108 Sun Salutations

              Last night for the first day of summer, my gym was holding a night of 108 sun salutations to kick off the summer. 108 sun salutations is part of a ritual in yoga to celebrate the changing of the seasons. There are many interpretations of what does 108 mean. You can read about one here and here. I really found the second article quite interesting. Last night, my yoga instructor  told us  the meaning of each digit in the number 108. The "1" stands for the one and only, the "0" stands for nothing but at the same time everything and the "8" when flipped sideways, represents the infinity symbol.
               I wanted to be a part of this yoga ritual for the experience and to see if I could really do 108 sun salutations in a row. I thought I would get really tired and have to stop, but we did the sun salutations in 9 sets of 12 and it actually was not bad at all. However, afterwards, my shoulders started to feel it from all the upper to lower planks within the sun salutation. If you have taken a yoga class before, you have probably done at least one variation of a sun salutation, but for those that do not know, here is a picture of sun salutation A that we did 108 times.

source

        My favorite part of this experience was being able to do yoga right on the pool deck and at night as the sun was setting. Though it was a pretty rainy and cloudy day yesterday, I was happy that the rain had passed by the time of this event so that I could enjoy yoga outdoors.
        As we went through each sun salutation, I did not focus on the count of how many we were up to, but instead listened as the instructor called out "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, hands up, hands to heart center..." With each yoga class that I go to, the instructor always reminds us to breathe because yoga is not about the poses and how flexible you are, it's about breathing. While I stayed focused on my breath, I was able to relax and just flow with the sun salutations. Sometimes, I missed a movement, but I was always able to find my way back.
      Here are some pictures from the evening:

the moon over the pool

Watermelon Baby Carriage

So I have been a terrible blogger as I haven’t blogged much in the past few months. I was so busy studying for the GMAT test that I didn’t really have anything to say, but now I have resumed my life somewhat and I wanted to share my beautiful creation I made this past weekend. We were throwing a surprise baby shower at work for 2 of my co workers in my department who are having babies one month apart from each other. Being that I go on Pinterest and am always wanting to try to make new things, it was the perfect excuse for making a watermelon baby carriage! I had been looking forward to it for weeks. I watched some youtube videos and it looked pretty easy and it was mostly easy, other than carving out the watermelon fully and getting it even. Here are some of the pictures as I was working on it:

scooping out the watermelon...this took probably the longest of the whole process

this is going to be the baby's head

baby, half a grape for each eye, a piece of watermelon for the nose, cantaloupe for the ears

baby in the carriage

filled with fruit salad

me with my beautiful and first watermelon baby carriage. I do plan to make more in the future :)

In addition to the baby carriage, I also made chocolate chip scones, which I hadn't made in a while and they were so tasty. The surprise party was a success as both of my co workers were so surprised and there was tons of delicious food and fruit, lots of fruit. It was a great way to start off the week and get through a Monday. I think we need more parties, but my sister already thinks we have parties like everyday...LOL 
I will try to post more often now with any fun activities I've been doing, especially since it should be summer any day now...After a couple weeks of 80s, it has only been like 60 here, though at least that's better than below 0 like the long winter. I just want the sun back, as it has been too rainy lately.