Reaching out through yoga

About 10 years ago I walked into my first yoga class. It was through Bally's Fitness and taught by a ballet teacher. I loved it. I wasn't great at it, having little balance and no mind for meditation, but continued to stick through it. I toured the yogi realm, trying out Hatha, Prana, Bikram, and Kripalu styles, and even dipped my toe into the Dahn style (which was not for me).

Recently I have been practicing with a group in my town, first in a friend's living room, and now in a full studio through Murali yoga.  However, I also do a pilates-yoga class at my gym. Needless to say, yoga has improved my life and while I am no expert, my skill has greatened--especially in meditation. I have moments of quiet in my mind.

I've always wanted to do a yoga retreat somewhere, but I just haven't the time. But my gym yoga instructor told me about an event happening at Gillette Stadium in May that I thought was really interesting. Yoga Reaches Out is a day of yoga with speakers and lots of practice. Probably the closest I'll get to a real retreat. Baron Baptiste will be there which really excites me, and it's for a good cause. Proceeds go to the Boston Children's Hospital Boston and the Africa Yoga Project.

As I practice in the coming month for 8 hours of yoga, perhaps you'll help me on my way...because I'm fund raising. Yes, despite my vow to never have to fund raise again after the Boston Marathon team event of 2009, I figure I can raise $250 for a good cause. It's definitely less daunting than the amounts I've raise for the PanMass Challenge and Tufts Marathon Team!

So, if you have a few spare dollars, can you throw them my way? I will actually bend over backwards for your donation!

Feel free to check out my fund raising site here. Or, if you are interested in  participating, join us on team Upward Dog!

Stuck in my own mud

Last Friday I went to a psychic. 

A few days prior we got our Action Unlimited in the mail, which is essentially a community publication that has listings of local events, classified ads, and other tidbits and happenings. I like reading it because I can find events and classes I want to attend, even though I rarely do. But it's nice to have a free publication mailed to me that keeps me informed. I found my short-lived cleaning people in there, a roofer, and my psychic. 

I wasn't looking for a psychic. I saw an ad for Aquarius Sanctuary in Westford, and became intrigued. I love a good New Age book store, and happened to need some herbs so I decided that I would go there. One day. I've been trying to get to Old Navy for the past 3 weeks for clothes, so my getting to the New Age shop three towns over for less necessary items was a long shot. 

But then I had a situation where I needed to go to the doctor, and my regular doctor didn't have any room. So they called the Westford office who could see me immediately. Immediately I was in and out in 20 minutes (absolutely healthy, but all fears quelled) and found myself less than a mile from the bookstore. I took it as a sign and turned into the parking lot. 

Entering the store, I noticed it was clean if not a bit sparse. I was used to more crowded stores, like the Tao of Books in Medway, or Unicorn Books in Arlington. Both of which I believe are now closed. But it was peaceful and after being greeted they owners let me poke around, probably annoyed that I was actually poking everything. 

On the couch in the back sat a young woman sipping tea. Another of the clerks came up and asked me if I wanted a reading. I had been on their website and saw the schedule of readers, and had noted that they usually were not there early Friday afternoons. Just following the "signs" I said why not. I had some time, and hadn't had a reading since I lived in Salem nearly 10 years ago. 

The young woman led me to the back and pulled out a Rider-Waite tarot deck and began. Communication. Writing. Spirituality. These were things that I had been dealing with, the reader said. Yup. True dat. 

The reading went fairly smoothly, and I have to say she was accurate with some details about a particular project I've been working on for 3 years. Even got the genre. So, I left the shop with some good ideas and a good psychic to hire for house parties. [Really, she does do that and if you want her name let me know.] 

This week though, I've been in a funk.  I've not even opened the project last Friday I thought about so much, my commute is stressing me out, and work is hectic. I need a change. So this morning I applied for 4 jobs at Harvard University. They all appealed to me, and one was even part time, which would free up some of my time to work more on my writing and spend more time with my son. Oddly enough, when I submitted my resume I didn't check the salaries. To be honest, it's usually the first thing I do. 

Well, I went back and checked. All of the jobs' starting salary ranges are at least 5K more than I'm currently making. Starting. As in, starting maybe not with the 12 years of experience I have in the field. 

I've known I was underpaid here at my current position, but never could really get a good idea of where I should be. A large part of me thought that due to the economy, perhaps my field's range had gone down. I've been holding myself back.

So tonight at sunset, I will be walking into a crossroads to throw a magic bean and make a wish for a better work situation. The reader gave me some infused with a fortune oil.

Beats making a dream board.

Super Bowl Countdown...

3 days.

3 days until the amazing New England Patriots defeat the New York Giants.
3 days until Brady vs. Manning.
3 days until we are absolutely certain Gronkowski will take the field [fingers crossed!!]
3 days until defensive tackle Wilfork makes the Giants' running game collapse. Repeatedly.
3 days for the Pats running backs spread their quick speed and thinking into a fast paced game.
3 days until Welker gets in the end zone.

How excited are you?

Passivity and social media

I've noticed a trend recently of people abandoning social media. It starts with taking a "vacation" from Facebook, dissing Google+, and leads to a deletion of Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Deletion.

In the past month a few people have announced their intention of not using Facebook anymore. Reasons why vary from being sick of status updates that detail the minutia of someone's day, to it not fulfilling a need to connect, to just being a time sucker.

One particular person I only connect with on Facebook, and I really enjoy her updates, photos, and comments on my photos. But she left a forwarding email address and blog site, so I'll have to be more proactive in finding out what she is up to.

