Catching Up

It's been awhile. Lots has happened in the last month. Jon deployed. I got the dreaded summer cold and everlasting cough. I swung through Ann Arbor for Art Fair and collected a few cool items. I am busily putting together my travel plans for the year and it's shaping up really well. I'm excited about all of the West Coast travel I'll be doing. And I'm incredibly busy playing with the other military widowed wives. Oh! And I've left Jon in the dust with our Harry Potter book club and am finally starting the final book! What's better than sleepless nights due to Harry Potter obsession?!

OK, so a few funny stories. The other day I went to the dermatologist. He has me on a few new meds and just before leaving, he reminded me to be obsessive with my sunscreen if I'm going to be out in the sun for more than 20 minutes because I'm sun sensitive now. I said, "I'm really good about sunscreen, but I'm not one to spend a lot of time in the sun." And he said, "I can see that! Well hey, pale is the new tan, right?" Sad when your dermatologist tells you you're pale.

So I've been sick for a few weeks now. My asthma has, sadly, kicked in and left me breathless for about 3 weeks. This means no cardio. Which means I'm getting the chubbies, and also getting stiff and sore from too much inactivity. So finally I gave in - and tried a yoga class. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong. I've spent many years being scared of yoga. I'm not into new age-y stuff. I don't even go in for modern dance. Classical music? Check. The Green movement? Uh-uh. Processed food? Check. Organic clothing? Come on, I'm going to wash it. Does it matter if there are chemicals on it now? Classic clothing? Yup. Boho? Can't do it. And really, who doesn't mistakenly believe that yoga is to weird music, holding odd poses for 10 minutes and looking around for your chakra or whatever?

So anyway, I had gotten so uncomfortable I had to work out. And low impact is the only option right now. I love Pilate's, but most of the classes are during the day. So yoga it was. I dug a mat out of the storage room and found a place in the dark room. Unfortunately, I chose a thick mat and the instructor wasn't OK with me using it. So she brought me a regular thing mat. Oops. The instructor started off talking about her two week retreat in central Cali and the cleanse she did. Okkkk . . . And then we started moving. And it was great! Most of the stuff I'd either done in Pilate's, or was similar to dance moves. I even started to sweat! Now great gobs, but my forehead was damp. Well, then the instructor told us to cleanse our internal organs with our breath. That's a weird thought. OK, keep going. And then we ended with the corpse pose, where you just relax on your back and focus on breathing. The instructor told us to "let yoga do its magic!" Well that's weird. But OK, I can handle three odd comments. The rest was great! I walked out of there on jelly legs I was so stretched out. I can't wait to do this again!