Day 16: A Pinteresting Christmas

I've been doing yoga before bed but today I'm way late. I mean, my day hasn't technically ended yet so I still did yoga during my "day" but it was after midnight when I finally got around to it. I would've done it sooner but it's Christmas Eve and as I mentioned yesterday, I am so not prepared for the holiday. I was up wrapping presents, cleaning, organizing, and all around trying to get my act together. Normally I'd just say "screw it" and move on but it's my son's first Christmas and I wanted it to be perfect.

I searched for this and Pinterest exploded.

I had big plans to make everything magical but realistically, that's just not happening. Our Christmas tree has lights and a single ornament (the rest of them are in storage somewhere), I didn't do half of the holiday-themed things I intended, and the only one chunking up on cookies this year is me.

Dignity is beyond the realm of possibility for me.

I realized though that I've been putting too much pressure on myself. I wanted my son's first Christmas to be perfect but honestly, he's 10 months old--it's more for my husband and me than for him. I'm sure he'll like his presents but he'll probably love the wrapping paper even more. Mostly, I'm just so thankful that we're celebrating with our son and that we get to be at home instead of in the hospital. Everything else is just icing on the gingerbread house.

Plus some people are just freaks.

I've noticed that I do this to myself during my yoga practice, too. I put so much pressure on myself to hit certain poses and that doesn't benefit me at all. On the fourth day of this challenge, I wrote about letting myself be a beginner and just embracing where I am in my practice but here I am, not quite two weeks later and I'm already having to remind myself of that sentiment. Oh, how quickly I forget.

Christmas is still Christmas without magical Santa footprints and the last can of Who Hash and I'm still going to enjoy the hell out of my kid's first holiday, even though he won't remember a thing. Honestly, I'm not even sure how he feels about the Christmas tree. For all I know, he thinks his weirdo parents got drunk and dragged a tree inside for fun.

With that in mind, I let myself relax in my practice tonight. As usual, I began with several A series and during downward dog, I really paid attention to the way my Edelman shoulder was bothering me. I think I really need to be careful that I don't seriously injure it further and have to miss an important fantasy game for some freaking reason.

"Concussion."
Whatever.

I want to strengthen my shoulder but I feel like I'm walking a fine line between making the muscle stronger and really aggravating it in a super painful way. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my cobra pose is improving. My shoulders are finally out of my ears and I feel like I'm actually getting some benefits from it. Here's a great demonstration photo from tinareale.com:

Hissing is optional.

I also noticed something interesting (okay, interesting might be pushing it) when I did cobbler's pose versus reclining cobbler. During cobbler's pose, I noticed that my left hip felt super tight. However, when I reclined, my left hip felt fine but my right was really tight. Something about the change in angle shifted my discomfort from one side to the other. This either means that I need to spend some time in each to try and loosen up each hip or it means I'm prematurely old and am going to fall apart by New Year's.

Whee!