Friday, May 26, 2006

Photoshoot with Mea

Last night, after yoga, Mea and KT came down to Boston for the explicit purpose of doing a photoshoot with me for my developing website for my yoga practice. KT was my student while Mea was (obviously) the photographer, and we did yoga and took pictures. It was SO MUCH FUN. Aside from the fact that I got to do yoga for five and a half hours yesterday and thereby making me feel better today than i have felt since i left Kripalu, Mea and i both benefitted greatly from this shoot. He got some incredible shots. Here's just one that i love. Damn, he's good:

Monday, May 22, 2006

An Unexpected Pleasure

This weekend turned out to be a real unexpected pleasure. daN and i went up to Maine for an old highschool friends' wedding, and it turned out to be something of a small reunion. I sat around drinking chardonnay and dancing with people i would not have expected to see sitting around the lunch table in high school together, and it was so unpretentious. (By which i mean to say that all pretenses about who was sitting next to whom have totally dropped.) It was great! The wedding itself? Very short. The reception was as good as it needed to be. The point is that it was a good time and i got to catch up with some old friends i didn't expect to see at all.

And the sun came out! The sun was out the whole time! What a blessing! I was thrilled. I had been getting depresso about the lack of sun. The BLATANT lack of sun.

Yoga. I'm starting to freak out a little about not having acquired an actual client base yet. But... I will. I will. I am.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Rain, Rain, Go Away.

The weekend was lovely, with a brief trip to Maine to get daN's computer fixed. We were going to stay the night and head further up the coast for Mother's Day, but there was just too damned much rain for us to want to drive that much this weekend, especially given that we'll be going back up to Maine next weekend (the 20th) for a friend's wedding. We can celebrate Mother's Day then.

So yesterday, daN and i joyously lazed around. We slept in, we checked email, we ran some errands. It was great. Then we got home and found our landlords in the basement furiously setting up a sump pump to get out the four inches of water and counting. So i put my shitkickers on, and waded around down there putting up our cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations on milk crates to avoid further damage, to be assessed later.

I went to work on autopilot this morning, not thinking to check whether there was a State of Emergency declared in Massachusetts (which there is) and whether there was still work today for me at FM (which there was.) When my coworkers asked how i was doing, i replied something along the lines of, "Well, i'm fine, but things at home could be better. The basement is flooded, i haven't had a chance to sort through all the stuff down there yet, the phone isn't making outgoing phonecalls, the internet is down, and we have no hot water." My boss looked at me and said, "I consider that a state of emergency. Go home." So i did. Here's the email i just wrote to them:

"as most of you know, i came home today to take care of the flooded
basement, etc. with daN's help, we were able to move most of the big
stuff up on top of milk crates. the bulk of the damage was done to our
christmas decorations, but we will be able to dry and keep at least half
of them. among other tasks today were buying these two items:
rubbermaid storage bins and more trash bags. i have spent the afternoon
sorting the good from the bad. hot water has returned to us, but the
phones are still not able to call out. we can receive calls though,
which is weird. the good news is that the laundry machines are both in
good working order, so i've been working on washing the laundry that i
found floating four inches above the floor last night. overall, i've
lost some things that were dear to me, but i've been given reason to
toss some things that were not dear to me and i would have otherwise
felt guilty doing so... so it's been good. and better to have better
storage than cardboard boxes.

see you all (most of you) in the morning, and thanks for being so
understanding of the situation :)
lindsay"

Well, now i am going to get changed and go teach yoga to some pre-school teachers :) That will be nice.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

I Don't Want to Jinx ANything, But...

Things seem to be going well...

daN had a job interview about 2 weeks ago, as you might know, and he is playing phonetag with the business office, presumably to make a deal, but we don't know anything yet.

I hve a couple places that are willing to take me on as a yoga teacher. I haven't got any students for them yet, but i've got some plans in place to try to make that happen.

As the Sabrefencer mentioned in her post, things are changing -- we had a conversation about it the other night, and there are some pretty big things going on in lots of friends' lives. Ana going to Syria and then London for three years, people taking on jobs again, or making relocation changes, Kal-el going to the Cannes Film Festival in France on Tuesday with the national organization Film Artists Network, who are going to try to get money to produce his film next year for his senior project. (Every year, that organization picks one script of thousands to do this for, and Kal-el's was chosen!) . Excitement abounds. What a fun time. Truly, my fortune cookie seems to be right -- "now is the time to try something new."

The only people for whom things do not seem to be changing in some way are my poor coworkers, with the exception of the fact that now they know that i'm leaving, and things are changing around. It's amazing what you learn about people after you've told them that you're leaving. All kinds of interesting stuff comes out, and their dimension goes more from coworker to friend/fellow human. It's too bad that can't exist at the same time in corporate America, but at the same time, the level of profession requires that kind of line to be drawn so that everyone can get their work done and get paid. At any rate, they've made it very clear that they're going to miss me, and you know what? I'm happy to say that i will most likely miss them. June 30 is a ways off, but not that far.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Yoga Teaching, Park Deux

It's amazing what you find out about your coworkers when you tell them you're leaving. On another note, I have a couple of jobs lined up! That gets me a LiTTLe closer to having a schedule that's full enough of classes to justify the leap. It's SOMETHING before real income starts trickling in. Whew! I'm going to make this work. There is a studio in Acton who is happy to take me on for as many classes as i want, and Bally's Total Fitness in Porter told me today that I can come by and fill out the paperwork whenever I want. Woot! And if only i could get on the schedule somewhere around the Pru, I have a whole crapload of current coworkers wanting to take my classes...

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Lindsay B. LeClair, CYT

i have initials after my name now! They stand for Certified Yoga Teacher! Woot! Things are going great. Yesterday i spoke with my boss and let him know that i'm in the process of getting my own practice going, whatever that means. I am sure it means that i'll be teaching around at multiple places. He was very supportive, and understood that i can't do two things at the same time. He also was accommodating and is going to let me call out the timeline for him so i can let him know when he should start looking for another admin to replace me. I am hoping to train whoever it is, so he's going to attempt to work it out with HR to have me come in even after I have cut the ropes on a part time basis to continue training.

I've already been in contact with the manager of Boston Properties, the person who manages the Prudential Tower, to do free yoga in the courtyard at the Pru and take donations to give to the Greater Boston Food Bank. That way, i get free publicity, and i am also doing something nice for the community. I'm going to continue similar efforts around the area, but eventually, donations will be for me. Then i'll build a client base (hopefully) to bring with me to actual indoor locations. I'm going to be working on a website, business cards, and flyers, and get my name out there. I'm doing this.

is it too fast? i don't think so. i have had all sorts of signs over the past few weeks indicating that i needed to get over this fear of the gap and just take the leap over it. it will be bumpy for a while, but as my fortune cookie told me after daN and i celebrated with a mini graduation dinner on sunday afternoon, "Now is the time to start something new."

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Practice Teach

It went so well. "Perfect" across the board. I'm filled with joy about loving teaching. I love teaching. It's so much fun. Things are in the works...