I live in a small town in Oregon of about 8000 people. If you add in the population of our sister city that sits right next door it boosts our numbers to a whooping 15000. Whooo. I think our master planned community where we lived in Houston numbered 20000, and that was considered a mere "neighborhood" by Texas standards.

The 4th of July is a big deal around these parts. It helps that our sister city is named "Independence" and boasts one of the larger fireworks displays in the entire Willamette Valley. Here are some scenes from this morning's local parade:

Hey! Who knew Abraham Lincoln lives here?

Pile some goats and kids on a farm truck and you've got yourself a FLOAT!

Apparently no parade is complete here without those cars that jack up and down.

Homemade motor-tri-cycles are pretty cool!

Seriously. The best part? Anybody can join in the parade. And the free candy is pretty awesome too.

Ugh. We've been out in the heat all week (me during the day between my AM and PM classes, him at night after work) painting this monster of a pergola in our backyard (our new 34 foot by 15 foot patio shade structure..pictures to come once it's completed). Because it's pressure treated wood we're priming it first. And because we are impatient and hasty type people, we built it without pre-painting the boards (which of course I hear is the smart way to do it). To say that this thing is difficult to paint what with all it's nooks and crannies is putting it mildly. It's a HUGE mondo pain in the butt. Every board of course has 4 sides and then junctions of boards, rafter ties, decorative end pieces..all at or above 10 feet high? Up and down the ladder, roller in one hand, balancing act with the other, jutting your head between boards, knocking your head on other boards, staring up into the bright sun all day? It was nightmarish. And all the while, the thought of having to do the exact same procedure AGAIN but with real paint? I was almost in tears.

So last night we broke down, paid the $129 (after an awesome $50 rebate) and bought the "Wagner Paint Crew" airless paint sprayer (heh, too bad it doesn't come with an actual "crew"). OMG. It shot the remaining 2 gallons of primer on in less than one hour. Every surface coated, evenly and smooth, no horrible drips or roller/brush marks, and every last nook and cranny too. The first two gallons of primer? Done by hand? THAT took approximately 4 days and 24 wo(man) hours. It took longer to cover the patio and house with plastic and make sure it wouldn't get oversprayed than it did to prime half of the darn pergola.

Now with the sprayer (my new best friend) we figure we should be able to paint the whole thing on Friday. It will be the same color as our house trim, a nice creamy white. And with it being a 3 day weekend we might even be able to enjoy sitting under it this weekend. Helps to have the right tools for the job. :)

Ahhh..nature's air conditioning. The heat was on in the valley here this last weekend so we decided to bug out to the forest. Great idea in theory until you get out there and every one else had the very SAME idea. We headed up the Little North Santiam River (about 24 miles east of Salem Oregon) only to find 4 campgrounds along the way with signs out front that said "FULL". After passing by the last one (another 40 miles into our journey off the highway) we decided to just continue on this crazy (crappy?) graveled forest service road that would eventually take us back to the highway. Again ...great idea in theory. Until about 2 miles before the junction? The road was totally blocked by fallen trees ....aftermath of storms this last winter. Mr. Yogagirl managed to turn our SUV and pop up trailer around in this teeny tiny turnout where I figured it was humanly impossible and we headed back. *30* or so miles in the other direction we came back upon the 2nd "full" campground. It was Elkhorn Valley, a 24 site place situated in old growth forest right along the river. I suggested we go in and just ask to see if it was truly full. Sometimes you get lucky. To our surprise the campground host met us at the gate and said he had ONE spot left. Which we found out wasn't entirely true.  We must have looked pretty sad and pathetic after our harrowing journey back from gravel road hell,  because the guy actually did us a HUGE favor and gave us a site meant for the second campground host because we were only staying one night and the host wasn't scheduled to come in until Monday. SCORE. And because it was a host site? We had power and water hookup, 100+ yards of personal space before we could even SEE another camp or camper, a shelter over our picnic table and even our own garbage can and recycle bin. All for a small $10 campground fee.

And with a view like this and temperatures at least 20 degrees cooler down at water's edge? It was the best time we ever had for $10....

I suppose sometimes?  You just gotta get out of your "box".

So last Saturday after dinner at our friends' house ( a couple we have known for many years), we all got in their hot tub. Buck Naked. And eh hem.....this is HUGE for me people. HUGE. I really don't even like being naked when I am alone by myself, let alone in a gym locker room, the doctor's office, and never for fun. What's even worse for me is being half naked. I *really* hate that. I swear I was probably one of those babies that screamed bloody murder everytime I had to get a bath or get my diaper changed. I really don't know what my hang-up is. High levels of self conscious?  Skewed body image?  Being vulnerable? Or just plain feeling cold? Ugh. I really hate being cold. I'm pretty much cold all the time. Even with a sweater on in July.

