You should vote for me, I'm pretty sure

So I got nominated for "The Most Fascinating Yoga Teacher Blog of 2012."  How nifty (and a little weird) is that?  Well, you should totally click on this link and go vote for me.  Find the category for the Yoga Teacher Blog category and scroll through until you find http://stephenkingsgirl.blogspot.com and click the plus sign.  I know, it's a lot of instructions for summer vacation....

I don't know how many times you can vote for me, but you should do it as often as you can.  The winner gets a $100 restaurant gift card, so I may take you out to dinner :-)

Also, since I'm posting this on Facebook as well--a message to all my former students: I'm a little nervous about putting The Blog out there for you to see.  But, you're all adults, and I'm mostly an adult, so...you know...welcome to the imperfections, neuroses, poor grammar and bad taste that is your former English teacher.  Oh, along with some fascinating entertainment as well.  Go vote!!

A Crossroads

Let's face it, folks, this blog has been languishing. I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain by giving you all good reading material, and I know that. I have lots of excuses, but most of what has kept me from writing is simply that I've changed a lot since beginning this blog six years ago, and even more so in the last two years, and I just wasn't sure where this darling blog should go.

It started as a "hey, this is me" blog. Then it turned into a "Kelly the writer" blog. Then a "Kelly the teacher" blog, "Kelly the yogi" blog, "Kelly the funeral director" blog, "Kelly the yoga teacher" blog, and "Kelly the grad student" blog. And it was in this reflection that I began to struggle---I'm done with grad school (yippee!), hanging out here doing my normal writer-teacher-yogi-spinning-Gatsby lovin' thing, and I'm all worried about my next blog identity.

This blog is, and has always been, called "I am what I am." Nothing more, nothing less. So, you can watch for more posts from me simply being that--what I am. I complain, I laugh, I love, I study, I read, I watch tv, I veg out on Facebook, I read blogs, I write, I learn, I practice..... I do a lot. And I want to share it with you. So, read on :-)

The disappearing blog entry....

So, yesterday I wrote this nifty post about graduating from my master's program (last night) and how I'm conquering all of the stress and angst that has been caused by trying to graduate from my master's program (last night) and the thing disappeared!!!!!

What the heck?

I call censorship.

Okay, not really. Nothing I write is incendiary enough to be censored anyway. But, it begs the question--where do lost socks and lost blog entries hang out?

Happy anniversary to 'I am who I am'

Five years ago today I sat down and decided to start myself a blog. Didn't really know how often I'd write or what I'd say--and I *knew* no one would read it! Now, five years later, I'm older, wiser, and I'm still sure no one reads it ;-)

Blogging is a form of writing I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with. It's hard to write every day, which needs to be done, really, with a blog. Sometimes I have really boring days. And sometimes there are things going on that are completely interesting, but I can't talk about them. Other times, there's sad stuff, happy stuff, profound stuff, and just plain random stuff.

If you're a reader--thank you! Thanks for sticking by me in my recent hiatus. My blog is out of toddler stage...it's going to be starting kindergarten soon! And, who knows, a change may be on the horizon...

Today I opened spring by celebrating with my fellow yogis and doing my first 108 sun salutations with the beautifuls Lisa Bloom and Sarah Goble at CorePower Yoga. It was fabulous. They ran it in quarters. I tried to keep count but lost it after probably 4 or so. The first quarter went by in a breeze--the second I thought would never end. The third, also, because very challenging. I started to modify my chaturangas. The fourth I'm pretty sure I put out the ugliest sun salutations known to yoga, but I did them! The energy in the room was awesome--and I know the next time I do it I'll get that blissed out feeling people talk about. I rarely allow myself to bliss out the first time I do something--way too concerned about the overall picture to allow myself to let go.

So, to anniversaries and to the first days of spring, Yay! Beauty and love to all of you! :-)

Huh

A list of random things:

1. Spring break begins tomorrow at 3:01pm. Huzzah.

2. Saturday is the five year anniversary of 'I am who I am'. Not even sure quite what to say about that.

3. My NCAA bracket is pretty much shot to hell. This irritates me because, since I am so blindingly busy even though I have a student teacher full time, I didn't have time to actually create my own bracket. So, I copied the brackets of two sportsy-type men on the internet who touted something like a 90% accuracy rate on last year's bracket. So far, they both suck.

4. FIVE YEARS!??!

5. I would really like my tax return now please.

Ahhh...a reunion with my blog

Maybe it's the weather...maybe it's extreme writer's block...maybe I'm just feeling less than stellar....Whatever the reason, I haven't written anything in FOREVER. No blogging, no fiction, not even a Christmas letter to my loved ones.

And, I need to get back to it. I hate it when I stop writing and then a ton of stuff happens--there has been a lot--but then I don't know where to begin.

That's where I'm at now.

