My left hip has been aching all summer.  It gets worse when I don’t work out, don’t wear proper footwear and don’t stretch it, but even doing those things, it’s been aching for months.  I’m starting to think I should have it looked at by a professional.  I’m convinced I have arthritis in it and that this is my long, slow decline into old age and frail health.  The instructor of the pedal & kettle class I take a few times a week keeps talking about this fabulous yoga class that she swears is almost as good as a deep tissue massage.  Pat & Edie do yoga, but I have always dismissed it, because I like cardio and only cardio. But this instructor made a convincing argument, so I thought, why not?  Yesterday, I took my very first yoga class at the gym. She did a good bit of Yin Yoga.  Holy moly did it cure what ailed me.  Hip pain?  Gone.  Tight IT Band?  Loosened.  Sore lower back?  No more.  I’ve become a yoga convert.  I will definitely be doing that more.

I had to buy Edie new soccer cleats last week.  Did you know the cheapest women’s cleats start out $20 more expensive than the most expensive kid’s cleats?  Of course she really liked the $105 ones.  And the $95 ones.  But settled on the $40 ones (as if she had a choice).   And then proceeded to leave them on the front porch in the rain, so even though they’ve been worn for exactly one game, they have that wonderful cat-pee like smell her soccer shoes never fail to develop emanating from them already.

Awesome. 

Her Language Arts teacher asked her if she knew what a Thesaurus was and if she had one at home.  Edie had no clue what the teacher was talking about, but as the teacher started explaining it to her, she volunteered that it sounded an awful lot like the word book her mother had bought and put in her bathroom, for when she ‘needed something to read’.  The teacher then told her it reflected in her vocabulary and to keep on reading it.

That’s my secret for having a smart sounding kid – leave a thesaurus in the bathroom for her to read.

I’m not even going to speculate on what that teacher thinks of our family.  At least I pulled out what Edie considered the owner’s manual to her parents.  That’s how I got the idea for leaving a thesaurus in her bathroom, as she really will read anything we leave lying around and if she’s going to walk around quoting things she read in ‘the office’ then, it had better be good.

Since I did the piece on The Festy working on becoming a zero waste music festival in last week’s Green Homes and Living, I am now on the press list for the event. I’ve gotten several offers to interview bands playing there this weekend.  I’ve decided this means I’m a food, wine, green living AND music writer.

I might be a music writer, but I had to turn down the free passes that I was offered for the festival.  Pat’s working Saturday, I’m working Sunday, his folks are coming, Edie’s soccer game is out in Crozet smack dab in the middle of the day Saturday (ugh, I hate schlepping out there), the Fall Fiber Festival is this weekend and I haven’t the slightest clue how I’m fitting that last one in.  Edie will not hear we might not make it to the sheepdog trials this year, so I suspect it will be another one of those GO Saturdays from start to finish.  Sigh.  I’m already exhausted from the weekend and it’s only Thursday.

We’ve gotten the next swap lined up for Sunday, November 11.  The Charlottesville Cooking School is swapping us to use the space.  I’m also trying out a new website that organizes your event for you.  I think I was able to link it to Cville Swap’s Facebook  page.  Technology can be challenging.

We had company last evening, who requested we watch the debate.  I’m over this election – the rhetoric, the vitriol, the multiple nightly polling questions (they love to call on Tuesdays.  Tuesdays we are guaranteed a minimum of 4 polling calls) thanks to the fact that we live in a ‘swing state’, the canvassers knocking on our door all weekend, all of it.  I’m ready for November 7th already. I successfully avoided both conventions and was hoping to do the same with the debates.  No such luck. Thank goodness for bourbon and knitting to distract me so I didn’t fully have to pay attention.  Even though I’m pretty much over it, I found myself liking the post Patience put up this morning.  Good food for thought.