Thoughtworthy (Beginning Yoga, Recharging Wool Dryer Balls, and MORE!)

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For a number of years, I have wanted to try yoga. When I turned 40, someone said to me in passing that the best thing she ever did was start yoga when she turned 40 and I found that thought appealing. However, comma, leaving my house is not appealing — especially since half the time my older teenager has my car.

I know there are a zillion yoga channels on YouTube, but most of the beginner videos I attempted assumed I knew things I didn’t, or were so woo-woo that I just couldn’t. All of that changed when my best friend introduced me to Sarah Beth Yoga. She doesn’t make too many assumptions, and she’s not too woo-woo. Win-win!

The goal I’ve been working toward is to master her beginner videos (freebies on YouTube), and not only has it been great fun but I’ve easily pulled it off 4-5 days a week, sometimes twice a day! I love it. I mean, at this point I’m only capable of something that could be described as glorified stretching, but I’m enjoying it.

Any advice for me? Have any of you managed learning to do yoga without going to a studio?

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I’ve been using organic wool dryer balls for five months now. I love them, and I love that I’m not buying dryer sheets. (SO MUCH LOVE today in this post.)

With that said, I washed a couple large loads of blankets in preparation for winter and they seemed to lose all their power! SO much static and they even looked a little funny. I did some research and ended up recharging them (at least, that’s what I’m calling it) and it was so successful I thought I’d share.

All I did was throw them in with a regular load of laundry — that took care of their strange appearance. The static issue, however, didn’t go away until I added foil to my dryer. That’s right! Foil. I took a couple smallish pieces of normal aluminum foil and rolled them into little balls about the same diameter of a quarter. I threw them into the dryer with the balls and the load and ta da! Everything was all better.

I’m pretty sure something I read in my chemistry book last week about charges explains what happened, but I’m still a bit dim in my understanding. Possibly something about metals donating electrons? Hmmm. I probably should have narrated that reading…

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Mystie’s doing another round of Sweep and Smile and it’s not too late to join in! This program is so great for habit training yourself and this time around she’s focusing on morning and evening routines.

This starts TOMORROW (November 3, 2018) so if you want to sign up, don’t delay!

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I recently subscribed to The Habit, a weekly writing tips newsletter from Jonathan Rogers. It was so good I printed the latest issue out for A-Age-13, who passed it on to E-Age-16 once she was done. I highly recommend it.

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This month in 2014:

I wrote this post as I first tried to understand what Miss Mason meant by The Way of the Reason. Also: I took this photo! Siah took me to Santa Cruz Island for our anniversary or Valentine’s that year (can’t remember which) and it was so gorgeous. The spring is a great time to visit the Channel Islands. ♥

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This week’s links collection:

• The Two Different Temptations Facing Young Evangelicals from First Things
  • “So, for example, the first highlighted person, a young woman named Alexandria Beightol, says that she was ‘pulled out of Smith College’ when she told her parents she was ‘rethinking the legitimacy of anti-gay theology.’ This is another way of saying that she is rethinking orthodox, biblical Christianity.”
• Why the NSA Called Me After Midnight and Requested My Source Code from Medium
  • This was SO interesting to me!
• THE BOOKISH LIFE from First Things
  • Because one First Things article is never enough…
  • “The act of reading — office memos, newspaper articles on trade and monetary policy, and bureaucratic bumpf apart — should if possible never be separable from pleasure.”
• There’s a sudden surge of trans students coming out at my college … and I’m scared to talk about it from The College Fix
  • “There is no doubt in my mind that there is a social contagion among college students. At my school, it is trendy to be transgender, and to people who feel like they don’t fit in, particularly with other people of their biological sex, choosing to transition to the opposite sex, and become a member of the opposite sex, may certainly seem like a more viable option than continuing to feel rejected while trying to fit in.”

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And finally, for your ears, we have the latest Scholé Sisters episode: