makes me happy

Exercise Victories

For the past month, I have been doing some extra mobility/rehab exercises every day.

This week, I noticed two things:

1) After my exercises on Tuesday, I felt great!

A little muscle-tired but my brain was awake and my body felt good.

2) Last night, when I reached down for Khalee’s water bowl, the movement was easy.

It’s never super-hard but there has been a sort of stiffness, a resistance, in my movements.

Last night, though, I felt fluid and flexible.

I love this for me!

Practicing TKD

My TKD classes take a a summer break and I love taking time away from that weekly routine.

I generally don’t need a break from TKD per se, I need a break from having to get to class twice a week at a specific time.

This year though, I also needed the physical break, the time away from the movements.

After the stress and pain around my Dad’s passing in May and the stress of scrambling to catch up on things in June, I needed to just let my body do what it wanted to do at whatever pace it wanted to do it for a while.

Today, though, it was time to get back to those movements and it felt really good.

I just did the first four patterns, relatively easy stuff that my brain and my muscles are very familiar with.

And it was fantastic.

I loved the almost meditative quality of those familiar movements, the ease of just letting my body do something it knows how to do.

And I felt very satisfied with the whole process when I was finished.

Self care for the win.

Shadow Creatures

Image description: A photo of mine and Khalee’s shadow cast by the setting sun onto the evergreen trees on the other side of the path below the sidewalk where she and I are standing. The grass on the slope down to the path is in the foreground, the asphalt path runs diagonally down towards the right hand side of the photo and there are trees and grass on the other side partially lit by the sun. Gaps in the lower branches of the trees create interesting shapes that look a bit like other creatures behind Khalee.

1) I wish I had the photography skills to have made a really artsy shot here.

2) I didn’t notice at the time that the gaps in the trees looked like short invisible creatures were standing behind Khalee and casting a shadow but I like the effect.

Snail Friend

Image description: a close-up photo yellow-gold snail shell (with a snail inside) affixed to a green maple leaf. There are other leaves and maple keys right behind the first leaf and in the out-of-focus background is a white plastic chair against my red shed.

Do I know that snails can be pests? Yes.

Do I love them anyway? Yes.

Last night while I was meditating in my backyard swing, I accidentally opened my eyes at one point and spotted this snail on a leaf across the yard.

I thought ‘I hope he doesn’t move before I finish meditating and get over there to take a picture.

Then I realized time was on my side because a snail travels at snail speed so I went back to focusing on my breath.