make adjustments. I would move my body using the mirror and then try to remember how the pose felt so that I could recreate it on my own without the mirror.

Unfortunately, not all poses can be adequately critiqued using a mirror. Poses where weight is on your neck, such as bridge, headstand, or shoulderstand cannot be observed because it is dangerous to turn your neck. So in those situations, I use the "interval" mode on my camera. In this series of pictures below, I was trying to see how straight my body was in shoulderstand. When I look up at my feet, where should I be? A while back, when doing the pose I had Grant move my legs to where he thought was vertical. Last week I wanted to see if there was any change. The other two areas of focus were my shoulder position relative to my chest and neck and my pelvis/upper thigh area. To the average person, some of these shots may not seem to be so flattering. But to the yoga practitioner, I think there are lessons to be learned.

Setting up a support for my shoulders to rest on.

Laying down on the support, rolling legs up and over head, toes touch the floor before...

lifting legs up into...

Shoulderstand. Pelvis is tilted with legs to far forward/over head. I think I need more core strength to straighten that out. Shoulders look pretty good, but elbows are splayed. So I still need some opening in the shoulders so I can keep my elbows in a better and easier to support position.

Lowering down into a variation of plow pose where you try to lower your knees to your ears. Toes should be pointed but I can't reach the floor yet.

The internet seems a little slow today and I'm getting impatient with uploading pictures to blogger... so the rest are HERE. Enjoy.

Happy November

2007-11-03T16:07:00.001-07:00

In my California, the seasons are marked with food. Even though it was in the 60-70's today and I was comfortably wearing thin yoga capris and a lightweight long sleeve shirt, it still felt like fall when I had my yummy slice of homemade pumpkin pie.

This was our second experience making pumpkin pie. The first was last weekend. You remember this post where Grant talked about us cooking for our church. Yes, it did feel a little strange when we were at Trader Joe's buying 16 cans of pumpkin and telling the cashier that no, we weren't making any pie.

Well, we couldn't keep up the act. We couldn't help ourselves. We had to make pie! And the second time was excellent. (the first time was alright, but don't always trust the baking instructions for a recipe that comes off the side of a can!)

The Reading List

2007-10-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

There is a cycle around hobbies that repeats itself every so often and it goes like this...

Husband discovers something that he is interested in. Husband searches all over the internet gathering information about his new interest. He reads articles, he reads blogs, he listens to podcasts, he finds out about local meet-ups, and then he orders books and then he orders equipment and more stuff. After a while, (length of time is really not consistent) husband discovers a new interest and the cycle repeats.

We have been through this cycle for kayaking, biking, baking, backpacking gear, and most recently (and still going) is photography. (I know I'm missing something here... perhaps husband will comment and let me know)

I fully admit that I do benefit from all of his time spent researching and reading and learning and practicing. Yes, I enjoy the fact that my husband can fix my bike when it acts moody, that he has all of the knowledge and all of the necessary tools to do any repair. And yes, I love that he knows how to grind his own wheat berries into flour and then bake bread and can make yogurt in the yogurt machine that sits in the back of our hardest to reach cabinet. I also love that he can teach me how to have more control over how my camera captures my photographs and I also love what he can do with photographs once they are in his computer. I love that my backpack only weighs 25 pounds because of the time he spent with careful gear selection.

For a long, long time, I had been complaining (in envy) that I didn't have time for hobbies. Why did husband have time to play while wife did not? Why did husband have the opportunity to learn all these new things when wife was stuck putting up with teenagers? Teaching high school math in East Oakland just took so much time and energy. Especially the emotional energy to deal with students who don't know how to handle all of the drama that is going on in their lives. I would come home from a day at work and not want to think or do anything for the rest of the evening.

But all that is changing. It was about 1.5 years ago that I made a commitment to myself to attend a yoga class once a week. And now I'm hooked. I spend time researching on the internet, I go to classes, I read blogs, I purchased a yoga mat, and now I have purchased books. Lots of books.

Here is my current reading list...plus there are three more in the mail... and a few more that I'm thinking about getting...

Off Topic: Here is a sneak peak for Tim & Anna about a surprise that will come in the next few weeks...

Slump

2007-10-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last week was my first slump of the school year.

I'm going to change it up and explain this in swimming terms.

By the end of high school, my favorite event to swim was the 500. This was the longest event at the high school level, lasting 20 lengths of the pool, and up to 10 minutes, depending on the swimmer. I wasn't that fast and I usually averaged around 6:40.

The gun fires and you leave the starting block, entering the cool crisp water, heart racing with excitement and anticipation, glad that your goggles didn't fall off, checking out where the other girls are in the pool, hoping that your counter buddy at the end of the pool remembers to flash you the right number. You hit the first turn hard, legs are still fresh, blood still racing. At the end of the second/third length, you quickly remember that you are not a sprinter and that your race is not over yet, you pull up. At the end of length 6, you start to feel the excitement wear off. Your heart settles down, you acknowledge that you still have 14 lengths to go, you buckle down and make the decision to stay with it until the end, you pace yourself, you breathe, you stay focused, you find your groove and you go.

We just finished week 9 of 36 for the school year. I'm about to make the turn into lap 6. My initial excitement and energy about this school year has worn off. I am no longer running on the buzz of hearing the starting gun. The jitters are gone. I know my kids. They know me. The first report card has already come. Reality has set in. We're settling down, we've got a long way to go, we're getting into the groove.

It was just a challenging transition week for me. I'm starting to feel the pressure of a busy schedule. I slept for 9 hours last night and woke up feeling like I could have slept for a couple more. I love what I get to do. But because I get to do it so much, it starts to feel like a chore. So when I woke up this morning, I got all ready to go to a yoga class but I was running late. I was torn. I was looking forward to a class with my favorite teacher, someone I don't get to see that often since my advanced studies program started. But, I didn't want to walk into the class after it already started so I just stayed home. I did my own practice for ~75 minutes and decided I would work on some inversions. To my surprise and great relief, I put myself into a handstand all by myself for the first time ever. I was never the gymnastic type as a girl. I hated even the easy things like cartwheels or forward rolls! As soon as I was up, I yelled for Grant to come see me, hoping he'd get there before I lost my balance (even though I was against the wall). He was proud and also relieved because after today he won't have to help me anymore.

So it was a drag of a week. I could tell I needed a change of pace. So I will now regularly add unassisted hand stands to my home practice and the world will look different.

New pictures from this week... HERE

New Profile Picture

2007-10-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

We were at a fund raising party in August hosted by a good friend. The theme was "Rockabilly Pie" and in exchange for giving money to the American Diabetes Association, we got to eat wonderful pie while listening to a live performance of the Fancy Dan Band. YUM and YUM.

After listening to the band, my friend Jane thought it would be fun to take some pictures of me. It's hard for me to say no to being the subject of a photographer's view. Unfortunately, my husband, who is in the process of starting his own photography business, doesn't like taking pictures of humans. So I have to wait for other photographers to capture me on their memory cards. My new profile picture is one of her captures.

She has many other beautiful portraits ready to be viewed... HERE!

Importance of Community

2007-10-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things about moving to Berkeley 4 Augusts ago was not knowing anyone. No friends lived here already. No one was here to help us move in or to greet us. We slowly met people around PSR's campus but very quickly felt out of place. We were neither on campus or off. We didn't live in dorms where we would eat meals with other students. We weren't commuters who had their own community to drive home to. We felt isolated in married housing.

Thankfully we found our church within 6 months of moving to CA and new neighbors moved in across the hall. But even then community has been hard for us to build. With all of the busy-ness that people create for themselves and all of the distractions that our society has invented (TV and internet are the biggest I can think of) to pull our attention away from actual personal interaction, I feel like sometimes I forget how to interact and that people don't have a lot of free time to interact with me. I start to feel self-conscious about what to say or how to be. Then it seems like building a community is an impossible feat.

Even though it has been tough for us to create a solid social network, we know how important it is and we keep working at keeping the community that we have. The work does pay off. The smiles and hugs that are shared have lasting effects. The quick phone calls just to say hi or to report on the small good things in life can change a whole day around. These acts might seem so common to many of you but these are things that Grant and I have not been used to since moving here. I started to think about all of this community stuff because of a post that I read at the No Impact Man blog. This gentleman is nearing the end of a year long experiment on how to live in NYC and finding out what really makes him happy and full of life. It certainly is an encouragement to me to step away from the laptop a little bit more and call up a friend out of the blue.

Damn time zones.

