Crow pose

Down with call week. I am SO GLAD Bishop is in his specialty because I don't think I could manage something with more call. It's been a rough one, despite my attempts at outings for my sweet little crazies. I even had to make a pact with myself that I would go an entire day without yelling at either of them (baby B doesn't provoke my inner yelling monster...yet...) and I actually made it. Then I made it a second. Then today hit and I felt desperately close to critical mass. Due to a series of unfortunate events I missed my yoga class this morning - usually I'm good with yoga at the gym or at home, doesn't matter, but today I really could have used the 90 minute child care - so I meticulously tried to arrange for all three kids to nap at once. I even coaxed S into a snooze by snuggling him on the couch and we set a timer. When that 15 minutes was up, I had a lovely power nap and S was sound asleep...it was my golden opportunity.

Let's talk yoga. I really love yoga. Strength, endurance and flexibility all wrapped into one glorious exercise discipline. I like it for up to 60 minutes usually, though on rare occasion I can deal with breaking the hour threshold (one of my favorite prenatal yoga dvd's is 75 minutes, and P90X's yoga is 90 minutes; both well worth the time). Most of the time I can squeeze in a 20-30 minute session from yogadownload.com, but today I needed the hour. Since I've been doing P90X2 all week I went with it and popped that one in. Seriously, if you don't buy into all the homeopathic claims of yoga I highly recommend Tony Horton's yoga DVD's. He doesn't go into anything like that and keeps it very athletic. Personally, I like to believe that doing a headstand is going to improve my complexion and plow will improve digestion, but hey, to each their own.

ANYWAY, Tony loves crow pose; it made the cut for both P90X and P90X2. I started to like it a lot more recently because I can actually hold it for the entire minute. Last week, though, I learned again why it is good to not rely completely on DVD's because at yoga class the instructor did a very detailed crow pose and made a minor, but dramatic, alteration on mine. I needed to look forward. Usually I'm so concentrated on holding my core in, keeping my hips flexed, etc. that I'm staring at the floor right beneath me. As soon as she helped direct my gaze ahead, everything felt so balanced, and I didn't have to struggle as much to hold a pose my body could easily handle.

Today during my DVD I applied this new tip with the same result. It was awesome. Now I just need to figure out how to extend one leg back for the handstand part...but that's for another day.

So, as I sit here having broken my non-yelling pact because of a rather vigorous bedtime routine with S&E on my own and, quite frankly, feeling sorry for myself that I have to endure call week, my thoughts turn back to the crow pose. I think I tend to wallow in the moment too much - like the U2 song, I find myself 'stuck in a moment that I can't get out of.' Perhaps if I just set my sights further ahead I'll find greater balance, and S's whines that his mosquito bites are itchy won't exasperate me so because I'd be able to see that he's learning about how much he is loved from me. It probably wouldn't have killed me to apply calamine lotion...again...for the fifth time. And maybe I'd remember that I'm not the one actually doing the call WORK - it's Bishop who's had to answer the middle of the night pages and stay late until every patient has finished their treatments for the day (and then come home and exercise on an empty stomach because of our 8-week challenge and his determination to have perfect points...no eating after 9, and you must exercise 45 minutes).

Maybe I'm trying too hard to struggle in a pose. Relax, look forward and perhaps get a better perspective.

I love yoga.

Off to go clean up today's shrapnel.

(Amazingly enough, yoga was the ONLY exercise I did today. Usually I feel compelled to flank yoga with something else, but today I just let it be enough.)

Crow Pose:

(this is not me :)

30-20-10

Bishop is on call this week. Don't get me wrong, 'call' in his specialty is relatively gentle. But it still makes for a crazy week full of crazy children and a very tired husband. Mercifully they only have call weeks their first year (only ONE MORE after this week!), but that doesn't seem to remedy the fact that we still have six more days of madness this time around. Oh well.

