Farting Crane

I've never been to a yoga class in my 34 years of life. Until today that is. I'm not sure what kept me away. I don't know if it was that it just didn't appeal to me or that I didn't think it was anything more than funny poses and stretching, or perhaps that I've always had a secret fear of farting mid class....and knowing me and my luck, that would totally happen.

Since my gym is offering some free classes this week, I decided to check this yoga thing out. I was quite careful to visit the ladies room beforehand and not make any strenuous moves. I also had to be careful to not get too relaxed because I heard that one can fall asleep in those classes (you know who you are hee hee).

I arrived to class and did not have a yoga mat with me, so I had to use one of the padded mats they had on hand (thank God for that, you'll find out why). I had to share the large mat with a fellow yoga-ite? yogarson? yogapotomus? yogi-bear? What are yoga-doers called anyway?

Class started off easy enough with a couple of animal poses and I quickly realized that although yoga looks easy, it totally is not. Fortunately it was a mixed class so we had all skill levels there....from people doing impressive head stands to...well....me.

Things started getting interesting when we had to do a tripod and be upside down on our heads. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to do this. With the blood flowing to my head, I was amazed that I wasn't toppling over (or farting). Unfortunately the blood wasn't the only thing that went to my head (no, not my shirt, thank god), but the confidence went to my head and our next pose involved us going up on our shoulders and supporting our bodies on our hands and elbows. I thought, oh this is easy, I can totally do this as I waved my legs in the air. All was fabulous until I lost my balance and came toppling down backwards. Go ahead, picture it...now picture the ungraceful sound of that fall during a calm and peaceful class. FH3J8KWKRSBX
Right. Moving on.

I recovered quickly from the collapse (of both body and ego) and went back to worrying about farts. We then had to do a balance pose in which I found out (once again) that I have no balance. In this pose, we had to put our knees on our elbows and balance ourselves on our hands. Yeah, that didn't quite happen. Once again, I lost my balance (this time forward...yeah, I'm all about variety) and I would have eaten the mat if it weren't for my lighting quick reflexes. I still came crashing down though. Once again, the thud sounds permeated the room. Once again, they were coming from me. Oh the shame.

The rest of the class, I was able to do the poses and keep from falling, but it was quite a challenge. The relaxation part at the end was truly wonderful and I remembered to not relax too much (less we fall asleep or fart). I am happy to say that, despite my ungraceful plummets I really enjoyed the class and will do it again (next time they have a free one). After all, now I have my own yoga pose...The Falling Claudia.

It's raining lizards

It's freakin' freezing here. This morning it felt like the low 30's when I left my house. There was ice on R's windshield. This all may seem normal to those of you that live up North, but I'm in Miami trick!

On two separate occasions this weekend I had friends and family from California tell me that they had heard that our lizards were falling out of the trees. I laughed and wondered where they heard that until I read it in the newspaper this weekend and saw that it was true.

R took the dogs out the other day and told me that he saw a frozen iguana on the floor too. Not one to believe tall tales, I put my jacket on and headed out with camera in hand to see if this was true. At first I didn't see the so called "iguana" that he was talking about; the only thing I saw was what appeared to be a dead lizard. On my way back though, I stopped to talk to a neighbor when I spotted the iguana at the bottom of the tree, just sitting there, playing freeze tag.

My neighbor picked it up by the tail and put it back on the tree, but I could tell the lizard wasn't quite right. He told me that apparently, they get so cold that they go into this catatonic state and fall from the tree, but when they warm up, they come back to life. Poor things.

In other crazy weather news, I read that there was snow in Disney this past weekend and there were unconfirmed reports of flurries here in Miami. Insanity I tell you! I wish it would warm up a bit. My wardrobe isn't equipped for such weathers. I've been rotating the two long sleeve shirts and two sweaters I own and I'm running out of options here (ok, now I'll wear this shirt on top, and this one underneath). That's it, if this cold doesn't let up, I'm getting a snuggie.

Oh Chris, how do you come up with these things?...

While playing telephone the other day:
Chris: Hello mom
Me: Hello
Chris: How are you?
Me: I'm good, how are you?
Chris: Horrible.

While playing in his little house:
Chris leans out the window and yells "police police, come, my mom says she's on fire".

During breakfast:
Chris: I want to play with my mom's DS
Ren: No, you have to eat breakfast first
Chris: Where's the DS?
Ren: Don't worry about that, let's concentrate on breakfast first
Chris: No, let's concentrate on the DS.

After playing horsie with mommy, Chris stops to look at a cute girl on TV:
"She's beautiful; I can get on top of her"

A sure sign that Ren's brainwashing is working:
Me: Let's go to Disney!
Chris: But we already went.

Fame and Glory in the New Year

Happy New Year!

Alright peeps, now that I got that out of the way, it's time to get the New Year started off right. How do I do that? With a contest of course. Not a contest I'm hosting, but one that I was entered into.

Gotta love a good contest right? (and God knows I love em'). Anyway, yes, it's voting time again. Fortunately for those of you on my email list (and on FB), I think you can only vote once, so you won't be getting daily pestering emails from me. Hurrah! Ok well, you might. ha ha.

Ok, so here's the scoop. Jady Images is having their yearly cover shot contest for their website. These are the friendly people that photograph my children once in a while and also kindly donated their time and effort to my little Thrill The World project, so basically I love them and you should too.

Youse lovely peoples kindly voted for me and Jordan last year which is why we are currently already on their webpage, but my family and I are attention whores would love to be on the website again, so what do you say? Just pop on over to their blog and vote for image #33 (yes, they saved the best for last, what can I say?) where you will find my hubby and two children, one of which will be upside down.

The family with the most votes will get a fabulous 11x14 canvas and the top 6 will be on the website for all of 2010. Woohoo! Fame and Glory!

Please vote before Jan 15th and share it with your friends!

Thanks ya'll. I'll be back to post soon about my Christmas Va-kay to El Salvador.