Prelude to Irene

I am sitting here in my cottage listening to the rain and watching the trees bend.  Irene is coming.  A few minutes ago my house looked like this:

Before Irene: Own Your Backbone Abode

(Tomorrow morning I'll take anotner photo and share it.)

A few hours ago I looked like this:

6 in the rain.  Bring it.

Felt good to be out in the elements.  Wind was whipping a little, rain came down sharply against my straining quads.  All the while, I was baptizing my attitude to look a life in a more positive way.  I was thinking about something my brother in law said last night at dinner:  Dream Big, Clair.  He asked me about how my Yoga was going - he knew I was recently certified to teach and added a new studio to places I am currently teaching.  I told him...

I love it.  Don't know where it's all heading but I would love to become so good at teaching that I can travel to offer classes and workshops at executive retreats.  Maybe I can Oom my way to the Four Seasons in Fiji to teach.

He says...

Go for it Clair.  Keep dreaming big.  I think Yoga is out there as a great exercise regimen and a wonderful lifestyle balancing tool but people are missing the mark that it can improve productivity.  You might have something there. 

He's a guy that dreams big and makes life  happen.  Husband to my beloved sister, fabulous father to 5 of my 17 nieces and nephews - he started a very successful business in a spare bedroom of my parents tri-level.  Now he's movin' and shakin' with the leaders of our city.  He's in numerous locations across the country and taking on more.  He's daggone smart, with a personality bigger than Irene, and dreams larger than life.  And he's not even 40.

So, in my wallet, I have tucked away some of my favorite items.  They mean so much to me that if I died in a car wreck whoever found me would find Me.  Here it is:

 My Dad's funeral prayer card, picture of my Mom (I miss her so!), notes, cards, etc.

Including this:

It is from my big-dreaming brother in law in response to a note I sent to him and my sister just before they ran the Suntrust Richmond Marathon in November.  It says:
Thanks Clair!  You should be proud as well, you've done it.  More than anything, YOU and Grace have really challenged yourselves recently to achieve new milestones in life.  Few people in life move themselves forward an get stuck in a life of complacency.  Both of you have shed that tendency and pushed yourselves further and further.  Way to go.  You both are an inspiration to me daily.  Thanks.
I keep these words with me at all times.  When I feel sluggish an unmotivated, I open my wallet and I remember to keep dreaming, keep moving.  That's what my husband and I did in the Irene rain today.  This note, the pile of treasures from my wallet inspired me.

So maybe on the other side of this Irene, I'll find myself in Fiji someday.  Where would you like to go after the storm of a lifetime?

Quaking in your boots

I mean boobs.   When Beth commented on yesterday's post, she wondered if my boobs shook during the historic Virginia earthquake just 48 hrs., 46. min. ago.  As always, that Beth is funny.  She made me start thinking about my babies and their bras and I have come to the conclusion that:

Running bras and Yoga bras are not the same thing.

I am a runner and a yogi with a drawer for all fitness clothes.  I don't have them separated by discipline.  Maybe I need to be more disciplined.  I went on a run today as part of my half marathon training and my legs felt heavy and sluggish.  My boobs did not because I was wearing this:

and not this...



I am brilliant.  It wasn't until the end of the run that I noticed just how in place my girls were.  Not moving or playing peekaboo with my neighbor walking his collie.  I'm not that brilliant.  I have worn that very bra to run and it hurt my pecs, pectoral muscles that is.  Shakin' like a quake.  On that day my legs were the perky ones.

Why am I discussing my boulder holders?

Because I deserve it.  Almost 11 years ago (when I was 32) I had breast reduction surgery - deemed medically necessary by my totally cool plastic surgeon.  Now I did not have 'freak boobs' I am fairly tall (5'7") with a sturdy bone structure but they were too much for me.  Hated it.  Think Loni Anderson without the self-esteem.  I had just over 2 pounds of breast tissue removed (no, you cannot have it for yourself - do you how many times I was asked why they couldn't transfer it to a more flat-chested friend.)  I still have healthy C's but they match me.  Like your bra should match your sport.

This cottage is making me smarter already.  Here I am hard it work...

with her.

I love my cottage.

The State of Virginia owes me a Thank You note.  Because If I hadn't had that surgery, the quake would've been at least a 6 magnitude.  Less boob.  Less shake.

What kind of bra do you wear?  How do you lessen earthquakes?

My writer's cottage

I don't know why I have such long lapses between posts.  I do love to write and find the immediate gratification of instantaneous publishing quite... um, gratifying.  When I publish something I feel all giggly about, I think about it before I go to sleep, when I wake up and often check for comments (thank you!), visits, ANY feedback.  I'll post two or three times in a week - a good pace for me then, there's this huge dry spell mostly caused by negative self-talk.  Things like:
"You really should be cleaning the toilet."
"Your writing is not that good, it's self-indulgent to blog at all."
"You need to go cure cancer or something."

Sometimes it takes the earth moving to get me to move to my computer to write.  So I baptized our little outbuilding my 'Writer's Cottage'.

Clair's Cottage

Hmmmm... I' think, I'll go write.  Come on in.

Cute, huh?  My companion, Maggie awaits my hindquarters and my laptop.

Just below this sweet space, about 20 miles away is the epicenter of Virginia's biggest earthquake in history.  I'm feeling the energy from the tectonic plates all up in my business.  There were several recordable aftershocks - one at about 8 PM and another at 12:45 AM.  I'm having a hard time NOT comparing great seismic s*x with this LITERAL earthmoving experience.  Wouldn't it be nice if we all had aftershocks this often, this much later?  (Mind is back in the cottage and out of the fault line/gutter.)

So, in this hiatus from posting, I have been to Colorado and back.

Steamboat Springs

where I saw Beth finish her half ironman...



and an elk at Rocky Mountain National Park.

My kids started school.

They are thrilled.

I started training for Richmond's Half Marathon (11/15), have been teaching a bit of Yoga, taking and practicing some Yoga, cut way back on my wine, reconnected with friends and loved ones, got back into my groove at work, survived an earthquake and claimed my cottage.

I'll be writing more from here from my heart.  I hope you read it, I  hope you like it and I hope you all experience aftershockingly good stuff.

We are now bracing for hurricane Irene.  What natural disaster have you survived?