With Bishop being on call, my runs get relegated to the treadmill (as far as I know there is no such thing as a triple jogger; I guess very few would be willing to run while pushing three small humans). More often than not I end up just taking the week off running, but this week I was anxious to try out a run I read about recently called the 30-20-10. The article promises 'impressive results,' citing cases where runners shaved full minutes off their 5k times in a matter of 7 weeks. A MINUTE? That puts me tantalizingly close to my goal of a sub-20 5k. So off to the YMCA we went, with a gleeful S and E getting their stickers from the door greeter Marvin and baby B already starting to furrow his brow at me as I take him to the infant section of the child care. I really, really love the YMCA child care. 90 minutes of solo-time bliss, where I feel no guilt whatsoever exercising for the full time if I so desire as my children are well entertained. But 90 minutes wasn't the plan today; we had a lolly-gagging morning and didn't actually get to the YMCA until almost noon. Today I was doing the 30-20-10.

It kicked my trash. Granted, I added an incline just because a treadmill is one of the few places in Houston I can actually run an incline, and I did the 4 full rounds because somehow I always dub myself above beginner level, but still. It was invigorating. Basically, it's a really structured fartlek run where, after a short warm up of a mile or so, you jog for 30 seconds, run normal training pace for 20, then all out sprint for 10, repeat five times, recovery jog for 2 minutes, then repeat all the goodness to your heart's content. Or 4 rounds, whichever comes first. Interval training is awesome, at least when it comes to exercise. Mothering today sort of felt like interval training, but it didn't feel so awesome. I just finished my last 10 second sprint of the day and I feel less than invigorated. Maybe it'd be easier if someone could tell me how many times I'd have to run a 10 second sprint (not to mention provide ample recovery periods)...but hopefully, just like interval training, motherhood will condition me to be a much more effective person. And perhaps that will rub off on the three small people I'm in charge of raising.

Lest you think I could call in quits with exercise after just a 40 minute run (I haven't made the jump to a 60 minute exercise cap - I'm still working on my 90 minute one), I also did one of my favorite P90X2 dvd's today, the V Sculpt. Technically those workouts are an hour but when you fast forward through Tony's funny, but time wasting, jibber jabber it really takes less than 45 minutes. Time spent in that plank position (some even on a med ball! Very awesome.) doing renegade rows, curls, roman curls, etc. is just absolutely delicious. With time I hope to love the pull-up parts as much but I'm definitely not there yet. As Emerson said, 'That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased' whether it be pull-ups, motherhood, wife-hood...anything else I'm temporarily struggling with.

Currently that struggle includes realizing I have one more sprint before bed, so I'm off to clean up the shrapnel from this evening's mommy battle. Shouldn't be too hard since my favorite show, Bones, had its season finale last week, it's now after 9 so I can't eat anything (thanks, 8 week challenge) and Bishop is still at work. I best get to it, even if I'd rather go read Jane Eyre.

What counts?

Ah, Sunday. We have a love-hate relationship, really. Sunday is the day I bid farewell to my husband for the better portion of the day. True, he's doing very noble and great things. True, I am, too...or so I must make myself believe when my noble and great thing consists of lugging an infant carrier with a chunky 3 month old and trying to herd two very head strong toddlers to the car. Sunday school was also rough since we were asked to think about a place we thought was the most beautiful (Houston is fun...though 'beautiful' is not a word I associate with it) and my mind kept floating up to mountains. Any mountains. I desperately miss the mountains. Anyway...

Today our Relief Society lesson was all about scripture study. I love studying the scriptures. I haven't been nearly as diligent as I ought since...well, since I got married, I suppose. In all fairness, though, I got married within 4 months of returning from a full-time mission in Thailand, so my scripture study isn't really comparing apples to apples. Still, I have a lot of room for improvement.

