I mentioned it on Twitter, but not here, that my eye doctor has banned me from wearing a contact in my left eye for the month of May. I have some scratches on the inside of my upper eyelid (which I'm pretty sure is actually a running injury!), so I'm stuck with wearing glasses most of the time this month. I have been wearing just one contact in my right eye when I'm going to be outside for an extended period of time because my pale blue eyes are not friends with the sunshine.

The biggest effect this has had on my daily life is the inability to exercise. I ran the half marathon with one contact in, but other than that I haven't done much cardio at all. I tried to ride the bike at the gym the other day and it was so annoying to have my glasses slipping around on my sweaty face! (I know, super sexy.) I had to basically stick my nose in the air to keep my glasses on, which made reading my magazine a little difficult. If it's that difficult to keep my glasses on while riding a stationary bike, I can't imagine how hard it would be to keep them on while running or on the elliptical. I could, in theory, do cardio with one contact in, but my eye doctor advised me not to wear one in my right eye either because I had a much milder version of the problem I have in my left eye and he wanted me to do what I could not to make it worse. I'm not so sure wearing a contact in that eye for 1-2 hours a day, especially when I am sweating (which is what I am pretty sure caused the issue with my left eye), is the best idea. Weight lifting with glasses is a little tricky too... I worry about my glasses slipping off while I'm sweating and then accidentally stepping on them when I try to find where they dropped. (My eyesight is terrible... worse than anyone I've ever met, aside from my mother. Thanks, Mom, for the terrible eyesight and cavity-prone teeth!)

I am not a person who does well without exercise. I become much more anxious, stressed and mopey when I don't get in a good, hard workout every once in a while. Every once in a while, I have an off week where I don't work out and I start to get a little antsy. Those times, I just get back into gym mode and things get back to normal pretty quickly.

This time, however, I can't "just get back into gym mode." At least, not how I typically work out. I am definitely feeling the effects of not exercising regularly, or really much at all, this month. The past week or so, I have become steadily more anxious and less focused, for no real reason at all, so I'm pretty sure it's due to the lack of regular cardio workouts. It was really starting to get to me (the beginnings of a vicious cycle), so I decided to take a new approach -- I've been getting up early every morning before work this week to do some yoga. And so far, it really seems to be working.

Yoga is something I really enjoy, but so rarely take the time to do. I have several of Rodney Yee's yoga DVDs, which I like a lot. I find his voice soothing (something I think is key) and his instructions to be very good. It's not one of those yoga DVDs where I feel like I have to actually watch the DVD the entire time. I really can just go through the poses just based on listening,which is great considering I'm doing yoga with no glasses OR contacts! I have definitely felt better the last three days now that I've worked it into my schedule. Also, it may be hard for me to be motivated to get up at 7 in the morning for a run, but not so to do something less strenuous like yoga. I think even after I get the all-clear from my eye doctor to wear contacts full time again, I am going to continue to make yoga a part of my morning routine. It's really a fantastic way to start the day off on the right note.

I got up early and went to the gym today and it felt FANTASTIC. Makes me more than a little annoyed with myself for coming up with so many excuses/just lying on the couch for the past week. I actually wished I had even more time at the gym this morning, but alas, I had to go get ready for work.

And the winner of the peppermint bark giveaway is...

#5 -- Kate! I will be sending you an email to get the address to which you'd like me to send the peppermint bark.

**Winner chosen using Random.org. I make Adam do the random number generation for me, because even though I know it's random, I feel weird being the actual person putting the numbers in because I know who is what number. He pays no attention to my blog, so I know it's totally and completely impartial. Why yes, I have a serious complex about fairness... suppose that's why I'm in the legal profession. (No, seriously.)