Weekend Adventures

2007-10-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Grant at 8:30 on Sunday morning starting his on call shift at the hospital.Grant, 6 days later, hiking at Mt. Diablo State Park, thankful that it is the weekend again. Grant and I are now relaxing at home, side by side on the couch with our laptops going. We're unwinding from our packed Saturday (packed by choice). I checked my blogs. Did you notice that Grant had a new post? I didn't know until a friend told me about it this evening. We watched the latest episode of After World. We watched the new Strong Bad email. Now it is time to update my blog! While I'm typing this, he is trying to distract me with you tube videos.

Some of my favorite numbers are 1, 2, 4, 27, 36, 225, 169, and 196. Of those, 36 is my favorite. But 27 is also good. One of my friends just turned 27 this week, so Grant and I went to his B-Day party. Being that I wake up early for work and then I like to go to bed early, we were part of the early crowd at the party. We knew that we had a packed Saturday ahead of us, so we happily were in bed by 11pm.

We woke up just after 7am to eat breakfast. Yes, we woke up by 7am on a weekend just to eat breakfast, early. We did this in hopes that our breakfast would be digested by the time my 9am yoga class started. Grant decided that he wanted to try out my yoga class, so he needed to get up early also and eat breakfast in hopes of good digestion in time. After the 2 hour class we were very hungry again. So we went home and finished leftovers from 4 different meals created during the week.

Next stop was the farmer's market. Grant and I split up momentarily for me to walk to the bank and get some cash. The farmer's don't tend to take credit cards. Grant ended up following me to the ATM but I didn't realize it. He should have told me before we split up that he was going to change his mind after us separating and follow me. Because I wasn't looking for him. He told me after that he was talking to a friend of ours on the sidewalk a few storefronts down from the ATM towards the farmer's market and that I walked right past him with great focus and determination. It makes perfect sense to me. I wasn't looking for him until I got back to the farmer's market. And that's where he found me. As planned.

After picking out our vegetables, we walked back to our car (it is unusual for us to drive to the market- we usually walk or ride our bikes but today we were on a special outing together). We put our veggies in the cooler with the cheese that we packed as a snack to go with the crackers, raisins, and sun dried tomatoes, which we had also packed as a snack. We brought a cooler because we hoped to keep the veggies cool while we were on our outing. We entered the freeway and went through a tunnel that lead to the other side of the hills that separate us from the rest of CA (I hardly ever go to the other side of the hills... ever! But we were on a special outing). As soon as you peak out from the tunnel, on the other side of the hills, you can see it. It is round and rolling, but much taller than the other round and rolling things on the other side of the hills. This larger round land mass was Mt. Diablo. Poking out of the ground, reaching 3900 feet, it towers over all of the other hills. It took us about 25 minutes to get to the exit and another 15 minutes driving up curvy roads to the park's entrance. Soon after we parked the car at a pull off called, "rock city." The whole time in the car we were listening to a "This American Life" episode (one of our favorite radio shows).

We spent much time exploring rocks in rock city. Climbed up. Climbed down. Snacked. And I found this artifact. Does anyone know what this is and what it might be used for? Of course I know the answer. Why else would I think it was worthy of a picture? This is really just a test of my audience. Do not let me down audience!

After our trip to the mountain, we drove back to our side of the hills just in time for dinner with our good friends just before they went to a movie. The timing was perfect. Like it was meant to be. We ate at a thai restaurant that we had never been to before and it was pretty good. I had the usual: pad thai. After dinner, our friends went to their movie. We walked them to the theatre and then crossed the street to our car. We then drove about 2 miles down to road to a bar where there was a farewell party for another set of friends who are moving to Chicago. They are moving tomorrow. Their stuff already left. We shared a beer, caught up with some friends, said goodbye, and then made our way home .

This is my favorite graffiti on the rocks at rock city. If you have made it all the way to this point in the blog, you definitely deserve a big TY.

The Scariest Question to Ask a Yogini

2007-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today I’m going to talk about a scary topic. It is something that is “hidden in the closet” of every yoga practitioner. Sometimes we are willing to open the closet door and show you what we have and at other times we’d really rather that you not ask. Today we’re going to talk about “the home practice” and specifically my home practice.

September's theme for my advanced studies yoga program was “home practice.” Based on the application to get into the program, I thought that it was assumed that everyone had to have some sort of home practice to be accepted. Yet we still talked about this in September. Last Thursday was our first class of October. Noting this, the teacher asked us, “How’s your home practice?” Silence followed. No response from the students. She continued, “Well, you have one, right? Last month’s focus was home practice, and now you all have one? Oh and by the way, ‘home practice’ is really code for daily home practice.” Hmm, yeah, that sounds like a good idea!

One problem with developing a home yoga practice is figuring out what to do while you’re practicing. What exactly are you practicing when you are doing yoga at home without a teacher calling out directions and adjustments? By what method do teachers string together a set of poses and what if my sequence is incorrect? What if I don't do this pose correctly? Fortunately, sequencing poses has not been a problem for me. I just get stuck with my own questioning about whether I am doing a pose correctly and how much alignment really matters overall.

A second, and larger, problem with developing a home yoga practice is time. Most yoga students claim that they just don’t have enough time to fit in their yoga practice. We go to public classes which take 1-1.5 hours each perhaps once or twice a week. How do we fit in 90 minutes of yoga every day? But is 90 minutes the perfect amount of time? Could we fit in 30 minutes? When should it be? Before bed? When we first wake up? From our teacher’s perspective, she would be happy if the average yoga student consistently practiced for 15-20 minutes everyday. This student would see changes in their body and mind because of their consistent practice. Our teacher then added that since we were advanced studies students that we should be practicing for 60 minutes every day.

I’m still stuck on the problem of when. Sometimes you just have to create time where you don't think you have it.

Monday night I stayed after school to do some needed lesson planning (since I had spent my work time over the weekend on marking period grades). I got the call from Grant at 4:40pm to come pick him up from the bart at 5:07pm to take him home (as planned). He already knew that I intended on taking a yoga class at 5:45pm. (A perk of the advanced studies program is taking some free classes). I had brought my clothes and my mat with me to school, and I had even had a snack right after school so that my stomach would be relatively empty by 5:45, but I wouldn’t be starving before class was done. On my way to get Grant I started to feel tired and started to wonder how much I really wanted to take this class. But how could I pass it up? It was free! I must go! But I didn’t want to wait around for it to start (if Grant were to drop me off on his way home). But I didn’t want to drive home and then hop on my bike to go back to the yoga studio and I didn’t want to walk to class because I didn’t want to walk home by myself in the dark. I could go to a later class! There were two choices, one at 7:30 and one at 7:45. But that’s too late and if I’m feeling tired now, I will certainly be too tired later! But it is a free class! I have to go! Ugh, what am I going to do?

So what do I do when I get flustered over too many choices? I don't make a choice. I just went home.

And at home I decided to do my own free practice for 60 minutes (which turned into 80 by the time I was done) in the comfort of my own bedroom with my own pillows and blankets. Every pose practiced in the order of my choosing. All of my favorites, one after another and even a few poses that I knew I needed to work on. Oh and I even got to do some of that chanting that I talked about in the last post. It was great.

Home practice. Yup, got one.

Feeling It in my Bones

2007-10-07T21:56:00.001-07:00

Most of you know by now that I am taking an advanced studies yoga class. It is a 200 hour program that will take us from September to close to forever to complete since we only have class 3 hours of class a week! This past Thursday we had a very interesting class with Ann Dyer, a teacher who amongst other talents loves the yoga of sound. Her introduction to yoga and sound class usually takes 3 hours. Unfortunately she only had 1.5 hours with us to share her wisdom.

We started out with a simple and well known chant called Shanti Mantra that goes like this…

Om saha na vavatu
Saha nau bhunktu
Saha viryam karavava hai
Tejas vidnau vahai tamastu
Ma vidvisha va hai
Om shanti shanti shanti

Sanskrit, like many other languages, can be translated many ways and it all depends on who is doing the translation. The English translation that we were given in class is:

May we be protected together,
may we be nourished together,
may we work together with great vigor,
may our study be enlightening,
may no obstacle arise between us.

Our next exercise was to learn how to feel sound in our bodies, especially in our bones. We learned different vowel sounds that resonate in our bodies and where each vowel can be felt the strongest. We would chant a vowel sound and then gently touch different places of our body… the sternum, collar bones, shoulder blades, chin, forehead, belly, hips, sacrum, pubic bone, and ribs looking for the vibration.

