Meet Debi, a husky formerly known as Queenie

This last Friday night, Arisa and I did a rash thing. We adopted a dog from a local rescue, the Berea Animal Rescue Fund. We had gone to visit a German Shepherd, which I love, but came away with a Siberian Husky instead.

Having moved to the west side, we had finally decided we’d get a dog. I’ve wanted one for quite a while but with the long commute it didn’t make any sense - 8-10 hours is way too long to leave a dog home alone in my opinion. Now, however, being just a 10-15 minutes away, we can come home at lunch, we are leaving later to get to work, and we are home sooner. So maybe 4 hours at time alone during the week, broken up by walks at lunch.

So we’ve been looking at websites like Adopt-A-Pet, Petfinder etc. and visited both the Berea facility as well as they Cuyahoga County shelter at least three times. We never quite found the right dog. We were also looking at puppies but couldn’t find the right one, or they were too far away.

Friday night I wanted to head to Berea Animal Rescue because they had a German Shepherd I wanted to see. We signed the waiver that’s good for letting us see animals for 24 hours, and as we were walking out to meet Paulie (the shepherd, they way they were putting away the other dogs made it clear this dog reacted to other dogs. In the neighborhood we are in that’s not going to fly, and it was a *big* German Shepherd, we probably would have had difficulty stopping it if it really wanted to do something.

“Queenie” caught our eye as she was the dog they cleared out from the cage we were going to see

Paulie in. Her tail was so far under her rump, she was clearly terrified. In the end, we didn’t even stay to see Paulie, went to the Cuyahoga County shelter didn’t find anything we wanted. On the way home, we talked about various dogs, and what we were looking for, etc, and we kept coming back to the husky. So we decided to go visit the husky one last time since BARF was open until 8pm on Friday nights. And we found Queenie, aka Debi, sitting in fear in her cage.

We did a meet and greet with her, and decided that we were going to adopt. Arisa in particular really wanted to get her out of that shelter. We decided after some discussion to take her home that night even though we weren’t prepared in order to give her some time to adjust to her new home before we had to leave for a work day. So we took her home Friday night, complete spur of the moment decision.

She is still really skittish though she has begun to eat and drink water, sometimes in front of us. She’s great on walks but is afraid of everything, or any loud sound. She shrunk away from a sewer in the street because the sound of the water scared her. She shrunk away from a tree with several loud and chirpy sparrows. Needless to say she is skittish around us as well.

We are looking forward to seeing her come out of her shell and show us who she really is. Already I can tell she is a chewer, and when she is really comfotable playful. I am also guessing that she is going to cause havoc. She already chewed up one plant, and was playfully jumping around last night. I plan to keep a running “diary” here: Meet Debi

2019 Intention - Summary : It's a Matter of Balance

This post will recap all three of my 2019 Intention posts, wrapping them all up in a nice little theme. And adding perhaps one or two more intentions for the year. I also intend to keep the door open for some additional goals and/or things I may want to add as go through the year. To start with here are the links to previous 2019 Intentions posts.

2019 Intentions

Part I Journaling #journaling

Part II Meditation #meditation

Part III Reading #reading #spiritualreading

Part IV Yoga Studies #yogastudies #yoga

As you have already guessed from the title of this post, this year will be about regaining balance or perhaps establishing balance. Let me explain.

2019 Intentions - Part 4 ; Yoga Studies

This post is number four in the series of posts I am making with regards to my 2019 Intentions. So far we have covererd

Part 1 Journaling

Part 2 Meditation

Part 3 Reading

Today's installment is to talk about my intentions to apply discipline and rigor to my study of Yoga. This post will cover a relatively wide range of topics that all fall under this category.

So hold onto your hats! Here we go!

2019 Intentions - Part 3 Reading

My continuing effort to clarify my intentions for 2019. This is the third post in the series and I'm guessing that there will be may 10 posts all told to clarify my intentions for this year. If you were curious, I do have a bullet list of handwritten goals and/or intentions for this year but writing these out help me clarify what I'm actually trying to achieve with each of them. In some cases writing them out is simply that I already know what I'm intending. In other cases I have an very general, vague idea of what I want to do and the blog posts will help me figure out the details.

Next up are my intention for reading in 2019.

2019 Intentions - Part 2: Meditation

updateI started this last week and am finishing it today. Just so you know.

