A Happy Birthday + A Yoga Weekend with Carmen Aguilar

I have to kick off this Monday morning by wishing a VERY special lady a VERY happy birthday!

It’s my Mema’s birthday today so y’all give her lots of love in the comments section. She tells me that Peanut Butter Runner is always her first stop when she turns on her computer! 🙂

I mean, just look at her when she was a little girl with that curly hair loving on a golden retriever. <3

I’m so sad that I’m not able to spend her birthday with her this year but hopefully I will see her very soon…with baby in tow!

Jumping into the weekend recap, on Friday I made lunch and then got geared up for an afternoon at the DMV. We were running a bit low salad stuff and veggies at the end of the week so I made a salmon salad sandwich. For the salmon I mixed mashed avocado, plain greek yogurt, pistachios, dried cranberries, sweet relish and sea salt.

I spent THREE hours at the DMV getting my name updated on my license and my license renewed. I arrived at 2 p.m. and was one of the last three people to be seen for the day right before 5 p.m. Luckily, my mom kindly offered to accompany me and sat there with me the whole time and I brought my laptop so I got some work done while I waited.

I fully admit that procrastination about administrative things is a weakness of mine and despite changing back to my maiden name a year ago with the court and Social Security Administration, I still needed to update my license so I could change my bank records, medical insurance, medical records, etc. It felt like something I should definitely try to get done before the baby! Can’t imagine that DMV wait with a newborn.

I was at the DMV for so long that I missed teaching my 4:30 p.m. class but was able to get a last-minute sub. I still headed over to the studio when I got home because we were welcoming a special guest teacher for the weekend, Carmen Aguilar.

Carmen is a Chicago-based yoga teacher who travels internationally with her husband Moises presenting workshops and trainings.

She is AMAZING and it was such an honor to host her in Charlotte!

Friday night’s session was Fearless Inversions and while I could only participate in about 3% of what she was teaching/offering, I really enjoyed observing and learning from Carmen.

I won’t show you my Friday night dinner because it was minestrone soup from the fridge and hummus and pita. Not exciting. 🙂

On Saturday morning I hoped to go to the opening weekend of the Matthews Farmers Market but it was chilly and raining. I stayed home and worked on the den instead. I’m trying to transform it into a cozy hangout space for baby lounging, breastfeeding, working, TV watching, etc. I ordered a new side table, coffee table and lamp last week so I put those together and organized the room a bit before leaving to go teach.

Apparently the cold, wet weather made everyone want to practice yoga because I had 98 people in my class on Saturday morning! Thank goodness I had two assistants so I was able to focus on teaching and not worry so much about getting around to assist everyone. I am WAY slowing down on the assist front these last few weeks of pregnancy AND knocking into so many of my students with my belly. 😛

I stopped by the grocery store after class to pick up some green things and came home to make a salad and chill for a bit before heading back to the studio for more of Carmen’s workshops.

I skipped the arm balance session but jumped in for Hamstrings and the Limitless Leg Power session from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Once again, I couldn’t do much but enjoyed watching.

That evening, Tanner and I invited Carmen and Moises for dinner at Namastay Kitchen and had the best time getting to know them and hearing their story. Carmen has been practicing and teaching for nearly 20 years and has studied many different styles of yoga and with many different teachers. You can definitely see this in the way she presents her classes and it feels like a unique blend of different styles that comes together for a powerful, dynamic and fun practice experience.

I also adore that she is “lovingly tough” and demands a lot out of her students in the most supportive and kind way. She has an amazing classroom presence and a very motivating, hands-on teaching style.

Oh, back to dinner…we shared brussels sprouts and avocado egg rolls for the table and then I had a barbecue chicken flatbread.

Sundays session didn’t start until 11 a.m. so I got up and made brunch. I was in the mood to tackle a baking project so I made hybrid banana and morning glory muffins. They turned out great so I’ll share the recipe with you guys later this week. I ended up eating two of them along with a fried egg, bacon and pineapple.

The last session of the weekend was a backbending workshop. I LOVE backbends but I’m trying to avoid deep backbending at this point in pregnancy in an effort to keep diastasis recti at bay. Still, I was able to participate a bit more in this workshop than any of the other sessions. I loved all the warm up/prep we did for the deeper backbends. It felt amazing to open up my chest, shoulders, hip flexors and quads.

Of course I couldn’t help myself and had to jump in on a few things. Supported chin stand on blocks is one of my favorites and the blocks offer so much support in taking pressure off of the body. You’re able to really focus on scooping your chest through and getting that upper back opening rather than crunching your low back. At one point I heard Carmen’s husband Moises say jokingly, “Is that the pregnant lady in scorpion?”

Don’t worry, I didn’t get too crazy. Here’s Carmen demonstrating full expression of the pose!!!!

I was sad to say goodbye to Carmen and Moises. If you ever have a chance to study with them, PLEASE DO! They are extremely knowledgeable and overall great people and teachers.

I came home for a couple hours after the workshop to walk the dogs and eat a snack. I love these snack plates with avocado rolled with turkey, cheese, crackers and apples.

At 4 p.m. I taught one more class for the weekend and then stopped into Whole Foods to get some dinner supplies for the next few days.

I made one of my favorite easy chicken dinners, honey balsamic glazed chicken breasts and served it with parmesan couscous and green beans. This was ready in under 20 minutes. Today I’m making a big pot of my favorite spaghetti sauce to have for dinner tonight and to freeze some for after baby.

Wow, I didn’t think I had much to say or report from the weekend but here we are 1200 words later! 🙂

Have a great week!

Did you bake anything over the weekend? 

If you practice yoga, do you enjoy arm balances, inversions and backbends? Which one is most challenging for you? What are you currently working on? (Any specific poses, arm balances, backbends, etc?)