Then I realized, that is the problem with Facebook: it's passive. Feed me more updates! What? No one has posted since 1 AM? Where is everyone? Not that I'm going to search right now. I'll just play some games while I wait. And the people appearing in my feed are interesting, but I find myself connecting with them only because they are showing up. Some people who don't post every week may as well have fallen off the face of the earth. If I don't see it in my timeline, it's not there.

The same goes for Twitter. I can just log on and read updates, many of which are repeats of Facebook postings. But I still log on, even though I'm not sure why. I have random twitter people following me @Rt95Chevorlet why do you follow me? I'm pretty sure you are a car dealership. The last car I bought was a used 2002 VW in 2003.

Social media does pander to its audience, but I feel like I can't even change the channel.

That isn't to say there aren't good days. Just yesterday I participated in a 41 comment post on Facebook about swimming, zombies, bikinis, and cats with string. But that creative spark isn't always showing.

So is it any question as to why people are leaving? They are bored. The only way to change the channel is to turn off the set.

In thinking about this topic, I remember a few years ago how people were talking about the rise of the global community and how we were all going to be able to learn from each other no matter our nationality, culture, gender, etc. The worry was that our local, "real" [read: non virtual] communities would go undeveloped. Neighbors shutting out neighbors.

A young lady I tutor said that she deleted her account after taking a break last fall. She felt free. She found other things to focus on in the real world. I have to admit, when I'm not online for a chunk of time, my frontal lobe relaxes. At night now I make an effort to not be on the computer (or tv, or phone, or xbox) and take care of myself and family's needs.

As a matter of fact, since I began limiting my social media time to office hours, we've been eating dinner at the dinner table. Which is now cleaned off because I'm not checking email every 15 seconds. I wouldn't say it's changed my entire way of being, but it's given me the 30 minutes I need at night to get stuff done.

Personally, I love Facebook and have found it easier to communicate with family, actual neighbors in my community (I hate phone conversations except with 1 or 2 people), and to stalk people. Don't laugh, you know you've done it. But I am posting less and less. And I don't think it's to be secretive about my glamorous life. The passivity is now overtaking me. I'm a lurker, wanting to be entertained.

So, I put it out there to you...why are you laying off the social media?

Touche universe

I have to hand it to the universe. You really know how to get a message across.

Yesterday I put it "out to the universe" that I wanted my boss' job. Honestly, my boss has been acting grumpy all week, and we've had some production issues spring up that resulted in a 8 person conference call between 4 offices. It was chaos. However, during that conference call, my boss started taking his pulse. Odd, right? Turns out he's been having an irregular heartbeat for the last 3 days (and 6 months...this has been going on six months). He's worried he will have a heart attack, as his father died from a heart attack fairly young.

Well, I don't want to get his job THAT way. Him dying is not how I would usher in my year of the EDITOR.

To further prove a point, I was contacted by a head hunter this morning about changing jobs.

So, what I'm hearing universe, is that if I want a new position, I need to leave this current office. OK, got it. We'll see what type of benefits this other position can offer--because it is all about benefits these days.

I just hope my boss doesn't have a heart attack in the office, because I am very rusty on my CPR.

You know it's bad when you want your office to implode

I've been with my current company for 12 years. It's been a long haul, and what kills me most is that I'm really good at my job. I love publishing, I love editing, I love working with authors.

I don't love working with people who don't know what they are doing, however. Or understand how publishing works. If you aren't going to learn about the industry you have a job in, you shouldn't be in it.

This all comes about because one of our production people is leaving next week. She was fabulous. British, smart, productive, and communicative. She once sent our office a box of Roses chocolates, so she won me over long ago.

Replacing her are the people underneath her. While I am not enthused, it's fine. But then...we are also changing production flows. Again. Today we have a conference call to discuss our office taking on more production work. Which is really ME taking on more work, because heaven forbid someone else have to do stuff here except look over other people's shoulders.

I'm adaptable, I really am. At work. Not many other places. But at my job, if you have a valid reason for changing something, I will listen, offer an adaptation to make it even MORE productive, and change.

But not my boss. He fights everything. And it's really annoying...especially when his reasoning sounds like my 2-year old's "I dont want to!" Or worse, "we've never done that before!"

So, when the call begins at 1 PM today, I'm actually secretly hoping he does cause a giant fuss for no reason. I want him to scream and cry. I want him to hang up and quit.

I want his job.

There universe, I've said it. It's out there. Make it happen. I'm already doing 90% of his work. Give me the full posting and salary.

Crossing fingers for a tantrum-like melt down. I've already started pushing his buttons this morning...it's like punching in the code.

3-2-1....

Football

Ahhh, the glory of Monday mornings. Especially when your team wins.

No Monday morning quarterbacking here, although Brady played a horrible game. The Patriots were given a gift last night when the Raven's kicker (ex-kicker?) went wide on a 3-point field goal.

And I was there. Not just there, but mere rows away from the goal posts the football did not sail through. It was majestic. The crowd did in fact go wild. Men around me threw me up in the air, something that hasn't happened since the Pats won the Super Bowl title 10-years ago. High fives abounded and this morning my throat is scratchy and hoarse.

To celebrate I bought my son a Gronkowski jersey this morning through the Patriot's website. While he is not yet 2, he somehow (thankfully) has become a football fan. True, we watch games with him, but on Friday evening we had the news on and Ty Law (honorary captain of the Pats) was on TV being interviewed, and Dylan pointed at the TV and said "Football". How he knew Law was a football player we are not sure, but he got really excited and refused to come away from the TV until the interview was over. Any time he sees anything to do with football he gets excited, so I figure he will appreciate the fact he had a jersey as a child when he is older. I bought it big so he can wear it for a few years.

So now the Super Bowl is in front of us. A Patriot/Giants rematch...14 days from now.

Let the nail biting begin!