Barefoot & On The Mat: January 2022 Happy New Year!

[luvcritters]

Wow. Mother Nature dumped about 6" of snow out there. It sure is pretty but not good for travel.
The guys will plow tomorrow so I'm snowed in.
I'm going to try the bike or Cubii Jr today. Maybe both.

Sandra - it's easier to find the pounds than to lose them. I'm always limited in what I can eat but the list got a lot smaller until this heals. Curled up with a cozy throw, Meow, and a book sounds like a plan. And some hot tea.

[toaster]

Sandra, I can understand wanting to stay snuggled in when it's cold! I think that's why I read so many books this past year.

Linda, stay warm and safe! We have an inch or two here, but it's slowing down; it shouldn't prevent me from getting my haircut this afternoon.

Happy Friday all - TGIF! I have every Friday this month off except for the very last one.

[Pat58]

We have about five inches and it seems to be melting in the sun already. The grocery store was a madhouse last night and the shelves were empty. It was literally scary. It was worse than when we were in full lockdown. There was no meat out, just lots of packages of the non-meat ground up stuff. No juice, no eggs, no salad greens, hardly any frozen food, I could go on. There was a very weird feeling in the air too. Ugh.

I accomplished:

~ Chris Freytag 10 Minute Beginner Walking Workout
~ YWK Evening Yoga Movement Day 7, Evening Stretches
~ 5,904 steps

The Freytag was good - I've never worked out with her. I liked her personality and having a nice braindead short workout. It's just a teaser though, the rest of the channel is clips of workouts from Get Healthy U TV.

Better get going - hello to all!

[Paine]

I went to 3 markets this morning so today is a rest day.

Pat, fortunately our markets out here are still well stocked but we don't have any harsh weather conditions getting in the way of truck deliveries to the market. I hope your market gets stocked soon! I try to have a bunch of staples at home for emergencies.

I'm waving to everyone!

[yogapam]

Yesterday:
~Adriene’s Moon Practice (YT)
~long walk, 17,000+ steps
~yin forward bends & hip stretches

Today:
~Lunar Love Full Moon Yoga (The Yoga Witch YT)
~lots of walking, racked up 23,000 steps

Waves to all!

[Margot]

Happy Saturday everyone!

Life got a bit busy over the past few days; trying to sort out pension issues (oh joy!) as well as re-arranging furniture and clearing out stuff we no longer need or use. All that involved a major cleaning. It's been really cold and rainy here, so I've been chicken in wanting to get out and walk. I've worked out every day but my heart hasn't been really into it. I keep waking up around 3 am, finally getting back to sleep three hours later and then sleeping in late.

Yesterday was:
- Margaret Richard Good For You #1. I liked the outdoors setting and Margaret's dry sense of humour.
- Body Groove Elevate
- YoQi Eye Qigong

Today:
- Bellyfit Alchemista Own Your Own Throne. I loved this routine except for the Vinyasa segment. My shoulder is unhappy if I put too much load on it, so I did the sequence a couple of times and then went freestyle.

Paine - Have you watched any more episodes of 'Around the World in 80 Days'? DH and I have really got into it. We're planning on watching Episode 7 tonight. I think it gets better as the series progresses.

Pam - Hope you have a lovely vacation.

Pat - It is scary when you go into a store and can't find what you usually buy. We had a problem for a short while due to a shortage of truck drivers. Hope your grocery store is able to re-stock quickly.

Hope everyone is keeping snug and warm. Have a great day.

Waves to all!

[toaster]

Pat, oh no about the grocery! I definitely experienced that "weird feeling in the air" at the start of the lockdown (especially when I saw that all of the shelves of bread were empty!). Hopefully it was just a temp thing due to the storm. It snowed on and off all day here yesterday, but we didn't get much accumulation, whereas Buffalo (about an hour west) set a record and I think got about a foot and a half total!

Paine, your market days certainly sound like functional fitness days!

Pam, are you officially on vacation now? We actually have good sun here today; hope you do too, although I'm guessing you're a lot warmer than 13F!

The yin yoga class was really nice last night! She definitely taught it slow with long holds. I'm off the next 2 Fridays, so I'm going to try to go to in-person classes both weeks; I might do the vinyasa class next week in the a.m. to change things up and then the yin again the following week.

Unfortunately even though my migraines are a lot better, I've been getting a lot of pressure headaches of late. I had them 4 days in a row last week; although they tend to go away over the course of the day, one day it turned into a migraine, which sometimes happens. I woke up with it again yesterday, and I can really feel the pressure travelling down to my entire neck/shoulders. I did a lot of stretching, acupressure, yoga, and other yesterday (and eventually tried ginger, turmeric, and ibuprofen), but it never completely went away.

This morning, the head pressure is mild, but I definitely feel the neck/shoulder tension. I using my little Omron unit (I have this one, which is labelled as a TENS unit), so we'll see if that helps. But the reason I'm sharing this whole little sob story (not just for sympathy, haha) is to see if anyone has anything else to share that works for pressure issues? I also do exercises for self-massage sinus drainage, which helps a little too, but that's more for when I'm congested, and I'm not really right now.

