Solving Problems Almost Before We Know They Exist

Saturday night, Easy, Lion, and one of Lion's frat brothers, and I all went out. We went to the bar that Lion's family owns and then we went to a club. We had a pretty good time and shared a lot of laughs.


While we were out, somehow the conversation between Easy and me turned towards how we spend our time outside of the home either in St. Louis or Chicago. I realized at that moment that we hardly ever do the type of things I would do for fun if I were by myself. We spend most of our time out listening to live music (Easy may or may not be playing), or hanging out with his or my friends (there's also music involved usually there too).


Then it occurred to me, that I'd never spoken up about doing more things that I want. My girl Top has suggested things that she knows are coming up in Chicago that I might like to go with Easy too and I didn't even really consider the possibilities because I figured we'd be busy doing something else, like listening to live music somewhere.


This realization really hit me because I hadn't even considered it before. I love listening to live music, all types of music (except bad music). So spending almost all our time outside doing that wasn't, and isn't, an issue. But it is rather one-sided. So how did we fix it? Well, before I even truly came to the realization, Easy was working on a plan to do more stuff I like. Last night, he asked me what I like to do so we could work it into the equation.


I told him I'd already told him and wondered why I, yet again, would have to repeat myself. He left it alone and we didn't really talk about it again for the rest of the night. But this morning, when I woke up, he informed me that he had planned three dates for today and the next two days that would be centered around things I've mentioned to him over the months that I like to do.


After promising that the dates weren't extravagant or expensive, I agreed to the plan. I'm kind of excited because I can't imagine what things I said I like that he actually remembered and plan on taking me to do. I have expensive taste in some respects, but I also like simple things. I hope at least one of the dates takes advantage of the warming weather here in St. Louis. It still isn't as warm as I'd like (and as the weather keeps predicting), but it's getting there.


So, after I update Rants About The Real World, and Easy finishes working on this song he's writing, we'll be off on Date #1. Well, also after we go running. Easy went running by himself yesterday. I can't leave him hanging by himself, especially when it was my idea to go running in the first place.


I promise, I'll blog about it. I'm just so happy this is how we solve conflicts. Before the problem gets fully realized, it's fixed. I don't expect us to forever do things I like and would be doing if I were alone. He still has his music and I still love life music. But it's nice to know my stuff will now be put into rotation.

Staying On The Exercise Bandwagon

Easy and I didn't get up and go running yesterday morning, but we did go when he got home from work. He only had a half day today because of parent/teacher conferences. And to kick off his Spring Break, we went running. We ran ever farther than we'd run up to this point, so that was a nice expansion of working out. And when we got back, we had a great chicken Caesar salad for lunch and watched Jet Li in Fearless. I think it was a great way to spend the afternoon.


I used to hate running, and I'm not sure I'm still too far from that, but I do enjoy the feeling of accomplishment I get from it. and it might be in my head, but I swear I've had more energy the last couple of days. What I do like it feeling the muscles in my thighs get more firm and knowing that I'm getting my heart rate up, which is great for healthy living.


I'm excited too because of time spent with Lion. He's been super busy with his rotations, so even though I spend so much time in St. Louis, I don't get to spend a lot of time with him. But he has just finished his shelf exam for family medicine and he has the weekend free before he starts OB/GYN on Monday, so I'm hoping we can get some good quality time in this weekend.


One of the only things that sucks about spending so much time down here in St. Louis is that I'm not doing my Chicago stuff. For instance, my bowling league meets on Fridays and I won't be there. My team should be alright without me, but I just wish I was there. I bowl at least 20 pins over my average almost every game, so I'm worth more there than not. But that will something to work out after this season. There are only another ten weeks or so left in the season anyway, if that many.


On another note, I saw a slight increase in the number of followers to my blog. That makes me happy! Looks like reaching out on BlogFrog and 20-something Bloggers has had a pretty nice initial payoff. I would like to say you all should check out my other two blogs too! They're great, and they sound mostly non-narcissistic because they're not about my life.


The first is My Life's Love Medley. It's a blog about the love lives of my closest friends. Each friend gets a day, except Camille and Lion share Wednesday. So there are eight friends in total. I talk about them a bit on this blog, but The Medley is where they get most of their coverage. It's like a soap opera if you look at the different stories each person has told about them. Also, on days when there's nothing to update, I link to another blog or website that talks about something very relevant to my friend's current romantic status.

The second is Rants About The Real World. It's a blog where I share my (usually rant-y) thoughts about what's happening in the world around me. Right now, I'm doing a series of posts on all the protests going on in the Middle East/Africa. Based on the coverage these stories are getting in America, these protests are of interest, some more than others. But I'm covering them all, in chronological order based on when they started. Also, I talk about things that go on in American politics, local politics, pop culture, and the media. If you like current events and general rantiness, check it out.


