The countdown has begun

Today is Justin's 5th birthday!  He has soccer practice after school and then we are going out for dinner at a local Italian restaurant.  I'll probably hold off on giving him my present (the scooter) until we get back from dinner.  I know that even if it is dark he will want to ride it up and down the driveway a few times.

Today I will try to get a few travel-related chores accomplished,  and of course I'm always needing to run to the grocery to get something I forgot.  It is cloudy and looks like it will rain some time today, so I don't know how far I'll get  the car squared away.  I think in the back of my mind I know Ara can probably make everything fit better than I can!  Between Joshua and Ara, I will be well taken care of.  Grandkids make having children all worthwhile, and it doesn't take you as long to realize their perfection as maybe it did with your own kids.  From where I am now I think they are all perfect.

I bought a pack each of small bottles of tonic water (quinine) and ginger ale.  A bottle of each might last me 3 days and I don't want big bottles taking up space in my cooler.  The quinine and ginger ale seem to be working as I haven't had leg cramps since I started drinking it every night.  I have the Hyland's pills on hand in case I run out of the other and am out in the middle of nowhere.  I never thought I'd say anything positive about high fructose corn syrup, but I'm sure it is what makes the quinine tolerable.  I tried it just a couple of years ago when the corn syrup wasn't added, and it tasted worse than any medicine I've ever had.  Absolutely disgusting!

I also filled up the gas tank while I was out, at $3.87/gal.  I hope the price starts to go down a bit over the next few weeks.  I never did figure out my overall mileage for the trip so far, but some fillups showed great mileage while others were average.  I drove most of the way at 55 mph and I know I saved fuel when I was able to maintain that speed.  Sometimes you just have to move along with the traffic though.

Remember how I was going to record every photograph I took?  That thought fell by the wayside pretty quickly.  I went through some of the photos this morning, adding brief descriptions to those that I hadn't already identified.  I took a few pictures for which I have no idea where they were.  It's a good thing I'm not obsessive about things like that.

I mentioned yoga in yesterday's post, after which I did an internet search and found Lilias, the TV yoga instructor I followed in 1973/4.  She was absolutely the best, and is now offering 40 years of classes online, at several different cost levels.  If you visit the website though, you will find many free preview videos to get an idea of whether her program would be of interest to you.

 http://www.liliasyoga.com/11-lilias-online-yoga-class

  I loved her classes from the 1970's, when she was probably in her early-mid forties.  She was so spontaneous, eager, excited about yoga, and you couldn't help picking up the excitement.

Many years later I bought a DVD entitled "Lilias" and was disappointed - of course she was older and so was I, but her speech was much more modulated and professional sounding and lacked the raw excitement of her early years.  Now it looks like she has another series called "The Silver Years" which is for seniors.  That will be the last one I'll try - I've already watched two videos from the first series and love it, although I have a lot of work and practice to get back in shape.  When I get back to Sac I will subscribe to the entire program, but for now there are enough free previews and audios to keep me happy.  I mention this in case anyone is interested in checking it out.  I'm not knocking yoga for seniors by any means, (especially now that I am a senior) but I remember when Lilias and I were both in our prime, and I want to regain that feeling for myself.  I will eventually be exercising with the senior program, I'm sure.

Another one I've always enjoyed is the DVD "AM and PM Stretch" by Madeleine Lewis.  There are two sessions of about 20-25 min. each, one for morning and one for evening.  The only problem is that there isn't enough variation in the routines for use over a long period of time.  She has advanced stretch routines but they are way too advanced for me - with Lilias I think I'll have enough to keep me occupied and happy for a long time.