the day didn't go quite as planned

I’ve taken all the plants inside back outside with the exception of the plumerias and the cereus in the garage. I’ll wait a little longer for those but it is definitely spring. The birds are certainly convinced, the mockingbirds and cardinals singing their little hearts out and there’s a little wren poking around in the pot plants just outside the open door. It’s time for me to get out there and turn the dirt and get ready to plant for a spring garden. Not today though. I want to finish Robin’s blanket and it’s supposed to rain later and supposedly definitely tomorrow which is good if it does because we really need rain.

Well, my day didn’t go as planned but that’s ok. I had told Paisleigh yesterday I would spend time with her today and I’m thinking between 3:30 and 5 but Mikey brought her over about 11 this morning so instead of sewing Paisleigh and I played with a toy putting colored squares in the indicated spot in a grid to complete a picture, drew with the sidewalk chalk on the driveway...her apple tree, cats, and hopscotch (I added the numbers in the order that the 'squares' appeared)...

played hide and seek, blew some of the whistles in my whistle collection, she ate blueberries while I swept my bedroom and studio room/office, walked the dog while she rode her bike down to the other end of the street and back, and then I took her back over to her dad about 2 1/2 hours later. I did get a bit of sewing done on Robin’s blanket (still have to add the blanket binding and the ribbon trim).

The first tai chi class was Tuesday evening at Hesed House, outside under the pergola behind the welcome center. It was a pretty large group, 15 - 20 people showed up. The first thing she did was have us stand perfectly still, relaxed with good posture for five minutes with our eyes closed, just being, not thinking, a simple exercise on maintaining balance, basically the mountain pose in yoga. She recommends us doing this every day for five or ten minutes. During the hour she led us through maybe seven or eight movements, I didn’t really count same as I didn’t count the number of people. It’s a slow mindful practice, elegant even. I’ll definitely continue going to the class and make an attempt to incorporate it in my mornings, tai chi on my yoga class days, yoga on the other days. Wednesday morning I spent my five minutes standing still with my eyes closed and was surprised when the alarm went off, thought it would feel much longer with my mind wondering if it’s been five minutes yet. Instead I focused on what I was doing, felt a little like learning to drive, a continuous series of small, in this case tiny, corrections, slight swaying trying to find that sweet spot of being perfectly balanced. Then I did ten repetitions of the few basic movements I could remember, sort of like when I first started doing yoga consistently. I would go to class and then the next day at home trying to remember what we did and how we did it. Today I did both, five movement of tai chi, though I’m not sure I have one of them exactly right, and most of my daily yoga routine.

Thursday being SHARE day I did neither tai chi nor yoga. It’s all I can manage to shower, have a cup of coffee, have breakfast with my second cup of coffee (black, that you very much), and get there by nine. I actually got there a little early so I could make sure my station was stocked and the ladies up front had already let the folks in that were waiting outside. So it was a busy day with mostly large food orders. It was supposed to be a food delivery day from the regional food bank but the town finally started repaving the alley (one big pot hole after another) that the truck comes down to deliver and the people picking up their food orders, half nicely newly paved, the other have completely torn up so it was closed. Jan put off delivery until next week. And apparently, we are no longer getting our Elder volunteers from the Mormon church here. Elder being an oxymoron since the boys are 18/19. They haven’t shown up for two weeks now.

My night to fix dinner and I have no idea what so I’d best get in there and figure it out.