playing with the earth....

Mr Elk who lives over at the Sheridan Wildlife park

A big, fat happy Thursday to everyone! Gosh, I can’t believe we are almost at the end of another week! I could swear I was just sitting here a minute ago talking about last weekend.  They say as you get older the time goes faster but sometimes, it’s a little ridiculous.  I was talking to some neighbor kids yesterday as they passed by on their way home from school, asking them about Easter break and they were telling me that Easter wasn’t until April 8^th and that they just didn’t know if they could make it that long!  I remember back when I was that age(the kids are around 7-8), holidays seemed to take forever to get here. Now, I’ve already starting planning for next Christmas because I know that sucker is gonna sneak up on me in a month if I’m not careful!

Anyway, I ‘m doing great this morning, as Tony the Tiger would say!  Whatever that weirdness I had the other day is all gone and I’m back to my old self, whew!  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what got into me Tuesday, if for no other reason than to avoid it again in the future.  After talking to a bunch of people, it seems it was a weird day all around.  I guess, though, you have to have a bad day every once in a while to remind you what good days feel like.

Yesterday morning, I finally got to try out a new exercise video that I’ve been waiting for in the mail.  I just absolutely love it!  Can you hear the singing in my voice?  I just have to share it with you in case you are like me and secretly hate all the exercise stuff you do.  I mean, I love my yoga, but really, all the other stuff I do, I do because I have to. This new dvd I got, I just happened to stumble on while reading my favorite online yoga magazine called the “Elephant Journal”.  If you’ve never run across the journal, I highly recommend it.  I’ve been reading it for years and it’s chocked full of all kinds of neat stuff.  They seem to be always ahead of things in their articles.  Anyway, this dvd is about a concept in exercise called “Nia”.  Evidently, it’s been around since 1983 but I had never heard of it.

Nia is a “love your body workout”, an expressive movement practice that results in holistic fitness, personal growth and lifestyle change for your body, mind and spirit, according to the jacket.  It takes its concepts and dance movements from India. It is really just the coolest thing I’ve done in quite a while.  Instead of making you follow certain steps, it’s more of a free form, flowing thing where the instructors just “guide” you with what to do with your body.  There’s a lot of swaying and shaking and dipping and just plain old free form dancing you do with this.  At the end, instead of a “cool down exercise” on the floor, they do what’s called “playing with the earth”. You get down on the floor and just move around however you want, stretching what feels good, rolling around, etc.  I have never been good at instructional stuff.  I really suck at things like step classes where you have to know a certain routine or those choreographed cardio classes.  This one, though, you just go to the beat of your own drum.  I gotta tell you, at the end of the video, I was sweating like a big dog!  Since the dvd encourages you to do your own thing, you can’t get bored with it, either, which is another of my problems. Best of all, it’s 120 minutes, so you can do as little or as much as you have time for each day!  I found myself “Nia dancing” the whole rest of the day, too…just floating through my day! In case you look it up, I found it at www.nianow.com and the best dvd to start with is called “Global Unity”.  Interesting name for an exercise video, eh?

After exercising, I had to stop in on my good friends, Jim and Karen, because I saw from a post by their daughter on FB that they lost their dear dog, Rex, the other morning.  Rex was an awesome older dog but he’s been having health problems for a while now.  He had just been diagnosed with hepatitis right after they returned from their vacation a few weeks ago and it was touch and go, even then.  His poor lungs filled up with fluid and just as they were trying to make that awful decision of whether to take him to the vet to let him out of his misery, he took the decision out of their hands.  We had a nice big, wet, hugging session together and I spent most of the morning with them. Duchess, their other dog, looks very bewildered as I don’t think she’s ever been without Rex, either.  While they were on vacation, Rob and I had been out on one of our full moon photo shoots in the wee hours of the morning and he got a beautiful shot of the full moon in the dark behind the motel and cabins that they own. I brought that to them yesterday and they really liked it.  You can even see stars really bright in the photo.  Karen says she’s going to hang it in the motel office.  They have quite a few of Rob’s photos adorning the walls of their cabins for the guests.

Yesterday afternoon was another run to Sheridan for more of my blasted prescriptions and to pick up a few groceries.  It was such a glorious day, though, the mountains were shining and reflecting the sun so brightly the whole way there.  I really don’t mind that drive most of the time because of the gorgeous scenery.  We joke around here that we could do our nails or write a letter on I-90 while we’re driving because of the lack of traffic, too.  The only time it gets busy is in the middle of summer when all the RV’s and traveling tourists are in the area.  The rest of the time, if I run into 6 or 7 cars the whole 35 miles, that’s a lot.  Sure not like the rest of I-90, eh? With the 75 mph speed limit, it only takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to Sheridan.  Not much different than going 5 miles back east in traffic. Of course, yesterday, all the fields were filled with brand new calves, bucking their little legs all over the place.  Gosh, those new little guys just make me smile! One sad note, the eagles seem to have left for the year, again.  Usually, in winter, I see lots of baldies on the drive but yesterday, I didn’t see a single one.  Every time I thought I did, it was a hawk or a raven.  So funny, I went to a high school back east called Loch Raven and never saw a raven, here they are like robins, you see them everywhere! They sure are big fellers, too!

Mtn Plains Heritage park at sunrise

Today’s a pretty easy day, so far.  I’ve got my usual tanning this morning after I do my Nia workout.  I think Thistle and I will see what trail looks interesting for hiking this afternoon.  If the wind is cooperative, I think we’ll head over to Mtn Plains Heritage Park.  The mountains are still really covered in snow from that dump and cold spell we had the other day so I’m better off out on the plains.  The trail over there has one of the best views of town and the mountains.

I hope you have a lovely day planned and if you are stuck in an office or something, you can make your own haven in your mind, at least.  Friday’s coming fast!!