So, I'll just begin with yesterday's absolutely amazing, incredible SNOW DAY!!!!!! It was bliss. Sleeping in, reading my book, doing laundry, and then in the afternoon I dug myself out to go to Von Maur to buy three adorable dresses. Yeah, there was a brilliant sale.

Tomorrow is Friday--yay--and then it's one week down into the new trimester. So far so good...and my yoga practice is getting back. Come to think of it, I haven't been writing pretty much during the same timeframe that I haven't been able to do yoga.... must explore that possibility.

And, so, here ends my post of mundane-ness. I'll try to come up with something better for tomorrow, I promise.

Some things on my mind: a random list

1. I need to blog more often. I used to blog every day. Sometimes multiple times a day! Surely I have not run out of important things to tell the faceless masses? (Not that you, dear reader, are a faceless mass. You are an individual--unique and loved by me.)

2. Julie and Julia is a damn good movie. And, there was no better movie for me (a writer) and my best friend (a cook) to see together.

3. I need to get back to doing yoga. Seriously. I haven't done yoga in, roughly, 20 days. Which is about 20 days too many to be yoga-less.

4. Anna Karenina is a really good book! I'm totally digging it.

5. Melissa d'Arabian's new cooking show, Ten Dollar Dinners, would be a whole heck of a lot more awesome if she actually showed that the dinners actually cost ten dollars. Like, she says that the meal will feed a family of four for under ten bucks. But then she just shows how to cook something, and I'm thinking "Um...there's not a chance in the world that all cost less than ten bucks!" Or, if there IS a chance in the world, then show me. If you're going to have a show where budgeting and saving is an integral part of the show...um...mention it.

Return of the Prodigal Blogger

Today was my final exam for Yoga Teacher Training, which means that tomorrow my life will return to normal...at least something resembling normal, though it won't be the normal I was accustomed to before training started.

I may someday soon be able to put it all into words...but I'm not sure about that yet. It hasn't sunk in yet that the training is done and that I won't be able to enjoy the 14+ hours of weekly yoga practice/seminars/lectures/etc. How did eight weeks go by so fast?

Tomorrow spring break is done and I return to work. I feel like I've been on a reality show, or somewhere in some parallel universe. I'm so not the same person I was eight weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see how my new self translates into my old world.

In the meantime, though, thanks for sticking with me! Sorry I didn't update...I will be better--blogging is definitely a part of my "new self" :-)

Sometimes silence speaks the loudest of all

I've been trying to blog, I really have. The trouble is, everything that's going on in my head and in my life isn't the business of the general public. And I try to write about it in "code"--telling only what I need, but it's not working out very well. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, and most of it isn't that great, and I don't really want to dwell on that because there's a lot going on that's pretty awesome too. So I try to start and it all turns into an entry that I really can't post.

So, I'm still here, still trying to write, still making it through this life just like all of you fine folk are. Forgive my silence--I promise I'll be back soon and then I'll talk your ears off.

Weekly Update with Yours Truly

Since I don't really have much going on, here are some random tidbits...

Having survived another Thanksgiving without (fingers crossed) gaining any weight, I'm hoping that my metabolism is actually staying up to speed.

I went to 2 yoga classes this past week. I loved both of them and sucked every molecule out of them that I could.

I need money. A lot of money. Quickly. So, I need to start supervising activities at my job. Usually it's $40 a crack. If I do 47 activities I'll have the money I need. This may be possible...maybe not.

I'm hoping that my application will be accepted for yoga teacher training.

I'm thinking about dropping my spring class and taking it this summer instead. It'll save me $600 and give me one more free evening. Plus, since I'm looking to postpone school by one more year, I'm no longer in a huge rush to push through all my classes. But, I don't know if I can just "stop" taking classes.

There is a huge pile of laundry sitting on my couch that I'm hoping the night elves will fold while I'm sleeping.

Apparently November is a vortex...

I'm not intentionally avoiding the blog, I swear. I had no idea a whole week had gone by. And before that, another week, and before that yet another. I blame my overwhelming desire to hibernate, statistics, a lack of yoga (leading to a total lack of clarity), and too damn much grading because it's the end of the trimester.

Today I spend most of the day sitting in the Great Red Chair of Sleep. I played mob wars, read Howards End (which I really feel should have an apostrophe and yet it does not), napped, looked at my book shelves and shook my head, ate popcorn, took the dog for a walk, and played more mob wars.

See why I'm not writing? I'm the most boring person alive right now.

Once a slacker, always a slacker...

Well, I skipped yesterday in Nablopomo as well. I remembered when I was driving home from the last cast party at 12:15am. From the cast party where I went from being the Guitar Hero Unbeaten Champion to the Fallen Queen of Guitar Hero. The only people who didn't beat me last night were the people who didn't play (and my darling stage manager, Abbi, but we won't bring that up for the sake of her teenage self-esteem).

