Another Widget story

One of her favorite things for a long time has been getting held while whoever was holding her spun around as fast as they could, until they couldn't spin anymore.

Today I saw her spinning herself around. She can't quite spin, but she runs in these tight little circles, over and over and over until she gets so dizzy she falls down.

She continues to keep cracking me up.

Yoga victory

Tonight was the first night in the second series of yoga classes. I am really loving yoga; so much so that I'm taking two classes in this series, one on Thursday night, and one on Sunday mornings. I don't know if I'll be able to afford two for more than one series, but I'm hoping I can. If I can't, I'm hoping that as I get better I'll be better able to practice on my own as well, with the class as a way to introduce new things, and correct me if I do things wrong.

The victory of today was in triangle pose. My two "issues" that I'm hoping yoga will help are my balance and flexibility, right? When I started this 7 weeks ago, I was barely able t get my hand below my kneewhen bending over; in the full pose you rest your hand on the floor. Today I had enough stretch in me actually touch the floor with my hand, to the point of being able to relax my arm and bend my elbow. Being able to do that tonight felt great - aside from the physical feeling of how good it felt, I was excited to see real progress in how I'm doing with this class. As I said to Imagy after our first class,. yoga is the first form of exercise I've encountered that I actually want to master. It feels wonderful to know that I am getting better, even after only 6 weeks of classes. One thing I am curious about is whether I'm gettign better because I'm getting more flexible, because the weight I've lost has made it easier to bend around in weird shapes, or a combination of both. Either way, I'm pleased


The other great thing from tonight? Imagy and I finally remembered to ask our instructor if she could recommend a tape of series of tapes that would be good for beginner home practice. She, in turn, lent us 7 tapes to try out - she'd lent the to a different student, they had just returned them, and she lent them to us. Yay! They mostly seem to be from the same series/company, but we can try them, see if we like them before committing to buying a set for ourselves. Aside from that, it awfully great of her to lend these to us, when we've only been taking the class for a few weeks, and she barely knows us. I've already got my mat, I'm looking forward to trying the tapes out this weekend. Wiley's not allowed to laugh at me; but I may try to suck him in to trying them with me. Might be good for him too.

Widget's first scar!

I noticed this a couple of weeks ago, and forget to write about it.

Widget has her first scar. This little tiny white stripe (all of about 1/4 inch long) across her left knee, just above her kneecap. I don't even remember her being scraped up there, and now she's got her first permanant mark.

What a bizarre thing to be getting wistful over, eh?

Thought from meditation tonight

At the end of every yoga class, we have about 10 minutes of "guided" meditation. Sometimes this is good, other times it's pretty cheesy. It depends on how much talking the instructor does, and what the chosen topic is. Tonight's was a mixed bag - lots of talking, but some of it made me think.

One of the things she said was essentially how the trials and tribulations of life were tests for our souls and that without the trials, life would be like a long, stright, smoothly paved road to nowhere. Easy and safe to drive on, but ultimately completely pointless.

It's certainly not the most profound statement I've heard, but it is one that I would do well to remember.