Busted.

*This photo was taken in the late fall, however, we saw this fat guy scurry out of our yard this morning. He’s back, and well fed. I threw a travel mug at him because it was the first thing I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, I missed. Does anyone have a be-be gun?

Menukha Yoga

As sole proprietor of Menukha Yoga (I love saying that), I want to give you a little background on how the “business” came to life.

I completed my certification in March, and decided to start my own private yoga practice. We had a marketing boot camp and were told that for insurance reasons and to protect ourselves in the rare case of a yoga accident, we should establish either a sole proprietorship or an L.L.C. The sole proprietorship made the most sense for me, so I sent a letter to the Chamber of Commerce, registered the name Menukha Yoga, and it’s now official!

I wanted a name that not only insinuates my inspiration for yoga (Jesus), but also expressed my own yoga philosophy (engaging the stillness). Directly translated, men·ü·khä means rest or repose in Hebrew. It comes from Psalm 23:2, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” In this psalm of praise, King David draws us a picture of a soul completely settled and at peace in the love of God. How perfect! The main purpose of men·ü·khä yoga is to bring you to a place of stillness before God.  

My practice includes more mainstream hatha yoga classes as well. At the gym, for the athletic teams, and during my private sessions, the focus is on the physical and mental benefits of yoga, rather than using yoga as a spiritual discipline in a church setting. 

I haven’t quite started my own marketing campaign, but I’ve already had several opportunities to grow my business. I’ve done classes for sports teams and girl scout troops, I’ve done private sessions, and I’m teaching a weekly class at a local gym all through word of mouth advertising! 

I know I’ve only been teaching for three months, but I think I’ve already found my niche. I really enjoy teaching teen athletes. I am already planning a workshop for next summer. I think that young athletes can benefit tremendously from a regular yoga practice. Core strength, flexibility, injury prevention, mental focus – all of these are essential for a successful on the field or on the court. I have several friends who coach area teams, and in the fall I’ll be doing a class once a week for a high school field hockey team. 

So, there you have it: Menukha Yoga! If you live in the area and you are interested in private sessions, yoga at your church, yoga for your team, etc., please contact me – either through the blog or through the information on the Menukha Yoga website.

A Sad Day in the Garden

Remember these guys? Mr. Broccoli and Mr. Brussels. 

Or this one? Ms. Cabbage. 

Vibrant. Hearty. Flourishing. 

Fast forward to this morning: 

I leisurely rolled out of bed, stretched my arms overhead, slipped on my slippers, and shuffled down the two flights of stairs to my kitchen sanctuary. I put hot water on the gas stove and moseyed over to the french doors for my front row seat to the misty morning rain and overnight growth in the garden. First thing in the morning, my heart pans for a glimpse of the broccoli plant, a giant amongst the lettuce and spinach, with its broad leaves extending up toward the sky. To my horror, it appeared that the strong, waxy leaves had disappeared overnight. My eyes anxiously dashed to the brussels sprouts, and then to the cabbage. Gone. All gone. The beautiful leaves chewed away by some thieving, urban-dwelling (thus rabies infested) rabbit or opossum. 

R.I.P. my green beauties, R.I.P.

View the below photos are your own risk. Graphic images. 

Whodunnit? Any guesses? Cats basically own our backyard, but we only see them nibble at the weeds. They’ve yet to seem interested in the vegetables. What kind of rodent is capable of this destruction? And, for those garden lovers out there, are these plants salvageable? And can we prevent a future attack? We’re sending out an S.O.S. blog readers!

Engaging the Stillness

When I begin a yoga class, I typically do a brief Bible study. I had been thinking about Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God,” for the past week. I like to call Psalm 46:10 a back pocket Bible verse. The verse joins John 3:16, Genesis 1:1, Romans 3:23, John 14:6, etc. in the back pocket. The back pocket is accessible at all times, and whenever you’re having a bad day or struggling through something in particular, That Guy or That Girl pulls out a back pocket verse. E.g. You say, “I don’t feel worthy of God’s love, I keep messing up.” That Guy says, “ALL fall short of the glory of God.” Ok, so there is definitely theological truth there, I’m not arguing that. I’m just making a comment on how we throw around verses as quick panaceas or remedies, without really exploring what it means to “fall short of the glory of God.” 

