—Linda Kohanov, Riding
Between the Worlds
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| Pursuing happiness: My son at age 4 with a litter of puppies. Scout is the one licking his face. |
Already out of sync because of last week’s computer fiasco,
this weekend I threw aside my usual routines for two days of puttering. Instead
of riding Tank, working out, doing laundry and other household things, I:
- Took a nap in the recliner (because Scout doesn’t understand the concept of sleeping in on the weekend, I had to walk her early Saturday morning since it was too early to just let her out in the backyard—she can be a noisy dog, and I want to remain friends with my neighbors).
- Repotted a few orchids that were looking peaky.
- Puttered about town with my husband while he looked for tomato cages and a few other gardening items. We stopped at a place we’ve driven by for years—it turned out to be full of winding paths, ironwork, garden statuary, interesting plants, and…baby peacocks! And I did not have my camera! I will be going back.
- Ate lunch with my husband at a favorite local restaurant. We both work at home so it feels like we’re always together, but really we don’t spend much time actually interacting. It was fun chatting and eating food someone else cooked.
- Took off the winter slipcovers and replaced them with the summer ones. I’ll do the bed linens today.
- Finished off the weekend by drinking a glass of wine and reading out on the lanai.
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| Prudy supervises the puttering |
Though I felt a bit guilty about skipping some of my normal
weekend activities, I think it’s good to change things up now and then, to
wander through town with no real agenda, to blow off formal exercise for
puttering around the house and yard. The laundry and elliptical machine will
still be there. (Unfortunately.) And I finally trust myself to return to my
healthy and organized habits after a brief break—I’m not going to throw all my
systems to the wind and never return to my responsibilities. A weekend spent
puttering refreshed me, helping me to look forward to what I hope will be a
busy and productive week.
What would you do if you had a free weekend? What simple
pleasures and everyday adventures would you like to indulge in?
Life took an unexpected detour last weekend when my computer
began “acting funny” (my tech-savvy description). My husband spent a good
portion of two days helping me tinker with the computer and doing online searches
for things like “log on process has failed to create the security options
dialog” and other, more ominous messages. After running various diagnostics and
“fixes” (haha), which resulted in the computer doing nothing but blink at us, we
finally determined the hard drive was failing and needed replacement.
My husband was confident he could replace the hard drive
himself and we ordered a new one. We read a step-by-step description of the
process, and watched a tutorial on YouTube. After the new drive arrived, he was
able to put it in in just a few minutes. The most time-consuming thing has been
reloading my operating system and all my programs. Fortunately, I had all my
documents backed up. I thought I had my photos backed up but didn’t, not all of
them—I’m still working on that. And figuring out how I can plug in my iPod
without iTunes erasing all my music! (That’s happened to me before…) I figure
by the end of today I’ll be finished getting things back to normal.
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| New hard drive |
I’m deeply grateful to my husband, Larry, who worked
patiently for hours while we tried to figure out the problem, and finally fix
it. He put into words the moral of this story when he said, “You can fix
anything if someone will show you how.” A good takeaway when life hands you
unexpected adventure.
I would also add, if you have anything you value on your
computer, back it up, Back It Up, BACK IT UP!
So endeth the lesson.
And how was your week?
This week my posting will be abbreviated while I deal with (and mourn for) a failed hard drive. Hope your week is going better than mine so far!
When it comes to happy little things, I’m pretty easy to
please—fun food, pretty notebooks, and, of course, books, all make me happy. Today
I’m going to share one of my happy little things that’s just a bit bigger: yoga
asana practice. Asana is what many
people think of when they hear the word yoga: the physical postures. (There’s much more to yoga, and you can read
about it here if you’re interested.)