Through this exploration I learned something about my body that was really no surprise at all once discovered. As I was looking for sound vibration along my clavicles, I noticed that I could only feel vibration on the right side. My left side didn’t vibrate. Ann said that often we don’t feel vibrations in the areas of our body that are giving up trouble. This was so true. My left shoulder and left side of my upper chest has always been tighter than my right. During poses like downward facing dog, I often feel stress at the front corner of my armpit. I’m not sure exactly which muscles are unhappy there.

Ann’s suggestion was that we incorporate chanting into our daily yoga practice to help us reach our “troubled” areas. So yesterday morning, I spent about 10 minutes “a-ing” into my left shoulder and collar bone. And today I can feel a faint sensation.

Over the next few days, my plan is to continue 'a-ing' into my shoulders, but I will also "oouu" into my hips. (how do we spell this vowels?) to see if there is the same vibration increase and hopefully more openness in the joint/muscles.

Almost Famous

2007-10-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

There was an article about my yoga class in the Oakland Tribune, our local newspaper. No, it's not as big as the NY Times or Washington Post, but it was still fun to see my picture in print! You can check out the article and some pictures here and video here.

My heart is a flutter.

Time Zone Woes

2007-09-29T22:05:00.001-07:00

Just got back from the movies. It's 10:00pm here. I feel like calling a long distance friend to catch up. BUT you're all asleep... or it is 1:00am your time and I'm not sure if you're asleep yet and don't want to risk waking you up. Grrr. Not matter how hard I try, I only think about calling you, beloved Eastern Time Zone, when it is the evening.

Another Chance to Graduate

2007-09-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

In the state of California, recent laws have stated that in order for a student to graduate from high school, they have to pass a test called the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Students get 6 chances to pass the test while in high school. The first in February of 10th grade. The next two are October and March of 11th grade. Then October, February, and March of 12th grade. The last ditch test is July after 12th grade, but then you don't get to "cross the stage" with your classmates at graduation. There are two sections of the test: English and Math. Once you pass one of them, you never have to take it again. You just keep retaking the test that you failed.

I'm not sure what is on the English test, but the math test is not hard. Basically, you have to know math up until Algebra 1. A quick list would be converting and working with decimals, fractions, and percents, solving basic equations, slope/intercept/graphing, area/perimeter/volume/measurement/unit conversions, basic probability and statistics. I have tons of released questions and several books that have been created to help me help students pass this test.

This year, I am teaching two sections of "CAHSEE Math" for junior and senior students who have not passed the math test. In all I have about 20 students, although there are others out there who just didn't have time in their schedule to take my class. The pressure is on because they take the test on Wednesday. On Tuesday, most of them are taking the English test. So that leaves one more school day to help them prepare.

I'm worried for them. I would hate to see them get all of the required credits they need to graduate, yet not graduate just because they didn't pass a test. Yet, I also think that it is ridiculous that some of them have not passed the test already... it's not that hard. What's even worse is that some of them have just been sitting in my class for the past month doing little to no work or thinking about this test. How many times can a teacher say, "this is your test, your graduation!" to a student before giving up and thinking that the student really doesn't want to graduate? But, when it is so easy to drop out of school, and the student is actually in the classroom, how can you not think that they want to graduate? Some would say laziness (which we do have alot of!!) others would say test anxiety. I think both and a bit of ego. They can't get over the fact that they don't know stuff and they can't admit that they need help, so they just sit. Perhaps some of them think that they will just magically guess all of the right answers and just squeak by the minimum number of points to pass. I'm praying that they are using this weekend wisely and are gearing themselves up for the test.

A bonus for them is that if they pass the test, they could transfer out of my class and into something else that they need to graduate. Unfortunately, the test results will not come until late December or early January. So the class changes will have to take place at the start of the spring semester.

The test is on Wednesday and that means we still have 12 weeks left of the semester. What will we do? That's a really good question. I want to focus on real world situations where a person needs math skills. I have some ideas, but I need more. So I'm asking you, those few of you who read this blog, where do you actually use math in real life? What is this math thing good for, anyways?

Happy Fall!

2007-09-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

Almost... fall really starts on Sunday but it might as well have started today since it the beginning of the weekend and we've just received our first rain splattering in about 4 months. It lasted a brief moment as Grant and I were walking home from blockbuster after dinner. Just enough to make the sidewalk look wet but not enough to soak through clothes. I told Grant that we should move the car out of the garage and onto the street... because we haven't washed it in a long time... if ever come to think of it. But parking is hard to find on the street in the evening and the rain really wasn't hard enough so we decided against it and walked into the apartment building.

So I'll be spending the weekend with a couple of flicks, working on getting rid of a last little bit of my week long cold, getting school work done, and attending the reenactment of marriage vows ceremony of two friends of ours that got married last month in Kansas. They are both seminarians, one from PSR and one from SFTS. And they both attend our church and our church.

Oh yeah, and we'll also be balancing eggs this weekend... ya know, since it's fall and all.

After School Activity #2: Advanced Studies Program

2007-09-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

Also known as the "200 Hour Teacher Training Class" at PYS.

Sometime late last winter, perhaps in February or March, I got an email newsletter from PYS about an Advanced Studies Yoga Program that they were planning for the fall. The newsletter said that more information, including an application, would be coming soon. April came and went and nothing changed on the website. So did May. Finally in June, the application appeared.

The first part of the application was easy. Name, address, health concerns, current teacher, length of time practicing. Then came the writing section. For the first few weeks of June, questions like "Describe your home practice," and "Why do you want to be in the class," started taking over my brain. Fortunately, I had answers to these questions.

By the time I got to the last question, I was really wondering if I still wanted to be in the program. "What is yoga?" What? Was this a trick question? What kind of answer were they looking for? What do I actually know about yoga, really? Isn't it just that stretching thing that middle aged rich white women do with bare feet on mats in their fancy designer yoga clothes, taking classes during the day time when most of us have to work?

I fumbled my way through an explanation of yoga being this journey of discovery... connecting mind, body, and spirit... stress reliever... appreciation of my god-like temple... confidence builder... and somehow they thought it was all good enough to accept me into the program.

It's a 200 hour program designed for people who have lives. So, meeting every Thursday night for 3 hours will take us until June 2008 to finish. We also have one Saturday a month where we have a 6 hour intensive class. Our first Saturday was just a few days ago.

There are 18 people in the class, of which 2 are men. (surprise, surprise!) This is similar to my after school yoga program which has 15 girls and 2 boys. I am close to the lower end of the age range, but that's ok. I have concerns about my abilities, but so far no one has said anything to me to make me feel like I don't belong amongst this group of students. I'm relieved that flexibility isn't everything! Just a willingness to show up and learn a ton, because we do learn a ton since we have great teachers.

Our first month's focus is on standing poses. So, as one who practices yoga might imagine, I feel alot of stretching in my hips and hamstrings.

(for those of you who don't practice yoga, what's up? what are you waiting for? get to it! your body is not getting any more flexible just sitting here reading my blog!)

12 hours down, 188 more to go!

Living the Vision

2007-09-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

At the end of July, I attended a workshop with a beautiful and amazingly talented artist named Shiloh Sophia McCloud. She is a member of our church and many of her paintings are on display around the building. She is the leader of a monthly women’s spiritual and bible study group called “Holy Cow” (council of women).The purpose of this workshop was to build a vision plan for our future vocations. This is similar to writing a business plan; however, it incorporates more of what our life style will look like, not just our business. This is especially good for women since we seem to have our energy put into many different areas and all areas seem to flow in and out of our personal lives. Any teacher will tell you that you can’t leave school at school. Lesson plans and ideas come to you at the most random times, you think and even dream about your students. You are a teacher, even when you’re not teaching your subject area. I’m sure this is true for many other career paths that women choose to take.

It has been almost two months since taking the workshop, so I decided to re-read my vision plan and see how I was doing. I was pretty surprised to see that things are starting to fall into place, just like Shiloh said they would.

When I was visioning my vision, three career paths were swirling around my head. So I decided to include all three in my plan.

1. Leading Backpacking and camping trips for inner city youth and women of all ages. There would be a focus on educating people on how to backpack, a spiritual component with meditation and journal writing, and in addition to the hiking, we would practice yoga to get into our bodies.

2. Teaching Yoga to inner city youth and people of all ages. I would provide free classes for impoverished youth at their schools on a regular basis. Grants would pay for my time and the equipment. Then I would also rent studio space (or start my own studio) to teach classes to paying customers.

3. Jewelry Design. I have been interested in jewelry since my junior year of high school. I started out stringing necklaces and bracelets. Since Christmas 2006, I’ve been collecting supplies and tools to start creating more pieces for myself to wear. Eventually Grant and I want to get booths at arts fairs to sell his prints and my jewelry.

