Hot Affair

So I cheated on barre with hot yoga yesterday at lunch (well, is it cheating when I also went to barre in the morning? or is it even worse because I hooked up with yoga so quickly after barre that now barre is feeling inadequate?) and I am IN LOVE. I went again at 8 a.m. this morning, which means I got up at 7:00 on my morning to sleep in to drive 20 minutes to spend 80 minutes in a 100+ degree room doing YOGA, a form of exercise I mocked and avoided for YEARS for being a contradictory combination of impossible and not hard enough to bother with, and I loved it. There was balancing and stretching and toe-touching and flows and music and SO many chatarangas. And I'm actually pretty good! Still tons of room for improvement of course, but I didn't black out like I did in my first barre class (probably because 1 lb. weights weren't involved), and all my at-home yogadownload.com classes had my mind and body fluent enough in the lingo and flows that I was able to keep up without feeling overwhelmed. I signed up for a 2-weeks for $20 unlimited introductory special and I plan to get my money's worth. There's a 5:30 a.m. on weekdays that I'm hoping to do, but that will involve waking up at 4:45 and packing a bag so I can shower and dress at the studio before work, so that'll be the real test of this fledgling romance. Barre will always be my first grown-up exercise love, and it will always have a place in my heart and muscle memory, but my new fling has definitely put a new spring in my step.

And I get to buy accessories for it! I'm still using the $15 mat I bought 18 months ago when I wondered into Target, newly pregnant and with a horrible headache, unable to take any of the drugs that were my usual go-to's. The pain was so bad, I finally acted on some advice given to me by a doctor I saw in college and bought a cheap yoga mat and set of beginner Yoga DVD's. It actually seemed to help a little and I've been tentatively getting more into the practice since then. But now I'd really like a little thicker and heavier mat, and I definitely need a mat towel or two. It's usually really hard for me to work up a sweat, but I lost buckets of it in my first class. I had borrowed a studio towel, and today just brought along a beach towel, but the grippy microfibery studio one was CLEARLY superior. Theirs is fancier than my fledgling romance will justify, but I've found what look like a few good $25 options on Amazon.

Most people in class seem to wear as little clothing as possible, which would be weird if I could break contact with my focal point long enough to look around the room, but I like wearing long leggings and a tank. In part because I only recently decided bikinis are something I can handle wearing in public (and by "public" I mean my own pool and my parents' lake house), so a sports bra in a crowded studio is WAY outside my comfort zone (the overly developed self-conscious part of my brain is actually lol'ing), but also because I don't like feeling my skin that sweaty and slippery. I like the long leggings absorbing it all and making eagle and tree poses possible. So I don't actually need anything on the clothing front, but I did place my first ever fabletics order and I'm super excited about the pair of capri leggings and the fun crossover top with strappy sports bra for a bargain total of $29. I've noticed more and more people in my barre classes wearing their stuff, so I'm excited to try it out for myself. And then I'm going to need another drawer for my workout clothes- I've moved way beyond the "half pj/half yoga pants" drawer they've been occupying for the last many years.

So yay, hot yoga! I'm super excited to have it be part of my life. And because I can't have a post without a picture, here's Cora in her rainbow dress so I can take a picture for her rainbow-themed first birthday invitation and for once, perfectly timed for this picture, she is NOT excited.

You want me to what? WTF is this thing?

Soooo, like this? Yaaaaaaay.

I'm way more excited about going to yoga again tomorrow.