Outdoors – Life Unfolds Blog

What’s Your Five-A-Day?

Britt Bravo tagged me in a meme called “five-a-day” which was started to encourage mental wellbeing.

Here are my top five things to do every day (or every week) to stay mentally healthy:

Yoga. Yoga is an amazing stress reliever and helps to clear my mind, too. Can’t beat yoga bliss from Sean’s class at Namaste Yoga and Laura’s class at Monkey Yoga. Or simply do what Larry Schultz from my It’s Yoga teacher training calls the “minimum daily requirement” – five Sun Salutation A’s and five Sun Salutation B’s (which fits nicely with the “five-a-day” theme!).
Getting up without an alarm clock. This has been one of the biggest benefit of working for myself! I feel so much better mentally and physically now that I wake up according to my own rhythms. On those rare occasions when I do have to get up early, I use my BioBrite SunRise Clock.
Surrounding myself with beauty. One of my core value strings is Beauty / Creativity / Creating Beauty / Style / Inspiration / Self Expression / Uniqueness / Emotions. I feel so much better when I take in the beauty that’s all around me – whether that be admiring nature while I’m walking my dog, reading a touching story, appreciating inspiring artwork or creating art of my own.
Reflecting on what I am grateful for. This always helps me put things in perspective. I usually include something I’m grateful for when I journal in the morning.
Reading. Learning and personal growth are also core values of mine. So, I’m always reading a self-help and/or business book and something inspirational and creative.

I’m tagging:

Now off to yoga class! Namaste.

AEDM Day 21: Fall Leaves

While walking Emmett this evening, a tree caught my eye. The golden leaves looked so stunning against the midnight blue of the sky. That inspired my art for today.

I recently finished Keri Smith’s latest book How to be an Explorer of the World and enjoyed her simple suggestions for appreciating the beauty all around us in our day-to-day lives. She encourages us to pay attention to our senses. As an “N” (Intuiting preference) on the MBTI, I tend to notice patterns, themes and meaning – more of the intangible qualities. What I got out of reading this book were ideas to cultivate more “S” (Sensing) ways of taking in information like observing specific, concrete details and literal data.

I gathered fallen leaves and then took them home to do crayon rubbings. I practiced my sensing muscle by trying to describe specific details like color and texture. I look forward to more exploration of the world!

Bountiful Backyard Blackberries

Who knew that I had a wild blackberry bramble in my backyard?! Well, my next door neighbor did. This weekend, she was trimming some of the vines that had grown over on to her side of the fence. She had a large basket full of branches brimming with berries and she offered me some to me.

As I picked the luscious, dark jewels from their prickly stems, I was amazed that this succulent fruit was right in my backyard (hidden behind a big Camellia bush to be exact!).

I enjoyed a handful of the berries on my yummy waffle breakfast!

This impromptu harvest of delightful berries reminds me that there are often juicy surprises just ripe for the pickin’ right in front of us if we’re willing to look.

Backyard Yoga and Dream Boxes

It’s been another full week and challenging for me to keep up with all the great things going on. I did make a point on Wednesday to take advantage of the gorgeous spring-like weather by practicing yoga in my backyard. With the sun shining overhead, birds chirping in the trees and the cool breeze on my skin, I was in yogi heaven! I’m amazed at how the fresh air brought me so in touch with my breath and my body – wonderful!

With another Ladies Who Launch Incubator that started last night, I’m reminded to get creative about doing more nice things for myself. After all, pampering is part of the lady launching way! So, I can’t wait for more sunny days like this to do backyard yoga ‘cuz that sure counts as a nice thing.

Today I was at It’s Yoga for another dream box workshop with a new circle of teacher trainers. It’s hard for me to believe that it was almost a year ago that I completed my yoga teacher certification. So many wonderful things have manifested since then. One being getting to lead this workshop at the studio!!!

I had fun laughing and hanging out with the group. They were a playful and engaging bunch! And I loved hearing about their dreams and seeing the unique ways they all decorated their dream boxes.

One of the students crafted her own “guru-in-a-box” with a pop-up Sri Swami Satchidananda to offer inspiration and wisdom! How cool is that?!

Bohemian Book Club

Our book club pick for this round was artist Beatrice Wood’s autobiography, “I Shock Myself.” Francisca dished up a delicious bohemian spread of lentils, quinoa, beets, salad, pita bread, hummus and all sorts of other goodies. Christina picked tangerines from the tree.

As an homage to the creative process, Francisca asked us each to bring pieces we’ve been working on. Christina, Francisca and I shared some knitting, Kristen brought photos and of course Lily brought her latest creation…

… Jacob whom we all met for the first time.

We are on our seventh year of our book club. And even though we hardly talk about the books, we know it’s more about just spending time together laughing, eating, enjoying each other’s company and…

just being silly together (Francisca and I sporting our “Blue Steel” Zoolander poses).

Ahhhh, another perfect book club afternoon!

Autumn Leaf – AEDM Day 20

Fiery oranges, yellows and dark reds popped out of the landscape as I walked my dog this morning. The turning leaves looked brilliant against the crisp, blue fall sky. I love how autumn makes me so aware of transition, of moving from the lush abundance and freedom of summer, to hunkering down, keeping warm and taking a more internal focus.

This drawing was done in colored pencil on the back of a grocery bag, which adds a nice rustic element.

How does the season change affect you? What do you notice as the leaves turn color? What transitions are taking place in your life?

[tags]National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, Art Every Day Month, autumn[/tags]