It’s hard to work on all three while still maintaining a full time job. After our successful backpacking trip with friends in July that Grant and I planned, I wanted to plan a women’s weekend trip this fall but it has been very difficult to find a weekend that everyone who is interested can go, and I haven’t been that motivated to plan.

The jewelry design has been put on hold for awhile since my desk currently has my sewing machine on it and several other projects that would first have to be moved. I also feel like I need to take a few classes to help my skills. I’ve read about techniques (such as wire wrapping) but it might be better to have an experienced person show me.

I'm proud to say that I'm working really well on #2 (as you could tell from the previous post). In addition to teaching my own class twice a week with my students, I am enrolled in a 200 hour advanced studies / teacher training program at a local yoga studio. I'll talk more about that in the next post!

Surprise!

2007-09-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

When Tosca and I started talking in the spring about starting a yoga club, we both agreed that we would be happy if we had 5 students show up on a regular basis. Last Thursday when 8 students came, we were ecstatic. Today we had even more show up, 17 in all, most of who were in appropriate clothes. (no jeans, sweat pants or long shorts)

It's hard to take credit for this early achievement. Even though we want to think that the kids are really into the yoga, or they're in the class because we're teaching it, we have to remember that we did put a carrot out there for them. If a student has good attendance (attends 32 out of 36 classes) they can receive PE credit towards graduation. Unfortunately, several students have failed PE in the past and all of them want to take our yoga class to make up their credit. I'm cool with this. I'm glad for a captive audience to experiment with. This is an invaluable experience that will really help who I will become as a yoga teacher, if that is what I intend to do in the future.

The picture below was taken today in my classroom. The yoga club takes place in my classroom because I have 6th Period prep and students to help move the desks and sweep the floor. There are not many large spaces available that aren't already booked with sports teams. So hopefully, we can maintain 20 students in this space. On Tuesdays, my friend Tosca (a spanish teacher down the hall) leads the class. She is in the center top row in the picture. On Thursdays, I take the helm. Then we debrief for a few minutes after class. All in all it has been a fun time.

(PS sorry for all the butts in the picture-- these are kids and there are laws about taking pictures of kids, so until we get signed waivers from parents, there will be no faces!)

After School Activity #1: YOGA

2007-09-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

2 high school teachers (1 math, 1 spanish)

8 teens (including 1 boy-- we're so proud)

24 brand new yoga mats.

Us, laying down in the middle of my classroom, all the desks moved off to the side.

We're stretching our hamstrings and I tell them to relax their groin muscles (because that's a place were I tense up). After I gave them this instruction, I thought out loud, "I hope you went to the bathroom before class."

Then the boy asks, "Why?"

The girls giggle at the boy.

I say, "I guess it must be a girl thing."

The girls giggle some more.

Teens are soooo much fun. Especially when they are a part of my new after school yoga club.

School Update

2007-09-08T16:19:00.001-07:00

Life's speed has definitely increased fro us this week. First, this was Grant's first week at his CPE internship. CPE stands for "clinical pastoral experience" and Grant's CPE is taking place at St. Francis hospital in SF for the next 53 weeks. This week was all orientation-- getting to know his crew and learning about hospital procedures. I'm sure he'll be writing about his experiences... when he has the time! (ha, ha, welcome to the working world my beloved husband!)

In my world, I'm am just loving my job right now. Right before spring break each year, the school district asks us to fill out a form with our tentative plans for the next school year (are we returning?). Last year, one of my math colleagues was unsure of his situation. He is older and has some health concerns. He loves teaching the students but didn't know if he could survive another year at the castle. (we have a tough school in a very impoverished part of Oakland... lots of teachers burn out here real quick). So I approached him and asked him what he thought about us splitting one math position for the next year. We each thought about it over spring break and then asked our principal about it, explaining our situation. She was very willing to work with us (one of the perks of my job... a great principal).

So a normal school day is teaching 5 periods and having 1 period as a conference/planning time. This will get you 100% pay (which is dependent on your education and working experience). This year, according to the deal that I worked out, I am teaching 4 periods and have 1 conference/planning period, so I only receive 80% of my salary. The other teacher is at 40%, teaching 2 classes. We know this adds up to more than one position, but again, we are very lucky to have a principal willing to work with us. And both of us are very, very happy with the situation.

Because of my new deal, here is a typical day...
5:45 alarm, Grant wakes and takes shower, Robin snoozes until 6:20.
7:10-7:20 we leave the house and Robin drives Grant to "casual carpool" pick-up on her way to school, Grant goes to the city and you'll have to read his blog from here...
7:30 Robin arrives at school, students may or may not come in to say hi or get some help
8:10 official starting time of school... no students for Ms. Kinney, because she doesn't actually exist until 9-ish. Instead she just sits at her desk and works. Did you hear that? NO one can ask me to sub for a class 1st period because I don't exist.
9:14 2nd Period = 19 eager and well mannered advanced algebra students
10:18 3rd Period = 13 hopeful CAHSEE Prep (students who still need to pass the CA high school exit exam)
11:22 4th Period = 23 more high energy but still enjoyable advanced algebra students
12:22 = LUNCH
1:06 5th Period = 9 tired after lunch CAHSEE Prep students
2:06 6th Period = Conference time and collaboration with the math department
3:10 official end of the school day, but I work as I need and then go home, leaving school at school where it belongs.
4:00 and after = various evening activities depending on the night, then we try to get to bed by 10pm. Yes, various evening activities that don't include school work. None. I only bring home my computer. No books! No papers to grade!

Can it get any better than this? I only have 64 students, compared to 120 for some of my colleagues. Sometimes I'm sad that I won't be getting my full paycheck since I'm at school the same amount of time as usual. Then I remember that I now have my Sundays and evenings back. I am happy in the classroom. I can give my students the attention that they need. I have energy. I have a life after school (which you'll hear about in the next post). It is worth the trade and I highly recommend this alternative schedule for teachers in high-risk, stressful, urban schools.

More Excitement about Food... I know you're all interested!

2007-09-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm on a food kick for these posts. Don't worry. I start teaching a yoga class later this week at my school and start my "Yoga Advanced Studies Program" at Piedmont Yoga Studio on Thursday night so the topic will change!

A while back Grant and I went to the Thai restaurant about 6 blocks from our house and ordered my favorite: pad thai.

When ever I order Pad Thai, I ask for the vegetarian version since shrimp is a normal addition. But at this particular restaurant, they thought that it was still ok to use oyster sauce in my vegetarian pad thai.

When the plate came to our table, we took a couple of bites and looked up at each other trying to figure out what went wrong. My initial taste was dog food. The wet kind. We called the server over and they tried to make the dish again. It was only mildly better.

This episode prompted me to look for my own pad thai recipe to try at home where we could control the ingredients used. The search brought me to this site, where many types of food get discussed.

The first time we made the pad thai, we followed the recipe almost exactly. The second time we ventured off and used different vegetables. This time, our third attempt, really only looks like pad thai because of the sauce. But is was still sooooo good.

More pictures here!

Tomato Season

2007-09-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

You might remember a few months ago, in this post, I was writing about the seasons. In our part of California, we don't really have seasons. The weather is always delightfully mild except for periods of rain in the "winter" and heat waves in May and September. Since it doesn't snow or get too cold, you really can only measure the seasons by the amount of daylight and the produce available at the farmer's market.

These past two weeks at the farmer's market have given us many beautiful tomatoes. Yummy tomatoes to make soup with, and soup we did, two weekends in a row! We have this really simple tomato soup recipe from our favorite cookbook, "The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest" (thanks again Christine and Paul!) that has never failed to be absolutely amazing. Of course the beauty of the soup is more about the quality of the tomatoes than the recipe. Honestly, what is better than in-season, fresh from the vine, organic and locally grown, hand picked tomatoes that you buy straight from the farmer?
You can't forget the required Tomato Soup Carrying Device: Grilled Cheese Sandwich! yum yum!

Yeah for Yoga!

2007-08-29T20:40:00.001-07:00

I just finished day 3 of the new school year. Only 177 more to go!

No, I'm actually feeling pretty good about this year so far. I decided to go "part time" this year. I'm only teaching 4 classes instead of 5. I still have two preps, advanced algebra and CAHSEE prep*, so it feels like the same amount of prep work, but I have fewer students overall and my load will get lighter as the school year goes on.

