Ode to last night

Ahhh, blissful. Yesterday afternoon didn’t start particularly auspiciously. I had sent myself a “to-do” list home and when I contemplated completing it I felt tired, hemmed in. But also accountable. It was also colder than Monday and this niggling voice in the back of my head kept repeating, “Well, you blew Monday. It was a perfect day for exercising and yard work and you just sat on the deck like a beached whale and then watched a movie inside, beauty squandering idiot.” (Ha- no wonder I feel beaten before I even start!)

I went out with the dogs and I thought, before I get started, I’ll eat dinner. Then I called the woman off the internet- she’s a lapband patient who said she had the contact info for a nurse in Victoria who did fills. I can’t/won’t have the surgery without a reliable contact for fills, so I called her. She called back right away with great info, alas no mythical fill nurse in Victoria. But she did invite me to attend a lapband patient support group tonight! I’m excited. One step closer, plus it felt great to cross off the most important item on my to-do list.

But the question of whether to exercise kept rearing it’s ugly head. I’d just eaten so I started yard work. It wasn’t on my to-do list but I suddenly had a realization- Skittles would continue to destroy the grape hyacinths with her running and they are in an exceptionally pointless spot- middle of nowhere surrounded by grass- so I can’t mow there, weeding is pointless and Skittles is crushing them. Why not just dig up as much of them as I can and transplant them?

It was harder work than I’d thought, each batch required careful digging to preserve the bulb and I almost filled up an entire wheelbarrow. Then I went over to an established but sparse flower bed, weeded it and started planting them. They look a bit rough, poor things, they’ll need TLC.

By then it was late, it took a good 2 hours to accomplish all of that. So I decided that with those plants gone I could cut the grass in the backyard- I’d been holding back because I didn’t quite know what to do with that corner. Wow, what a difference the mowing made. Everything seems so much cleaner, clearly delineated. I just didn’t like the overrun edges and corners.

When that was done, I reseeded, watered and then decided it was time to wind down- it was 8:30. So I pulled out my yoga mat and did some easy hatha poses for about 45 minutes. The sun was going down and a lot of the time my line of sight was pointed right at our weeping birch. The air was still. The sky was charged- maybe rain, maybe not. There was a strong breeze on my bare feet- but not cold. I felt like it was just me and the trees.

I let go of the idea of doing a really intense workout and stopped the voices of complaint- I had done good, I had done enough. I deserved to wind down with a gentle stretch and that was all I needed after all my squatting and digging.

After that Kevin and I went into the hot tub and then we went to bed.