There are links to both blogs on the right hand sidebar of the blog, usually around the level of the end of the most recent post. Read them, and let me know what you think. I love feedback!

Missing Yoga, But Missing It For A Good Cause

I've posted a number of times about yoga on this blog.

It's one of my favorite activities/exercise options. It has done wonders for my body and overall holistic health.

But I haven't been in what feels like forever. Sure, I just went last Friday, but that's too long.

After a week of completing my goal and going three times, it's a bit frustrating to not be able to go at all.

Even though my yoga studio is part of a national chain, they do not have studios in St. Louis.

When I'm there, I try to go through my poses a bit on my own, but it's not the same.

It isn't nearly as relaxing. At that point, it's just exercise.

I was supposed to go to yoga today. But my mom changed my plans because of our shopping trip that is planned for today.

Sure I could have gone to the earlier yoga class, but that would require waking up super early in the morning. After being up late last night at a bowling alley.

When my dad and I go practice, we are out til 1 in the morning sometimes.

And then I started thinking about how I'm supposed to be heading to the church to wrap the presents for tomorrow's Winter Wonderland.

And how after that I'm supposed to be bowling with my league tonight.

And how sleepy I'd be because we have to wake up super early Saturday morning to get ready for the Winter Wonderland in the morning.

And how Saturday afternoon, I'm supposed to be heading to my grandmother's house with my mom to spend some time.

Spending time with my grandmother is a very stressful thing. I'm mostly convinced she means well, but the woman is an emotional wrecking crew.

We never leave there anything but drained and dreading the next visit. It's hard to explain, bu that's the long and short of it.

And then I started thinking about how much I miss Easy. Since I dropped him at the airport, I've actually spoken to him a couple of times.

He called me while he was at the Newark airport and we chatted a bit. But since then, nothing.

I figure he needs time to settle in. It's seven hours ahead there, so I shouldn't have been surprised to wake up this morning with no e-mail from him.

He was going through his first day there, probably trying to avoid jet lag since it was 8 am (time to go to work) by their clock and 1 am (time to go to bed) by his usual clock.

But missing him and wanting an e-mail from him saying he made it safely and everything is going well so far would be nice.

And it would give me the boost I need to make it through was promises to be a very long couple of days.

After time with my grandmother, my mother and I will probably head home to pack. Packing with my mother is always a production.

It will be interesting to see if it stays that way even though we'll only be in DC for one night.

And then I have to find some time to get the stuff I need for the church's Christmas party, get that stuff to Camille, and brief her on what needs to be done.

And to focus on the positive, I will just say how happy I am to be so busy. I like having responsibility and all these things to get done before I leave town.

Lots of Things Are Making Me Happy Right Now

I'm going to attribute my current happiness to a number of things:

1. Yoga

It's still totally awesome! I'm very excited to be going again today. I am pleasantly surprised that my mom is down to still continue classes this week even though she didn't see all that psyched about it last week. Her and my dad are also joining weight watchers which makes me glad because I've become increasingly concerned about their health. They're getting up in age, and I told them, I was putting them in a home if they had serious health problems when they got old enough to need to be taken care off, particularly if those health problems were self-induced because of bad habits in their younger years. But hopefully that won't matter anymore because every one's exercising and putting more thought into how they feed themselves. Happy day!

2. Jane Austen
I'm more than halfway through her published books I've downloaded to my beloved Kindle. I'm on Northanger Abbey right now. This one appears more commentary than anything else, but it is still quite enjoyable if I skip the passages that describe novels of that era. I've been enjoying all her books and I'm just happy I've found a number of books by a single author that I can't put down. It's been a while since that happened. I feel like it's the official cutoff of my embracing a love of reading again.

3. Church
All the activities I'm doing in church seem to be netting some real results. I don't talk about it in detail a lot on this blog, so I won't go into all of it now. But just know that I am getting a huge sense of accomplishment in this area and that's making me happy.

4. Men
I am experiencing far less man drama than I'd ever thought possible without buying eight cats and giving up. Just as I could expect from myself, I am over my desire to stay in contact with Easy. Well, not exactly. But I'm over it enough to stick with that plan. He contacted me over the weekend (probably because he was in town), and I didn't respond. I've been coming up with every reason in the book for it and I'll continue to do that because I'm over guys who just aren't that into me.

