A Polar Plunge

Monday’s usually go one of two ways for me. I’m either working out of the house all day and feel overwhelmed when I get home by the stuff that I need to do inside the house. Or I plan to work in the office all day, but get overwhelmed by the stuff that didn’t get done over the weekend because I worked half of it and I feel like I should be doing housework.

I feared today was going to be one of those days. Saturday, my body was not feeling like moving at all. I spent most of the day laying in bed with the stray cat that showed up at our house. I got up to eat and pee. That was pretty much the extent of it. I think we even had pizza for dinner (and I’m trying to be whole food plant based this month). Saturday was definitely a fail on the whole food front. Usually on Saturdays, I meal prep 6 days worth of Indian food for a guy and deliver it to his house. The cooking usually takes about an hour and a half. The driving to and from his house takes another hour. Saturday, I was just not feeling that either. I know, not a good business model for sure. I did ask him if I could bring his food by Monday morning. If he had said no, I would have cooked, but usually, he doesn’t eat what I bring until Monday at lunch, so I crossed my fingers that it would work out. And it did. He said yes, Monday was fine. I continued to be lazy all day Saturday.

Sunday, I had to work my part time gig at the aquarium. I love this job. I get to meet all kinds of people who are traveling and want to see the sights, so they are usually curious and usually in a good mood. My kind of people. So, I always look forward to working my two days a week. While I worked Sunday, Flea Market Guy cut the grass, for hopefully the last time this season, he cleaned the kitchen, he cleaned all the floors, and he did the laundry. He always does a little cleaning when I go to work, but he’s a surface cleaner and I’m a deep cleaner, usually. Sunday, he did all the deep cleaning, which left my Monday wide open for productivity.

I woke up this morning ready to hit the ground running. I went to the kitchen like I usually do. I made my little morning energy mix. Drank it. I got ready to work out and was overcome with anxiety over getting the food to my client before lunch. I searched for a short workout to do. Nothing screamed to me. So I ditched the workout. Can you believe it? I’ve been so good at following a schedule, but my scheduled workout didn’t speak to me and I couldn’t find anything else that did either, so I decided, maybe that was a voice in itself. I would not workout today. Instead, I went to the grocery store, got the potatoes I needed to finish up the lunches I was making and headed home to cook.

I was done and at my client’s door by 9:30. All was well in the world.

FMG drove with me to deliver the goods. He had brought a stack of records we had laying around the house to trade in at our favorite bookstore. I walked around the bookstore in a heavenly state picking out the books I was going to bring home. FMG never says anything about my book collecting. He doesn’t even call it hoarding, and I’m really grateful for that. After we got home, we decided to take the junk that we’d been piling up to get rid of from the basement to the dump and finally get rid of it. I told him I’d go with him to take it and then we could stop at the nature center on the way home and take in some fresh air.

My soul has been dying to connect with a body of water ever since we got back from the beach. So we ended up at the little quarry at the nature center. It wasn’t long before my shoes were off and my feet were in the water. And it was cold. The day was a nice sunny 70 degrees. The water might have been 50 or 60, I’m not actually sure. It felt about 32 to my cold feet, but after a while I got used to it. The sun was shining on my back and my soul decided that maybe I should just take a little dip. So I peeled off my clothes, leaving only my panties and sports bra on and jumped in.

And IT WAS COLD.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in water cold enough to take my breath away and that’s what happened. Only for a second. I don’t think my brain was expecting it to be as cold as it actually was. Like I said, my feet got used to it and it didn’t feel all that cold after a few minutes, I figured my body would do the same.

It only took me a second to catch my breath but the water never warmed up. I treaded water for a couple seconds that seemed like minutes and made my way to the shore side where I could actually touch the ground. The last thing I wanted was to be so cold I sunk to the bottom and FMG would be up on the dock having to explain why he Rose’d me and let me drown (yes, that’s a bad Titanic reference).

Either way, my body felt invigorated and my soul felt renewed. I don’t think the water was cold enough for me to die, but it was definitely cold enough to make me second guess jumping in any later in the year.

All in all, today was a good day.

Now, I’m ready for bed.