(* CAHSEE stands for California High School Exit Exam, a big test that the students have to take in order to graduate from high school. They have 6 opportunities to take it, starting in the 10th grade. My class is full of seniors that are down to their last 3 tries. Once they pass, they'll probably drop my class, making my load easier as the year goes on!)

So I cut back on my teaching load but I'm still going to be plenty busy this year. Starting next Tuesday, I will be co-leading a yoga after school club for our students. Some students will be able to take it for PE credit, some will just drop in for fun when they can.

In preparation for this class, my co-leader and I have been studying BKS Iyengar's "Light on Yoga" this summer and practicing teaching each other poses. We're going to have sooooo much fun together, even if no students show up. We're hoping they'll come, especially since they can take the class for credit! (and some of them really want the credit for graduation) I'll be sure to update on how the club is progressing.

Also to make sure I was ready for this class, I took a quiz about my yoga snob style. It was written by another Bay Area Yogi who loves sharing yoga with her teens. Here are my results!

I'm a Balanced Yogi!

A Balanced Yogi

You love your friends unconditionally and accept them for who they are no matter what their yoga style preference, religious beliefs, or spending habits. You focus on the good in people and would never try to change them. Almost everyone feels comfortable in your presence. You live your yoga. You are an inspiration to yoga students everywhere!

Take the Yoga Journal Yoga Snob Quiz!

Quite a nice message to hear before starting my teaching practice! Let's hope they're right.

Seattle

2007-08-24T23:37:00.000-07:00

I've been home from Seattle for 10 days now. I know I promised you some pictures a long time ago. But I just couldn't follow through. I had that thing I had to do this week that took up all of my time... that thing that I didn't remember how tiring it would make me. That thing called, "Work."

Ah, summer, where have you gone? So quick you passed us by! Many goals yet still to be accomplished! Many experiences yet to be had! How I was just getting comfortable with my new schedule, and now I'm reprogramming. I forgot what it felt like to be at school all day. I am tired and I haven't even seen my students yet.
Look at this perfect summer sky! With the bright colors! Look at that bright fish, spending time swimming amongst the lilies. Look at this couple, playing on the rocks, no rush, no lessons to plan, no classrooms to set up, no papers to grade, no staff meetings, no urgent needs except to enjoy a trip together. More HERE.

Deliciously Tempting Part 2

2007-08-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my good friend, Marisa, threw a party for her friends. The focus of the party was to raise money for the American Diabetes Association, a cause that has been supported by her family for many years. Her cousin and his team are participating in a walk in September and Marisa is raising money for team. To sweeten the incentive to give to a good cause, Marisa organized donations of pies from her friends and asked another friend from our church to bring his band out and play for the party. So far she has raised over $500 and there is still more coming in as people fulfill their pledges of support. If you are interested, you can check out the team here.

Deliciously Tempting

2007-08-19T22:26:00.001-07:00

School (with students) starts in one week. Staff meetings start this week.

Not Yet

2007-08-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

I know, you want to see the pictures of Seattle. We both do. You and me. But, well, you can't because I haven't bugged Grant enough to move from his desk so that I could get to the picture drive, yes the picture drive, and copy the pictures onto my computer to process them.

Instead, you will have to browse pictures that I took last night of our pool sharkiness taken with the newly fixed Pentax Optio. You know, this is the camera we had to send in for repair during the month of July because it mysteriously stopped working on the first day of our backpacking trip after being dropped twice in 5 minutes (once by me and once by Grant). Yeah for warranties!

Our pool outings are almost becoming a regular thing for us. We're not very good (well, not all of us) but we have a great time together! More HERE

Back from Seattle-- Summer is SO over!

2007-08-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick run down of our last week...

On Sunday, Grant preached in church. It was his second time in front of this crowd and it was great. You can listen to it here.

Summer officially ended on Monday August 6th when I went to my first PD of the month. On Mon/Tues I learned about how to be a coach for a new teacher. I haven't been paired up with a teacher yet, but as soon as someone is available at my school site or near by, I will be. Then I'll spend about 1 hour a week meeting with this new teacher and mentoring them through their first 2 years at the Castle.

On Tuesday night, Grant and I flew to Seattle for my second PD of the month. This time a 3.5 day conference about building a Professional Learning Community at my school. I was there with my principal and one other staff member and we learned many tools to help us come together as a staff by leaving our independent classroom kingdoms for some collaboration time, focus on learning (rather than teaching), use student data wisely, common assessments, and overall just being happier in our profession. (why do most teachers quit within the first 5 years of teaching?). In the evenings, Grant and I toured all around the city. We are officially undecided about whether Seattle will be the next place we want to live.

After the conference was done on Saturday, Grant and I rented a car and drove south to Tacoma for the night. We swung by an REI to get some fuel for our stove. We couldn't bring the fuel from home with us because 1) It wasn't in a container that was 3 oz or less and 2) It didn't fit into a quart size ziplock bag. (never mind the fact that it is flammable-- oh and did anyone really notice that Grant forgot to even take his quart sized ziplock bag full of less than 3 oz items out of his carry on bag? Nope!) We then drove to the Olympic National Park and spent a night in a rain forest. And get this, while we were there, it actually rained. I haven't seen rain in a few months so I was super excited. On Tuesday morning, we drove back the airport, returned the car and flew back home to Oakland.

On Tuesday night we had LIFE group at our house (a small group of folks from our church who get together weekly to check-in about current challenges and graces and then participate in a bible study on the weekly lectionary).

Wednesday our God son, Aaron, came over and the went shopping and finished teaching him to ride his bike. He is almost a pro now.

Thursday (today) brought me PD #3. This time I'm working with a group of Math Teachers who want to learn together about how to teach their students literacy skills. We've come together because we're tired of people teaching us techniques that work really well in English and Social Studies classes! Tomorrow will be more of the same.

Weekend... breathe... going to a wedding...

Next week I will be getting back into my classroom and arranging everything, spending time with my staff and finally getting my act together on all of those summer goals I wanted to accomplish.

In other non-professional development news, I recently got accepted into an Advanced Yoga Studies program at a local yoga studio. About 2 months ago, this was something I really wanted to do. Now I'm not so sure. I'll go to the first couple of classes and then decide.

That's that. Pictures will be coming soon. Grant and I shared a few memory cards in Seattle so we're currently trying to sort things out and then start processing them.

Recycling

2007-08-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

There is a large pile of boxes in our dining room from the "recycling" that we do in our house. First, we buy a new toy (or are gifted a new toy from our parents). Usually this toy isn't new, but pre-owned. It arrives at our door in a box. It is unpacked with delight and all shipping contents are saved.

After some time has passed and technology has changed, we upgrade or trade-in. Much research is completed on ebay, craigslist, and other websites, and a new item of interest is decided upon for the trade-in. Then the search for the perfect buy commences. A while later UPS delivers a box to our door and the new pre-owned trade-in toy is played with and loved.

But, where does the box go? The box goes in a pile in the dining room where it will wait until it can be filled with the old toy that has just been sold. Thus the boxes get recycled. Lately there has been a glitch in the system. The number of new toys brought into the house has outgrown the number of old toys leaving the house, and along with my frustration level, the box pile has grown. There are packing peanuts escaping from plastic bags and statically attaching themselves to other objects.

It is no wonder that with the mess in our house we feel a little anxiety about the clutter. So what do we do about fixing this problem?

Find more closet space!

A few weekends ago, I was cleaning out the front closet in hopes of finding more stuff to put into the pile in the dining room for removal from the home. I found a large box full of candles. Many of the candles were 3/4 burned. They were not good enough to go to salvation army and I didn't want to throw them away, so I decided to be a little creative. Being that it is summer break for like 2 more days I had some time to kill on a Friday afternoon. And here was my adventure...

Step 1: Get the old wax out of the candle holders by placing into boiling water. Note: only use pots that you don't need, because the wax is hard to get out. I chose to use our old aluminum backpacking pots with the coating that is pealing off (into our food?).

Step 2: Pour wax into a second pot and add other wax from candles that were not in holders. Use low heat. Fish out all of the old wicks.

Step 3: Wash out the candle holders and place new wicks in the bottom.

Step 4: Pour in the wax and let it cool. Different temperatures of wax seem to make different patterns as it cools. I don't know the specifics, but something was definitely different about the wax used in the second layer of this jar candle. The top layer was liquid in this picture but dried as a dark blue.

Step 5: Cut the wicks down, admire your work, and take pictures! Oh, and don't forget to use the new candles or else they'll just sit in the closet again!

