distracting ...

Yoga this afternoon was - hmm, a bit distracting! There were a couple of people there taking photographs (can't remember what for), and although in general I was fine with that, it did sort of take my concentration away a bit ... particularly because I'm actually doing a 6-week digital photography course with LVS online, and so part of me was thinking about focus and F-stops!!! (Which I have never known anything about before, having been just a 'point and click' photographer, but that's another story!!)

But anyway - the fact remains that I was really hopeless in the balancing poses - Utthita hasta padangusthasana was a joke!! (Except for my language!!) However, things did improve when I got to seated. I can bind on one side in Marichyasana B now, to my amazement! Once my left foot/ankle stops hurting from being squashed, I should be able to bind on that side too!! And Marichy C is coming along well too. I can bind on one side, not the other ... It's so nice, after maybe 2 years of nothing happening, to actually see myself moving into poses more deeply.

I've been having fun with the photography course. A bit overwhelmed with all the technical stuff, but still it's been really great. I've been taking my camera (Canon Powershot A520) with me a lot, and taking photos. Of course I have to do this for the course - after the first week when we all just posted stuff we'd done before, now we have to post 2-4 shots a week relating to whatever the lesson was about. The past week's one was on composition - below is one I took on Friday which I'm going to post! I was just driving home and saw the sky - if I hadn't had my camera with me ... !

Busy busy busy ...:)

The last 2 weeks have been sooo busy at work - I just come home and crash out in front of the TV or head in a book. Uni Semester 1 starts on Monday, and typically lecturers leave it till 3 (or less) days before the start to suddenly announce they want all these Blackboard websites created! To top it all, the person I work with has been sick for the past 3 days, and the casual we were getting to come in, rang in sick too! So I was there all by myself yesterday, half the time on the helpdesk phone helping out people who hadn't thought to request their courses yet, and the other half frantically trying to churn out their course profiles in html ... sigh!!

At least it's the weekend. Yoga class this afternoon - hoorayyy! I just managed to find time to do a few sun salutes a couple of lunchtimes during the week, apart from that it's Monday since I last did a proper ashtanga practice ... Ah well, life happens, and yoga is just part of my life. It just has to fit in with what's happening.

Getting back to websites - I'm finding it easier and easier as I go on to use CSS and not use tables for layout. I resent it when I have to use tables (time constraints!) And my freelance webdesign business is going really well. Last year I don't think I did any new websites - just maintenance on various ones. But it's only February now and I'm working on one new website, plus I've got another 2 new ones lined up! Great!! I'm also doing my friend Angela's poetry ezine - www.foame.org. It's a yearly thing - this is the 3rd year. The new issue goes live on 1st March ...

on my iPod: retro 60s music from Heartbeat

The Ups and Downs of one practice

It's odd how you can start one practice (yoga practice that is!) and think "oh, I can tell it's going to be that sort of a practice" and then it changes back and forward! I practiced at lunchtime today at work. By myself - the other two who sometimes come were away in meetings or whatever ... And I was really stiff in sun salutes. (I only went to class on Monday night, so that's less than 2 days ago!) Then the balancing poses were just a disaster! I keep tottering over, couldn't keep my balance ... sigh! So by then I "just knew" what sort of practice it was going to be.

Come the marichyasanas, and Marichyasana C, (which I had been making some progress in - had sensed that it wasn't really impossible and that one day I'd be able to do this ). And then on one side I suddenly thought - "what if I stretch these fingers a tidgy bit more?" - and I touched the other fingers!! I nearly fell over! Only on one side, the other side is miles apart still, but - wow!!!

Moving on and I get to bhakasana (sp? In our shala we're given this as a prep pose till we can do an arm balance and then we swap it for bhujapidasana). So I've been having problems with this one too. I'd finally just managed to get 2 feet off the ground at the same time, and then I fell out of it a few weeks ago. Now I feel very unsafe - my legs wobble on my arms and I'm scared to try and take my feet off the ground. Last week in class I got the teacher to go through it with me. But now I've forgotten again how and where to balance my legs so they feel secure! So I guess I'll have to wait till I go to class again and get him to go through it with me again!!! I'm a slow learner!!

on my iTunes (work computer): Chris Berry and Panjea - Mandela

And so the year begins ...

Getting back into the swing of things at work - and I'm doing a new CSS Positioning course at LVS, which is great. I do feel like my CSS knowledge is increasing and I'm understanding it all a lot more (not just copying and pasting code without being sure why it's used!)

