Ayurveda, YNAB and YouTube!

Hi! I tried once before and I think my video was too big to upload (it never ever finished), so here I go again. I videoed in several different sizes to experiment with what looks best. Yesterday, we were playing outside with the hose, and Z decided he wanted to sit on my lap (after he got all wet, of course). So, this is nothing horribly exciting, but I thought Grandpas and Grandmas out there would appreciate seeing Z on video. The scrapes happened last Thursday at Grandma and Grandpa H's house (he tipped the car over that he was playing in and fell on his face, just like last weekend when he fell on his face and busted his lip). The dirt all over him, well, that's just normal!





On a totally different note: INAB! That stands for 'I needed a budget', but then I got YNAB ("You need a budget") and now I'm all better! I ordered it online, received it electronically, dowloaded it to my hard drive, and even figured out how to export my bank statements to it all within a matter of minutes. Which, I'm quite proud to share that the lady in charge of our on-line banking at my little bank told me a week ago that we did not have the capability to export our statements (she even assured me that she's been telling people this for a while), and I figured out how to do it (hit the "export" button), and called her and taught her how to do it! OK, enough bragging, so here I am two days later and I'm still reading the "how to" manual that came electronically with the program! Not everything can happen lightening fast. It looks really good, and I have made a start by labeling the transactions I exported from my bank statement. So, here's the four rules of YNAB, which can be found on their website, so it's nothing top secret:
1. Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck (they get you to start living a month ahead)
2. Give Every Dollar a Job (budget down to the penny)
3. Prepare for Rain (save, save, save)
4. Roll with the Punches (this you have to have the software to do, but it helps you adjust your entire budget when you overspend in a budget category.)

I'm really excited to implement the new ideas, I'll keep y'all updated on how we like the software.

Finally, I promised more info on Ayurveda for those who are interested. If you took the quiz then you should know your primary constitution. For more information on each, click on your constitution: Vata, Pitta, Kapha. There are a few people in the world that are tridoshic, which means they are equally all three. They usually change which one is dominant with the seasons, as the seasons have the same constitutions. Here are the three doshas and their respective seasons and times of the day:

Dosha	Predominant season and time of day
Vata air and space	Fall 2-6 am 2-6 pm
Pitta fire and water	Late Spring and Summer 10-2am 10-2pm
Kapha water and earth	Winter and Early Spring 6-10am 6-10pm

I'm gonna quote from my book, "Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing" by Dr. Vasant Lad instead of trying to explain myself as he says it so much more succinctly. By the way, "self-healing" does not mean replacing God with yourself, but rather allowing His amazing creation (your body) to do what it was created to do, heal itself when given the right conditions. After my last post I remembered that there are, in fact, some chapters in the book and in other Ayurvedic books that I recall thinking were a little "new agey", but instead of throwing the bucket out with the water, I filter what I read (as I hope we all do). Taken at face value these concepts are intriguing and helpful to leading a healthy lifestyle. When viewed through a post-Judeo Christian lense, it leaves you breathless at what an amazing Creator we have. I hope you can capture a small piece of of my awe through what I share. Check this out:

Vata, pitta and kapha each have their own attributes, and substances having similar attributes will tend to aggravate the related bodily humor by the law of like-increases-like. For instance, the summer season has attributes similar to those of pitta - hot, dry light motile and penetrating. Naturally, in the summer, pitta in the body will be aggravated. Vata is light, subtle, dry, mobile, rough and cold. So, in the fall season, which also exhibits these attributes, vata will tend to be aggravated in the human constitution. Lastly, kapha is liquid, heavy, cold, sticky and cloudy; so in winter when these characteristics predominate in the external environment, internal kapha.

So, if you are pitta, then when it's summer, you're getting an overdose of your element. We'll get into more on how to keep yourself well balanced later, but isn't it cool just to think of the similarities so far (between people and seasons?). But wait! There's more.

Like time, the bodily humors are constantly in motion. There is a definite relationship between the movement of the tridosha (three doshas) and the movement or passage of time. The increase or decrease of these three humors in the body is related to the cycles of time. Morning, from sunrise till ten o'clock, is a time of kapha. Because of the predominance of kapha humor at this time, one feels energetic and fresh and also a little heavy. At mid-morning, kapha slowly merges into pitta. From ten in the morning till two in the afternoon is the time when pitta is secreted and hunger increases. One feels hungry, light and hot. The afternoon from two o'clock until the sun sets is the time of vata when one feels active, light and supple. Early in the evening from about six o'clock until ten is again kapha time, a period of cool air, inertia and little energy. Then from ten at night till two in the morning are the peak hours of pitta when food is digested. Early in the morning before sunrise is again vata time. Because vata creates movement, people awaken and excrete wastes.

Pitta people are the ones who get grumpy when they're hungry, just feed them and they're fine. I loved this last excerpt about time, because I know if I go to bed too late my mind is racing (it's pitta/clarifying time). If we can get ourselves to bed before ten, we can catch the natural sleepy Kapha time. Also, if I can wake up before Kapha time (6am!), I actually have tons of energy probably because it's Vata time! Sleep in too late and it's sleepy Kapha time. He says it's fresh, but I say it's heavy and sleepy. Whatever. I also feel there's a midafternoon Kapha time that he's not accounting for when half the world is having a ciesta, and the other half wishes they were too. Please write me your questions, I'm happy to try and answer. More soon! There's so much to all this!