Baby steps.

I promised myself when I embarked on this trip that I would try to do things I would not normally do. I am not a relaxed person. Seriously, look at my animals; they are perfect reflections of my personality. While I can be completely unproductive while being “busy”, I find it hard to just chill out. The exception is my evening reading and wine. Some things are sacred. Sometimes I wonder how can I spend hours being busy not accomplishing anything but I can’t just NOT do something for a couple hours? Silly, right? It is not like I have a high stress life. My stress is completely self-inflicted. I seem to live by the law that nature abhors a vacuum. It’s not a bad thing really in the scheme of things; I just want to learn how to find a teeny tiny bit of balance. I’m not looking for perfection here.

So that was my promise to myself. After the first few hectic days of the trip, today was the first day I felt like I could start to make good on that promise.

After a night of howling wind, which caused all of us to wonder just how much wind our runt trailer could take, I woke up to the sound of RAIN. Well the sound of rain AND the sound of Makoya crying for food. But I expect that. We are a family driven by food! For the record, I am just going to say I am sick of rain for a while, ok Mother Nature??

Given this rain, I altered our morning plans. We made it to the 5:30 CrossFit class (my attempt to chill is never going to mean sleeping in, mornings are my time. But I do go to bed embarrassingly early… so it’s not like I am sleep deprived). The rain had stopped by the time I was done, and the trails were tacky but not muddy, so Puck and I headed out on a run. It was nice and cool, perfect. We even found a few bonus streams for Puck. Yes!

Is this relaxing, Mom?

On our way back, as I passed a lovely bench, I realized this was my chance. I stopped. And I sat down! It was nice. We only lasted a few minutes – baby steps – but it was something I would never have done before. Puck was a little confused but he got the hang of it after trying to tackle me off the bench, thinking this was some new game.

About a mile from the car, the weather turned abruptly into a very cold downpour. I told you how much Puck loves water. Rain is an exception to this. He takes rain as a personal affront to his enjoyment of life. I was running as fast as I could but he felt it was not fast enough. The looks he gave me were comical.

Given the unsettled weather, we decided to do our chores: laundry primarily. I cleaned the trailer, that doesn’t really take much. I installed the new waterproof mattress pad for any future kitty pee accidents.

I played laser with the kitties. It makes me laugh and they love it. Maya ran in circles trying to catch it until she ran right into the cabinet. I tried not to laugh out loud; she can be sensitive.

And then I left the kids at home. As I write this, I am sitting in a brewpub, drinking good beer (yes, they do have good beer in Utah!) and waiting on a burger. With bacon.

I’m feeling pretty darn Zen.