(Sorry I didn't write this last night -- I didn't get home until 10:30, so I fell straight into bed. Yes, that is late around these parts. If you were getting up at 7am every day and not allowed caffeine, you'd find it late too.)
Today was a lazy day.
Weekends here are considered unstructured days, so there are almost no exercise classes and zero lecture classes. I took the opportunity to sleep in a little bit more, and loved it. After breakfast I went to stretch class at 9:10, and it felt wonderful. It's sad, because stretching is great and feels great, but it's the thing I'm least likely to do... I mean, a workout ends and I'll stretch my hamstrings or whatever, and I often periodically stretch my arms throughout the day, but I never sit down for 45 minutes and just stretch. And the fact is, it's good for your flexibility, but it's not as obviously immediately rewarding like cadio and strength exercises. I don't notice that I can stretch farther the way I notice I need to up the resistance on the bike or add more weight to the machine. So even though you're supposed to stretch every day, I often let it slip away. That's one thing I want to keep working on, since I seem to have gone all gung ho about the rest of the exercise program.
After stretch I did 30 minutes on the bike, getting my heart rate up to 150 at one point, which is awesome. 85% of my THZ is 162, so ultimately for the very best, most vigorous cardio I'm supposed to try to be up near there, though not going over by too much because, you know, of dying... exercise is a tricky thing. I don't want my heart to literally burst, cause that would be messy and probably unpleasant. But I do want to push it to the very limits. I feel like I'm back in the car as a kid, you know, with my fingers drifting towards Ethan or Daniel, seeing how far I can go towards touching before one of them complains or turns around and whacks me, or bite my thumb.
After that I had time to kill before lunch, so I chatted with my parents on the phone, did laundry, showered, and put on REAL CLOTHING, as opposed to sweats. It felt really nice to be freshly clean and dressed and ready to face the world.
Post lunch, there was a cooking demonstration on how to make two kinds of healthy chili. We got to taste them afterwords, and they were both delicious, although the first one was really more of a hearty chicken soup than a chili.
Then, at 3:15, I went on a mall trip! Turns out, it wasn't so much a mall as a STRIP mall, but that's okay. The main thing is that I got more work-out clothes at Old Navy, and more reading material at Barnes & Noble. At the same B&N, I finished shopping about 15 minutes before the mini-bus was supposed to come pick me up, and there was a Starbucks, and I was very, very tempted by the idea of caffeine. But as I go on line it felt like I was being bombarded with sights of really unhealthy things -- "coffees" that are really 80% milk and have syrups in them and caramel and chocolate drizzled on top, incredibly bad for you cookies and brownies and cakes, etc. So I turned around and walked out.
I had dinner with the Byrneses, and it was lovely. Tom and Maeve send their best to everyone. I may take a Saturday off later in my stay and go with them to Charlotte, where all the Byrnes kids are these days. Kate was at dinner with her friend Karen, who is also a teacher, so there was lots of talk of kids and I just ate it up. I do miss my babies. I don't miss some of the PARENTS I've had over the years, or some of the administrations, but I miss my kidlets. I hope they're all happy and secure in themselves and love themselves as much as I love them.
Then, like I said, I didn't get home until 10:30. So I felt straight into bed, and I refuse to feel ancient for it. When I'm back in NYC and able to brew my own caffeinated coffee again I shall resume normal sleeping habits. Until then, this isn't so bad.
I'll try to write again tonight.
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