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Today is the final day of my yoga challenge! Honestly, I’m glad to be done with it — on a daily basis — but will be adding more yoga into my regular workouts. I love projects like this because I love learning and I love fitness projects because it’s simply amazing how quickly the human body can change and adapt in such a short period of time.

<<< Funniest yoga ad. Ever.

I ended up going to yoga classes at my regular gym, taking free classes at Lululemon, buying a $30 for 30 days of Bikram deal (which I didn’t use enough), and trying out a few yoga podcasts (which was really hit or miss). I won’t be continuing daily yoga, but will definitely be going 1-3 times a week instead of 0-1 times a month.

Things I learned, liked, disliked etc:

• Bikram yoga is hot yoga, but hot yoga isn’t necessarily Bikram yoga. Verdict: Bikram isn’t really for me.
• You can overstretch in hot yoga, especially 90 min yoga. Hello, hammies.
• Free yoga classes at Lululemon – thumbs up!
• Time-wise, I ended up replacing most of my regular cardio with yoga, which left me with cardio 1x/week for the past month, and a hell of a lot of yoga.
• Noticeable difference: arms and upper abs are more toned (apparently I look “leaner”, but I don’t feel as fit since I’ve been slacking on the cardio). :P
• I love the spiritual aspect of yoga. When I first started yoga a few years ago, it took me a few tries to get the giggles out. I still don’t like super-meditative yoga, but I’ve found that I feel a lot more ‘meditative’ when I’m moving. I love the mind-clearing peacefulness of yoga. Zzzzen!

Yoga fan: yay or nay?

Last day of July. Shocking. Time for 10 things that make me happy July edition…

1. biking – I’ve been biking up a storm this month. Other than the streetcar, it’s my main mode of transportation, along with the occasional Zipcar. Anyway, I have such a crush on this bicycle. I want. Dear Savings account, can I use some of my first-time homebuyer tax credit for this? Public D3 $690

2. yoga – I started my 30 day yoga challenge a couple of weeks ago, and then took a 4 day hamstring break after my first ever Bikram (hot) yoga class. Intense! So I’m back on track now — 10 days in (6 days/week), 20 to go! Watch out.

3. iPhone 4 – get over it, yeah?  As mentioned… LOVE! How did I survive without one? :P And the daily food photos continue. My only complaint is that it’s not that great as an actual phone, not that I actually use it for the phone aspect too much.

4. Hobo International Clover Wristlet – I’ve been wanting a clutch (wristlet, whatever you want to call it) for a while now. However, most of them seem to be the size of binders, so I’m loving this smaller, vintage-y one that I found at Rue by Hobo. rue la la invite

5. Pastis – One of my favorite summer drinks. Water + pastis. It’s like being in Marseilles again!

6. Scheming. Dreaming. Iceland. $458 Seattle to Reykjavík. (waving goodbye to getting a new bike). Iceland: Sigur Ros, blue lagoon, Icelandic ponies, Eyjafjallajökull volcano… cannot wait! Also, I’m pretty sure that I’ll have a chance meeting with one of the lovely gentleman of Sigur Ros: fall in love, live happily ever after in Iceland, and have like 1,000,000 Icelandic babies. Yep.

7. Google Docs – humor me in my Google fangirl moments. So they’ve had tons of new changes lately, enough for me to quit my whinging about how all the Excel formulas that I’m used to aren’t working, and you can copy tabs to a new doc now, and rumors are circulating that you’ll soon be able to login to more than 1 Google Account in 1 browser. I think I’m a little bit, a little bit in love with Google.

8. Ice cream sandwiches – I tried out the Martha Stewart recipe for classic ice cream sandwiches. Tasty. I’ve also been a little obsessed with the coconut ice cream bars by Paleteria La Michoacana from the dreaded land of Costco.

9. Lululemon yoga pants – I finally bought a pair of Lululemon pants. Half of me is annoyed with Lululemon for being so damn expensive, but they are incredibly comfy shorts and after I got my first-time home buyer credit, I decided it was kosher to spend 1% (eek!) on some sweet ass pants. I also really love their company and they have free yoga classes in-store twice a week. :) Lululemon Astro Crop

10. Oregon coast – love.

What’s on your list lately?

Blogging about what I ate for breakfast just got a lot more interesting… for me anyway. I’ve been using my new iPhone to take garden, cooking, and [nomnomnom] out to dinner pics. It was fun to import a few weeks of food pictures into Picasa!

