garden party

hmph

holidays

When yesterday's alarm went off at stupid-o-clock I must have woken up long enough to turn it off because when I woke up for real it was 11:30. Awesome. Had a long and wonderful home practice, I love practicing at home. This morning I had coffee in the sun before heading to the hottest shala in the world to dance with my mat. After practice I headed upstairs to the small studio where I could open the doors to breathe, meditate and take savasana with the spring breeze blowing over me. Awesome. When I finally opened my eyes the first thing I saw was this gorgeous beast standing guard:



She wasn't alone either, there was a whole bunch of them quietly standing guard over resting yogis. Behold the savasana-cow-posse:


Nice.

in the ally, in the theatre, in the morning

too lazy to get up

It was a perfect, sunny spring afternoon. Patio sitting, latte drinking, life loving, sun basking perfection. Too happy to move, had to make do with taking pictures from my vantage point on the patio, look left, look up, look right...

mo' blossoms

Ok, so I might be a bit obsessed with the cherry blossoms but it's so gorgeous and there are so many people out tree-worshipping and I wait for this week all winter long - I can't stay away.



Besides, I spent all day in an eight hour planning meeting (my own personal hell) where I distracted myself from dwelling on how much I hate meetings by daydreaming about being outside and making things like this:



Ridiculous. So when I got home, I grabbed food, grabbed my bike and headed to the park to picnic and tree-worship. The world is beautiful, like mother nature took every possible shade of green, scattered them about, and then turned the colour-volume up to high. Everything is so vibrantly alive..


Life is full of fun, I lost track of things and got my weeks confused. I thought this week was last week, I actually have only two days left before I'm done for the summer. How did that happen?

In other work news: I busted one of my students plagiarizing which turned into catching several students. It's a big deal and it kind of sucks. Lives will change. Though they chose to cheat, I still feel badly for them, and am not looking forward to the meetings today, people are going to cry (I might be one of them). In other-other work news: I have a few odd situations of the male-female yoga-bunny equivalent. Although I will miss all three of my jobs and have thought about continuing through the summer instead of stopping, the universe is definitely helping me find the silver lining in taking time away. Time and distance will take care of everything.

cherry blossoms

In 1959 the Japanese government gifted the city with 2,000 cherry blossom trees. The reasons are unknown, the results are awesome.





The park was packed and the sidewalks lined with people making the annual migration to the trees. There were picnickers, drummers, guitar players, hackeysack players, slackliners, frisbee games, and when we left a DJ was setting up his equipment.




And there were, of course, photographers. Rabid, nature-starved city-dwellers with cameras beautiful enough to make a grown girl (me) cry taking pictures of everything in view. Some people, tired of the trees (or the crowds) turned to the pond. These ones made me laugh - hey look! a swan! take a picture! I love the way the swan is looking at them as if to say "Dude! WTF?".




And the ducks? Thoroughly unimpressed, chilling on a log waiting for the annoying humans to get the hell out of their home. Humans are funny.


Whenever I see this many people gathering outside for something - a sunset, the first snow, cherry blossoms - I always think that us humans, we haven't totally lost ourselves in modernity yet. We're going to be just fine.

Impossibly busy and so much happening at once. Loving every little thing I'm doing. Wishing it weren't going to end for the summer. At the same time, can't wait for the break. Four more days of work until four months of play.

fishing

I'm not entirely sure why spring brings out the fisher hidden within Torontonians but I've seen tons of people fishing over the last few weeks. In Toronto. In our lakes/ponds. Ew.



Mean treatment of fish aside, I love this picture. The moment was as calm and peaceful as it looks. It was good.

1.5 years

It took me a year and a half to enjoy teaching led classes. Mysore I loved right from the start and it's not that I ever disliked teaching led classes, I just didn't enjoy them. Too anxious. I realized that today, as I begin to think about winding things down for the summer, that it's been ages since I was too anxious to enjoy teaching. Instead it's been playful and fun and incredibly wonderful. Many of my students have been with me for over two years, I taught them their first class, and others come week after week which is an honour. I'm finding that I don't want to wind things down. I'm going to miss them.

Pictures are from the other other studio, my Saturday morning one. I arrive super crazy early, take playtime practice (with music and props no less, ashtanga blasphemy), teach a few classes and head out into the sun to enjoy my day.

finally

someone in the family that likes to cook...



...and garden...


...he must get it from his father.

the golden hour

this river

I was looking through my pictures this afternoon, there are a lot of pictures of bridges. Hadn't given it much thought before but, yeah, I like bridges. This is one of my favourites. It's on the other side of the city, I go there often. I love the colours and the quote lining the top of the bridge as you head east.

guerilla photography

Opening, assisting, practicing, brunching, going places we're not supposed to go for picture taking, cafe sitting, cleaning, zenned out candlelight chilling. This is what Sundays are for.

the sweetest day

Open windows, sun basking, spring loving post-yoga coffee.



A few hours of assisting next, then patio lunch with my yoga girls, followed by sunset walk along the beaches boardwalk. And I finally get to wear my new, sequined-sparkling flip flops I've been dying to wear all winter. Such a good day.

Off to assisting...

sunshine happiness

Spring is here and it's gorgeous. The sun has melted the final signs of winter away and it's impossible to stay inside.

pouting because i was working

...but not really. I was supposed to be somewhere else tonight but cancelled (my kazillionth cancellation of the weekend) to stay home where it is cozy and warm. I have a ton of work to do for the course I'm teaching but I'm too busy pretending to pout to be productive. Hard to believe that I'll go from insanely busy to the total and complete opposite in just over a month. Yay me.