Things were not pretty last night.  As soon as I had the room ready (a small couch has to be moved for more than on person to practice) George decided that all the time that he was so sedate with the chicken pox had given him license to be an absolute terror (Shanna tells me that he was that way all day yesterday).  By the time I was ready to begin again, someone called hawking family oriented videos.  By the time I was ready for attempt #3, George was in full swing again.  Instead of beating him to a pulp (oh, the temptation) I banished everyone to the upstairs and got ready for attempt #4.  I really don’t remember what happened after that other than two things:  I told the professional fire-fighters to stop calling us for hand outs as we do what we can to support our local volunteer fire fighters and I scalded the knuckles on my right hand — very, very painful.

This morning I tried practicing using a mat.  I’m not sure whether I like it or not but I am sure that it is not love at first use.  It’s just too slick when my hands and feet sweat.  It does get stickier after being washed down (tried that at the end of my practice).  We’ll see if my mind changes over the next week.

During our weekly trip to the library, I picked up three books on Yoga.  One is called, "Be A Frog, A Bird, Or A Tree."  These are creative poses for children by Rachel Carr.  The kids just loved it and I had a blast doing the poses with them.  All of the poses are named for fun things, for example a variation on the squat is called the frog.  Speaking of the frog, George hopped and croaked all around the room as we did this pose.  Great fun and if you have kids, this is a great way to get on the same level with them.

As I said earlier, I washed my mat this morning and tonight it made a great addition to my practice.  It made grounding my feet much easier and I felt much more stable in all my poses.  It’s still going to take some time to adjust to using the mat in staff, child or seated leg stretch because the whole mat tends to bunch up under either my outstretched leg(s) or arms.