One of my favorite recent recipes was ^^^ Summer Pasta Salad with Shrimp Tofu from the July/August Everyday Food issue. I couldn’t find the recipe online, so they probably post this month’s recipes in August.

I’ve been neglecting my blog… thanks to my new iPhone. Obsessed much? Yes. Best thing… like evah!

Favorite Apps

Google Maps – Yes, it’s a pretty standard map, but the geo-location feature is awesome (my gigantic shoe phone aka, Treo didn’t have the locating bit, and took about 5 hours to load). So example of awesomeness… yesterday I decided to ride my bike to Chipotle for lunch, so instead of trying to remember exactly where the downtown location was, I just started riding and then after I passed the Hawthorne bridge, I stopped to look at my phone… and ta da… I was only a few blocks away.

Foursquare – I’m the king of town. And no, I don’t Tweet “I’m at blah blah blah” every 5 minutes. I do enjoy ousting people as mayor and collecting badges though. Also, if you shout “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz” (a vuvuzela) or “Goooooooooal” you get a nifty World Cup badge. :)

Mint – If you know me in real life then you know I’m a huge Mint fan. I’ve probably asked you more than once if you’ve signed up yet. If only it was a pyramid scheme of some kind…

Groupon – Speaking of pyramid schemes and totally awesome apps… we’ve discussed my Groupon obsession, yes? Yes. So the deal part of the app isn’t that special, as I get the morning email anyway, but being able to use your Groupon from your iPhone is brilliant (I don’t own a printer). Also, I like being able to see all the Groupons I’ve already bought on a map, to see which is closest to me… exactly now. Give me $10 k thx bai

Pandora - I like.

Match.com – man shopping from your iPhone? Awesomeness.

Trivial Pursuit – I bought this app during the EA 1/2 off sale last week — totally worth 99 cents.

Words with Friends – I have 8 Scrabble games going right now.

Shazam – What is this song? Oh. This app makes me squeal and clap my hands.

Rue La La – another squeal-worthy app. Rue is my favorite sample sale site (Gilt is my 2nd fav and they also have an app, although the dept structure isn’t as nice as their website).  I especially love the picture flipping feature. Rue La La invite

RedLaser – it’s a frickin’ laser beam. So I was at the store buying food for my kitteh, and I couldn’t tell if it was outrageously expensive or not. RedLaser said it was a deal. Score.

Chipotle – I like the idea for this app, but in practicality I prefer to actually go through line and ask for extra everything.

My24 – love being able to check class schedules from my phone.

Zipcar – I can now unlock my zipcar — and HONK THE HORN! — with my lovely iPhone. You can also reserve with the app, but really, the appeal to me is honking.

Sleep Cycle – it appears that I fall straight into a coma at night. My charts and graphs don’t look too much like the examples. Not sure if I’m doing it wrong or just an insanely heavy sleeper.

P Tracker Lite – TMI? Probably, but still a pretty cool app.

DailyBurn – I used the web-based version previously, so it was fun to be able to login and test it out. I’d like to try the barcode scanner feature, but surprise, surprise: I don’t want to pay for it.

iHandy Level – now that I own my place, I’m a little more concerned about getting nails in right the first time.

IKEA UK – I found the UK catalog app for when I just have to look at IKEA magic.

As you may have noticed, I’m kind of a fan of free apps. I think I will set up a new category in Mint, titled “Apps” and my budget shall be $1.98/month.

Brief complaints: #1: Remember the Milk app I am not interested in paying for with so many stellar free options. #fail. #2: ESPN World Cup app asks me if I want to pay every time I open it. #ithoughtitwouldbebetter

What’s your favorite iPhone app? What am I missing out on?

Brief sadness earlier this week when I couldn’t get my iPhone 4 pre-order in. Alas, Best Buy to the rescue! I’ve been off Apple products for a while (ok, ok, I do own an iPod), but it looks like I’m about to get back on the emotional roller coaster that is Apple products. Speaking of, the white one is so cute, but it was not available for pre-order. :( Buyer’s remorse, I shall have?

I’ve also complained endlessly about how expensive the iPhone plans are, as I currently have the Sprint SERO insane deal of a plan, but I’m doing the iPhone/ATT “family plan”, so my monthly bill will just be slightly higher. Win!

Such an awesome birthday present, love me. So, apps I’m excited to finally be able to use: Mint.com, Remember the Milk, Foursquare, Yelp, ESPN World Cup. Aaand I’m totally going to download one of those Vuvuzela apps. :)

Any iPhone app recommendations?