Have been to yoga class about 3 times - great. I do need that discipline! But also someone else at my work is wanting to do yoga at lunchtimes so that should continue this year - hoorray. Going well - except for the arm balance one. I seem to be scared of falling and now can hardly get one foot off the floor, let alone 2!!

I'm also in the process of getting set up at home with ADSL and wireless. Well, I can't afford to do it all at once so got the Apple Airport Express first. That let's you connect to the internet wirelessly, and also (wonder of wonders) let's you stream your iTunes music collection to your home stereo. So it can play through those speakers. What I didn't realise was that you can only connect wirelessly via ADSL/DSL/cable. Don't know if this has always been the case, or just now that cable is becoming the dominant way of connecting.

And I still need to work out quite how to connect to my stereo's amplifier! I've plugged it in somewhere, but no music is coming through! Hopefully I'll get my head around it soon!!

On my computer (not my stereo yet!!): Malcolm McLaren's Fans - Lauretta

Woodford Folk Festival

Well - Woodford is over for another year ... Such an amazing 6-7 days ... I did yoga, drove musicians to where they were performing, listened to heaps of wonderful and different music, rehearsed and sang in the festival choir, danced my feet off, sweltered in the 40degC + heat, and cooled down sitting in shady places ... Ate wonderful food, met up with friends, talked for hours, slept a little bit! And lots more!

Yoga wasn't ashtanga - run by a group called Radiant Light yoga. Still, so good to do yoga though, and a lot of the poses were the same. I'd done a bit of yoga in the week before down at my Mum's place in Bowral, but it was good to do a class for 3 days.

Really, 'Woodford Folk Festival' is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there's some lovely folk music, but there's also heaps of blues, jazz, world, pop, reggae and other music. Pretty much the only music they don't welcome there is country (thank goodness!!!) Plus Tibetan monks, various types of dance, cabaret, circus (lots of that this year), puppets, weird and wonderful street performers and who knows what else!!

Music that I really loved this year included Chris Berry's Panjea, (American band including a wonderful anti-death penalty song - "Why do we kill people ,who kill people, to teach people that killing people is wrong?"!! Right on!!!), Bomba, (fabulous big reggae band), Fruit (3 women singing gorgeous harmonies) and Ash Grunwald - great young Aussie blues/roots singer.

Beautiful patchwork quilt

This is a photo of the beautiful quilt that my wonderful friend Doris in Cardiff gave me ... Isn't it gorgeous?! I was just stunned (although just before I left on my overseas trip I discovered she had made it for me).

Went to yoga last night ... and then when I got home in the evening I was just so exhausted! Don't know why - maybe it's just the whole 'end of year' thing! Don't know what to say about it (my yoga practice). It seems like it's just 'treading water' - waiting till I've had my Christmas break and then start again in January. I've only been able to practice 2-3 times a week this past couple of weeks. Christmas stuff has intervened!

And I've been feeling generally pretty unmotivated! Unmotivated to go out and buy Christmas presents, have not sent a single Christmas card ... maybe it's because I was away till the middle of November, and I just didn't get into the whole Christmas swing!! Ah well - there's always next year! And I saw most of the people I'd be sending Christmas cards to overseas anyway!!

Anyway - off down to Bowral (where my Mum lives) on Saturday. She told me on the phone yesterday she had lined up a whole series of social 'events' that we've been invited to! Visiting people that I haven't seen for a while, so that should be fun (on the whole anyway!)

On my iPod: Faithless - God is a DJ
(gotta love Faithless!)

A Standing Ovation!

We sang the Messiah again on Saturday night at a little country town called Boonah (set it lovely rolling countryside with hills/mountains on 2-3 sides), and we got a standing ovation! It was a beautiful performance - the soloists were wonderful and I just loved it. (Even though I do still get lost in the Amen Chorus at the end!) Really, so much of it can be read as so relevant - I mean, "How Beautiful are the Feet of him that preaches the gospel of peace" - it's about Darshan!!

So, that's it - I've put my score away for another year ...

Yoga is going well, even though I haven't been practicing as much as I'd like ... Marichyasana A is getting easier and easier. B is nowhere near anything! And with C I'm definitely seeing that I can get there, hopefully within the next year.

I finish work for the year at the end of next week. Then I'm off down to my Mum's in New South Wales for Christmas, and back up here on Boxing Day for Woodford (the Woodford folk festival). Yeay - can't wait. That is such a fantastic 6-8 days. I should be able to blog from there - I seem to remember they have an internet cafe setup there ...

on my iPod: the John Butler Trio