Day 1: Letting go of books

If you have known me for more than a couple of weeks or have been to my house you know I am a huge book worm. My parents say I have been like this my whole life. I was one of those weird kids growing up that loved school. Learning has been such an amazing adventure that I continue it to this day. When I'm feeling blue or something is on my mind I find comfort in Chapters. Walking the rows of books, smelling the dreamy scent of paper, cuddling up in a comfy chair to read a couple of introductions. It's almost as good for me as going to the ocean.

With the many times I have frequented my local Chapters store I think I have only left without a new book a handful of times. Therefore I have a lot of books at home. Some of them I adore and have read multiple times. Some of them I bought with good intentions but all they have accumulated is dust. So today I went through my collection and got rid of 22 books. That may not seem like a lot but it is a great starting point for me. The books were fiction, non fiction and even some old university text books.

My biggest tip for book worms out there is to find a used book store close to where you life. I have one I go to a lot in Bedford called "Buy the Book" and they have a great credit program. Bring in books that you don't need anymore and they will give you credit for them. The credit can be used towards half of your next purchase. I absolutely love this idea. It cuts down on the demand for new books and recycles your old ones.

Do you have any books that you could give away?

Yoga and Coffee December 2010

Last night I went to my second ever yoga and coffee night. It was so much fun. A few of my friends practice yoga but we don't really ever talk about it. It's really nice to be around people that share something that is so important to me. I love talking about the different poses, the meditation, the stories from studios, the philosophy, all of it. We tend to kind of do like a round table where someone will bring up a topic and we all kind of provide our own input.

I ended up asking if anyone else does meditation with their practice. I find that yoga has become so westernized and I was curious if by that happening, it has lost it's original purpose. They say yoga is 1% practice, the rest of it is theory/meditation. The asana's (postures) were designed to physically prepare your body for sitting still for hours on end to meditate. I would say at least half of the group on Tuesday still uses yoga to meditate. Which I found fascinating! I told them that I've been having a really hard time with meditation. Like I can't turn off my head. And they all reiterated what other people have told me about meditating; it's not about turning off your thoughts, it's about acknowledging them for what they are, just thoughts. They do not define you anymore than your physical actions. I still find this hard to do though. I understand what they are saying but I don't know how to do it. One of the guys in the group recommended a book called "Turning The Mind Into An Ally" by Sakyong Mipham. He said it has helped him to understand meditation better and to actually meditate better. I went to Chapters right after our meeting but the one I went to didn't have it in stock. I'll have to wait until I go to one of the other stores.

While at Chapters though I did get a book on yoga. It stuck out to me because one of the authors/the person that put it all together is a guest speaker at the Atlantic Yoga Conference in 2011. I didn't know about this until the other day when surfing the yoga/blogger community in Halifax. I'm seriously considering going. From the minute or two I spent on the site it didn't sound like it was much about the physical practice, more focused on the theory practice. I'll have to sit down and take a long look around though. But I digress. The book is called "Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Writings on the Connections Between Yoga and Buddhism". The editor is Michael Stone (the guest speaker mentioned above). I'm really excited to read it because people keep telling me that a lot of the principles in yoga are based off of Buddhist beliefs. I'm curious to learn more about both.

Onto the last thing I wanted to mention. In the coffee and yoga meeting someone brought up the term grounding/earthing asking if anyone had heard of it. Personally, I had not but some of the others did. I don't know much about it but it seems that there is a theory out there saying that people will actually soak up negative ions and free electrons from the earth simply by spending time outside, in nature, in the grass in our bare feet. That we soak up these things by coming into real physical contact with the ground, how we were originally meant to be. I found this interesting video on the technique/theory. I also mentioned it to Dave and he seemed to like the idea. Too bad we're going into winter right now :( We said that it would be fun to go camping sometime next spring/summer and make it kind of like our own little camping/meditation/yoga retreat. I LOVE the idea :)

Namaste.

Books and Stuff

November 22

Today was another early morning but for a completely different reason. I woke up around 7am, had a breakfast of a blueberry bagel with almond butter and jam, packed my bags and went to a photoshoot. It was a portfolio session with a local male model. I'll be posting some of the photos on my photography blog in the next few days so keep an eye out.

