do not be alarmed...

but i totally got into this pose (yogi's sleep) yesterday in brande's forrest class. my hips and shoulders are officially open. now to work on my hamstrings.

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i brought home a yogi! :)

i met kim at the forrest teacher training and convinced her to come and visit in salt lake. we've done yoga classes, ate at the red iguana, hot tubbing in the snow, cupcakes, round robin yoga and hatches chocolate, amongst other things. so fun.

the beach in the chicago is quite cold in october. the water is freezing. yet this little girlie has no fear. she walks straight for it, val or i will pull her away setting her down in the sand and she immediately heads for the water again.

b the w. she is the most darling little thing. check out her skinny jeans and way cute shirt (buttons up the back :). seriously...if only that shirt came in my size. of course she is still rocking the pixie cut 'a la' michelle williams:

oh liva...i forsee a stylin' future little miss.

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my nephew the photographer 2

my nephew's latest camera escapades. he definitely likes to get up close and personal with people, see last year's.

[photos by nephew ]

our first weekend teaching ana said to wear bright bold colors. a teacher's body should be seen. well i'm the queen of black yoga pants (there were a few of us). ana wears reds, pink, blues and tons of tie dye. so i'm working up to it. i should probably go for something like the top option but i'm definitely drawn to the bottom (very dark :).

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this will be my sister valery and me for the next few days. talk talk talking. of course insert adorable babies jumping across the bed :)

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glorious fall weather in chicago. so much for all the fuss about how cold it would be.

a bunch of fellow trainees and me on the beach here. truly amazing ladies.

so what a cool way to get old mismatched chairs to work seamlessly together yeah?

[designsponge...of course]

so. i got into head to ankle on both sides today. booyah.

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so at the forrest yoga training we paired off with 'nutrition buddies'. someone that became an automatic friend/confidant. we talked about our nutrition issues (mine being sugar), we played the secrets game together, essentially it is someone that is available for support/to talk to during the training.

well one of our homework assignments was to discuss our own personal ethics and jenna (my nutrition buddy) and i decided to shop and eat while chatting :)

we hit up lululemon (b the w yoga teachers get 15% off everything...woot woot!) and ate at flat top grill for dinner. way yummy. you grab a bowl and it's buffet style stir fry. pile as much veggies, rice, noodles, sauces, etc, that you want and they stir fry it up for you. i got brown rice and noodles (in retrospect jenna and i both think we'd go with just noodles next time), asparagus, carrots, green peppers, pineapple, potatoes, broccoli, and chicken with garlic black bean sauce. so so so tasty. it's a flat price so we piled our bowls super high (the guy in front of us demoed how to get the most stuff in your bowl...noodles on top) and ate the left overs for lunch.

unfortunately i didn't take any pictures even though i thought about it and brought my camera. suffice it to say it was yummy and makes me want to have stir fry more often (lams and j-dawg remember the stir fry we had at the villa!? so good).

three more days of early morning intensive yoga practices. two additional days after that of instruction. it's crazy how fast the time has flown.

cucumber feta toast

saw this tasty treats a little bit ago and it's stayed on my mind. then again most things involving feta do :)

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i've been spending around 11 to 12 hours a day at generations yoga studio in wilmette, illinois. i was caught doing this during our lunch break a few days ago:

sleeping in the bolsters :)

i originally heard this version of be still my soul in an episode of alias. i loved it. it has been running through my head again for a couple of weeks now. still love it.

this little guy climbs into bed with me most nights.

he says, "kay kay, cuddle wif me."

it really is just so melt-to-the-floor cute.

p.s. lams he loves the shirts :)

much of our teacher training has been focused on change. ana provided us with her formula for change:

1. catch yourself doing behavior

2. take many deep breaths to reset your energy

3. congratulate yourself for having caught behavior

4. take a step that puts you in a healing path or direction (as you do this you will develop a repertoire of steps)

one example of something that ana says to investigate is our addiction to foods or certain types of foods. me, sugar. me, addict.

so when i'm craving sugar because i'm bored, sad, tired, etc., i should catch myself in the craving...hopefully pre-ice cream scooping process (because as saint like as i'd like to be, once a bowl is scooped there's no stopping). congratulate myself on being self aware enough to have caught the behavior. then do something.

keeping in mind, "don't make changes to the extreme as it sets you up for failure". one thing recommend was if you're craving something 'sweet' then do something that feels sweet to you.

now it's hard for me to conceive of something that would be a sufficient 'sweet' replacement but even just recognizing what was the catalyst behind the craving i think is a step in a good direction.

hmmm. interesting.

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ana asked us on one of the first few days to stop saying the phrase, "i'm sorry" for the duration of the training. she said that many of us walk in the door with the attitude of apology. we need to stop apologizing for taking up space on this planet.

it makes sense. so we've tried to stop apologizing. and seriously, i had no idea how often i said the word sorry.

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i'm hoping to be able to hold a forearm balance away from the wall before this training is over. with a relaxed neck of course. i'm wanting to do this somewhat because how cool would it be to do forearm balances in amazing places all over the world :)

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we are slowly becoming forrest yoga teachers. the above (awesome awesome) group and i taught a 2 hour beginner class last saturday. in the words of ana forrest, "you guys rocked it".

:)