This morning I'm hanging out at Starbucks while I wait for my Mom's testing to get done. She has about two hours of testing with the Neuro-Psychologist to see where she is at. She has already had some preliminary tests done with the neurologist and a MRI scan of her brain. We have a wrap up meeting next Wednesday with the gerontologist again. We should have a good baseline of where she is at and can more accurately evaluate any steps we need to take.

so while I'm waiting I thought it would be a good time to start my post for my next set of intentions for 2019. As I mentioned in my Part 1 post, I have about 10 goals for this year that I want to try and achieve but some of those are the same as last year. Overall, they are all related to making lifestyle changes that I hope make me more mindful, kind, and healthy in mind, body and spirit. Even if I don't achieve them all the goals and the journey are worth it. As mention in the previous post, my dabbling in journaling over the last year and half led to a some benefits, realizations, and ah-ha's that motivate me to make it a more consistent, bigger part of my lifestyle. Similarly, many of the items that are "rolling over" from last year have provided some benefits or enough of something to think I want to keep trying. Some I did fairly successfully, some I failed at. In this and upcoming posts I'll take about what I'm trying and why.

Following journaling first up is Meditation.

2019 Intentions - Part 1: Journaling

Like every year, I hope to get back to blogging more. I'll touch on the why of that for this year in a later post - assuming I ever make more than one or two posts. This post is intended to be a post about just one intention or goal I have for 2019. I have about 10, many of which are interrelated. I am hoping that by delving into each one I'll get a little bit more traction towards accomplishing them this year.

So my intention is to journal every single day of 2019. At least once a day. Now, I'm not going to freak out if I miss a day, I've done enough all or nothing resolutions to know they don't work if you are really trying to create a change. My focus is to set an intention(s) or goals that I want to achieve by the end of the year. So when I say I'll journal every day I mean by the end of the year journaling on a daily basis will be an establish part of my day-to-day activities.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Week 33

Happy New Year!!!

May your 2019 be the best year yet!

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about. 

"Annual" Day After Christmas Post

It appears that that I post the day after Christmas every year. Most likely because I am not going to work and I have some time, plus it is that time of year to reflect on the year, and think about goals and aspirations for the upcoming year.

2018 was an interesting year for me. In some ways very successful, in others not so much. But isn't that true every year?

I started out the year trying to get up earlier in the morning so that I could get in a consistent yoga, pranayama, meditation, and reading practice to start the day. The difficulty of that is that I need to be in bed earlier in order to get enough sleep. I found that it was too difficult for a variety of reasons. Regardless of those reasons the reality is that it was beyond me this year to go to bed early enough to make getting up at 4-4:30am feasible. When I say it was "beyond me" or "not feasible", I realize that for the most part that comes down to my own discipline. And that's okay, I'm okay for not being up to the challenge this year.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Post - Week 32

So it's been exactly a year since I posted the last Weekly Tao Te Ching verse. Gonna see if I can start getting back into it in 2019. "It" being posting to my blog more consistently. I'll go into more about it later but it is something I want to keep up, probably more so as I think I'm going to start ramping down social media interactions. More on that later too.

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about. 

Weekly Tao Te Ching Post - Week 31

As you can tell by the fact that I am only on week 31, I have not been posting regularly. I am okay with that but I hope to continue more consistenly from here on out through 2018 at least until I finish the book. Over the next week or two I may be posting a tad bit more than normal(which really isn't that hard, lol).

If you have followed this blog at all over time you will have noticed that around the end of the year into the first part of the new year I look back on what I have accomplished and make plans on what I want accomplish.

It's that time of the year again.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #30

A very long time has passed since I last posted at Tao Te Ching verse. Time to get back to that so I can finish it - start finishing and stop starting!

Since we (meaning me, myself and I) last chatted was in late April. As you can imagine quite a bit has happened since then. For one the YTT class I had been attending graduated and some are teaching, some have participated in a meditation challenge I started, another a book club discussion I started. At PlantBasedCLE we started our restaurant take over, I started teaching at Stat Crossfit on both Sundays and Wednesdays, picked up a second class at Fitworks. I started reading Banish Your Inner Critic and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (for the book club ostensibly).

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #29

Hey friends, it's been a while. I got out of the habit of doing the blog posts, not sure why. I am here to try and rectify that because I think it is important for me to have some discipline and rigor in my life. My goal for this blog, I guess, is to be a record of some of my thoughts and activities. Not earth shatteringly important to anyone other than myself maybe and that's okay. This blog, dear reader, is really for me.

The last time I posted we had just finished an unofficial Engine 2 Seven Day at Hyland. Well, coincidentally we are on Day 5 of our second Seven Day Rescue! And we have two more coming up, one in May and one in June. It's pretty awesome that Hyland stepped up and added it to their currently wellness initiative called the "Whole Hylander". It looks at wellness as more than just diet and excercise, but also community, mindfulness and financial well being.