But...back to the naked hot tub party. In hindsight, it really wasn't that bad..only mildy anxiety provoking for me. Our hosts kept the main lights off but did have a red bulb in one lamp that gave us enough to see around, but not enough that we were a spectacle to the neighbors. My husband of course (a man who LOVES being naked) had a bang up *spectacular* time. You can probably write this incident off as one of his long time "fantasies" fufilled. In fact, yeah. I know you can.

So my dear readers..where do you all fit in? Are you the modest type?  Maybe topless but keep the bottoms on girl? The strip it all off and show us what God gave ya person? Comfortable around friends being naked? Comfortable around strangers being naked? Share.

Our local gym runs a summer promo every year. 3 month memberships for students at a rock bottom bargain. We are a college town and typically we lose about 200-250 members when the university students go home for summer but we generally pick up a large handful of highschool kids in return. And typically they all end up in my classes.

Today I had a young boy (maybe 14 or 15 years old) and his sister who appeared to be a few years older than him in my Muscle Pump class.  Whenever I have new students (of any age or fitness level) I always go through my pre-class "schpeal". I talk about how it's a barbell workout designed to challenge our muscular endurance. We work the body in parts (warmup, squats, back, chest, lunges, shoulders, triceps, biceps, abs and a cooldown stretch) and because we are limited by the amount of weight we can safely lift by ourselves we compensate by kicking up the repetitions. I always tell folks to take it lighter than they think they can for the first few classes just to get a "feel" for the workout. It also gives them an idea about how heavy they can lift with good form and without a lot of rest for each 4 minute "track". I also tell them to "listen to their body" and take breaks whenever they need to by putting the weight down or by lightening up or by finishing up the track by doing the reps without any weight at all. I knew I had my work cut out for me when this young kid (who looked more like he was maybe 11 or 12 years old and not very fit) loaded his barbell up to 30 lbs for the warmup. Eeeek. I'm pretty strong and that's typically the amount I use while I am teaching for big muscle groups (squats, back and chest).   I rarely if EVER lift over 40 lbs for any body part in Muscle Pump, even if I was taking a class. It's just way too many reps for that kind of poundage.

I gently suggested he might want to lift a little lighter since this was his first class and I helped him unload it so that he had two 5's on each end (with barbell weight included that's about 24 pounds total..a pretty good place to start). As the workout progressed his form was really all over the place. Without trying to single him out I made efforts to give him good eye contact and let him know how to fix whatever he was doing to make it better with cues or with exaggerating my own body movements. At one point during the squats I realized verbage was going no where so I had to physically walk over to him. I typically do move around my classes and help people individually without being off putting or drawing attention to it. I'll set up right next to them and mimic the moves, I'll move my mic away and talk to them directly, or I'll place a hand(s) on their body if it's okay with them to give physical feedback. I placed my fingertips on the front of his knee cap to show him how he needed to sit back through his heels rather than letting his knees move forward out over his toes. He seemed to get a better idea of a squat after that. 

Shoulders and triceps were equally as scary as the kid had no concept of how to stabilize his shoulder and elbow joints and after a particularly stern lecture from me to the entire crowd (many of them regulars who know the drill) I realized I needed to buffer a few of my rants. I apologized for being so strict about form, but explained that first and foremost I didn't want anybody injuring themselves. I also told them that good form would get them the results they wanted and would work the body part that they intended to. I reminded them of AFAA's primary directive. Determine:

1. What muscle are you working?

and

2. Are you doing that?

I got a few giggles...because truly when you are in a tricep extension and your elbows are flailing around like chicken wings and your shoulders are all over the place you have to stop and ask yourself that.

Whew. What a weekend. It was my turn to teach at the yoga studio. At our last meeting I also offered to teach the special "Summer Solstice" yoga class at 6:30 on Friday night and then I got 2 emails. One from the director asking me to sub her level 2 noon class on Friday and another from the prenatal yoga instuctor who needed coverage for her 5pm class. So I taught 3 classes on Friday (noon, 5:00pm and 6:30pm), two on Saturday (8:30am and 10:15am) and one on Sunday (9am).   I swear I should have just set up a cot in the breakroom and camped out all weekend. I felt like a permanent fixture.

I have never officially taught a "prenatal" class, although I did take the Yogafit training for it and have had pregnant women join in my regular mixed level classes in the past.  That class was perhaps the most challening aspect of my whole weekend. No supine poses, no prone poses, no hinging from the hips, no twists, no unsupported balances, gees the list goes on and on.   I managed to string a nice flow together using some ideas from my prenatal yoga manual but I will say it's not something I would feel comfortable teaching on a regular basis. Having never been pregnant I just felt kinda like a fish out of water. The little guided relaxation I gave them at the end of class? All that "spend this time sending loving thoughts to your baby" stuff just sounded corny coming from me...  