More Photos of the NIght

2007-08-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay in posting some pictures. My computer is 94% back to normal operating conditions. Just this afternoon I had my first opportunity to look at some pictures on my computer (since I don't know how to speak macbook).

The three of us, Grant, Jane, and I went to Sunday night's destination of Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. (click on the links for more pictures of our adventures)

This is a part of the city, about 8 blocks total, located on the Oakland waterfront next to the Oakland port. It is across the estuary from Alameda Island. On clear nights you can see the Bay Bridge and the lights from SF. You can see the ships coming into port and the cranes lifting off the cargo. This is also the location for the Golden Gate Ferry across the bay and the Amtrak station.

We went around 8pm to try to catch some sunset light, but we were impaired again by the Giant Mass of Fog which swept in to cover the water and sun.

We were also disappointed by the lights around the square. Jack London Square must be the safest place in Oakland. It is so light we thought it was still daytime. We still had a good time together.

Night Photography by the Lake

2007-07-29T18:05:00.001-07:00

While walking in the grass last night near the Lakeview Library in Oakland, the REM song, "Night Swimming" came into mind, especially the first verse.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows.
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.
Still, its so much clearer.
I forgot my shirt at the waters edge.
The moon is low tonight.

As I do with many songs, I tried to change a few words to make the lyrics match my current activity. One would never go swimming in Lake Merritt as it is pretty gross with pollution and bird crap. We were carrying our cameras and I played around with the words "Night shooting, deserves a quiet night." Although all we were doing was taking photographs, the reality of gun violence is too great here. In fact, after we got home last night, we were watching some KQED short videos and we thought that we had heard a gun shot somewhere in the neighborhood. With that event so fresh in my mind, I could not bring myself to title my post with such a saddening pun.

So where are the pictures that we took at night? Where are the streetlights? Where is the water's edge?

Well, happily and unfortunately, I'm currently in the middle of a reinstall of windows on my computer. My computer is now lightning fast with turning on and shutting down. But, I haven't installed any of the photo processing software and since I haven't learned macbook language yet, I can't use Grant's computer. You'll have to wait a few days to see my pictures from the evening, but for now you can feast on the photos taken by our very talented friend Jane. And if you want to see more of her work, check out her webpage: Kilmer Photography.

Mid-Week Warriors

2007-07-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this site while reading a blog and found this picture quite funny. So funny that I called Grant over to see it. This joke has kept with us for over a week now so I thought I would share it with you. This joke followed us to Sonoma Valley this week.

For those of you not familiar with California geography, I live in Alameda County (home of cities like Berkeley and Oakland). Across the bay, to the west, is San Francisco County. Just to the north of SF, over the Golden Gate Bridge is Marin County, where there are crazy amounts of breast cancer. Then just north of that is Sonoma County. To the east of Sonoma is the more well known Napa County, but we don't go there because it's a little too "touristy".

The highlights of the trip for me were our visits to Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves and Sonoma Coast State Beach.

We have visited this winery twice before, once with Grant’s parents and once with two friends of Grant from his time in India. We visited this winery first on our trip north through the valley on Tuesday. We rolled in around 11:30am and decided that this would be our lunch spot. Gloria Ferrer doesn’t do “tasting” for their champagnes. So you either buy it by the glass or bottle. Usually we get a bottle, but since it was just the two of us, we opted for glasses. Grant got the Royal Curve and I got the Rose Brut. This was the best lunch that we have shared in quite a while. We were both so relieved to be out of the city. We haven’t been under too much stress, unless you think the act of figuring out how to best fill your time while on summer break as stressful. Still, it was so nice to be on a mission, checking off another summer goal on my list.

On the second day of our trip, we drove about an hour west from the valley to the ocean and spent the next two days wandering along the coast taking pictures with our twin cameras (that’s a good topic for another post, maybe I tell you tomorrow). It is so strange the feelings that arise when I am by the ocean. I didn’t necessarily want to go in it, in fact most of the beaches in Northern California are not really safe for swimming. But, like snow, the ocean just seems to be a place I need to go every now and then to remind me how life is like outside my city boundaries.

No matter how much fun I have on these trips, by the last day, I’m always ready to come back home. As we were crossing the Richmond Bridge (across the northern part of the bay) about 25 minutes from Oakland, I found myself signing to myself, “oh I want to be back in my city by the bay, whoa, oh, ohhhh.” Who can name that reference?

More picture of the trip can be found here.

In the Garden

2007-07-22T14:26:00.001-07:00

I love this time of the summer when the fruit are actually changing colors and getting ready to be eaten. Click on the picture for more from our patio garden.

I'm Back

2007-07-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. You know how these things go. I've been having lots of trouble doing some things on the internet. Some websites have become such a great pest that I don't even try logging in to them very ofter because I get soooo frustrated. These include yahoo groups, myspace, and xanga. Each requires several presses of F5 to get anywhere. Yes this might just be our internet service (which I'm not sure where it comes from... somewhere in our apartment building)... or it might be some weird setting within firefox that I don't know how to fix... or it just might be my computer's own moral judgments about which websites are acceptable for my eyes (thank you, my loving lati610). So my xanga account is useless. And, most of the people that I subscribed to on xanga aren't blogging anymore, so I'm out. It's over (use the teen girl squad voice) there, but starting again here. More updates to come, well, sort of, you know how these things go.

The Big Weekend Report

2007-05-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

The play by play run down of a very fulfilling and exciting couple of days!

I’m not feeling sentences right now, so this is more like a list

Friday: Slept in till 8:30 because it was a day off!! Sucked in my lower abs for an hour while my friend Marisa taught her Friday Pilates class (I was very excited that I got to go), met with my awesome Pastor at church for an hour about some work that I’ll be doing for the next 6 months while our other pastor is on sabbatical, came home and ate, checked email, drove two friends to the BART station (they’re in MI right now for two weddings), knocked on Jenn and Craig’s door for our planned evening movie watching but Jenn was too tired, being pregnant and all, so I went home (two doors down the hallway) and watched “The 40 Year Old Virgin” all by myself and ate my popcorn. Grant called around 10pm and I burst into tears because he told me that he was on his way home- a day early, he arrived just after midnight.

Saturday: Got a phone call at 3:30am from Craig asking for some Mylanta and Benadryl for Jenn who was exhausted from not sleeping and thought she was having gas pains from the chili they ate for dinner. Woke up around 9am with Grant by my side (a change from the previous 5 mornings). Headed out to the farmer’s market and knocked on our neighbor’s door to see if they wanted anything, they were in labor, so their answer was no. As we stepped out of the building, tears beaded in my eyes. Today was my dad’s birthday, and now it will be someone else’s birthday and someone’s anniversary. We walked down to the farmer’s market, our favorite Saturday activity, and found that the pluots are in season, and so are the cherries… soooooo yummmmy. Sat on some grass and munched on the cherries while we listened to live music and people watched. Came back around 12:30 and the neighbor’s car was gone so we guessed they were at the hospital, giving birth. At 2pm we attended the wedding of our church’s music director, sat with a bunch of friends for church and had a blast. Came home, checked on our neighbor’s kitties and borrowed a movie from them to watch in the evening. At 10pm we got a call to tell us that the delivery went well and that the world had a new baby boy to take care of.

Sunday: Sung in the choir at church, it was a light service, I’m guessing because it was memorial day. Shared the news with our church community of the birth, came home and enjoyed my husband who had been gone for a week. We started planning our summer backpacking trip to Desolation Wilderness and started making some phone calls to see who else was interested. Are any of you interested? One person who was very interested was Rebecca. Who ended up calling Jenn and got us a visitation approval. We drove the 3 minutes to the hospital and within moments were holding a newborn. Yeah for miracles. Like a little kid, I looked at Jenn and said, “Wow, that thing was inside you,”

Monday: Memorial Day Meditation Retreat (1/2 day) in our home, where Grant and I woke at 6am and followed a strict schedule, with a Treo programmed to play a chime at the appropriate times.

6am: sun salutations (a series of yoga poses)

6:15: sitting meditation/centering prayer

6:45: walking meditation

7:00: breakfast (in silence)

7:30: cleaning activity (Grant did the bathroom… thank you, thank you!)

8:00: sitting meditation

8:30: walking meditation

8:45: reading scripture, book, and journaling

9:30: sitting meditation

10:00: snack on brownies made last night and debrief.

I’ll have to write another time about my observations from doing this retreat.

I then went to another pilates class taught by my friend Marisa, went to lunch with another friend Paul, came home and started on my school work, got distracted and started to write this blog, and eventually got back to my school work. Yeah for 12 more school days with students. 16 more working days until summer vacation!

