Body + Soul

 203.5

It’s hard to explain how your body feels to someone else. Even to myself.

I know things are changing, but even I can’t explain it. Today, for the first time ever, I was able to grab my feet for bow pose during my yoga practice. Last week I couldn’t. I couldn’t even feel my feet much less grab and hold on to them. Also, my chest rested on the ground in child’s pose, I was able to cross my legs all the way around in eagle and I didn’t fall over during needle. Those are all new…today.

But possibly the most interesting of all is that I’m not watching the clock during class. Like, at all. And tonight, I didn’t want class to end. A little discomforting and unfamiliar, but I kinda like it.

Sometimes I feel like this journey should have been about my path to yoga enlightenment for as much as I am writing about it but how was I to know what a profound effect it would have? The more I practice, the lighter I become, figuratively and literally.

House + Home

I have always loved the month of February. Basically because it’s the month where we gain the most daylight. Everyday I crawl a little further out of my vitamin d deficiency hole.

We are just a handful of weeks away from warmer days, budding trees and chirping birds which also means, for me, seed starting time! The catalogs have started to infiltrate the mailbox and my inbox is loaded with sales on seeds and spring bulbs.

It’s like Christmas only better.

In true Ripp fashion we started dreaming about big things for the farm. We’d like to work toward purchasing the acreage behind us, and according to Dale start a vineyard. (It might even make money since it’s owner won’t be drinking all the product.) We don’t have a plan for that, but we thought we’d throw it out to the Universe.

Stay tuned.

Fortune + Abundance

I found a 20 in the pocket of a sweatshirt I haven’t been able to fit in to since the winter of 2017.

‘Nough said.

Nature + Nurture

Our morning started out wonderfully. The better I sleep the better the mornings get…every. single. day.

However, within minutes of rising, shit went downhill for a few of us. The truck wouldn’t start, one of the puppies and a kitten ended up across the street at bus stop time which threw Miles in to a complete meltdown (we have lost lots of kitties in the past couple of years so he’s got a right to be fearful), about 1/4″ of ice on vehicles and at Dale’s first stop today he broke someone’s garage door. (I actually had a lovely morning but that’s not the point.)

Shockingly, after a busy afternoon/evening with after school activities, sports and my own self-care (yoga, steam room, sauna) everyone is back under one roof and happy.

My instinct is to somehow apologize for this. To feel bad that maybe someone reading this is not having a good day so I should somehow feel bad that things are going right today. But I’m not going to. I have been through my fair share of bad days, sometimes for weeks on end.

Here’s the thing. I am making little positive changes everyday that are adding up to monumental shifts in all areas of my life. This isn’t luck or coincidence or divine intervention.

What this is is a whole lot of wrestling with the squirrels in my head, resisting temptations every hour of every day, convincing myself that I’m still cool and people still like me, actually dealing with feelings I used to numb with the nearest wine glass or bag of Pirate’s Booty (for real) and trying to find my purpose in life.

So, just for today, I am going to rejoice in the fact that no one is bitching about the dinner I made, that all the dishes are done, that my husband texted “enjoy” when I told him I was going to hit up the sauna after yoga and that I am in bed at 8:29.

I hope you can find a few things to be grateful for today too.