I'm on the struggle bus.

Running and yoga are supposed to be perfect complements. Yoga keeps you strong and supple while running keeps your heart happy (physiologically, anyway). Running, Yoga...I love you both equally...so, why can't you two get along???

Since the beginning of time, I have had a very tough time finding a good balance of my two loves (especially since I still have to work for a living and want to spend time with my fiancé). For some reason, when I'm knee deep in marathon - or half marathon training -  yoga falls by the wayside. The same is true right now, when my mind, body and soul are walking down the path of yoga teacher training, I've only been running about 3 miles every two weeks.

Is there ever going to be a balance? I guess I don't know.

When I recapped my 2011 races, I talked about all the races that I want to do in 2012...one of those was the Cleveland Half Marathon in May. If I don't get my act together right now, I won't be able to run a half marathon in May.

Last year at this time, I was running running running. This year, life's all about yoga (well, there's wedding stuff, and lacrosse...but as far as personal fitness and mental well-being go - yoga). Again, I'm just not able to find a balance.

So, my question to you...is it possible?

Right now, all I want to do is find a warm yoga studio or the comfort of my own home to downward dog my life away. Going outside is the last thing I want to be doing. Since the Cleveland Marathon last year, I've wanted to stay in half marathon shape year round, but I just haven't been able to find the motivation to get there.

Right now I don't feel like I'm a runner OR a yogi. Can I run the half marathon in May AND get certified to be a yoga teacher? I don't know.

How do I find my balance?

I consider myself lucky that I had an anatomy background before deciding to embark on the YTT journey. In December, we spent an entire weekend learning anatomy, and honestly, we barely scratched the surface. The human body is such an amazing piece of machinery. Something we briefly touched on in our anatomy lessons was the chakra system. If you're unfamiliar, it's a system of energy centers in your body that are associated with your beliefs, emotions, and physical health. The chakras are very closely linked with your endocrine system (the glands that secrete every hormone in your body). 


Today, I want to talk about the first of the seven major chakras; what physical and emotions channels that it governs, how to tell if there is an imbalance, and what you can do to get it back into balance. The first chakra is the Muladhara Chakra (mula = root, adhara = support) and it resides at the base of your spine. It is your root chakra, associated with the earth element and and your adrenal gland and your bones and blood. This chakra governs your sense of stability and connection and the foundation of your emotional and mention function. An imbalance in this chakra might manifest when things that have to do with your home, money or job or feeling that you are unsafe or insecure in the world, basic survival needs, groundedness, etc. This will causes lots of stress which comes about because of increased levels of the cortisol secreted by the adrenal gland - cortisol is your stress hormone and the adrenal gland governs your fight or flight response.

• back pain
• sciatica
• loss of balance
• loss of memory
• anxiety/stress, even depression
• arthritis
• skin problems

I wrote a whole post on the airplane (using my blogger app) about "good karma fridays" and somewhere between airplane mode and a real internet connection, it got lost. So I'm going to do my best to try again.

I was reading about karma in my Jivamukti Yoga book and came across a suggestion for a practical way to invite good, positive karma into your life. The Buddhist teacher, Geshe Michael Roach, suggests that in order to increase our own good karma, you should reflect on the good karma of others.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of karma, it's more or less a law of cause and effect. Every single one of your thoughts and actions have a karmic effect that stays with you forever and beyond. It's the law of "what goes around comes around" and it comes with the idea that a person's lot in life has nothing to do with luck, but is a direct effect of their past karmas, whether good or bad. It obviously behooves us to effect good karma in our lives.

Increasing your good karma works like the law of attraction...the more you increase your good karma, the good karma will be attracted to you (this also works for the bad). It's like a karmic magnetic field, of sorts. Geshe Michael Roach's suggestion to increase your good karma seemed like an easy, and logical way to incorporate more good karma into my life, but I wanted to take it one step further. Instead of just reflecting on the good karma of others to myself, why not share it with the world? Then this bubble, this magnetic field of wonderful, yummy karma could permeate the blogosphere too!

Thus, my idea for good karma Fridays was born. A forum for me and my readers to reflect on others' good karma and increase that magnetic field of karma around all of us. Here are my thoughts for the week.

(1) The dad's who coach youth/middle school lacrosse in Strongsville! They are doing their part to instill healthy values in our youth (and create excitement for the best sport!)

(2) Last weekend, Ashley and Nate (or the Cheeses as we like to call them) got married! Mr. and Mrs. Cheese are the people who we get cheese from at the farmer's market and have become good friends of ours. Committing to love each other for the rest of their lives is such a great thing to celebrate!

(3) The policeman who pulled me over for an "improper" left turn after yoga last Friday night...he was doing his job to keep me and other drivers safe on a dark, snowy night.

(4) Friends who let me practice teaching yoga to them. I don't know what else I can even say about this. I'm so incredibly thankful to have such wonderful people in my life.

Okay, your turn! What are some great and selfless things that you've observed other people doing? Take a little time to appreciate and rejoice in them today!

I had a great post that was going to go up yesterday, but I have no idea what happened after I hit publish! It's a case of the disappearing post!!! Oh well, I'll try again later.

Now is the time to announce the winner of two tickets to the Great Home and Garden Expo!!

I didn't want to use the run-of-the-mill random.org to pick the winner, so I cut up on of my business cards, wrote everyone's name down (don't worry, the extra entries got entered more than once). Then I put the names in a box, closed my eyes, and picked!

I have a hard time with laundry detergent sometimes. I could stand in front of the laundry detergent aisle at the store for hours trying to decide what scent, how strong, whether I want to be environmentally friendly or not, how much do I want to pay, etc, etc, etc.

I'm pulling the Libra card on this one. Decision making is not my strong suit.

I do know how to make my own laundry detergent though. It involves a grand total of three ingredients:

Does anyone else love Nestle's Crunch bars?

Ashley's popped amaranth cereal turned into one of the best chocolate add-ins ever! Popping amaranth is just like popping popcorn on a smaller scale. To learn how, check out this post.

Drumroll, please...this is my very first vlog (well, kinda). I want to let you guys in on our brilliant save the date idea.

Brandon and I are trying to keep our wedding on the inexpensive side. One of the things we decided on to keep our wedding costs down was the save the dates...no snail mail for us. I've seen a couple of people skip the save the dates all together, but we figured since we have a lot of out-of-towner's coming in, we wanted to let everyone know the date well in advance. The solution?

Video Save-the-Dates!


Don't mind my sweatpants with the pockets turned out and my poor percussion skills. Luckily, I have a very musically inclined fiance. He wrote an adorable song for the occasion.

The video is going out to our guest via email, although special phone calls are being made to those grandparents who haven't gotten on the email boat yet.

Alright, I know...this might be the cheesiest thing we've done yet. Lots more cheese to come. Just you wait!

• March – St. Malachi 5 mi
• April – Cleveland 10 miler
• May –Cleveland Marathon, Half Marathon
• June – Towpath 10-10
• September – Akron Marathon Half Marathon or Relay
• October – Towpath Half Marathon (maybe, it’s on my birthday)
• November – a turkey trot
• December – the great NYE race (also a maybe, New Year ’s Eve is typically our night in!)
• Sometime before October 7: a destination race