Anniversary Present

2007-05-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

For my third anniversary of being married to Grant, I asked my mom to send me some flowers… the kind with the bulbs still attached. And she did. Unfortunately, UPS and I had a hard time hooking up and the box took almost 2 weeks to get into the apartment. It visited the apartment building daily for about a week and then finally Grant was home one day to let the box into the door.

So imagine a bunch of plants wrapped in wet newspaper, put into a black plastic bag, and stuck in a cardboard box for two weeks. What would it be like to open such a box? I’ll give you a hint. It has something to do with slime. We had to open the box outside because it stunk so badly. I had to use the hose outside wash the decomposing newspaper and plant matter off of the stocks. I then planted what remained into the pots I had prepared beforehand, watered them, and waited. About a week later, there was no change. About a week after that, however, I came outside to find growth! Check it out. (hyperlink to flickr)

In addition to those future beauties, I have planted the typical crop of tomato plants. (hyperlink to flickr) Amazingly, the strawberry plants from last year survived my abuse and lack of watering. Back in April, I “fluffed” the soil, by that I mean I dug up the plant, worked in some new soil and fertilizer, and then replaced the plant. Now we’ll be enjoying strawberries (hyperlink to flickr) all summer.

Growing food at home is great, but it’s not enough to feed us. Going to the farmer’s market for fresh produce has really spoiled us but it has also taught us some lessons about appreciating each season of the year. Once the tomatoes stopped at the farmer’s market in the late fall, the ones at the store were just not as appetizing. I almost felt bad expecting a tomato forced to grow at the wrong time of year, in a hot house, to meet my expectations. As a result, I’ve gone almost 5 months without any tomatoes! I don’t even have a craving for them because I know that it will be worth the wait for fresh tomatoes in July. When the grapefruit hit its peak back in March, I was in heaven. But now that they’re not in season anymore, I can’t stand grapefruit again.

I understand that we live in a country where we feel that we are entitled to have whatever we want, when we want it, including food. Why else would we have these massive grocery stores with the never changing produce sections? But what a difference it has made to me to know that I will enjoy something so much more because I have waited for it to come at its own time. And it is then, and only then, that I will know how it was meant to be, instead of how I would have demanded it be. Isn’t that so much better?

Guilty!

2007-05-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning after a much better night of sleep, although my throat was dry and my nose was wet, just like usual. My goal for my day off was to relax, be introspective, discover the meaning of life and my true vocation. After a short mediation, a crunchy breakfast and doing the dishes, I decided to visit the mold. It pretty much consumed the rest of my morning.

In other news, I walked down to Lakeshore Ave with my favorite pregnant lady. She wondered why my car was in the garage so she knocked on my door. I was thrilled by the invitation to leave my moldy bedroom. We were on a mission for a pedicure and manicure. Not for me, just for her. While I waited, I stopped by a cute little consignment shop, Maribels’s, highly recommended by two good friends and found a cute little top. Sorry, no picture yet.

Home Alone

2007-05-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

In celebration of finishing 97% of a challenging semester on time, Grant is backpacking with two friends in Ventana Wilderness (near Big Sur, California) for a week. Yes, I’m a little jealous since it was a last minute trip that I couldn’t go on because I have this thing I do called work. Yes, it was sad when I showed Esther, the daughter of the friend who invited Grant on the trip but who is actually our age and hopefully will become our friend too, how to use her water filter. Yes it is also sad that my hiking pants, which Esther is borrowing, will have fun without me. But how could I say no? This is the last summer of fun for Grant. Come September, Grant signs the next 12 months of his life away to CPE at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in SF. And then the working scales of our family will be more balanced.

So I’m home alone for the week. Night #1 was very restless for the first 2 hours and I woke up tired. I muscled through a day at school, but was angry and my students felt it. I then did what I was dreaming about doing over the weekend: I called for a substitute so I could take tomorrow off. I’m just exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well, even when Grant was next to me. My nose has uncontrollable sneezing and mucus flow only at night. Tomorrow will be a much needed day of rest. Looking ahead at the calendar, it is really the only day I can take until the school year is done (15 school days… 17 including staff days)

What else am I doing with my time alone? Obviously I’m updating my blog. I’m going to clean parts of the apartment including the mold that is starting to grow around the bedroom window (could that be related to my sneezing? Doctor’s appointment scheduled for June 8^th to find out). I’m going to take control of the alarm clock and sleep on my side of the bed. I’m going to a yoga class and a Pilates class. I’ll probably have dinner with friends. I’m going to try that meditation and journaling thing that I’ve been promising myself that I would start doing for months. I’m even going to paint a 2” x 4” section of a wall in the living room. White.

On the bright and romantic side of all of this, Grant planned ahead and wrote me a love note for every day that I wouldn’t see him. I have specific instructions as to which note to read on each day. So far I’ve been honest and have only read the note for Monday. He also insisted that we make a huge pan of lasagna on Sunday morning before he left so that I wouldn’t be stuck eating macaroni and cheese all week. It is incredibly yummy lasagna, as always, but I’m still going to have mac n cheese at least once this week.

HAIR

2006-06-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

I just got my hair cut and I'm excited to share a picture with you. Many of you don't know but I don't get my hair cut very often. So when I do, it is an exciting time. The last time I cut my hair was in August, just before Tim and Anna's 2nd Wedding Celebration. You're going to look at the picture and not see much difference. It's practically the same haircut, but believe me, my hair did grow in the last 10 months to just below my shoulders (more than enough for a great pony tail). This was also the first time I've ever cut my hair in California. (we've been here for two years).

The woman who cut my hair is a member of my church. She is so fun. The hair cut experience was like spending an hour with a friend and somehow getting a new do in the process.

In other news... summer is here! I've been out of school for a week and have been loving this slow paced life we got going.

We had an excelent potluck last night in our home with 12 good friends from around Lake Merrit. It's going to turn into the monthly traveling potluck. I'm excited because it's a really fun group. We had laughter, good food, great wine, conversations and some guitar jamming from Grant and Eben. We're all looking forward to the next gathering.

Grant and I are in the planning stages for a July hiking trip to Emigrant Wilderness (just north of Yosemite).

Another Quiz

2006-06-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

Another one of those quizzes...

I fell into the trap again... taking another online quiz! These results don't surprise me too much (except #1 and #3 -- I guess I really didn't know much about quakers!)

According to http://beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

1.	Liberal Quakers (100%)
2.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
3.	Orthodox Quaker (97%)
4.	Unitarian Universalism (96%)
5.	New Age (84%)
6.	Neo-Pagan (82%)
7.	Theravada Buddhism (74%)
8.	Mahayana Buddhism (73%)
9.	Reform Judaism (72%)
10.	Secular Humanism (70%)
11.	Taoism (68%)
12.	Hinduism (64%)
13.	Scientology (63%)
14.	New Thought (62%)
15.	Seventh Day Adventist (60%)
16.	Bahá'í Faith (59%)
17.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (58%)
18.	Jainism (58%)
19.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (57%)
20.	Orthodox Judaism (43%)
21.	Sikhism (43%)
22.	Eastern Orthodox (42%)
23.	Roman Catholic (42%)
24.	Nontheist (39%)
25.	Islam (36%)
26.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (34%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (21%)

I can do it!

2006-05-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

My little trip over the weekend served three main purposes. #1 An excuse to get out of the house on Memorial Day Weekend since my lovely husband was out of town at a conference. #2 To check out a new park that I had never been to before for the possibility of taking a small group sometime in the near future (either a group from school or church). #3 To prove to myself that I really do have the skills that I think I have.

Thursday Night: I gave a printed itinerary, with tons of phone numbers and contacts, and a map to my good friend Denise (the mother of my God son) in case I didn't return on time.

Friday Morning: Lazily roll out of bed around 8am when my husband calls me from Michigan. I took a shower, ate breakfast, checked email, got my food together, packed the pack and finally left the house at about 10:30am. Did some last minute food shopping, got some cash and filled up the tank with biofuel from our favorite place www.biofueloasis.com. I finally left Berkeley/Oakland around 11:30.