However, here is my overarching issue that keeps growing as life goes on: what counts? In the mission I had at least 2 hours, sometimes more, of time to devote to scripture study. Real life? Not so much. And that non-existent 2 hours has become even more sparse as I've gone through college...then worked...then had one, then two and now three small children. BUT, why can I spend 2 hours working out? Where did that come from? I MADE it, that's where. I made it from the same place I made time to read the Hunger Games trilogy in two days (in my defense, there are only 3 Hunger Games books and then I was done. No need to re-read). Because somehow working out is more important than the words of life, right? NO. It's because I have issues with what COUNTS. I know exactly what counts as exercise...yes, I do overdo it, and sometimes I'll do a good interval run, then some weights, and then some yoga because all are important elements of fitness, but I know what counts with exercise. But what counts for scripture study? From my understanding here is what we're counseled to do (scripture-wise): everyday read the Book of Mormon, read scriptures individually, read as a couple, read as a family. Then don't forget the General Conference addresses, our gospel doctrine lessons, the Old and New Testament, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, oh yes and we're supposed to read the Book of Mormon in our mission language daily as well so as not to waste the gift of tongues we were blessed with. Not to mention all the other great church literature out there. ISSUES.

How do I fit that all in? I can wrap my mind around squeezing in 15 minutes of yoga every night, or a run 3-5 times a week, and weight lifting (my favorite!!) at least twice a week. Even throwing in a tennis match weekly, or a swim day. I just haven't figured out how to fit in all that I'm counseled to do with the doctrine, which is harder I think because not too long ago there was time allotted for it all during my time in Thailand.

Maybe I don't need a set program. My mom always comments on how uptight I get about my exercise programs, and maybe I'm subconsciously trying to make a similar schedule for scripture study. Bishop just pointed out a quote from President Uchtdorf: "It might be wise to look at the...scriptures not as checklists or detailed scripts but rather as opportunities to prepare our minds and hearts to receive divine inspiration for our responsibilities." In other words, Bishop says, there probably aren't angels in heaven marking down what gospel literature I did and did not read. But did I have a spiritual moment today? Sort of like, did I do my 10 minute minimum physical activity?

I have no wisdom yet on this. Until then I'll just keep reading with my kids in the Book of Mormon, loving the fact that they both know how to say 'And it came to pass...' And on a good day I'll go read that same passage in my Thai Book of Mormon. For tonight I suppose that's enough. But, just like with an exercise plateau, I've got to figure out how to start seeing results again. I only wish it were as simple as adding in resistance training :)

Game, Set, Match.

Despite my good intentions I'm only now starting this blog. Over the past year or so I have composed at least a dozen perfect posts, titles and all, yet I haven't managed to actually type them out until today, and only because I recently headed up an 8-week health challenge for my family and some friends. Oh well...as the saying goes, "Begin! The rest is easy."

Recently my Bishop (who also happens to be my husband...he was called as Bishop a couple of months ago as I was in labor with our third child...and he's a first year medical resident) advised me to keep a journal because some days I cope better than others and writing seems to be a constructive outlet. Exercise is usually my preferred constructive outlet, but I have a tendency to overdo that. I decided to merge the two and write ABOUT exercise, especially because I usually relate everything to exercise anyway (and, as previously mentioned, I have a bunch of completed posts in my brain just itching to be written). So here we go.

Today I engaged in one of my first exercise loves: tennis. I love tennis. I'm not all that good at it but I'm not terrible, either. So when some girls in my ward invited me, saying they usually put the small children in a corner with some bubbles and other toys (plus Thursday mornings are perfect because I only have my youngest two children as S is in preschool), I jumped on it. Even though Houston is quickly starting to heat up, and even though I had originally planned to run, I had a blast. And I even let it be enough for my exercise...okay, I did lift some weights, too, but I didn't go for a run.

We started out with a fabulous, 5 gal around the world game then broke into some singles tennis where I played a friend who was almost my perfect tennis match as evidenced by our absurd number of deuce points played out. We didn't play a full match (or even a full set...our boys are in preschool together and we had to pick them up) but the five games we played were awesome. I left the court feeling rejuvenated (albeit sweaty...it was Houston at noon...) to reenter mommy-hood for the afternoon.

I think a run would have been rejuvenating as well. But playing tennis offered much welcomed (and needed) variety. I ought to break out of my norm a bit more, I think.