While waiting for the model to finish getting ready I snacked on a clementine.

After the shoot I stopped into a used book store on the way home. Matt and I go into book stores at least once a week and during the past couple of visits I have been SO close to purchasing Germs, Guns and Steel by Jared Diamond. The reason I haven't is because it is so close to Christmas and I might get gift cards :) I have made a deal with myself that for the next month the only books I am allowed to buy are ones that come from a used book store. So I stopped into this place looking for Germs, Guns and Steel. They didn't have it but I did pick up Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Once I got home I had lunch of fried eggs and meatless Italian sausage. I forgot to take a photo of it though because I was in a rush to get out the door again.

Then off I went to a friend's place to take photos of her pets. She just got a new pug puppy and she is sooo cute. I photographed the puppy and her three cats. Here are some of the photos.

When I got home I had a snack of yogurt with granola and a clementine.

Supper was similar to a previous night but was still just as delicious. I had BBQ baked tofu with broccoli and fried zucchini. I LOVE zucchini. The only other time I can remember eating it was when my mom put it in chocolate cake and you couldn't really taste it. But it is sooooo good. I can't wait to try some new recipes with zucchini in them :)

Dinner was so delicious that when Matt got home he had to try it while I was sleeping and ended up eating all of the left overs! Hehehe.

The rest of the day was just recovering from Friday night/Saturday. Again for some reason I had no energy so it was mostly spent reading and napping. Oh I love lazy Sundays. :)

Silly Memory Card

(November 17th - Bad news... my memory card ate all of my photos today so you'll have to use your imagination)

Lately I have had my nose stuck in books. Since I would say the beginning of August I have been reading book after book. Some of them I was finishing within 1-3 days of starting them. If only I could read them as fast as I added them to my never ending book list. Last night I spent the majority of the evening finishing off Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. It was my second time reading it. The only reason I read it a second time is because I bought the next book The Lost Symbol. Started it today and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I'll blog a review maybe when I'm done.
With all of the reading I did last night I ended up posting last nights blog pretty late.. at like 1am. Eeek! Needless to say I didn't get up in time to do my workout this morning. Instead I quickly got ready, ate a bowl of cereal with some sliced banana and headed off to work.

It wasn't until I got to work that I realized how sore I was. I will admit I have been slacking in the stretching department. I love to do yoga but I'm not motivated to do it at home by myself (I love going to classes or using videos, which I don't have any of). Just general stretching is kind of boring to me. Well, I should have done more of it. My calfs and hamstrings are really tight tonight. I think after my weight training this evening I'll do some yoga/stretching. Maybe I'll ready my book at the same time to keep me busy :)

Any suggestions on relaxing music to listen to while stretching/doing yoga?

Before lunch I snacked on some yogurt with blueberries and a yummy hot cup of tea. It was pretty chilly this morning so this helped to warm me up when I got to work.

Lunch was leftovers from last night; BBQ tofu with steamed broccoli and I added in some couscous and chick peas.

I was surprised when hunger hit me so soon after lunch. I thought the couscous and chick peas would really help me fill me up but they didn't. So a banana helped to quench my snackies.

Leaving work I went straight to my Aunt Trudy's house to hang out with my cousin Sarah. Sarah just turned 8 and she is the most energetic kid I have ever met. I go over once a month to entertain Sarah so my Aunt can get some time to herself. Sarah has had a lot of medical issues in her life and whenever she needs anything she almost always turns to her mom. It was my Aunts idea for me to come over more and act kind of like a big sister so that Sarah has someone else she will hopefully feel comfortable asking for help from.

This visit we made some awesome Christmas inspired sugar cookies. I really wish the memory card had not eaten my photos. Sarah is so cute!! I'm going to see if I can somehow recover them tonight. If so then I will edit this post.

By the time I got home at 10:30 I was exhausted. I ate pouched eggs on WW english muffin with ham. Matt and I watched some TV and then went straight to bed.

I ended up drinking a total of 5 glasses of water today.