End of a Hiatus

The last post was July 1, making this by far the longest break in the Mindful Day blog.  Plenty was happening, but a new post was always just a little out of reach.

We drove to Savannah, Georgia for a family reunion and enjoyed several days there with time amid the old town squares and several miles southeast at a house on the Tivoli river.  I especially enjoyed talking with my two aunts about family history, and plan to pursue that a bit more.

Our trip back was split into two days of driving, though somehow each one seemed nearly as long as the single day driving down.  This let us spend a day near Greensboro, North Carolina shopping for antique china for our dining room.  We had talked about this for several years, but hadn't made the long road trip.  The reunion in Savannah gave us a good opportunity.

We also enjoyed coming back on Rt 29 through Virginia, rather than the monotony and high traffic volume (especially trucks) on I-95.  We hadn't been through the country around Lynchburg and Charlottesville, and had a nice trip back - until we ran into the D.C. suburbs between Warrenton and Manassas, where traffic volume spiked quickly.  The last hour and a half or so were quite a shock - back to gridlock on the Beltway (I-495).  For the last 9 miles we took a favorite "short-cut" (shorter only in time, if the Beltway is a parking lot) and arrived home in 30 minutes.

No sooner did we get home, than I was overtaken with a virus that sapped my energy and kept me from going back to work as planned.  By the weekend I felt better, though, and was able to complete the July weekend of my yoga teacher training.

In the last part of June, I had begun running again, hoping that with all the yoga I've been doing, I could run and stay injury free.  I ran with Evan several times in Savannah, and once in North Carolina on the trip back.  Yesterday, during the break between morning and afternoon sessions, I ran home from the yoga studio by a scenic route (longer than it needed to be).  My right calf tightened up and was quite sore.  So that's a bit of a set-back, but it also has given me incentive and a focus to learn more about the muscles of the lower leg, how they get injured, and how to treat them - which is valuable for me to know.