I wanna, I need ta, IKEA

Saturday, November 20

I am currently stuck quite deeply in the middle of the interviewing phase of job hunting. My interview yesterday made #15, I think. There is only so much a person should be allowed to talk about themselves. And, yet, I was literally up all last night contemplating after I was asked in my interview yesterday, "Where do you see yourself in the immediate and and long term future." I guess there is no bottom to my need for self-reflection. My poor husband. Thank goodness we have a spare bedroom where I can stew in my own juices alone.

For some reason now, in the midst of interviewing, seems the crucial time to get some home improvement done. It could be because I see the light at the end of the tunnel and that I may be working very soon and, thus, will not have as much time for such things. Or it could be that I am optimistic about getting a job (cha ching) and feel confident enough to spend some money. Well, I feel confident enough to buy some shelves at IKEA. That is not exactly furniture I guess, but I did buy four sets of shelves.

Sometimes it amazes me how little my husband and I do on weekends. We both felt a major sense of accomplishment after arriving back home from IKEA at 11 am with our four flat packed bundles....so much so that we abruptly posited the flat pack bundles in the rooms where they will eventually be installed and haven't touched them since.

Did you know that IKEA has one euro breakfast deals? Did you know that they open their doors at 9am, but that the store itself is not accessible until 10am? Genius! We, of course, did not realize this until we arrived at IKEA at 9.20 am. We sat huddled around one of many child friendly nooks while strangers let their offspring run wild as they enjoyed cheap bakery rolls and slurped not half bad 75 cent cappuccinos.

Monday, 22 November

So, in record time, we have made progress on our IKEA purchases. On Sunday, I put together the new night stand/shelving for our bedroom and we got it properly installed and decorated. It still amazes me that, after a university degree, two accounting certifications and years of work, I get such a great feeling of accomplishment from using screws and what is essentially particle board that has been painted white to build a shelf. I am so proud, I feel like posting a picture of it. I can't say I have ever felt the same urge to take a picture of a report I've worked on for weeks.

Weather

(image from http://shooonline.blogspot.com)

My God it's been cold this week! Winter just came up and smacked us on the face it seems. I can just see my dad slap his hands together and start rubbing them together furiously while letting out a stream of expletives. This week, I was that sixty something year old man swearing like a truck driver. Someone up there was just f(#$ing with us this week. It hardly stopped raining.

When the sun came out for a brief flirt a few days ago, I figured I would get in some grocery shopping and walk to the big supermarket we have here about half a mile from the house. It was bitterly cold, but the sun was shining so I grabbed my gloves and hat and headed out the door. No sooner had I got to the end of the street and it starts hailing sideways. It was coming so hard that I had to hide behind a building waiting for it to pass. As if Mother Nature suddenly realized the sun was still out, it changed to rain. I waited a few minutes behind the building under the shelter of an overhang, said a few more expletives in my mind (Okay one aloud too, but no one heard me over the wind and rain) and headed for the grocery store.

This is how much I have grown to dread our local tiny grocery store and its lackluster inventory. I walked the half mile gladly to our big supermarket in pouring rain because I knew they would have the fresh baked bread that I have gotten hooked on here - it is a raisin walnut bread. I was so soaked upon arrival that people I thought looked wet's eyes widen in shock upon looking at me and my dripping wet hat and coat. Ah well! It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday. We are all obviously not at high points in our lives if we are at a supermarket at this time of day.

Trying to get centered

I tried out a new kind of yoga this morning. It has taken me this long - I have been home just over two months - to try out another type of yoga other than Bikram. There is still just this nagging procrastination and hesitancy to try something new. If practicing yoga in Bali and also taking Bikram has given me anything, it is the confidence that I can walk into pretty much any type of yoga class and physically make it through the class with out passing out or (which is almost more humiliating) being that one person in the class that is moving completely different than everyone else.