Today, I remove Psalm 46:10 from my own back pocket in order to delve into the verse and attempt to understand what it really means to be still before the Lord. I started by looking up “still” in the dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary defines still:

A. adj. 

1. Motionless; not moving from one place, stationary; also, remaining in the same position or attitude, quiescent.

b. Abstaining from action. Const. of (in OE., genitive). Phrase, to hold oneself still.

Pretty clear cut, right? God wants us to chill out. We live these incredibly crazy lives with hectic schedules and sometimes we need a time-out. We usually regulate Sundays for chilling out. Keep the Sabbath holy (another back pocket verse, by the way). 

But when I looked at the Hebrew lexicon, the word translated as still is raphah, which means “to slacken (in many applications, literal or figurative) — abate, cease, consume, draw (toward evening), fail, (be) faint, be (wax) feeble, forsake, idle, leave, let alone (go, down), (be) slack, stay, be still, be slothful, (be) weak(-en).” 

To abate, to cease, forsake. God is asking us to give up, not just sit down. Give up our agendas, our deadlines, our schedules, our plans in order to know God. Know, or yada in Hebrew, is not a casual knowing. It’s a deep knowing, a searching, a concerning, a distinguishing. It takes all of our attention and all of our energy.

Interestingly, even when I am “holding myself still,” my mind can go 1 million miles a minute. I don’t think that counts for being still. What I think God is calling us to here is a stillness of the heart. The verse says BE STILL. To be is a verb. It’s an action. This isn’t a stillness of passivity or apathy that He wants from us, it’s an active stillness.

We are to ENGAGE in the STILLNESS. 

We are to center our hearts on Him, so that we may know Him. I think that yoga is the perfect activity for being still. Sounds like an oxymoron, but when you understand what it is that God wants when He’s asking us to be still, it makes perfect sense. Yoga is the linking of body and breath. When I am in a flow that my body is comfortable with, it’s almost like a movement meditation. Running  is another great example of this phenomenon. You can be running, 1 mile or 10 miles, and you can be completely unaware of your legs or of your surroundings because the motion is so familiar. Running, like yoga practice, is a great time to BE STILL. You’re completely engaged physically, but mentally you can detach from the action and focus on God. Thus you are engaging the stillness in your heart, rather than in your physical being. I like to think of stillness as a posture of the heart. Just like you move from a downward facing dog into a forward fold, you have to most into stillness. 

I encourage you to take some time today to engage that stillness. Find a quiet place, or even choose a favorite activity such as running or walking, and begin to reflect and consider who God is and how you see Him working in your life! Be still and know Him.

Memorial Day Weekend

Several months ago Steve, Quinn’s best friend, asked him to be the best man in his wedding. Quinn obliged, of course, and we spent Thursday through Sunday just outside of Washington, D.C. to help celebrate the marriage of Steve King and Abigail Nye (now King!). Thursday evening, Quinn hosted the bachelor party at the Bowie Baysox minor league baseball game. Josh Perrault, who lived with us while he pitched for the Senator’s last season, now plays for the Baysox. Josh and Stephanie graciously provided the tickets to the game, so plenty of money remained for a night in Alexandria. Because this is a family blog, I’ll leave out the rest of the festivities of the evening in order to protect the innocent (i.e., the groom-t0-be). 

Friday night we enjoyed a nice rehersal dinner at the top of the Sheraton National Hotel. From the window of the ballroom where we had dinner, you can see the Pentagon. Interesting fact: the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 skimmed the top of the Sheraton. 

Saturday morning Quinn took Steve out to breakfast and then we didn’t see him until he performed his best man duties at the wedding. Friends Ashley, Matt, and Jason kept me company and stayed with Quinn and I in Kelly Thomas’s apartment in Falls Church, just about 15 minutes from both the church and the Ft. Meyer’s Officers Club where the reception was held. 

Quinn gave a fabulous toast in the form of a poem. He is quite the poet. Everybody got a good laugh out of it, and the rest of the reception was a lot of fun. I dragged Quinn out onto the dance floor about 2 dozen times.

 

Eventually, he loosened up. 

Sunday morning we drove back to Harrisburg to meet up with Josh, Stephanie, and McKenzie who actually hit the road after the game on Thursday for a three game series against the Senators. We happily hosted them for the weekend and it reminded us of how wonderful they are! 

We had our own little Memorial Day cookout with some goodies from our first CSA pickup. 

Josh headed off to the game and while McKenzie napped Stephanie and I headed down to ArtsFest, Harrisburg’s annual Memorial weekend art show. I got some goodies, naturally. We came home, cleaned up, and walked to City Island for the baseball game. Quinn and McKenzie played pretty much the entire night; it was hard to separate them. 