I have also taken up a larger role in PlantBasedCLE as the previous President stepped down. She stepped down for the best of reasons, she is a victim of her own success, and Engine 2 where she works is giving her more and more responsibility. Which unfortunately for us means she has less time to dedicate to the organization. I have stepped in as President with my high school buddy John as Vice President. We created a new board of directors and re-started monthly meetings and activities which we had paused over the holidays.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #28

UPDATE: I have now I idea how this got published with Verse 26 and 27 in it instead of Verse 28. Verse 26 and 27 were already posted here. I am updating this post with Verse 28.

What a busy week this was! We finished the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue, at work we did planning for the quarter, worked with one of my teams to do an agile assessment that should help them create their OKRs for quarter one. I subbed at Hyland for the wonderful Colleen Alber on Tuesday night, had dinner with a friend on Wednesday night, taught my sober yogis class at Soul Stretch Yoga on Friday night, and Fitworks on Sunday. I got home late Friday night having a long talk with one of the people who came to the yoga class and discussion our. I overslept and missed Marni's class but I made it at Cleveland Yoga on Sunday morning.

But Tuesday and Thursday were the days I was really jazzed about. On Tuesday, some participants got their "after blood work done and we met at lunch for the results reveal.

Here we are with the peace sign of Rip's "Peace, Engine Two, Plant Strong" mantra. Can you see who joined us for the lunch? Yup, Jane Esselstyn of Health Care is Self Care and Rip's sister, more importantly my friend.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #26 and #27

So I missed a week. Thank goodness it wasn't an resolution for this year or I would have already failed. Luckily, I don't really do resolutions anymore. I am going more for intentions. A friend of mine shared hers with me they were really well constructed. I still am working out doing mine right. For now they are more like a task list. I will share them in detail at some point, just not today. They are all centered around two main things with a little 12 steps stuff. Those to main things should not surprise you if you know me; Yoga and Whole Food, Plant Based eating.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #25

Happy New Year!

So we have entered 2017. I will continue to post once a week until I have posted all 81 verses.

This last week was slow at work due to most folks haven taken PTO to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. Due to the fact that Arisa and I used most of our PTO on going to Japan this year we worked most of the week. Which was kind of too bad since my oldest, Elly, is in town for the week.

Luckily I was able to find time to organize with the Dietitian at the Hyland Wellness Center an plan to participate in the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue. We'll be starting it a little after the official start simply due to the corporate calendar. We'll start with a "launch" on Jan. 5th, and the challenge will begin on the 10th. For those opting to, we'll have biometric screenings with simple blood work at the start and end of the challenge. It should give participants a good snapshot of how quickly a plant-based diet can improve your health. The really great thing is we already have 20 people signed up and this is with most employees out on holiday. I am confident we'll get to close to 25, maybe more. Which is pretty darn amazing since it was all planned at the last minute.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #24

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, or Happy Kwanzaa. Or whatever other holiday floats your boat this time of year. Although I no longer consider myself a Christian, I do celebrate Christmas since I was raised Christian and family traditions around the Christmas Holiday.

I taught my last "community" class at 3Sisters at least on Friday nights because it will conflict with my Sober Yogi class I teach at Soul Stretch in Westlake. I also taught my weekly Fitworks class as well as subbing on Wednesday night. I am now over 50 hours of teaching since getting certified. Still have a long way to go as a Yoga instructor but so much better than when I was first certified. Still need to find my voice in terms of expressing and talking about themes. Well themes with a spiritual bent anyway.

The Fourth Limb of Yoga - Pranayama

So this year I have been slowly reviewing the the 8 Limbs of Yoga in order to figure out what my intentions for 2016 are going to be. Clearly, since it is already November, this process will transition to preparing for setting my 2017 intentions. As we get closer to the New Year's or early next year I'll review what I had defined, what I achieved and see where we end up. But let's keep moving forward.

Which means, next up of the 8 Limbs is the fourth one, Pranayama.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #23

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. After YTT Anatomy weekend last weekend, I was back to teaching my class at Fitworks. I also subbed at Stat Crossfit at 8am on Sunday before heading to my weekly infusion of Marni Goodness. Went grocery shopping and Christmas present shopping then spent the rest of the day cooking, watching football (Browns, ugh).

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #22

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. Spent most of the rest of the weekend taking Gina Schatz's Anatomy class for Marni Task's YTT program. I skipped out early on Sunday to take my fellow YTT grad Kim Hackman's restorative yoga class at Confluence. I may or may not have snored.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #21

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. Took my weekly infusion of Marni Task goodness on Saturday morning before teaching at Fitworks in Highland Heights. Sunday I headed out early to take Lori Palmer's yoga class at Soul Stretch in Westlake.