Suzy Q Homemaker

I finally figured it out.  It took weeks of wondering what on earth was making me dread and detest one of the yoga teachers at our Family Y.  The first time I took one of his classes was not on purpose.  He was subbing for my usual (and most favorite) teacher.  His choice in music freaked me out because I was not expecting a lot of contemporary stuff.  I didn’t know any of the songs he played and it bothered me how distracted I was by all the vocals and emo-riffic chord progressions.

You see, I’m a traditional kind of gal.  I like, if I do listen to music during yoga, to listen to something ethereal, calming, and relaxing.  I have a couple of go-to CD’s that I even copied for my favorite yoga teacher.  She has incorporated them into her playlists, too!  I prefer down-tempo, earthy music or just no music at all.  My advanced yoga teacher prefers no music because her class operates in more of a workshop-type mode.  We start the first have with vinyasas at our own pace and spend the last part of the class getting individual attention while working on the advanced pose du jour.  Last night I did my first headstand in nearly eight years.  Hallelujah!

I digress.

After tweeting with a friend of mine who mentioned him busting out the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga when she took one of his classes, it all started clicking into place.  So I looked up one of the songs that I could remember from last week’s class.  It was Muse’s “Neutral Star Collision”…from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  Okay.  I think Muse is alright.  Just not for yoga.  Then yesterday morning I was able to remember another song and looked it up when I got home.

Let me sidetrack again:  I like Cee Lo/Gnarls Barkley.  I do.  I have an old Goodie Mob album that I enjoy listening to and his songs are my favorites, especially this one:

But it totally threw me when I was trying to “float” into downward-facing dog while his voice was resounding throughout the room.  I was thoroughly distracted.  When I looked up that song, it was a non-surprise that this Cee Lo song was from that damned soundtrack, too.  So I put it out of my mind and tried to take care of my work for the day.  I had to do some laundry, finish up a StoryBook for a client, and deal with the many temper tantrums that Timothy threw whenever I couldn’t hold him.  Later that evening I had a Parent Orientation at the boys’ school and I went to Advanced Yoga afterward to make up for my bad experience that morning.

While Jamie and I were relaxing last night, we got to talking about the situation with this particular yoga teacher and I started investigating the rest of the songs from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  It was immediately apparent that he was using the entire thing for our yoga routine and he opens with a piece by Philip Glass.

In the many years it took me to complete my music degree, I grew and changed a lot.  I learned to appreciate many genres of music.  As a freshman, I hated contemporary music that was “dissonant”, but later developed an appreciation for composers like Argento and Poulenc.  One genre I could never get past,though, was minimalism.  To put it bluntly: minimalist music makes me feel like hurting someone.  There is a list of movies that I hate.  I never quite put my finger on what it is I hated about these movies until the credits started rolling and the name Philip Glass popped up:

• The Illusionist (stupid movie made worse by stupid music)
• Neverwas (ditto)
• Secret Window (ditto)

Suddenly it all made sense.  The irritation I feel during yoga warm-up isn’t because I’m anticipating his random music–it’s from listening to PHILIP GLASS.  From the moment we’ve been trying to focus our breathing for the practice to come, I’ve been trying not to focus on the fact that the piano music in the background isn’t doing anything.  It’s nearly eight minutes of torture that I had been attributing to the fact that it was morning or I had a headache.

While I can no longer put full blame on the yoga teacher, I do believe he should be made aware of my and my friends’ distaste for his musical choices in class.  Perhaps on a comment card that reads:

If Daniel does not stop playing the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga class, I’m going to stab my eyes out.

Caution: contains explicit lyrics.  Jamie and I are trying to catch up on Flight of the Conchords and it took us FOREVER to find this video.  I hope you all mention my casseroles in the future.  I don’t want hurt feelings.

Hurt Feelings from Brian Kessler on Vimeo.

I never thought I would be here, writing about losing weight and all that jazz.  Isn’t that what people in their 30′s and 40′s do?  Oh….I’m almost 30.  Crap.

All joking aside, I have had a hard time treating my body well since Timothy was born almost fifteen months ago.  I was doing great, but life happens, right?  I had just started going back to yoga and pilates and trying to heal my split abs when I had that pesky appendix removed.  Recovering from that wasn’t all that bad, but winter came along, complete with everyone and their grandma getting stomach flu, colds, etc., etc.  Jamie was in classes in the evenings, I had rehearsals, and we found ourselves eating out A LOT, and I’m not even going to get into the horrible, horrible foods we were eating and eating to excess.  Oh, and going to the gym?  Forget it.  I tried taking Timothy and Simon by myself once, but it was a nightmare.

A couple months ago, I found out that I have high cholesterol.  I knew I was overweight.  Not obese by any means, but I weighed just a couple pounds more than I weighed when I was pregnant with my firstborn.  Yeah.  I have been embarrassed to go out in public because nothing fit but some drawstring pants and some t-shirts.  It was getting ridiculously depressing.

When Mom Central offered me the opportunity to try a new line of nutritional drinks and foods from Smart for Life that are (mostly) organic and contain good stuff like fiber & vitamins, I honestly couldn’t resist.

About the underWAY drinks:

The underWAY supplement drink, infused with a special HeroFiber and heart-healthy vitamins, works naturally to suppress your appetite and quench your thirst. underWAY curbs your hunger two ways. Its special formulation not only takes longer for the stomach to absorb, it also slows the absorption of what’s already there, making you feel fuller, longer. What’s more, its unique ingredients stimulate your stomach, telling your brain you’ve consumed more calories that you really have which, with underWAY, is almost zero! It contains no preservatives, sodium or caffeine, with only 10 calories and 2 grams of carbs per 8 oz. serving. HeroFiber, a soluble dietary fiber, helps maintain normal levels of cholesterol, glucose and insulin that are already in the normal range.

The Açai-Pomegranate drink?  SO GOOD.  I was also sent the Grape flavor, but I’m not a fan of any grape flavoring.   Jamie liked them, though!  I also loved all the different snacks they sent: cookies, cupcakes, etc.  It was all delicious and although I don’t believe I could follow a diet plan as outlined by the Smart for Life website, I already bought a package of the drinks when I ran out of the samples they sent.  I can see myself eating the cookies for breakfast, too.  They’re so yummy!!

Adding underWAY and Smart for Life cookies to my now very active lifestyle seems to be very promising for me.

Want a discount?

The nice people with Smart for Life are happy to offer my readers a special 10% discount code for underWAY and Smart for Life products. Please use MCUS10OFFUW for underWAY products at www.underWAY.com and MCUS10OFFSFL at www.smartforlife.com. These will go live July 2nd and expire August 30th.

I really hope you try these out for yourself.  Guilt-free snacks?  Can’t beat ‘em.

We were looking up some movies on the netflix the other day and came across this gem of a review.  Jamie and I didn’t make it five minutes into this movie before turning it off, so I had to see what the buzz was all about.