The Perrault’s are truly a blessing in our lives. When they left yesterday morning we thought about how nice it would be if Josh was with the Senator’s again. They must miss him, especially because he’s pitching really well right now! He got the save on Monday night! Regardless of his baseball capabilities, he’s the head of an amazing family. We love sitting around the table and chatting with Josh and Stephanie and we just didn’t get enough of that this time! We love you guys!

The Graduate.

I keep telling myself that this isn’t a big deal. I’m not entirely sure why. I did work hard for this degree. I wrote a pretty awesome thesis, if I do say so myself. Oddly, I just can’t fully appreciate that I am a “Master” of American Studies. I suppose it might have to do with the fact that I may not ever use my degree. I love to learn. I love to read. I love to write. I love to ruminate over interesting topics and discuss opposing viewpoints. Those passions are satisfied in the classroom, and I want to continue to learn, to push my own limits. I may or may not acquire some more letters after my name, but I want to be a life-long student. I’m not too sure what’s up next (I was, however, enamored by the puffy sleeved Ph.D. gowns and the velvety hats… might be in my future). 

I am incredibly thankful to the people who made this possible. My mom and dad encouraged a spirit of wonder in me from a young age, and continued to foster that as I made my way through high school and college. During the M.A. program my dad served as my editor-in-chief, reading various versions of almost every paper I wrote. He never failed to fit me into his busy schedule, and he always offered a comment or a suggestion. My mom inspires my writing style. I always consider her when I’m writing. I want her to understand and enjoy the entire paper. I’m not writing for staunch intellectuals – they can entertain themselves with their own high ideas. My mom is my reader. Quinn’s support has been incredible. He gave me the time and space I needed, and he always listened to me read thesis copies out loud to make sure everything sounded right. He also watched countless episodes of 30 Minute Meals (more than he’d like to admit). I’m sure he’s quite over Rachael Ray.

The ceremony resembled every other graduation ceremony, ever. Nothing too special. The president of the Penn State Alumni Association gave the address. He did a good job and kept the speech within 15 minutes, which is a major bonus. Neil, Kate, Quinn, and Becki sat through almost 2.5 hours of droning names. They love me. 

 

After the ceremony, we headed back to Shipoke to host a little shin-dig. We had Meggy-Pooh and Bill (missed you Sandy!!), the rest of the McCullough’s after Kelsey’s soccer game, Nana and Grandpa Buss with fruit salad and tapioca pudding in tow, and the Kupfer’s. Perfection. I missed David, of course, but it was a nice little barbecue, despite the look on Quinn’s face. 

 

*If by any chance you are interested in reading THE thesis, just let me know. I’m happy to send an e-copy along!

We’ll let you in on a little secret.

The past three weeks we’ve been out looking at houses.

We know, we know. Leave Shipoke? That amazing neighborhood! And what about all the work we did? All the hours! All the money!

You, dear readers, deserve the backstory. A few weeks ago we happened onto the Fannie Mae website and found that the list price on sweet little Caracas dropped to a reasonable price. The laurels of the house that once put us through tremendous stress? Downtown Hershey. Out of a flood zone.  Closer to where Cali teaches yoga classes. 2-car garage. A basement that could actually be used for storage. Room for a potential private yoga studio for Cali’s brand new yoga business (Menukha Yoga). So, we made a very low offer on Caracas, which in retrospect was a bad idea if we really wanted the house. Fannie Mae recieved 2 other offers on the same day (weird, and so unlikely) and we were out-bid. Sad. Very sad.

So in the spirit of all-of-a-sudden discontent with Shipoke, we started earnestly looking for a new house. Hershey. Hummelstown. Harrisburg. You name it. We wanted out. We even put our house on Craigslist and had a showing last week!

After this brief retreat from reality, we decided that we indeed do love Shipoke. We love living next to the beautiful Susquehanna River. We love being in such a central location. We love walking to the bank, and to the post office, and downtown for dinner or drinks. We love riding our bikes to the Broad Street Market. We love that our house oozes our personality. We love our back patio. We love our neighbors, especially Ethan, and we still love him even when he rings our doorbell multiple times each day.

