Thursday, March 11, 2010

Comfort Zones, Butterflies, Electronics and Bangs

1. There's only about two days left until MonkeyDo loses her hair. Which means there's still time for you to sponsor her, if you're so inclined and have not already.

I anticipate there will be at least one post-shave meltdown because omgIdidn'trealizeit'dbeALLgone! Then again, she's been asking for this hair do since she was three and she wanted to have "hair like grandpa's". And then after we met SweetPea and the first time she shaved her head, it was like confirmation that it was a hair style a girl could have, too. At the same time, though, she is heading into that dangerous time of adolescence, where one wrong comment might lead to an unexpected meltdown. And it's not like a shaved head is exactly stylish. It's not like she'll have the shaved-head-style mommy always wanted with the wispy elfin bangs + shaved head*.

2. Last night, I went to a different yoga class at a completely different location of my gym, a whopping two giant leaps out of my comfort zone. This led to a couple of observations, which I will get to momentarily. I will probably go back to the class again next week, but I'm not entirely sure I'll keep with this particular class. It was just too far removed from the class I was used to, and I'm not entirely sure it was doing the right things for me. In the meantime, hopefully I'll check out other classes to see if there aren't ones I like better.

2a. The gym itself was two stories. My gym has a few clubs that are two stories, but this was the first one I'd been to. I didn't explore as much as I maybe should have, but the layout seemed weird to me. You have to go up stairs to get to the women's locker room (ADA, much?) and the group fitness room. You actually have to go into the group fitness room to get to the women's locker room, which meant that I got to walk through a Cycle class. Twice. I really liked the locker room layout. It was definitely different from the setup at my gym, similar to the setup at the other yoga gym, but larger, newer and with more separated areas. I was in there by myself most of the time, which felt totally bizarre, especially since evenings are typically pretty busy at the gym.

2b. The class itself was billed as "Gentle Yoga", with a length of an hour and fifteen minutes. The instructor, however, described the class as "deep stretching" and "for all levels", but especially beneficial for athletes and those with injuries. She also seemed kind of surprised that the class was an hour & fifteen minutes. I've noticed that sometimes the online class calendar, the gym itself and the instructor all have different ideas about what kind of class it is. When I first started Wednesday Yoga, the class was billed online as "Yoga Basics" for yoga newbies. The gym called it "gentle yoga" and the instructor kept it somewhere between the two, understanding that there were both newbies and people who couldn't do the more difficult moves. One Furlough Friday I showed up at a gym for "Gentle Yoga", as billed online, only to discover "Power Yoga" written on the classes board at the gym. It tends to make me a bit nervous about going to a new class, because I only kind of have an idea what I'm getting myself into.

2c. I've come to the realization that my comfort zone is the single most dangerous place for me to be. And I'll totally own that I have a highly habitual nature. A lot of the time, this isn't really a big deal. Does it hurt anyone that I always park in the exact same spot? Or that I usually drive the same route? It probably isn't even really a big deal for me to get into the habit that at "X" time on *these* days I go to the gym, as long as I don't get there and then do the exact same thing as I've done every other day I was there. Which is what I tend to do. This is a problem. The fact that I can turn a morning stop for coffee and a treat into a daily routine is a problem. Making a habit of packing breakfast & lunch for work is not so much of a problem. As long as I'm not packing a bunch of crap I shouldn't be eating.

Getting out of my comfort zone can be scary for me. Trying new things, going new places can make me nervous. Sometimes this is just a matter of some butterflies and sometimes it borders on panic-striking. Which is silly. In the cold light of reality I can see how silly that is, but there are just some days, when I'm in a certain headspace where things that should be easy are really hard. So every time I get myself out of my comfort zone, I consider that a success, a big deal, even if it was a case of butterflies and not panic.

2d. Even further out of my comfort zone, the first thing I did was let the counter person know it was my first time at that location, and I asked the locations of the locker room and group fitness room. I asked for help! I never ask for help! And then while a few of us were milling about waiting for class to start, I met someone and we had a little chat. Exciting!

3. Sometimes I wonder how embarrassed, exactly, I should be to be admitting this stuff.

4. I still haven't quite gotten to the "walking every day" portion of the C25K plan. It's been kind of a busy week, so far. I need to get on that, too, because the C25K plan is 9 weeks and time she is a'ticking.

5. One of the busy things this week was that I had to spend one evening driving out to FedEx in Rocklin to pick up my new iPod. My shipment was split into two, the accessories coming through the Sacramento hub and the iPod itself coming through Rocklin (after going through Hawaii and Alaska - is it possible to be jealous of the vacation route of your electronics?). The Sacramento hub driver left me a nasty note door tag asking for a signature and claiming it was his second try, even though there was no door tag the first try. The Rocklin driver left a door tag, as well, but it included directions for coming out to the hub to pick the package up directly. Score! I'll introduce you to my new toy soon. We're still getting acquainted.

6. I still need new songs to put on it! Help!

*YES I did. And kind of still do. But every time I mention it, people give me these panicky looks like maybe I'm actually crazy. What's up with that?

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