Yay for yoga!

I haven't taken a yoga class in years, but I really enjoyed it when I was doing it, so I thought "why not?" and drove my happy to be out of the house self down to School House Yoga in the Strip (which I apparently ran past on Sunday in the Pittsburgh Half Marathon) to partake of the Tuesday night ashtanga class.  Back in the day when Madonna was doing ashtanga and everyone was trying to get those fabulous cut arms, you could find an ashtanga class at every yoga studio within spitting distance.  But now it seems like my preferred yoga class is not so easy to find, meaning School House has cornered the market.  It also helps that they're so close to me.  This was an intermediate class that I took, but I figured that since I'd done ashtanga in the past, I'd probably be ok.  

I gotta say, this was probably the fittest yoga class I've ever taken.  There were at least three of us who had run the half on Sunday, and I was probably the chubbiest person in the room (and I'm not all that chubby anymore).  The girl facing me had some pretty spectacular technique, I was kind of mesmerized watching her get into these positions that I'd never seen before (we never actually got through the whole primary series in any of my classes before, so maybe I was a *little* underprepared for the class).  Actually, pretty much everyone in the class was pretty impressive, which was cool to see.  And I think I did pretty good for having been out of yoga for so long.  All that pilates and all the running has definitely made me a lot stronger than I was the last time I was doing yoga, so I was able to do some poses that I'd never been able to do before - bakasana (crow pose, I think) and headstand.  Well, I did headstand for maybe 45 seconds, before I fell over and made a resounding thud that probably scared the crap out of the other people in the class, but that's the best I've ever done before, so I'll count it as a success.  My arms are going to be killing me tomorrow, though, I'm sure, since we did the primary series the *real* way, vinyasas and all.  Good thing I don't have anything to do tomorrow!

In knitting news, I'm almost done with my Owlet sweater, one of which I've donated to Oliver's preschool's fundraiser.  I'm not quite sure how to price it, I'm thinking $60.00 for a handmade child's sweater, and they can start the bidding at $30.00 then (it's a silent auction).  I've got about 50 things I want to make, but I always end up on the computer in front of the tv.  I think if I had like four more arms I could get so much more done.

Lame, lame, lame

The title is an adjective that obviously describe me, as I'm not even cool enough to keep up a blog about my kids and other randomness.    I could try to claim that I've been busy, which might be an ok excuse for like a month or two, but over a year?  Jeez.  What's lamer than lame?  Super lame?  Mega lame?

Anyway, I told my friend Susan that I would update my blog, as she claims she would read it if I ever updated it, but I find myself at a total loss about what to say.  The four of us, Haakan, the kids, and I, took a trip up to Cleveland yesterday to pick up Haakan and Elliot's passports from the Swedish Consulate.  I find it kind of hysterical that Cleveland has a Swedish Consulate, but I find it fairly amusing that there are Swedes anywhere but Sweden, since there aren't all that many of them and I never think of there being a concentration of them heavy enough to necessitate a consulate.  So after we picked up the passports, which took all of like three minutes

 (they managed to do the whole exchange of info while I was in the bathroom), we took the kids to the Great Lakes Science Center, which I highly recommend for people with kiddos who might not be as thrilled by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as their parents would be (it's right next door, so theoretically one could go to both).  The kids had a great time, it was almost completely empty and for quite a while they were the only kids there, meaning

 that Oliver could bounce around in the bounce house to his heart's content.  Unfortunately, there was also an attendant on duty, so I could not take a nap in the bounce house, like I wanted to, but it's all good.  As usual, the "car" was the big hit with Elliot, while Oliver was old enough to really play with just about everything there.  Haakan and I just kind of trailed them around the room, trying to make sure no one fell off of anything.  And not entirely successfully, since Elliot tipped off the back of a boat display and wacked his head on the ground.  But that was the only major accident of the day, and he seems none the worse for wear (though I'm sure he can blame us in 10 years when he can't do long division).

I spent the drive up and back knitting a fabulous Owlet sweater for Elliot, and it's coming along pretty quickly.  No pictures (because, referencing the title o

f this post, I am indeed lame), but I'm using Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, and really liking it so far.  I've got the body done and now need to do the sleeves, which I can do now that I've got some needles (and appologies to the staff at Natural Stitches, where my children literally ran around the store screaming while I tried to pay ).  They asked me to do something for Oliver's preschool's fundraiser, so I'm going to donate a child's sweater for the silent auction, and I think Owlet is going to be it, so I need to make a sample for them to put on display for the bidding.  I'll take some pictures when it's all done, hopefully by the end of the week, but you can see the grownup version that I made for myself:

And a fabulous closeup of the owls that you can't see all that well on the sweater (obviously taken by Haakan, being that he's a man and all).

I'm really pretty tickled with it, the fit is great and it's super super cute, and it was FAST to knit, too.  But in retrospect, it kind of sucks to have made a sweater that isn't going to be able to be worn for a couple of months, being that the hot weather is upon us.  Oh well, good thing I'm making Elliot's in fabulous breathable cotton!