I am going to try some yoga nidra later - I got a free offer that's just for a couple of days. And I might do some more ball stuff since that always feels good.

[toaster]

Margot, looks like we cross-posted. With it being cold, rainy, AND you not getting good sleep, I can understand not feeling like doing much; take it easy! I have to take down the Christmas decor today and am not looking forward to that.

I'll have to try that Alchemista practice again. I didn't like the Alchemista as much as the Shakti Yoga Warrior and Embodied Goddess, but I might enjoy it more if I just did the cardio and then my own yoga at the end.

ETA: Oh, I didn't realize that "Own Your Throne" is actually ALL yoga flow! I don't think I ever actually did that practice.

[Margot]

Beth - Own Your Throne isn't ALL yoga flow. There's only a short Vinyasa segment and also triangle pose with front knee bent (sorry, don't know the official asana for this), then what Alice describes as exalted warrior in the mix of many of her usual dance moves. It's not really high energy but just warming and flowy. I really loved the routine and the music. I'll definitely be doing it again but probably FFd'ing through the Vinyasa.

Sorry to hear you're suffering with pressure headaches. I don't usually get headaches but did have one a couple of days ago. Qigong helped relieve mine, probably because it was a stress headache. I know there are some acupressure points that are supposed to help but have no idea if they are effective or not. ETA Oops, I see you've already tried that. I hope you can find an answer to yours. ((Hugs))

[cyana]

Happy Saturday! Brrrr......it is SO cold! We bundled up and went to the farmer's market (I admit, I almost wimped out today). Got a massive cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, romaine lettuce, collards, eggs, chicken and ground beef and hurried home to a cup of hot coffee. Several of my main vendors weren't at the market (including my lettuce guy ) and my main produce vendor said this might be their last market.

Planning to work out later - after I'm thoroughly thawed out. I see many cups of hot tea in my immediate future.

I have a new recipe to share. DH found a web site - Spain on a Fork - and made these chickpea wraps with garlic sauce for dinner one evening this week. They were super easy to make and really quite tasty. I'm thinking about making up the sauce and thinning it out to use as a salad dressing. Here's the link: https://spainonafork.com/15-minute-c...-garlic-sauce/ . I plan to do more exploring on this site as it sounds like he has many interesting-sounding recipes - including a heart-healthy bean stew that sounds like it would hit the spot right now.

Pam - Save travels to you. Enjoy the sun and warmth - I'm seriously envious of the warmth!

Beth - The headache thing can be so challenging. During the many years of suffering from migraines and non-migraine headaches, I was constantly refining my self-care. I found that monitoring my eating for triggers was big. I swear by magnesium, and the other things you used sounded good. I think the self-massage for sinuses is a great idea, even if you don't feel stuffy. I don't know if you feel like BOF would make you feel worse, but I'd frequently do that, along with alternate nostril breathing first thing in the morning. Do you ever use any peppermint lotion, or even something like BioFreeze to massage on your temples, neck and shoulders? How about hot and cold applications?

Margot - I could've used those fleece tights this morning - still waiting on those to arrive. Are you making any beauty concoctions for winter? With the cold temps, I've been spraying a hydrating mist on and then putting on my face cream (while my face is damp) morning and night. So far, that seems to be working well. And aside from putting on lip balm before I went out this morning, that's pretty much my entire winter beauty regimen, LOL. You have my sympathies on the insomnia - I'm right there with you.

Linda - I'm glad you escaped from the joint with all your body parts intact. I have to admit to getting a chuckle out of the pants part - that sounds like something that would happen to me. And I'm not the least bit surprised that Miss MM whipped you back in line pronto when you got back home! We mere mortals exist to serve our feline masters.

Pat - I think we all need to be aware and stay on top of the food situation. My farmers have been sounding alarm bells for some time - can't get help, their supplies have escalated dramatically in price (some things have doubled and they can't absorb those costs), weather challenges. I don't know what I'll do if my main produce vendor decides to hang it up. With the dramatic temperature swing this week, they lost an entire hoop house of lettuce (over 200 plants).

Paine - I'm glad your markets are in good shape. DH rolls his eyes at my emergency food stash - it isn't anything crazy, but a variety of common sense stuff. Maybe it's because I grew up in a semi-rural area, but people always had extra supplies on hand and I've always done it.

Sandra - A warm throw, hot cup of tea, a good book and a warm lap kitty sounds like a great way to spend part of my week-end. The nice warm kitty is currently charging his battery - snoozing in a sunny window.

DH and I watched "Don't Look Up" on Netflix last week-end. A mix of sci-fi, dark comedy, political satire, climate denialism, etc. It was OK (a lot going on - numerous subplots, dragged a bit in spots for me). The critics either loved it or hated it. We watched two episodes of "The Surgeon's Cut" on Netflix last night and I really enjoyed those - both as a nurse and on the human scale. We watched "Saving Life Before Birth" and "Sacred Brain" (I would let this guy operate on my brain) and I'll definitely be watching the remaining 2 episodes.

Waves to ALL!