Downward Facing Dog

So, this will be week three of the Missy Tries Yoga, Part Two, experiment. Missy Tries Yoga Part One (circa 2006) ended up with a bad headache that lasted, oh, two months. So far, Part Two has been much more successful. There was a time when I equated yoga with eating organic food (which I sometimes do) and voting Democrat (which I never do). But then my favorite sister-in-law turned out to be a pretty skilled yoga instructor, so I decided to reconsider my position.

Turns out that yoga is pretty great. As I described to a patient Jason last week, I can see why people are so into it. And it turns out that contorting my extremely inflexible body into strange poses like "cobra" and "pigeon" and some other dog pose is surprisingly relaxing. Who woulda thunk? Maybe I'll add yoga to my List of Things That Makes Missy Feel in Control, along with having my nails painted and writing lists on restaurant napkins and drinking tea with milk.

In other news, we've been flying along at an almost alarming pace this fall. Add to that the fact that my family is opening Christmas presents when we are together at Thanksgiving, which means that I'm actually really behind on my Christmas shopping, and my head is spinning! Our past two weekends have been full of all sorts of domestic-ish things, like:

• Yard Work: It has been getting downright chilly around here, but on Saturday the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we headed outside to plant the tulip bulbs that we bought in Holland. What started out as a small project ended up as an all-day yard work fest, which included expanding the strawberry patch, cleaning and organizing the gardening stuff for winter, and mulching around our trees. Thanks to lessons from my dad and lots of practice, we are much better at yard work that we were two years ago, and I'm excited to see our pretty tulip bed in the spring!

• Baking: I love grilling in the summer, but I have to confess that I've really enjoyed getting to know my oven again. I've been experimenting with seasonal eating this year, so I've had to beef up on my squash recipes (turns out the delicious, sugary squash bake my mom makes for Thanksgiving is not the kind of thing you should eat every day). I found this amazing little number in the Williams-Sonoma catalog that arrive a couple of weeks ago. It is on the menu for Wednesday again this week. Also on the menu for sometime this week is pumpkin pie ala real pumpkin. We'll see if it's really worth the hassle.

• Church Stuff: Somehow, we have had some sort of church activity not just every weekend, but every night of every weekend for the past few weeks! Friday was the big Halloween festival at church, where I got the privilege of manning the bouncy-bounce when it deflated on five small children. Those suckers go down fast! It all ended okay, but it made for an eventful five minutes.

• Studying: Yesterday I got my first public library card in, like, 20 years. I'm pretty sure my last library card (for the Meridian City Library) was a paper one with that metal clip that they used to imprint your account number on the card in the front pocket of the book, and it's possible that my last library book was a Babysitters Club book. Turns out that these days they have fancy electronic key fob library cards and that the Arlington County Public Library is a pretty sweet place. And, for the record, it's not that I don't believe in libraries--it's just that the Library of Congress delivers to my office. That's a pretty hard system to beat.

• Knitting: Tonight I'm watching the Redskins (lurve the Skins) and knitting up a storm. There's Baby Mason's blanket to finish before he joins the family in a few weeks. Then I was planning to get a good head start on a blanket for Baby Crosson, who won't be making an appearance until summer...and then Dawn called to say that it is not Baby Crosson but BABIES Crosson! I wasn't kidding when I said that babies are overtaking the planet!

• Batwatching: Seriously, just try to read about Cole's Halloween without laughing out loud. (Troy was a hotdog. Still waiting for the pictures.)