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Dominic’s 3rd Birthday April 14, 2008

The little man’s getting old. This is my nephew Dominic’s 3rd birthday party.

Yoga Teacher Training Part I March 6, 2008

I am getting my ass kicked right now and I’d just like to share the horrors of it. I woke up sick in Hawaii on Saturday after such a rockin yet exhausting week of yoga teacher training. Then the ocean kicked my ass that afternoon, I mean scarily bad, and I was all scratched and shaken from rolling around in the surf in the rocks. Sunday I arrive in Oakland feeling sicker. On the shuttle from Oakland Airport to the Colliseum Bart Station I notice there’s a lot of traffic. Hm, I wonder what’s going on. Then I notice that an event just ended and the Bart Station was FLOODED with people. It was pretty fun trying to maneuver around the Bart Station, buy a ticket and wait for a train, with my huge luggage. I ran offer a ghetto queen’s toe and she gave me a good dirty look and smack of the lips. HA. Monday sicker and a cold sore to help me feel even better. Tuesday sicker. Wednesday I’m dying. Thursday I’m still dying of sever sickness and another patch of cold sore is starting and it hurts. I am so sick, tired, congested, and achy I can barely stay awake let alone try to practice yoga. Sigh.

Ok, thanks for letting me whine. I am really here to share my experiences from Baptiste Power Yoga Teacher Training Bootcamp. I can’t share everything, but here are some tidbits.

My first thoughts were, “Here we go, I guess they don’t call it bootcamp for nothing.” They really weren’t messing around! Many of us arrived a day early and spent the day bonding, chatting about yoga, life, we were a bunch of excited campers. Once it started I would say we were all adjusting to what we were participating in, some of us arguing, either out loud or in our heads, somewhat uncomfortable, tired from traveling, wondering what the hell we signed up for. I was pretty accepting of the situation, at least tried to be, and it was funny how some people really couldn’t handle the lack of control they had over their situations. They signed up and paid for it didn’t they? It was truly like going to camp when I was a kid: 16 people to 2 bathrooms, weird little bugs, geckos, rats, goats, cats, dogs, these tree frogs were crazy loud all night long. There really weren’t many walls there, lots of open screened in areas.

I truly hit the roommate jackpot, but honestly every single person there was so beautiful inside and out. Immediately our conversation was just great, natural, inspiring, easy. The food was amazing and I was a little piggy the first few days! Mostly vegan diet, tofu and tempeh at every meal, fruit & yogurt bar for breakfast, salad bar for lunch and dinner. It was funny how desert became so important to us after a few days of deprivation. The ocean was amazing to swim in, I felt like I could tread water forever (at least the first day, before I got mangled). The beach and pool were clothing optional…as you can imagine lots of tan assed men wandering around letting in all hang out. My favorite quote regarding it was from Katie, “I don’t even want to see Brad Pitt’s ass hole.”

Baptiste Yoga Teacher Training Bootcamp

Hawaii & Yoga February 22, 2008

I’m on my way to Hawaii this afternoon for a week long Yoga Teacher Training. This will be my first trip to Hawaii and I am really excited about doing nothing but yoga for 7 days. My computer nor my cell phone will work out there. I think this will be the longest I’ve gone without both in years.

It has been a crazy 2 months! I have officially settled back into life in San Luis Obispo, California after a wonderful year in Boise, Idaho. I have an apartment I love, including this great, retro kitchen table that I procured from a random moving sale recently. I am so thankful for my SLO peeps. I have been doing lots of yoga and bike riding. What else can a girl ask for, really?

I look forward to documenting my journey this week, into many territories unknown…

Click here to check out the book from my training this week. If you can ignore the somewhat scary cover photo, it’s a great book on yoga.

Fun driving through tahoe January 4, 2008

Fun driving through tahoe

Originally uploaded by roxbanta

Mike, Bruce, and I left Boise around 9am yesterday to move from Boise, Idaho to San Francisco, California after less than a year in Boise. We made it to the bay area late last night after 13 1/2 hours of driving for a total of 650 miles. The first half of the drive was truly in the middle of nowhere. The mountains were amazing, the rock formations intriguing, and I loved the pretty little black and white birds with red beaks. We saw a sign that said “No gas stations for 100 miles.” While driving down a two lane freeway we saw a coyote waiting for traffic to clear so he could cross the street. The weather started with a wind storm in Reno, Nevada where Mike saw a semi truck tip to 45 degrees. During one gust of wind I got blown into another lane, luckily there wasn’t a car next to me. It took 2 1/2 hours to drive through the Tahoe National Forest, in first and second gear only, and we were forced to put chains on my car, which I had never done before. My bikes were on the back of my car getting whipped around the whole time. The rain started last night and hasn’t stopped in the bay area since.

We made it though! Another big move road trip completed. Mike took good care of me and the bruceage.

cheesy christmas story December 12, 2007

Today I was in kinkos trying to fax something and this cute old guy was asking one of the employees about scanning a photo onto cd for him so he could go to costco and make it into christmas cards. He had no idea what he was talking about, it was obvious costco sent him over there, and the woman was so rude to him. Something about copyright crap and she wouldn’t help him one bit. She had a terrible attitude and said it all in this holier than though voice and was barely listening to a thing he said. He kept asking her questions that she wouldn’t (said she couldn’t) quite answer while she kept pointing to this copyright sign and I just blurted out ‘they’re just covering their asses.’ I thought, oops I just cussed at my grandpa.

It was a photo from his 70th birthday cruise that he and his entire family went on all the way down to the grandkids, except the ones in college. He said he was glad it was a red head helping him, his wife is one and he likes red heads.

Maybe we can’t help people like the retail lady and her funky attitude which wasn’t even mildly affected by the cute old man. But if I could just stand around kinkos for christmas and help old people make christmas cards, i would feel like it was a mighty fine holiday.

Photos from X-mas 2007:

Snowshoeing December 10, 2007

I went snow shoeing yesterday for the first time. It was pretty cold outside, but my new kick ass snow gear kept me nice and warm. It was pretty amazing how much of a workout it was, I ended up peeling the clothes off of myself and working up quite a sweat. I really love spending time outdoors in the winter. It’s not as cold and miserable as it seems like it might be.

PS. I am moving to San Francisco sometime in the first week of January!!!

NYC November 23, 2007

I just spent a week in NYC for work. I really love NYC more and more each time I visit, yet at the end of each trip I am more than happy to go home. It reminds me of Michigan, that tough love kind of street attitude everyone has. I love walking everywhere, old pubs, street vendors, private room karaoke, the food, getting hit on by models. Great city. You can see more photos here.