As opposed to the regular prental yoga instructor who has 4 children, all of them birthed at home, and two of them she did completely unassisted. That woman knows the biz-nazz end of a prenatal yoga experience.

Kipper (in action) on the beach last weekend. Whew. It was windy!

Long time readers know this house we bought in Oregon was a real "fixer-upper". Today I give you another installment in our continuing DIY saga.....our front entry way.

BEFORE AND AFTER

It's really too bad the door was open on the before shot. It was a solid metal 6 panel and painted electric blue. Nice. The previous owners had planted some ferns in the flower bed (I imagine in their eyes "Designing it to Sell") but over time even with regular watering they started dying. And, ferns not being a huge fan of any direct sunlight during the day they bit the dust. One by one. I finally got fed up this week and ripped the remaining sad and sickly fern out, only to discover that the reason they died is that they had been planted ON TOP of the landscape weed control fabric that the previous owners had laid down under neath the bark mulch. (((( Sigh )))).  With all the other odditites (abuses?) we've discovered they did to this house, I am not surprised. So off to the local wholesale-to-the-public nursery to buy new plants. Shade and partial sun loving asilbes, hostas, impatiens, and nandina shrubs. Now all it needs is a new coat of bark mulch. And maybe a water feature. ....I've got a bamboo fountain kit just need to find a nice shallow basin.  Yeah... that would be nice.

I arrived at the big chain gym this morning to teach my water aerobics class. As I walked past the front desk, I overheard the manager talking to this woman. The woman said, "well I'm probably putting the cart before the horse but I've watched the video and then when I read the notes I was like 'huh'? so then I thought you know I should just come down to the gym and take the class and check everything out". I'm thinking ......hmmm...as I make my way to the group ex room to get the stereo boom box.

Out at the pool I'm sitting on the bench up on deck, chatting with the members before class like I usually do. I see the manager come out with the same woman and they walk over to me. The manager introduces me to "Jane" (names changed to protect the innocent and all that ya know) and tells me that Jane is interested in teaching water aerobics. I'm thinking this is GREAT news. As of late, we've had 2 instructors quit with little or no notice and another one is on maternity leave. With gas prices the way they are I'm not interested in adding on another 22 mile one-way commute to my week to take on any of the open spots, so currently the gym has FOUR aqua classes to fill...and right now a few of them are getting taken off of the schedule because nobody is even offering to sub them. Of course, members are starting to get a little upset.

I shook Jane's hand and in making general chit chat conversation I asked her if she had ever taught water aerobics. She said "No". I said, "huh...so have you ever taught any kind of group fitness class before?".  She said "No". So then I asked.."well have you ever taught *anything* before?"  This was when she explained that she was a substitute middle school teacher and was looking for summer work. Realizing that I was sorta overstepping my bounds at this point and my job was not to interview this woman (sometimes I can't quite turn my old coordinator mindset off) I kinda laughed it off and said "well if you can teach pre-teens you can teach anybody" or something like that. She then told me about how she had watched the big chain gym's water aerobics instructional video at home but that the manual or notes really had her a little confused and she wanted to just come down to the gym and take a class. I asked her if she had already contacted our regional group fitness manager in Portland and again her response was "No". Cart before the horse? Indeed. By the end of class? She was dragging an entire *herd* of horses behind her. She spent the better part of class talking to other members (and not doing very much water aerobics either). Telling them how she was hoping to be the new water aerobics instructor. So much so that a few folks came up to me after class and asked if Jane was going to be there on Friday. Umm..No. Then Jane came up to me after class and told me what a fun time she had. How she was out of work because school is out, and that she heard from her friend (an instructor at the gym who gave her the video to watch) that we are looking for water instructors and she just figured "Hey! I can do that!".

Now don't get me wrong people. I know teaching fitness is NOT rocket surgery..but to assume that you can just apply and get a job doing it without any prior knowledge or experience is a little nutty. I mean that's like me applying at a hair salon to cut and color hair for god's sake. Have you seen pics of my yorkie dog on this blog after I give him a "mama cut"? You really don't want my unskilled hands touching your head with a pair of scissors or a bottle of bleach. Trust me.

Teaching fitness...it's not like getting a job at a deli where in one day you know how to make a ham sandwich, run the register, and sweep up at closing.

I'm going to link to this blog about my jetsetting Uncle Dave (dad's older brother) because clearly they can write about his upcoming journey better than I ever could. With amazing blue skies, warm temps out there in Oregon-land, and Mr. Yogagirl out golfing this afternoon I'm going to get out and enjoy myself doing some much needed yardwork.   We'll call this a "guest post" for me today...go read it here:

http://web.mac.com/cjanebuy/Site/Blog/Entries/2008/6/11_HONORARY_BLUE_ANGEL.html