I took these pictures at a few parks in the area and at the LDS Atlanta Temple grounds over the last couple weeks. Spring is fun. I’ll get excited when I see something new blooming and announce it to whoever is in the car, “Hey look, that Magnolia is just starting to bud out!” My two-year old, who I usually drive with, is going to be quite a good plant identifier. It’s a wonderful time of year–I simply wish I lived around better gardens to enjoy it!

I love  yoga. This morning I was feeling kinda down. So I decided to take a whole hour and do an entire yoga class. I picked a restorative class. The hardest pose was downward facing dog. Most of it was done lying down. Exactly what I needed: it helped stretch out my aching back muscles and helped me be happier.

I practice yoga nearly every morning. I’ll wake up, read my scriptures and then spend a half hour, usually completly by myself, to do yoga. I often split hour long classes into two mornings because I feel a half hour is just enough. I’ve actually been doing yoga pretty consistently since I graduated from college. It’s my favorite from of exercise and by the far the one I’ve stuck with through everything.

Yoga is supposed to make you more flexible. It does. But it has also taken me five years to be to the point where I can touch my toes regularly. I’m far from flexible in many areas of my body. I think flexibility takes more time than any other aspect of fitness. The one thing that I like about yoga is it is very non-comptetive. You don’t push past the pain. So sometimes it takes a little longer to increase in fitness level than other methods. But I’m also hardly ever more than minorly sore, which is very nice and one reason I’ve stuck with it.

Yoga really is for anyone. Some poses are hard, but I’ve learned over the year the value of modifying a pose to fit your skill level. Forcing into any pose often just makes the whole practice worthless. Learning to back off and work on proper alignment and breath is far more important. Gradually, you get better too. Although I still can’t do most arm balances, a headstand, handstand, or anything that is crazy. But I can do poses pretty easily that I at one time found strenuous.

I love doing yoga through pregnancy too. It’s easy to modify things with a growing belly and still get a decent workout in. But mostly now, I focus on more restorative practices. Nothing hard, just work on releasing on the muscles that get all tight due to a huge tummy.

I have taken one yoga class, two years ago in college. But mostly I like doing it home and stream videos offline. There is tons out there. Yoga Today was one of the first sites I found, and I still love all the teachers. I usually do the free class there every week. You Tube has a lot, including some shorter practices from Yoga Today, and lots of other teachers. This teacher is great for getting a good sweat. I’ve done some videos off of Yoga Journal too. There is also a series on BYU TV I visit. (That’s where my class today came from. They have pregnant ladies on there too, which is nice when you are pregnant.) Hulu actually has quite a few as well and you get commericial breaks which can be a nice thing.

Peter sometimes joins me if he’s up early. Mostly this means I don’t get as good a practice in, but he can do a great downward facing dog. And he loves getting out his own mat.

We just had Valentine’s day. Both Joe and I don’t generally don’t do a lot, nor would the budget allow for anything extravagant. I went and visited a friend in the morning, and when I came back Joe had left me this sweet little progression of notes:

There was love music playing too. It was adorable and made my day. We did have coffee cake (which tastes better in the south, so does corn bread: the humidity makes it less crumbly), and made a cheesecake. The cheesecake was almost not to be. Joe and I went to go make it and discovered that graahmn crackers could go rancid. The crust was made with animal crackers instead, and turned out just fine.

My medicaid application finally went through which now means I actually have insurance for my kids. For all those who want socialized medicine, try going through a medicaid application. Lots of waiting in line, calling, and worrying in order to get approved. But I am grateful they have the program, because otherwise I would have no way to insure my children.

Also this is a tip for very pregnant women–wearing comfortable clothes makes you feel ever so much better. Yesterday I put on a pair of pants that just didn’t fit and I hated pregnancy all day. Over-the-belly pants are the only way to go for me right now. I am very large. Still a month to go (more or less).

Peter has discovered the joy of playing in his room with his toys. He would spend hours playing pretend with mostly cars. He’ll say “Mommy this one” and give me a car. We will then spend the next forever playing with the cars. Sometimes I’ll bring in Legos or other toys to break up the long stretches of just cars and Peter asking, “What doing?”  It’s fun, but gets boring pretty quickly too. Joe is actually a little more patient with it than I am.

We put up names for the kid’s room today. Curtis will actually be staying in our room at first, which leaves lot of room in Peter’s room for toys right now. I finally found a cheap rocking chair too; it’s probably the most comfortable seat in the house. Maybe I should use it at the computer instead of the chair I’m in now that is giving me backaches.

I’m tired of pregnancy, but I’m not ready for a baby either. Life is good, really, but I have a lot of worries in my head and it’s hard to just let things be and enjoy myself.

I was bitten by a spring gardening bug at 3:00 in the morning.  I’ve noticed lately that there are signs of spring. Plants are beginning to flower, like flowering cherries and forsythias. My husband brought me home a daffodil one day. It’s a little early, even for a slightly warmer climate than I’m used to, but whatever the calender says, spring is rapidly approaching.

Up until now, I haven’t cared much about the plants around me. I’m surrounded by boring commercial landscapes that are not inspiring. At 3:00 in the morning I started to dream about plants. I wanted to go and find all the plants beginning to bloom and take loads of pictures. I woke up, a little confused about the fact that I had relocated to Georgia and couldn’t go down the road to a neighbor’s garden to find plants in bloom. My mind finally straightened out, but I couldn’t get plants off my mind.

I finally got out of bed and started looking up everything I’ve been ignorning. I looked up some evergreen shrubs, like aucuba and winter daphne, that I’ve noticed on my apartment grounds. I googled where local garden centers are. I subscribed to several local gardening blogs. I reserved a few Dirr books at the library. I normally don’t wake up super early, obsessed with plants, but apparently something in me had been missing gardening. The few glances I’ve seen of spring blooming plants awakened a dormant gardening spirit. It was fun, but now it needs to quiet down so I can sleep.

Have you noticed spring coming?

Hopefully it’s not keeping you awake at night.

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I’ve never loved January/February weather so much. We can go outside almost as much as we want. 

We toured the hospital yesterday. I’m having a baby in six weeks! (more or less) I’m very excited. I moved the crib into our bedroom, and up to baby height. This was actually kind of a pain because the crib was exactly one inch too wide to fit through the door so I had to take it apart and put it back together. But now it is set up and ready for a nice cuddly bundle that will hopefully come soon. 🙂