I’ve included a gentle and basic yoga practice in my
exercise routine for more than 15 years, since I first discovered a class at my
gym. After class I drove home feeling as if my shoulders were about six inches
lower than before class. I was hooked. Since then, I’ve sampled yoga DVDs from
my library and bought a few to have at home. I usually do Rodney Yee’s AM Yoga
before I go to ride Tank, and I also love Suzanne Deason’s Stress Relief Yoga
on the same DVD (All Day Yoga for Beginners). Other favorites include Yoga for the Rest of Us and Yoga for Weight Loss. And just recently my
subdivision has started a yoga club, with a weekly meeting/class taught by a
resident. A group of us meets in our clubhouse to breathe and stretch our way
through an hour-long routine and learn a bit about the benefits of yoga.
Nothing I do makes me feel as good afterward as yoga does.
It’s definitely a simple pleasure—and sometimes an adventure, since I’m not
terribly flexible, and some poses are quite challenging. But with this new
weekly class, I feel myself getting stronger and more flexible, and I always walk out relaxed and serene when I’m done.
What little thing is making you happy right now?
And now...
Looking for an Adventure?
My friend Laure Ferlita has just announced the next location for Imaginary Trips Made Real. Winter Interrupted will take place in January of 2015 in St. Petersburg ,
FL.
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| By In Helmolt, H.F., ed. History of the World. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1902. Author unknown, but the portrait has several centuries [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Though no one knows for sure, it seems likely that April 23 marks the day William Shakespeare was born in 1564, 450 years ago. Shakespeare, one of the most influential writers of all time, wrote poetry and plays that have influenced the English language in many ways. According to Poets.org, “In his poems and plays, Shakespeare invented thousands of words, often combining or contorting Latin, French and native roots. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as: arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany.”
As I was looking for an appropriate Shakespeare quote for
today, I was surprised at how many quotes and phrases I’m familiar with but
didn’t always realize came from his writing, such as:
To thine own self be
true (the line continues: And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.)
There is nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
I would challenge you
to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.
What’s past is
prologue.
Be not afraid of
greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have
greatness thrust upon them.
The course of true
love never did run smooth.
Brevity is the soul of
wit.
I’ve read very little Shakespeare, unfortunately, but perhaps now is the time to do a little exploring. I have a copy of The Sonnets of William Shakespeare I bought when I was a romantic teenager which I plan to dip into it in the next few weeks, and perhaps I’ll start watching movie versions of Shakespeare’s plays. I love a man who plays with language.
Do you have a favorite poem, quotation or play by
Shakespeare? If so, please share.
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| Fannin Hill, 2012. Photo courtesy Holly Bryan |
We did get to go to Fannin Hill on Friday, and it was
awesome. Unfortunately, I have no photos to show for it…just some sore muscles
and good memories. And , of course, a whole lot of things to clean: my bridle
bag, Tank’s shipping boots, my saddle bag and even Tank’s bridle (at one of the
water troughs, he immersed his face up to the eyes and shook his head side to
side, sending water cascading onto the ground and turning the leather of his
bridle into a mucky mess). An outing like this means extra work before and
after, as well as stepping outside my comfort zone during. Tank gets excited
when we ride off site, and sometimes I feel like I’m on top of a rocket ready
to explode. I have to work at communicating what I want in a way that makes
sense to him and doesn’t frustrate him:
Tank: “If all the other horses are cantering and jumping
over there, why are we over here jumping over this little log?”
Me: “Because those jumps are beyond my abilities and
confidence right now—I know you could do it, but would I still be on your back
on the other side?”
Tank: “OK. I guess I
don’t want you to hurt yourself. Who would bring me carrots?”
Every time we go to Fannin Hill, we try new things and come
home inspired. This time, we practiced going up and down a small bank, which
required him to jump up to a higher level while going up, and to step down
(into the scary unknown) when going down. He did just fine going up, but was
pretty skeptical of going down. We tried several different approaches until he
hopped down like it was a non-issue.
Sometimes the best things require effort. In the past, I
tended to give up too easily when faced with challenges. Tank is teaching me to
think things through, break them down into smaller steps, and to keep trying
slightly different approaches. I still find myself avoiding things because I
either don’t know what to do, or I think it’s too hard, but I’m becoming more
willing and able to pay the price for what I want. And that’s a lesson worth
learning.
What dream are you willing to pay the price for?
What dream are you willing to pay the price for?