Today I have to announce to my cast and crew that Up the Down Staircase was my last play. I have unofficially resigned, and will turn in my formal resignation in a few weeks. Operation: DBH (announcement tomorrow!) is going to render theater impossible for me. I've already talked about how icky it's going to be to tell them, but now that the day is actually here, and the time looming closer, I'm actually really nervous. I hope I say everything I want to say in the right order, and I really, really hope that I don't cry. I try to avoid crying in front of people whenever possible, because once I start it's difficult to stop. It doesn't help that we got news on Friday that school is going to become a lot harder for teachers and students on the Monday after Thanksgiving when teachers go "work to rule" as a step toward settling our contract. I've never actually gone "work to rule" before--only "work to hours". I'll explain the differences tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday, seeing as I'm on the new every-other-day-Nablopomo-plan).

Okay...time for me to go deliver the news.

Dammit.

Well, I forgot to blog yesterday. I made it 14 days on Nablopomo and then I blew it yesterday. Just plain forgot.

We close the show this weekend--yay!

500 posts

I was going to write about Yoga, and how it was such a contrast to last week I can hardly bear it (Molly is still the coolest thing since sliced bread, no worries), but then I realized that this is my 500th post. I've been blogging for two years and eight months, so I guess that's alright.

Okay, I'll write about yoga.

Last week was awesome. Molly the Wonder Instructor and five other women and I spent an absolutely luxurious seventy-five minutes becoming one with our Chi or whatever, and when I got home I was so relaxed I could hardly move. Yoga became the highlight of my week, and what I was most looking forward to this week.

After dropping off the program for the play at Kinkos, I headed over for what I assumed would be an even better night of yoga, now that we all know each other and whatnot. I sign in and look into the room. I assume it's the class before mine, because there's about a hundred people in the room smashed together like sardines in a can. Then I see Holly, who was in my class last week. Bottom line, four people joined the class. So now there's ten of us, and because it's only ten minutes before class starts, I got the last spot, in the back of the room, right in front of the door with the nice bright fluorescent light from the hallway shining into my eyes.

Words cannot express my disappointment. Everyone who knows me knows how well I do with an unexpected change in my surroundings (there's some twitching, some tears, occasional foot stomping). I tried to focus on my relaxation, and the one thing that saved me from an untimely demise was Warrior pose. My name means warrior, and I know it sounds hokey but when I hit warrior pose, I was able to channel myself into some semblance of emotional order and the class ended up successful.

Apparently my Chi was flowing nicely because when I arrived back at Kinkos (clad in sweatpants, a sweatshirt, with hair that had been put up into a ponytail, pulled out, put up, pulled out, you get the picture) the adorable guy who made the program from a work of crap into a work of art asked me to call him. I believe I'll do that.

And next week I'm getting to Yoga a half hour early. I'm getting a good spot, dammit.

A new look to the blog

Well, I decided it's time to give up the pink. I chose the color originally in honor of my grandma, but I think she'd be okay with my changing to a more subdued color that's more...well...me. So, here I am. New and improved, and grey.

"Team Vox" can suck it

Okay, so I try to become a "member" of Vox so that I can comment on Jodi's nephew's blog.

BUT, apparently I'm not good enough for Vox. So they're going to let me know when a SPOT becomes available.

You know what? I don't need Vox. So Vox can kiss my ass. Blogger loves me and I love blogger.

Happy Blog-day-iversary Jodi!

Everyone should go check out Jodi's blog, not just because it's a bitchin' blog, but because today her blog is six years old. That's, like, a first grader.

Control Freak

I am one, which is why I hate to fly, why I've had issues with men, jobs, eating, and anything else you can imagine that has to do with being in control of situations.

When I feel out of control in one aspect of my life, everything else falls apart. It's like I look at the rest of my life and overcontrol those parts. My most common method of control is to not do anything, to say "you don't need to get done, task, I'll do you when I'm good and ready." A perfect example is my blog. I haven't been writing much lately because right now there's one thing in my life that's out of my control. This is a bad time because everything else is going really well. Writing, great; teaching, fine for the most part; relationships, great friends. But the one thing (and don't worry, it's not drugs or alcohol or anything that's bad for me) will eventually start to spill over. So I have to decide what to do about it.

Missing Madalyn

I don't know if you all managed to see the entry I wrote earlier today, like about 10 hours ago, about my darling Madalyn but the entry is gone now and I have no idea where it disappeared to. That irritates me. Madalyn is a darling, seven years old, and I made her a promise last Thursday that I made to her two years ago and didn't keep. I'm trying to keep it now and it would help if my blog would cooperate and help me record my progress.

Alas, it seems to be gone. Perhaps it will resurface as mysteriously as it disappeared, but in case it doesn't I'll consider rewriting a similar entry tomorrow, although it won't be as good as the original, sorry. They never are.

Welcome to me

Okay, so I never thought I'd do a blog. My thoughts are way too random and I already have enough trouble keeping track of my actual journal. But, I figure that as smart and witty as I am that other people out there in the world should get the chance to know me too. So here I am.