THANKFUL FRIDAY

The three other people who are at work with me today spent some time chatting about the weather and going on and on about power outages. Meanwhile, I’m blankly staring into my empty coffee cup like it’s going to predict the future, one that does not include power outages. I’m not completely uninformed about the impending snow storm. I know the reports have said something about a layer of ice followed up with snow. But I’m from Oklahoma. Layers of ice are normal. It’s the 6-12 inches of predicted snow that has me worried. Everyone here is in agreement that school will be canceled on Monday. Everyone except me because I live in lalaland where everything is sunshine and rainbows.

Look…I just had a really long break from work. Long enough to forget how to do my job and long enough to require some family space. Michael now has the cold/flu virus that the Cabbage dealt with for most of the week. I am managing to avoid it, but it is work. I’m basically walking around the house with Clorox wipes wrapped around my hands. The Neti pot is now a daily thing and I’m slurping down so much immune support water that I’m sloshing when I walk. Forecasters are now telling me that I am going to be trapped in the house at the very least for the next three days with germs. And as I picked up a paper bag to breath into, I thought about what a fickle human I am being.

I was just waxing poetically (or just waxing) about the joys of hibernation and how my yoga practice was solid during forced isolation. Here is my opportunity to do both of those things. Yesterday, I completed twelve rounds of sun salutation before resting and then moving into and holding some yoga poses. I woke up this morning surprisingly sore. I had not been on my yoga mat since December 19, 2024. For me, being off my mat for that long is not normal. Even though my arms were sore, today I pushed myself to complete twenty rounds. I started grinning when I reached number eighteen because I didn’t think I’d go that far today. I rarely think about my yoga practice during the weekend because I struggle being on my mat when I know there are chores that need to be done. It seems to me that I am being handed an opportunity to commit time on weekends for yoga.

I can always quarantine Michael in his room or in the basement.

The lockdown was tough for a number of reasons, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hear someone talk about how they benefited from a forced lockdown. Homes were cleaner. Exercise was easier. More time was spent outside in the fresh air. We had more time for artistic endeavors. I may have been a complete basket case of worry on the inside during that whole time, but my house was the cleanest it has ever been. Maybe I needed a forced lock down to accomplish some things that I had neglected. Isn’t a snowpocalypse basically a forced lockdown? It is fairly certain that Kansas City will see at least one to two of these snow storms that force us to stay put. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to recognize the value in having a mini-forced lockdown period.

I am grateful for this aid in forming a good habit.