Good Monday afternoon to you all!

To those of you that are being affected by storm Sandy: stay safe! It sounds like it’s getting pretty bad out there.

Last week was the final full week of October, so here’s my last October yoga challenge post!

My Challenge (over the course of the month):
– Do at least one full yoga session per week.
– Relax and de-stress my mind and body even more than I have been in the past few months. This point is especially important, considering how crazy busy this semester is.
– Attempt to do “crane” pose for more than 2 seconds (without landing on my head). In June, my goal was to do it for more than .5 seconds, which I succeeded in! Now, the question is….can I hold it for longer?
– Add five or ten minute stretches (using yoga poses) to the end of each of my workouts, no matter what workout I’m doing. This point was not in my goals back in June, but I think it is a really important one for me. Because I’ve been incorporating different types of workouts (circuit training of all kinds) into my schedule, I’ve actually noticed my muscles getting tighter. Since I’m not going to stop circuit training any time soon (hopefully!), I need to work on muscle flexibility. Yoga is perrrrfect for that!

Actual:
– One full session of yoga this week.
– Crane position for just over 5 seconds (!)

As you can see, I obviously was not as good as I was last week! I’m kinda bummed, because I wanted to finish out the month and the challenge strong, but time simply got away from me! Oh well. I still did my P90X yoga routine, and actually showed off crane position to my family on Friday night! Haha. We were all having a conversation about yoga, and I told them I’d done crane for more than 2 seconds without hurting myself, and they wanted to see. I’m very pleased to say that I can hold the pose for as long as my brother, who got the skinny, build-muscle-with-next-to-no-effort genes. 😛

Anyway. Even though the challenge is over, I’d really like to keep these as weekly goals, just because I feel so much better when I do yoga as much as possible. Plus, conquering new poses is always fun!

What do you all think of my new blog header and background? I finally figured out how to use PhotoShop to my advantage, which is how I got that photo collage up there. I appreciate any and all feedback!!

That’s all I have for today, folks. Have a great evening, stay warm! (Or cold…if you like being cold. I’m personally wearing two pairs of sweatpants, two zipups, and slippers. I don’t like to be cold. )

Question: What’s your favorite yoga pose?