So, now it’s time to settle down… we planted our veggies. We had held off for the past week and a half. We didn’t want to plant our garden, and then pick up and leave! Time to put our “roots” down. So we got busy and added to our raspberries, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, and basil:

• 5 broccoli
• 5 brussel sprouts
• 7 tomatoes (2 Beefsteak, 2 Brandywine, and 3 yellow cherry) 
• 4 cabbage
• 4 hot peppers
• 4 sweet peppers
• mint

brussels, broccoli, spinach, and lettuce

 

peppers, cabbage, tomatoes

Give em’ a few weeks before the next photo shoot. We’ve been getting a tremendous amount of rain, so these little babies will grow quickly!

Cooking for a crowd.

Some of you know about our friends Trey, Jay, and Ray. Some of you don’t. We met them last August over a flat tire, some duck tape, and a butter knife. The boys live in Harrisburg and come visit about twice a week. Most times it’s just TJ (Trey) and Jay-Hoozie (Jay), but sometimes, they multiply. We usually get a text message when they are in the neighborhood. Last night: “It’s me jay and 3 others.” Multiply. They multiply.

We also had Willie over last night. Willie comes over every Thursday for a few hours to hang out and have a good time. Willie particularly enjoys awesome tie-dye shirts and cookbooks.

Not only do they multiply, but they are always hungry! So that made for 6 hungry, adolescent boys at the McCullough house just in time for dinner! Perfect! Chocolate Chip Pancakes were in order. Twenty-something of them. On Thanksgiving paper plates. These boys are not picky.

And they thoroughly enjoyed the hot, melty, chocolately pancakes on the back patio.

They’ll be back, soon. We haven’t made it to double digits quite yet, but we’re sure that’s just around the corner.

Mini-Vacation: Washington, D.C.

Quinn and I headed down to Washington, D.C. last Thursday evening. Milton Hershey School is on vacation until Monday, so we decided to take advantage of the time off and go to one of the most frequented tourist cities in the entire United States on Good Friday with everyone else within a four hour driving radius. Packed house in D.C. on Friday, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. 

We took the Metro in from Ballston (in Northern Virginia) and went directly to the Holocaust Museum to get our tickets. The line wrapped around the building at 10am! We received tickets for 1:45, so we headed to the Museum of Natural History to see the soil exhibit in the meantime. 

We spent about 2 hours wandering through the Holocaust Museum. Intense. Very intense. Because of the crowd, we had to bypass the first section, so we definitely want to go back during the middle of the week (not on a busy holiday weekend). It’s one of those places you want to be in alone; being bustled about isn’t really the ideal setting for taking in the history of an event of that magnitude. 

After the sobering experience, we needed our friend Kelly Thomas (soon to be Dr. Kelly Thomas) to cheer us up. Solution? Lots of Guitar Hero and some WiiFit Olympics. Perfect cure. She generously hosted us for the weekend, and we returned the favor with groceries and pizza and BIG BUNS! 

Springtime!

Over two weeks have passed since the last post. Reason #1, I was in Arizona for 9 days visiting family and completing my yoga certification. It’s official! Reason #2, I resolved to finish my thesis before I posted again. It’s official (almost). I sent my almost-final draft off to my advisers. I just hang tight until they send it back all marked up. I make some final adjustments, and then I’m off to get it printed and bound all fancy-like.

So, let’s see. What to catch you up on….

We experienced a loss. The cute little egg carton flower sprouts mysteriously died when I was away. Hmmm. We’re just going to go to a nursery this weekend and get flowers instead. Next year I’ll stick around to supervise the growth of the seedlings instead of head out of town during a vital stage in their development.

We experienced homeowners insurance. Last weekend Quinn used the circular saw to chop down some extra wood from renovations to use for firewood. Somehow a piece of wood flew off the saw and directly into the French doors. Thankfully Quinn still has all of his fingers. We just have to replace the exterior glass on one of the doors. No biggie, just a minor inconvenience and one of those grown-up expenses that happen every once in a while.

We planted. Wayne and Becki let us dig daffodils out of their yard to plant in our re-purposed wheel barrel. They bloomed in just a few days! We also planted asparagus and the raspberry bushes. Yummmm.

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle!

Ugly Asparagus.

Black raspberries to-be!

We got some color. Welcome to our new and improved back patio! Green, orange, and white. The back had no life prior to our painting session. We let fate decide the colors and headed to the discount bin at Lowe’s once again.

Next week we’re planting our veggies (Quinn has Easter vacation break for 10 days), and doing some more work on the back patio. The office is starting to take shape as well. We’re waiting on the bookshelf but the sofa and desk are in place. More pictures to come!