The yoga chicks are back! A, L, and I went to yoga tonight and it was fabulous! I had forgotten how much I truly enjoying practicing the three of us. And what a great practice it was!

The truth is that I'm so very glad to be back yoga-ing. It makes me feel fabulous and I'm super excited about being back to it again.

I'm feeling absolutely fantastic right now.

I've been watching a bunch of the Olympics, marveling in the shape and form and strength and perseverance and beauty of all the athletes. You wanna talk about inspiration? This is it.

So I get up earlier than J does all the time on the weekends, and I oftentimes turn on the boobtube and watch meaningless TV while I do crafty stuff. Well on Saturday mornings for the last little while they've been showing the Olympic swimming trials, so I've started paying some attention to the sport. And then, of course, it's one of the most enjoyable sports to watch in The Games themselves, so I've been watching a whole lot of that.

Have you guys heard of Ian Thorpe? He's an Australian swimmer who is the newest coolest thing in the sport. His nickname is the Thorpedo. Very cool. The boy has size 17 feet, so it's like he comes with his own built-in flippers. And lordy is he fun to watch. He has the most beautiful freestyle stroke I have ever seen. It's just perfect. And, although I am no longer the strongest swimmer around, I am I am a former swim instructor, so I actually do know what I'm talking about. And he's hot. I'll admit it ... that's one of the reasons I like watching him.

So it's been a pretty good kick in the ass for me. I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of days thinking about the amazing things that the human body can do, and how we should all be striving to do these things as much as we can. The fact that I've been slacking off so severely means that I've been actively avoiding my potential. That's a huge waste of my time. So, thinking about it in those terms, there's no reason for me to not go back to it. Who cares if I'm never the best at anything that I'm doing. Who cares if I'm never the strongest or most flexible or thinnest. Just as long as I'm the best me that I can be ... that's the only important thing.

So my dear friend A, who has been in Japan for god knows how long now, is coming home next week and I am super excited to see her. She's the kind of person who always instills in me the desire to push myself. I've been very much missing her and her influence in my life. I need a good kick in the ass and she's exactly the right person to give it to me. I don't think she even ever realizes that she's doing it ... it's just that being around her, seeing how good she looks and how hard she works makes me want to do the same thing.

And on the subject of ass kickings, I just signed myself for two magazine subscriptions to women's fitness magazines. I figure that having them show up twice a month will also be good inspiration.

I've been thinking a lot about what to do to keep myself active and happy in my activity. It's hard, especially with such a sedentary boy as I've got. He never wants to do anything, so I always have to find myself other activity partners or do everything by myself. Those aren't bad options, but it would be nice to occasionally be able to go out and do something with him too. Perhaps his inertia will change at some point, or perhaps I will have to spend the rest of my life doing everything alone. Either way, I think I had better get used to doing this shit by myself at least for now.

I gotta get back into my healthy life. No more fucking around. Gotta do it now.

Well, no big surprise here ... I am sore as hell today. Aargh. I guess I'm just pissed off at myself for letting so long go by without any yoga. But the truth is that now I'm feeling much more inspired to just go and do it. I love it, it feels great, and it helps me to feel good about myself. I mean shit, I came home last night and had a big lettuce and fennel salad and then pineapple for dessert. That's got to mean something, right? Yoga inspires me to take better care of myself.

And on a slightly sad note, our yoga teacher from last night, Rebecca, who has always been unbelievably hot, has now lost a whole ton of weight. Boo. L and I always described her as a crew chick, because she had that totally curvy body with broad shoulders. She looked strong without being totally over-the-top skinny. Not any more. Now she's super thin and has lost a whole lot of her curviness. Oh well, another curvy woman lost.

I weighed myself today, for the first time in a while. I was 125.5, after a full breakfast and a bunch of water. Very confusing to me how I can maintain this weight while not really doing anything to maintain it. Not that I'm complaining, but I'd rather weigh more and feel better about my stregth the way that I did a couple months ago. I think that's really the thing that I have to keep in mind ... that it really isn't how much I weigh, it's what I can do, how strong I am, and how I feel about myself. I'm on my way back to that. I really am.

Had a pretty good day today, healthy-living-wise. I went and picked up my bike from REI yesterday and spent this morning putting all my new gadgets on it ... odometer, blinking light for the rear, and a kick-ass U-Lock. Awesome.

And then tonight I went to yoga with L-Dogg! Woo hoo! You know it's been two whole months since I last yoga-ed? Pretty crazy, huh? And lordy my body could feel how long it's been. I think I probably completed about a third of what we did in class and spent the rest of the time in child's pose. A lot of that had to do with how unbelievably dehydrated I was though. When I'm not going to yoga on a regular basis I don't tend to drink anywhere near enough water. So I'm pretty sure we're going to go again next week and I certainly hope I will have learned my lesson from today ... DRINK WATER!!!!! Lots and lots and lots of water.

Could this be me making my way back to the good life? Could this be the catalyst I was waiting for?