Friday Afternoon: Driving around the Bay is a mystery to me. You never know when there might be alot of traffic of not. On the way south towards San Jose, traffic was wonderful until I actually got into San Jose, then there was construction. The other mystery is the lack of exit numbers and you never know which street or town might be listed on an exit sign so when you exit the freeway, you really are taking your chances. Unfortunately I guessed incorrectly and got off one exit too late. But I didn't realize it at the time because I thought I had seen the road I was looking for (it actually parallels the freeway for a short time and I got off at the wrong spot). My second mistake was not looking up the word names for the numbered routes I was supposed to take (like who knew Route 35 is the same as Skyline Blvd?) This is where I'm thankful that I enjoy driving my car and I kept trying to remind myself that this is all part of the adventure. When I couldn't get a hold of Grant, I ended up calling my mom for directions. She looked them up on Yahoo and tried to help me, but really all I did was make her worry. I finally made it to the park around 2:30pm and started to make my final preparations to head out onto the trail.

Friday Evening: The hike in was beautiful and easy. It was about 2.8 miles to the campground. My pack was under 25 lbs. I felt good. I got into camp around 5pm and checked the place out before making myself dinner. By 8pm I was cold and bored. I had already set up the tent, cooked, cleaned, brushed my teeth, hung my food, and read for awhile. It was starting to get dark and I was cold so I decided to go to bed.

Saturday Morning: I woke up a few times during the night because of the wind or being cold or restless because I had been laying down for so long. As soon as the sun hit my tent, I got out and started the day. It was about 6am. I was back to my car by 9am and home by 10:15. (Notice 3 hours to get there, 1:15 to get home-- yikes! What getting lost does to your travel time!)

On this trip I learned that I can successfully take care of myself on the trail by myself. I also learned that I am alot colder when I'm by myself and that I get bored easier. I missed my husband greatly. Here are some pics. http://photos.yahoo.com/theaussiepea.

No matter

2006-05-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome.

Last Weekend on Life’s Journey

I am the newest, proudest owner of a comma. (if you don't know what it is, then ask!) Grant and I went to our church's conference's annual meeting this past weekend. (The conference is about 150 UCC churches in northern CA and Nevada). The meeting was held at Asilomar, a state park on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It is also a conference center. (I think it used to be owned by the YMCA or something and then it was donated to the state of California as a park, so the conference center was already established). The grounds of Asilomar were just beautiful. The coast alternated from rocky outcroppings to sandy beaches. Just inland there were small gently rolling dunes with sparse vegetation. About ¼ mile inland, the trees started and then the larger hills. Although we were there to be delegates from our church to vote whenever needed, I found myself dying through the legislation (this reaction really surprised me because I thought I would be interested in the whole process). At one point I just left to talk a walk and get a snack. Many other times while walking from one building to another we would see deer. They were the “almost but not quite wild” type of deer. They didn’t approach us begging for food, but they didn’t run away either when we were on the path right next to them. I guess they are just used to humans staying on the trail and not bugging them. Although, one doe did interrupt a meeting I attended on Saturday morning. The cottage had windows on all four sides. At first we just saw the doe walking around the building. Then she signaled to her fawns that it was safe. After walking all the way around the building, she stopped in front of a window and started nursing her babies. Needless to say, the meeting stopped and the whole group was surrounding the windows to watch this display. Months from now I won’t remember who was in my group or what we talked about but I’ll remember those deer and how I longed to just sit and watch them.

Instead of pay $300 each for lodging and meals, Grant and I opted for camping in a city park about 10 minutes away from Asilomar. Camping doesn’t phase me at all anymore. But I did mind that we were on top of a hill. On Friday night I woke up to the sound of seals barking in the distance in Monterey Bay. There was a diesel engine running somewhere. There was the 101 freeway. And then there was the fog horn. Saturday night was slightly better. But Sunday night back in my own bed was the best.

The theme of the conference was covenant. Covenant was the word heard most often from everyone who spoke or led worship. The word is so full of meaning that I’m still not sure all that it means. From the stories that I heard from other people, I feel that my church is really something special where covenant is lived out in the daily life of the church. I’m always amazed at how my church can exist the way it does and attracts the type of people that is does. It is amazing. I really wish all UCC churches could be like ours. Our church really is an exception to the rule. I noticed while at the conference that I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in a large room with so many white people. This made me slightly uncomfortable because I have grown more accustomed to being surrounded by people of all shades and the different energy that creates.

This Weekend on Life’s Journey

Grant is in Adrian, Michigan at a conference until Sunday. If you are near there, call him to see him. Grant’s parents are staying the weekend in Adrian to visit. I, on the other hand, am going to spend my Memorial Day weekend proving to myself that I can create my own successful solo backpacking trip. I spent this evening packing my pack of everything except food and my camera. The thing is up to 19 pounds now, so I hopeful that with food I’ll be under 25. I’m heading into the Santa Cruz Mountains to Castle Rock State Park. I hear it has climbing. But the climbing is close to the parking lot so maybe I just toss my shoes and harness into the trunk and see what happens. I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes.

Two last Tidbits…

First: 13 days left of school. I’m so excited. I can’t wait. I’ve never been so ready for summer.

Second: I’m so in love with my car and the fact that we are buying little to no petroleum fuel. I love driving it, knowing that I’m not buying into the inflated gas frenzie. Although, I must admit that the car's exhaust has been smelling a little funny lately… like deep fried something…

The Weekend Report

2006-05-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

Friday- Drove from Oakland to Sausalito through horrible unexpected traffic. We should have expected it but weren’t thinking about it because we never drive anyway around the bay at 5pm because of traffic! We ended up at our destination at 6:30pm about 30 minutes behind schedule so we really had to hustle to build our kayaks for a 7pm departure from the beach. Fortunately the other paddlers were happily milling around making final preparations and some other stragglers showed up at the last minute. About 7:15pm the Kinney’s were ready and all 18 of us stood in a circle to introduce ourselves and get a run down of the trip. We would cross Richardson Bay, go around Peninsula Point (on the Tiburon Peninsula) and then across Belvedere Cove. The plan was to head to a restaurant as the sun was setting behind us, arrive at the restaurant at dusk, then head back by the light of the full moon.

On the way there, I got frustrated with myself because I was the slowest paddler on the trip. We never got lost but eventually everyone passed me. This is partly due to my inexperience and infrequent paddling and partly due to have a very stable boat that tracks well but doesn’t move a quickly as some less stable boats (http://www.folbot.com/kiawah.html (mine is blue) this is Grant’s https://www.folbot.com/cooper.html (in yellow)). But, as apartment dwellers with very limited storage, we don’t have as many choices for kayaks. We’re lucky that we’re crazy enough to enjoy such an expensive hobby. One member of the group got caught in some choppy water and flipped over. A swarm of 5 kayaks helped her get back in and in the process Grant and I caught up to the group. We all headed for a restaurant in a marina in Tiburon. All 18 of us sat in 3 huge booths, complete with wetsuits and paddle jackets. Everyone else in the restaurant was is suits and skirts ordering $20+ seafood dinners. We stood out just a little bit but the wait staff was not phased at all. After chocolate lava cake and a caramel apple crisp, Grant and I were ready to paddle back to Sausalito. We broke up into 3 pods, ours with 8 paddlers. Each boat had at least one light on board and we all shared the moonlight. The wind had died down a bit and the flood had slowed down making a wonderfully easy paddle on the way home. I look forward to going again sometime! http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/theaussiepea/album?.dir=/1b45scd&.src=ph

Saturday- Grant finished putting together his newest recumbent and we took it for a ride around Lake Merritt (in downtown Oakland) in the early afternoon. At night we celebrated the 2nd annual Castleview Rooftop Kaboom Fireworks Show with Judith and Steven, our neighbors in Berkeley. KFOG 104.5 is a local radio station that puts on free concert and fireworks show on pier 30 in SF every May for the last 14 years. Last year I listened to the radio and heard the announcement of the fireworks show. We were skeptical that it would be any good but we went up onto the roof anyways. We ran an extension cord from the kitchen to the roof so that we could listen to the simulcast / soundtrack on the radio and make ice cream / banana smoothies. It was so cool. The booms from the fireworks were behind by a good 30 seconds (because SF is like 10 miles away) but we could definitely see the fireworks. This year we planned ahead a little bit. We made arrangements to go have dinner with our old neighbors and a new couple that had moved into the building (not into our apartment). We created the smoothies in the kitchen and poured them into yogurt containers for transport to the roof. We took a portable/battery radio so there was no extension cord and we remembered to bring chairs up with us. The fireworks got off to a late start which made me worried that I had the wrong time. They lasted about 25 minutes and then we just sat on the roof, soaking in the views that we have been missing since moving to Oakland. It was a wonderful night with old friends.

Sunday- Super cool church, as always. The sermon was about loving your mom. The weather really warmed up today. Hopefully some time this afternoon Grant and I will take a walk to the rose garden. That’s after we call our moms… Happy mother’s day to you all!