Ingredients for a Successful Life in Everyday Ramblings

Don’t tell anyone, but the sun is out and we can see! Oh hello sun. I know many of you have had about enough of it so it is wonderful you are sending some our way. Thank you.

There are robins and towhees singing up the morning as well as the finches, one of which buzzed me this morning when I was putting the bird feeder and millet tray out in the patio well. I laughed and turned around to go back in and I had managed to lock myself out. Eek.

Luckily I have a key secretly hidden out there and although I haven’t touched it in years it worked just fine. Whew! Quite the moment of panic there. Stress hormones run amok.

I had four students at my first public yoga class last night. I knew them all, though had only taught 2 of them before. The cool thing was that they were all about at the same level in terms of range of motion and energy so that made it a more satisfying class for everyone. One of my students is relatively young but had a knee replacement in the fall. She was amazed by what she could do. Yeah!

One of my private students has had two knee replacements and I also have had special training for how to work with replacement knees and hips and I knew she was coming because she forgot her mat and emailed me earlier and asked if I could bring an extra one.

The room is nice. The light is a little too bright and the temperature was a little too warm but it is a nice clean space with a good carpet that gets taken care of. And there is a whole wall of windows. The sexton was a really nice guy. It is quiet as we are the only folks using the building in this time slot.

I know this both because afterwards I went looking for the defibrillator (which I did not find) and the staff mailboxes in the church office, which I did. I have been a member of this church for 15 years and had never been in the office before. It is a fascinating warren. Considering the original building is from 1921 and is on the opposite corner of the block. You have to go over this outdoor catwalk to get to the office from the new building and buried back there is an older building that has got to be from the 1880’s. Fascinating.

My teaching gig at the hospital is very complicated. I have all these protocols I have to follow before and after class including cleaning all the mats used with a fragrance free disinfectant using latex gloves. Here I just roll up my mat, grab the tip jar and go! Sweet.

My mission is to make this financially viable and that means marketing. I got great tips last night but it wasn’t enough quite yet to cover the cost of the room. But it was close. Better than I have done before.

Two of my students (who I had a pretty good idea would like each other but hadn’t met yet), really hit it off. They were cheerfully chatting about an art museum in Philadelphia when they left. The fellow forgot his work shoes. They are both extroverted and gifted communicators and I so admire that. I was happy to see them laughing and engaged.

I can do this thing. I would be so pleased if I can make the class viable to keep doing it for oh say the next fifteen years… It is wonderful distraction from work and gives me a break from a full day at home with Mr. Rowdy Paws himself, Diego.

I love the cats dearly already, I am totally smitten, but they are one heck of a handful some days.

I had been told that their original circumstances were pretty bad and you can see in their behavior that they truly needed to be removed from that environment. Carlo just melts my heart with his adorable cold gray nose as he schmoozes and when they curl up and sleep together like they are doing currently it is basically impossible not to be touched by that.

Next stop I am going to try a Feliway diffuser with them. It helped a little with Sam before he got too sick to do much of anything but be handsome and sleep.

Building a successful life comes in tiny increments I think, and it is all founded on the basics of self-care, authenticity, a big dose of common sense. And doing things for others.

Thank goodness I had that key out there!

Last updated January 13, 2015