Wonderfully Uncomfortable

 The little yoga guy on my app said something that sounded like a mini sermon - 

    "Stretch until it's wonderfully uncomfortable."

I've been holding that as a mantra for my life right now. It's easy to embrace comfort and, as strange as it sounds, it's also kind of easy to slide into agony.

But to find a stretch that is wonderfully uncomfortable, where we grow but don't injure ourselves, is a little more tricky. 

I failed today. I thought it would be fun to climb the meadows because they would be frozen still, but I was wrong. For some reason that I don't want anyone to explain to me, the higher I went the warmer it was and the mushier the snow got. What the heck? 

I could have turned around after the first post-hole face plant (this is where you step on snow, your foot breaks through so you are in snow up to your thigh, but your body keeps moving forward not realizing your leg is embedded in snow). This is fun for the first six times, but then it loses its charm and I was just wet and jostled. 

I couldn't bring myself to turn around. 

I'd moved way past wonderfully uncomfortable and was just uncomfortable, but there was something in my being that said if I kept pushing forward it would get better.  Luckily, I have a small bladder so my body forced me to stop and then I conceded to turn around. Yes, there was a pretty view, and I don't mean this to sound like a spoiled Alaskan, but it was not a spectacular view for the amount of effort it took me.

Stretch until it's wonderfully uncomfortable, but there are no awards for suffering the most and there's no growth in comfort. 

Swearing Chickens

I'm pretty sure one of the chickens dropped the F-bomb when I opened their door this morning. Chances are it was Chipmunk, she is the most boisterous, but the rest joined in swearing nearly instantaneously when they saw the snow. 

It sounded like a coop full of sailors. 

They aren't huge fans of the snow during normal times, but there was no need for their potty mouths just because it's still snowing. I tried to cheer them up with all the positives of another winter storm in mid-April, but their vitriol turned toward me so I left them alone. Their resemblance to dinosaurs can be slightly terrifying.

I'm kind of tired of looking at the bright side and I'm wondering if I should join the chickens in their cursing. This weekend will be beautiful and we'll all forget. Living here is a lot like giving birth- sometimes it's a pain, but then you forget, until you need to remind the child who is too inconvenienced to pick up the half eaten food in their room what it was like to fit their head through a passage that's normally a centimeter. 

I still went for a hike because that's my Monday discipline to keep me sane. It quit snowing and switched to snain so that is something. 

And there were Trumpeter Swans and gross little creatures everywhere. That was kind of cool. And now I can justify curling up in front of the fire with a book.

There's no great moral lesson or inspiration other than sometimes swearing is helpful but rituals are probably more helpful for days when you don't feel like doing jack other than whining.