enjoy being human

 This morning I got up and did something a little different. . . truthfully I got up and actually did what I always dream I would have time to do.  I slept in a little, made myself some coffee, and set up my yoga mat in my living room.  It was "Coffee and Yoga Time!" 

-Now I know "coffee" and "yoga" together probably makes all of my wonderful yoga teachers cringe, but this morning was for me.  It was a time to love myself and myself without caffeine is not love, it's torture.  This morning I decided to accept this fact and enjoyed my morning on the mat. 

With caffeine running through my blood I did a fun little yoga routine in my living room.  Instead of my normal "Yoga mix" Pandora station, I put it on the Tycho station.  Yes, I was falling into the zone, happily caffeinated, dreaming about a cool tech lifestyle, and waking my body up for the day.  In between my sun salutations I did some little impromptu dance moves. . . Very cool and probably the best dance moves ever created.  I drank my coffee and did not worry about the rules. . . I just enjoyed being human.  It made me think. . . I worry too much about the rules and I don't spend enough time just enjoying "living".

I'm a self taught artist, with very limited class experience, so truthfully I don't even know all the rules, however I still worry about them and think I need to follow them.  I lock myself up thinking "this" has to be a certain way or "that" is good because of "this". . . When really there is so much outside of the box that you are not even paying any attention to.  We zero in on our schedules, goals, and "to dos", that so much passes us by and we don't even realize it.  It's when we reach out that helps us to learn, create, and grow.  Giving ourselves time and permission to do something different makes this world a better place -- and usually much more fun.

Last Friday I put on the first Paint WHAT you Taste class at Heringer Estates.  This class is an interpretive painting class about your individual experience with wine.  The idea is to get yourself out of your box, have fun trying wine, play with acrylic paints, and learn a little bit more about who you are all while making wine and yourself more accessible.  I had an awesome group of women, the Soroptomist group from Davis, Ca, volunteer to be my guinea pigs.  They had various levels of art and wine tasting experience and I lead them through a class that allowed them to express what they felt and saw when they tasted different types of wine.  There were no right or wrong answers, laws of physics did not apply, and there were no restrictions about how they wanted to paint their canvas.  We ventured completely outside of the box and everyone came up with something completely different to express their own personal experience with the wine that they tasted.

Expressions of Heringer Estates 2016 Chardonnay

After each painting session we discussed what we saw and felt.  Everyone was open and supportive of each other.  The whole point was to learn and use paint to communicate our ideas.  There were no rules and we didn't worry about them.

Paint WHAT you Taste was an awesome way to give yourself time to just experience being human. Like my morning on my yoga mat, sometimes you just need to let loose and change things up a bit.  We can all take some time out of our busy schedules to break some rules and just enjoy who we are. --- To sum this blog post up ---- Let yourself break the rules everyone once awhile and enjoy who you are.