Be the Pack Leader

Yoga last night….AHHHHHHHHH!!! I can’t wait to go again Friday! It’s good. 🙂

Tonight is my first GRE prep class. Back to school I go! I am looking forward to giving my brain a workout again. Tuesdays/Thursdays are going to be really, really long days for the month of December, but it will be worth it.

I am reading, “Be the Pack Leader” by Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer). I told Pablo I am reading it, and that, “I AM the pack leader!” He is starting to believe it, and I am, too. 🙂

That’s all for today. Goodbye.

 

Bookworm

I have a new addiction: reading. I can’t stop reading! I am on my fifth book since I finished Eat, Pray, Love. And I have thoroughly enjoyed each of my choices.

In the past, I would have a difficult time focusing. I would start a book, then come across another one that piqued my interest, start that one, then go back to the previous one, and soon I would forget what was happening in each book. I would get confused. Then, I would go days, maybe even weeks without picking up either book. When I resumed reading, I had no idea what was going on and would have to go back and re-read a chapter. That doesn’t sound like very much fun.

Now, however, I am breezing through books. I mix up the genres. I will read a (semi) self-help book, then the next will be a semi-mindless novel (not too mindless…I choose books to which I can relate: relationship woes, caring for a dog, etc.), then I will go back to a self-help book, then another novel, and now I am reading, “The Female Brain.” www.thefemalebrain.com. So far, it’s interesting.

Most of my reading is done while Baby H is sleeping, but I also have opted not to get cable at my house, so I fill my quiet time with reading instead. I like it. 🙂

 

Time for a new book

Wow. Yoga was intense tonight. It was hot. I was tired. And I pushed myself harder than I think I ever have. I was also dehydrated, which resulted in cramps in my feet and calves. The instructor noticed this, and left the room, and came back with an electrolyte packet for me. I did not want to have the firemen come! It wasn’t that bad. More of a nuisance. I did have to rest a couple of times, but only for a short while. I felt like I kicked butt tonight in nearly all the poses. Even though I was cramping, tired, and really hot, I felt really, really good. 🙂

I finished Eat, Pray, Love today. Amazing. I was supposed to read this book at this exact point in my life. I gleaned so much useful information out of this wonderful book. I laughed out loud, I cried, and I found myself telling myself, “Are you kidding me? I totally relate to this, and that and this.” I was sad the book ended. 😦 I am now on a hunt for another great book. Any ideas?

 

I got to say it was a good day

Today was a good day.

Walk with baby H. And, he slept most of the day, so I read a lot. I am in the last push of Eat, Pray, Love. Still loving it.

3 mile run.

After work, Pablo and I went over to a friend’s house on the lake and played in the water, and went paddleboarding. Well, my friend and I went paddleboarding while Pablo watched from the dock and attempted to get ON the board. Pablo also swam…a little…with encouragement. All day he ran up and down the dock staring at the water. You could tell he really, really wanted to get in, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He waded in the water when he was off the dock and leaned really far forward trying to catch some bubbles in the water. Several times I thought he was going to go in. I even jumped in and tried to entice him in. After a while we decided to give him a little encouragement. There were two of us helping, and he eventually made it all the way in and swam for a couple of seconds. The look on his face was not one of happiness so we quickly got him out. Oh well. At least he was able to cool off. 🙂

After his dip, Pablo raced back and forth on the grass playing with his new Snugga Wubba, and wrestling. He was a very happy pooch, and did not go easily when it was time for us to leave. I had to remind him we’d be back…

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Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

I am reading, “Eat, Pray, Love.” It is fabulous. Elizabeth Gilbert is an excellent and engaging writer. I had heard wonderful things of this book, and with the movie coming out soon, I figured now would be a good time to read it.

I was intrigued by the book immediately when in the prologue she talks about her travels to India and about the beaded necklaces worn, called japa malas. The necklace is used during meditation, and one bead is touched for each time the mantra is said. There are 108 beads on the necklace, and, “the number 108 is held to be most auspicious, a perfect three-digit multiple of three, its component adding up to nine, which is three threes.” Gilbert separates the book into 108 tales, and divides it into three sections about Italy, India and Indonesia. She notes that there are 36 tales in each section, and that she is writing the book during her 36th year.

She sucked me in. Obviously the number three is very special to me (and any number divisible by three), and I am also in my 36th year. This encouraged me to get my tattoo.

So far the book has been awesome. I just read this passage, and it hit home with me. Like Gilbert, I have an over-active mind, which is not a lot of fun at night when I turn out my light and want to go to sleep. I thought her description of the over-active mind was spot-on and worth sharing:

“Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the “monkey mind” -the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping themselves only to scratch, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mood swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but-whoop!-how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it’s the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”