Bellies on Vacation: The Plight of a Yoga Dropout

I’ve fallen off the yoga wagon. Hard.

not my belly

Our summer schedule doesn’t allow time for the mom to make it to yoga class. I bike and swim with my son, but yoga quest is officially suspended.

I can hear my instructor. “I see some bellies that look like they’re on vacation,” she’d say when we weren’t properly engaging the core in class.

She’d be mortified to see that now my belly really is on vacation. It’s on a Mediterranean cruise, complete with an endless antipasto bar and a Big Gulp Coke. Sip on that, Mayor Bloomberg.

It’s gone to Disneyland where dreams really do come true whether you exercise or not. You’ve never seen Snow White on a StairMaster, have you? All you need is a little Tinkerbell, a pumpkin, and a pair of glass slippers.

My belly unfolds like a beached whale on the sand. It spreads out like a jellyfish washed ashore. I took it to Vermont, home of Ben & Jerry’s for crying out loud. Can you say Vermonster?

Enough! It’s not that bad. It’s not yoga-belly either. My pilates paunch has gone kaput. The core is no more.

My wellness coach friend Lisa Hautly wrote an uplifting, common-sense post: A Health Centered Approach to Living Well.

Ben & Jerry look strangely familiar

“Love your body,” she writes.

“Move.”

“Listen to your belly.”

“Sleep.”

“Reduce stress.”

I’m sleeping. I’m listening. I’m moving. I’m loving my body. Incredible, expanding belly and all.

Summer is flying by. School begins in six short weeks. The normal schedule will resume. I will drag back to yoga class.

My instructor may not recognize me sporting my new abdominal baggage, but she won’t turn me away. It’s the Y after all.

The core will engage. The belly will flatten. Equilibrium will return.

In the meantime, I’m not missing a moment of summer. And neither is my belly.

Wise words satisfy like a good meal;
the right words bring satisfaction. Proverbs 18:20 NLT

Something’s Gotta Give by Ella Fitzgerald.

So how’s your summer been?

The Very Busy Vacation

In the realm of respite, there are restful vacations and there are very busy vacations. My family gravitates toward the busy.

Mr. Whetstine goes to Montpelier

None of us had ever been to Vermont until last week. We were going to make the most of it.

We cruised Lake Champlain, shopped April Cornell’s comeback store in Burlington, visited the state capitol in Montpelier, toured the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, and witnessed the birth of a goat at Shelburne Farms (timing is everything, folks). That was the first half of the week.

The second half bowed to my husband’s business commitments. He worked while I entertained our energetic seven-year-old in an unfamiliar city.

this way to Ben & Jerry’s

Our itinerary included swimming, hiking, tree climbing, rock skipping, iPhone games, MythBusters marathons, and a shoreline run to the U.S. Coast Guard station for a band-aid.

We arrived home exhausted, hauling 135 pounds of laundry, a bevy of memories, and one air travel induced backache, namely mine.

A very busy vacation requires a stay in recovery.

“Mom,” said my son, “next time can we just go to Kitty Hawk?” He remembers restful vacations are possible even for us.

We vacation busy because we don’t want to miss a thing.
We vacation restful because we all need time out to recharge.

Lake Champlain

Most vacations fall between the two extremes. There are degrees. There is balance. There is a remote, beachfront condo braving the wild ocean somewhere in my future.

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from Him. Psalm 62:5 NIV1984

Vacation by The Go-Go’s.

Do you prefer busy or restful vacations? Why?

Bueller? Bueller?

skirt the rules tee by kate spade

Present, Mr. Stein!

In case you’re wondering, I’m still here. Our summer schedule has thrown my time into a tizzy.

Fear not. New material is in the pipeline. Working on a few humdingers.

While you wait, would you be so kind as to like everyday epistle on Facebook if you haven’t already? Go over to the right sidebar and click the like button.

You might also subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. You’ll find the email and RSS feed buttons to the right as well.

And if you’re interested, we’re also on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, and Pinterest. A social media tizzy indeed.

Apologies to those readers who expect more regularity in posts. Hope you’ll extend a measure of summertime grace to me. As Ferris Bueller said in one of the finest movies ever made, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

He also said, “You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?”

Seriously, who makes the rules in blogging anyway?

Stop. Look around. Skip gym, unless that’s your thing. And stay tuned for the summer series of everyday epistle posts coming soon to a blog near you.

You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. James 4:14 The Message

Twist and Shout by The Beatles, lip-synched by Matthew Broderick in John Hughes’ 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Cameron Frye, this one’s for you.

Stop and look around. What do you see?