It snowed at the weekend, which is something my son has been hoping for since before Christmas. He was so happy to go to bed knowing that after breakfast we would go for a walk in the forest nearby and build a snowman. While we were walking he said that he was just so happy – he got his wish. Yes, my heart nearly exploded.
I try to always plan my Sundays to be pretty mellow since I tend to front load my week. This means that Monday and Tuesday are one hundred percent dedicated to teaching. While this leaves very little time the rest of the day to do much else, I am also pretty drained by the time my teaching day is finished. My eyes hurt from staring at my computer and my bum and body hurt from sitting nearly all day.
However, since it snowed Saturday for us, Sunday was a walk in the forest day after I successfully completed my morning practice. At the end of the walk I needed to urinate so badly that I almost felt like running home. I didn’t though because I would have likely slipped and hurt myself. I know that my urge to micturate is not simply latchkey incontinence. The next best option? Using the breathing techniques I am learning during this yoga challenge to help me get home without an accident.
It worked!!
Something else new for me this week is the app ToDoist. Folks, I think I am in love and I have only been using it a few days. I have tried other task tracking based apps and they all have fallen short, but this one is like the paper to-do lists that I am used to making.
All I can say is, wow. I know I am late to the party though. That’s how I roll.
I even started out the week by not picking up my phone if I woke up in the middle of the night. Well, that lasted until Wednesday morning. For some reason this week, I have been increasingly crotchety and Tuesday evening the nightly vexed vixen that I seemed to be becoming really reared her crabby head, oh boy. So, much so that I put myself to bed early. I haven’t slept well this week, with the exception of one nearly eight hour night’s rest. I am not sure why this is my sleeping experience this week, but it has increased my general stress and heart rate too. I have begun tracking my foot and vitamin intake to see if it is something from one of those two sources.
I have still completed yoga every day this week, which has been wonderful. It has felt especially restorative and strengthening. I have also paused the videos at least once every day to extend or expand on the stretches in each practice. Thursday I even woke up sore. I am going to believe it was the stretches and poses and not my crap sleep schedule.
This week has been full of highs and lows.
It’s been weird.
Really weird.
Is it the moon? I don’t even know about that, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you one way or another.
Perhaps the standard winter doldrums?
Likely not just that. There is still the pandemic that the entire world is trying to live through.
Maybe it is the extended lockdown in Germany, and across Europe. Perhaps that is reaping its toll on my mental health and emotions and rearing its head through insomnia, lack of appetite, anxiety, and increased blood pressure. The numbers in our area are improving, but what does that matter if every other state and country around us does not improve their numbers? Plus, our state has loosely decided to require FFP2 and FFP3 masks in enclosed public spaces.
When and how they will enforce this point is muddled at best for now. We don’t live in Bavaria, where this is one-hundred percent required, but the level of requirement here still seems up in the air depending on the source. Ugh, I was really hoping to avoid using disposable masks. I mean, I understand why, but I am still not happy about all the waste this will produce.
Every day feels like Sunday, when ninety-five percent of everything is shut, but it isn’t Sunday. It has been like this since December 16th. It isn’t fun anymore. I forget when I am supposed to change my pajamas.
At any rate, I am so thankful that I committed to this thirty days of yoga with Yoga with Adriene. It has helped me to create moments for myself, especially in the quiet of the early morning, to calm my nerves, even if only for while I am on the mat, and it has made me aware of my body as a whole and in parts again.
I remember this feeling, from going to the gym, but that seems like forever ago at this point. Didn’t 2020 last about thirty years?
I keep toying with the idea of two sessions in a day, to help me return to that centered and quiet morning place later in the day. However, I have not yet taken the plunge. I have begun doing one or two stretches, like forward bends and leg extensions either before sitting down to watch a program with my family or before bed. Those are nice enough for now I suppose.
I am still learning.
How has the third week of January gone for you? What have you struggled with or conquered this week? What are you looking forward to? How are you dealing (or not) with the coronavirus in your community? Have you been able to acquire a vaccine yet? Let me know in the comments.
Thirty Days to life 