Manifest it

Public service announcement: This is a bit of a ramble. Potentially full of run-ons… Jumping back-n-forth between tenses… It’s Sunday night and I’m exhausted…

I believe in manifesting my reality. What I believe to be true, is. This practice is so powerful used to either bring me up and make me better or tear me down. Knowing this, I work to think in the positive and thinking specifically as to what will be versus not. (Simple explain: thinking “I will be on-time” vs. “I don’t want to be late.”

Today I went to a special yoga class that my studio (Power Yoga on Main) offers once a month (well  they also over it every Thursday at 5:45am- so that’s a hard no).  It’s called Power Yin and the class focuses on getting deeper into every stretch.

I was excited to go. I hadn’t made a yoga class all week. I was giving myself a break after recently completing a 40-day challenge. The challenge was AMAZING! It truly helped me to make a habit of my yoga practice. I loved going, especially when I would see the same people over and over. I truly felt connected and had a yoga community.

So, since I had been on a mini-hiatus, I was ready to see my community, my people, again. I was ready to give it my all after resting for a few… 5 days.

Class freakin rocked! They said it would be a deep stretch and it sure was. By the end of class, I could do the splits (“yoga splits”) on my right leg. That was the first time I had heard the phrase “yoga splits”… Apparently, when I was younger I had always been doing “cheerleader splits”… And yes, I was a cheerleader. For the past two years, I haven’t been able to do the splits. I had been doing more lifting at one point and all my muscles were super time…. I couldn’t help but laugh as Karen (the yoga instructor) explained this. In yoga splits you don’t open up your hips, leading to a much deeper stretch. I cheered after I settled in.

Currently, Karen is in the middle of yoga-teacher training. There are about 6 ladies going through the course. I think it may be 6 or 8 weekends… Anyways, during class Karen gave a shout out to the girls, who had been rocking it all through class, and all day long. Then Karen uttered it… “Summer teacher training, I know Brittany, Allison, and Tara are going to do it.” She was kind of kidding, I think. But I shouted out, “I’ll be there!”. And there it was, out there in the open, out in the universe. Now, I will continue to manifest it. Preparing my mind for this new adventure I will begin this summer. I am ready, and it will become my reality.

 

I’ll do it tomorrow

I couldn’t help but think of my students when I woke up this morning. This past week I had read a section of a Frog and Toad story titled Tomorrow. (Dang, I just love a good storybook!) I laughed to myself as I read it aloud… Sometimes I am uber productive, and other times I find myself just like Toad: pushing everything off for tomorrow. And then you realize, tomorrow is not so great either. So then, you might as well just get to it.

Per the usual, I had an on-growing to-do list. Sometimes this list just gets so long, I freeze. I sink into my couch and binge watch documentaries on Netflix. That’s exactly how I spent my entire afternoon and night yesterday. Slightly pathetic, but I’m literally addicted… Anyways, I went to bed telling myself I would get up, go to yoga, and crank out two papers for my masters. Well, guess what… I woke up in time for yoga and chose not to go… “I’ll do it tomorrow,” I thought in my head. And I certainly didn’t write my two papers. Again, I thought “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Now that one I actually need to do tomorrow because those papers are due on Monday…

However, there were PLENTY of other silly to-do things I checked off today… I washed my car first thing this morning instead of going to yoga. I’ll tell you what there is nothing like a freshly vacuumed, wiped interior, and wheel-shined car. I just love those $3 automatic car washes with free vacuuming! How can you not? Next, I backed-up my computer. Not one of my favorite things to do, but once it’s done I feel like I can breathe a little easier. Most of my documents are saved to the “cloud”, but not all my pictures… My pictures are so precious to me. Pictures of my Grams, family events, and friend outings. Knowing my pictures are stored safely on an external hard drive tucked away in my fire-proof safe brings me peace. After that, I burned a few copies of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle onto CD’s for a few friends that had asked me.  (This is one of my all-time favorite books! Game changer for me. Seriously, check it out.) Last up, I checked off a few thank you cards I’ve been meaning to write. You could say I’ve been putting them off for “tomorrow” for far too long. Today I wrote a thank you note to my mom, Auntie, Grandma Donna, and cousin…. for Christmas. Yup! Pretty dang embarrassing. I guess you could say it had been on the to-do list long enough. For sure the most belated thank yous I’ve ever written. After one month had gone by I asked myself, “Why even bother at this point?” I reminded myself, yes it may be embarrassing, but just because the letters are belated doesn’t make my sincerity any less. And I shouldn’t let my pride stop me. I placed the cards in the outgoing mail slot of my apartment building and checked another thing off my list, and truly I felt glad about it…

In all, I did so many things today that I will no longer need to do tomorrow! Tomorrow holds two task for me: a few yoga sessions and writing two papers. I didn’t get to them today, and yet I feel great about all the other little things I checked off.

 

That was a close one

Today my district participated an unconference. Three districts came together to discuss challenges in our classrooms and ways to combat them. I enjoyed last year’s unconference and was looking forward to this one, too. Session 1 was about to begin. I had started to plug in my chrome charger (luckily not plugged into my chrome, yet) when sparks flew and I heard a ZAP!

The plate that surrounds the two plug-ins and covers the hole in the wall wasn’t screwed into the wall. As I started to plug in my chrome, this metal plate wiggled loose. The plate fell directly onto the metal prongs of my charger, caused a shock, and the metal plate fell to the floor, and had looped through my cord.

The outlet was smeared with a smokey residue (I should have taken a picture of it). I took a look at the end of my cord… One of the prongs had a cut with black soot around it.

Shortly after an administrator grabbed a custodian who replaced the entire outlet. It was a bizarre way to start the day. In all, I am blessed I didn’t get shocked and/or start a fire today🔥🔌. That was a close one!

The Silver Lining

The Silver Lining, aka the name of my 4th grade writing journal. The last few minutes of every day my teacher asked us to “find the silver lining” and write about it. I truly believe that daily writing, which happened almost 20 years ago, helped morph me into the person I am today. Overall/most of the time I find myself to be a very positive and upbeat person… More often than not, I find the silver lining. However, it is a choice. And sometimes it seems easier to look the other way… For whatever reason, I can tell finding the silver lining right now is difficult for me. And honestly, it’s a yuckie feeling.  So, I’m going back to my fourth-grade ways! Daily, I will be looking for the positive. Focusing on the good things in life, while letting go of the negative things that are out of my control. Happiness is great feeling. Manifesting and focusing my thoughts on positive ideas will continue to breed more positive thoughts.

Fun fact: that 4th grade teacher I mentioned above… She just happens to be my mom. ♥