Namaste !

I have felt a serious lack of peace and well-being in many ways as of late, so I have made it my mission to return to my yoga practice (my very beginner's yoga practice) in order to try to get rid of the bad karma and bring in the good.Yoga brings something to my life that nothing else does, which begs to question why I would ever stop - I won't dignify the question with an excuse. You can feel better by doing a great many things , healthy and unhealthy, but if you want true wellness, Yoga leaves no "stone " untouched.
It has been a while since I got out the mat, but this morning get it out I did ,and I programmed a very short session from Shiva Rhea's Yoga Shakti dvd. Generally, when I'm really rusty, I just start with the Basic program, but today just wanting to ease back into doing anything at all that early in the day, I went to the Yoga Matrix and selected the Surya Meditation, Pranayama, Meditation and Shavasana. What can I say? I was feeling minimalist this morning. And I do buy the advice about blowing your nose prior to beginning the Pranayama, which involves breathing in one of side of the nose and out the other. Even though it was a very short session and completely lacking in the movement of large muscle groups, I feel better, and doing something generally results in something getting done. . I like this DVD because it offers something for every level of practice. You can do a set program or create your own, and I like the fact that the set programs are not impossible for a rube like me. The Basic Flow is good for beginners.
If you would like to check out Yoga Shakti for yourself see below -




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You can also check out her website, Yogadventures , which will make you want to take off for parts unknown to get your down-ward facing dog on next to the gloriously sparkling azure water generally seen in parts unknown. I can feel the gorgeous white sand between my toes right now! Hmmm, I wonder if the goats like the beach?


Now - while I have sung the praises of Shiva Rhea and Yoga Shakti, I have to confess that Seane Corn is my favorite Yoga instructor. Plain and simple - she rules. Not only does she an incomparable gift for teaching, but she makes so many contributions to the world, sharing her gift of love and compassion. Her dvd's begin with an introduction in which she describes the benefits of yoga and how a person goes about receiving those benefits and just listening to her is unbelieveably motivating and inspirational. I don't mean to gush , butI cannot say enough about how wonderful she is. I have both of her dvd's, which are available to you to purchase from Amazon below -







After you've done one of Seane's dvd's, you feel like you've exercised and stretched every part of your being. Even a week of yoga is enough to make you feel a significant change in your mental and physical health. My daughter has really gotten into it, and the mood might strike her at any time to drop down into cobra, fish or downward facing dog. She has also become quite accomplished at tree pose. Iwatch her when she's in downward facing dog and feel so proud and so envious all at the same time. It's like kids are born to be the perfect yogis/yoginis. About the same time I wandered into Yoga, I also wandered onto a website called Barefoot Books. I give credit for this to Vegan Family because it was on their website I discovered Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, which is a Barefoot Book. Eventually, I found the Barefoot Book website, became a stallholder and discoverd Baron Baptiste's fabulous book, My Daddy is a Pretzel.
From this book, Rachel has learned to do several different poses and she loves to read this book over and over and why not - it's well written and the illustration is great!



Of course, I think it would be great if you ordered this book through this blog, but in all fairness, you should check out Barefoot Books because it is such a fun website and if you did like My Daddy is a Pretzel, then you would definitely want to order more books from Barefoot because their books are totally unique and more fun and eduational than your average book!
so what are you waiting for - go look!!!! Oh, and.........................Namaste.

What would the week be without Monday?

Sort of a trick question - Tuesday would then assume Monday's role, and it would still be painful to get up and recover from working all weekend. The next couple of weeks are going to be uh, challenging to say the least. I am working and extra, extra day this week and I'm working 4 extra days next week while Rachel is on vacation with her dad. I am going to miss her terribly but I am so happy she's getting to go to the beach - she absolutely loves it. We drove down to Jacksonville a couple of years ago to pick Alex up from a visit with his dad, and we spent the night at the beach. It was only one night that we got to stay, but we had a great time! Thinking about all the fun we had inspired me to go dig out these pictures.

We had so much fun building sand castles and playing in the water. Explaining sea shells to a toddler is You know, I've noticed something about blogging - well my blogging, anyway - you start out talking about something, which leads to something else, so then you throw in a picture for that something else, and then you have pictures jumping right out at you that have nothing to do with what you were originally talking about. At this rate, I'll never be a "blog of note". I am so longing for the day that I log on and there it is - "A Goat's Life" - under Blogs of Note". Oh well, a girl can dream. Oh, speaking of " A Goat's Life" , I am making progress in the new patio for the goats. It is not, what I had envisioned, but I guess it will do. I've still got to attach the floor to the base, but I laid out the floor yesterday evening after I got home from work, and they went nuts! They were galloping all over the place, doing flips and chasing each other. It was hilarious. NOW I see why people want to do the video thing on their websites and blogs. Someday.............