Bikram feels like a mind-body cleanse to me. I was looking for a type of yoga with perhaps a little less sweating and a little more meditation. Trying to hold one outstretched leg back (so far it will hopefully eventually touch the back of your head) while simultaneously leaning forward all while perched on the other locked leg in 104 F degrees surrounded by underweight scarcely dressed people doing the pose much better than you imagined possible has a way of completely wiping the palette of the mind clean and snapping off the mindless monkey chat in one's mind. I have seen and experienced what it looks like when a thought flashes through someone's head while in such a pose. It is usually those people falling on the ground. "Oh, my God! Look at the cellulite on my thigh!" "Bam! Owwww!"

The Centered Yoga class I took was definitely less sweaty. In fact, I left my long sleeved tee shirt on for the duration of the class because I was kind of cold. A lot of focus is put on elongating the back, twisting, and stretching out the hips. I could definitely feel all that. I think, though, that the lack of intense heat in the room probably intensified my awareness. Overall, it was a very relaxing class. The poses stretched me enough to release much of the tightness I hold in my neck, shoulders, and hamstrings. The class was relatively less structured so I felt like I could really push myself in a pose and then relax into it. Bikram is so austere and regimented. We have an hour and a half to get through two iterations of 26 poses. In the Centered Yoga class, we did at the most twelve poses in an hour and ten minutes.

Oddly, I miss Bikram. It is addictive. Like a marathon is for a runner; like a cliff wall is to a rock climber - the intensity of having to be in each moment and the gratification of just finishing the class and maybe being able to do one more pose and go deeper into another feels great and can really be hard to come by so relatively easily for most people. I live in one of the flattest countries on the planet, for instance, and even if I enjoyed climbing or running, my joints and muscles just are not up for those challenges. For the price of the class and mat rental and a one mile bike ride, I can get a taste (the biggest bite I can handle, really) of the accomplishment super athletes must feel. From Bikram, I am so focused on my body that I literally go out of my mind. I get that stillness of mind so central to relaxation, personal growth, and spirituality that I have rarely felt before.

Oh, and there is the heat. Winter is setting in here quickly with what feels like constant rain showers and bone chilling dampness. I love that hour and a half of feeling like I am in the tropics. It is a chance for my feet, nose, and fingers to actually thaw.

A new yoga studio has opened up literally down the street from us. I can't wait to try it out this week. It offers classes in hatha and vinyasa yoga. I expect, though, that I will combining this new studio with trips to Bikram.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned....I am working on a new website for my blog. I have been wanting something a bit more tailorable so I can add my own little flair to it. The name of the new website will be "Slightly Posh". What do you think?? Please let me know....I am always open to ideas.

Bonaire Bliss

My husband and I returned Tuesday from a two week vacation in Bonaire, an island that is part of the Dutch Antilles off the northern coast of Venezuela. The island holds special meaning for us because it is the first place I went diving after earning my certification and, three years ago, it was where my husband proposed to me...underwater.

I was really looking forward to enjoying the tropical weather and relaxing with my husband. I was also curious to dive in the location where I had my first experiences, but simultaneously slightly concerned that I would get bored of two weeks of diving in a location we'd already visited.

I equate my early diving to when I first started driving a car. I was so focused on the mechanics of diving and getting used to the sensations of being under the water, that I spent most of the dive watching my buddy, looking at my air and depth gauges, checking my buoyancy, and then repeating the above steps all again and again...and again. It is easy to imagine, then, that I remembered very little of what I saw under the water. With the help of pictures, I did manage to take away enough memories, though, to write a magazine article about our trip in a British magazine "Real Travel" and in the process of writing that article, conjured up certain scenes in pretty minute detail. My most fond memory being a school of purple wrasse fish raining down on me and engulfing me in their group.

Much to my surprise, the first few days felt like a prolonged spell of deja vu with all of it's familial, familiar, and eery pangs. By the end of the first week, the dives felt amazing...almost euphoric. Having finally gained enough experience and feeling so at home allowed my diving skills to become second nature to me and, as a result, I was so present in each dive. My spewing mind chatter had run its course by then and I was just left to enjoy the sound of my breathing and the colors and shapes all around me. I was so relaxed that I could just identify some object I'd like to get closer to and my breathing would easily adjust my buoyancy.

I have included some pictures from the trip. From left to right and top to bottom: a trumpetfish; a co-owner, Esther, and I; turbot.