5. Corrected Perceptions
I recently wrote that someone told me I was not who I seemed. Turns out, this person was drawing extra conclusions from the things I said about me etc. So after a discussion about assumptions and a clarification of a few things, including I only say what I mean, nothing less and nothing more, it was cleared up. I believe there is no longer that thought that I'm not who I say I am, there is just a shock that I'm not who this person thought I was. And I"m okay with that. It happens.

So, for today, I'm just going to continue applying for jobs I hope to get, look forward to my endorphin rush, and check out the weight watchers website to see what my parents are up to.

A Very Relaxing Day

I went back to yoga today. I felt so good about working out two days in a row. It's been a very long time since I've done that. I'm hoping to go again tomorrow. And my mother may actually join me, so that should make an interesting story.

Today, I was sitting in the yoga studio, feeling slightly less adequate than I did yesterday. I don't feel even a bit sore, but apparently my muscles weren't in tip top shape. I was trying to not judge myself for losing my balance in a couple of the poses. So I instead focused on breathing and not looking at the woman to my left who really wasn't getting any of the poses right. "Don't judge her," I said to myself, to no avail.

I think it was my natural tendency to judge people who aren't visually appealing to me. I wasn't a fan of her hair. It was icky. I'm gonna find a pic on the Internet that's similar to how it was.
She was going for this:

It looked more like this:

I can't help it, I'm not a fan of people who come out in the street looking horribly. But I managed to ignore the lazy inflexible woman with the horrible hair and focus on my on yoga purpose.

I left the studio feeling wonderfully relaxed and headed home. I made my parents (and myself) dinner and did some work on an upcoming project I have for the Youth Department at church. All in all a very productive day. I will definitely keep doing this yoga thing if it manages to make me more tolerable of things like having to cook in my parents' kitchen (which I hate a little bit) and being forced to be around people who don't take care of themselves (which I hate a lot).

Yoga Is Awesome!

Today I took my first yoga class. My mother and I were supposed to take the class together, but she had to cancel on me at the last minute for a work thing. We'll make it up on Wednesday, hopefully.

But even though she couldn't go, I decided I was going by myself. Yoga is something I have been interested in for a while. I have a bit of exposure to it between a DVD I bought once at Wal-Mart and Wii Fit. But it's so different in an actual class atmosphere. I am a weirdo and I abhor gyms, so I was super excited when I found this place Core Power Yoga, that just has yoga classes. It is not a gym. And they do hot yoga, which I have heard is the best thing to do.

An acquaintance of mine swears by hot yoga. She said she did it three times a week for six months and had a six pack and tight everything. I am trying that approach. Ever since I decided to eat healthier and exercise more often, I've lost weight (more weight than I intended) and I almost have a flat stomach. Attending these yoga classes should take me over the edge towards flat stomach-ness. Hardly anyone has a flat stomach these days. I hope to be one of those people by Christmas. that gives me three and a half months. Here goes.

Want To Go Bowling? Of Course You Do

I love bowling. I always have, but most of my friends don't, so it hasn't been a big part of my life since I was with my high school sweetheart who was on the school bowling team (and who left behind a bowling ball, thanks sweetie).

When my parents joined the church bowling league, I wanted in, but I was away at school. Now that I'm back in Chicago, I have the time and availability to join the league. So I'm in. My father goes to practice with some people from our church and I've started going with him occasionally to step my game up. Where do we go? Dolton Bowl, in Dolton, IL. I like this place for a number of reasons.

They've got free parking (I'm looking at you entire north side of Chicago). They've got great prices (I'm looking at you entire downtown of Chicago). They also do a lot of Professional Bowling Association (PBA) stuff that I'm just now learning about. Things like oil patterns that help people train for tournaments and stuff like that.

But they know their crowd. They also turn the bowling alley into a club at 10:30 pm. I believe they do it everyday in the summer, I can't speak for the rest of the year. The place gets overrun with people who can't legally drink yet and the music is sooooo loud. But we still bowl with deeper concentration.

They have food, the simple stuff you can get in a rec place: nachos, pizza, ice cream. They have a small bit of alcohol. They have friendly employees. Because this is Dolton though, the crowd is, in a word, ghetto. If that doesn't bother you, this is the alley for you. They take really good care of their alley lanes, computers, balls, even their bathrooms. Grab some buddies who like to pretend they don't need the bumpers and work on your game.

Places Mentioned In This Post: Dolton Bowl
Neighborhood in Chicago Area: Dolton, IL
Recommendations: 1. if you don't like all the noise, go before the teens show up at 10:30 pm.   2. Eat before you go, the food isn't that good.   3. Ask about the oil pattern on the lane. If you want something special or something normal, you'll want a specific lane.   4. Don't be afraid to switch balls if the one you have isn't working.
Who To Do This With: Friends or on a date