Friday, November 8, 2013

Turtles and Dancing (but not together)

Turtles at Wolf Pen Creek 

Week of October 28, 2013:

Monday: 20 min. of evening yoga

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Evening walk around my neighborhood (slow and untimed)

Thursday: Off (but I did walk about 3.5 miles today for work and for fun) 

Friday: Bike commute to and from work!  First time in a very, very long time.

Saturday: Short walk around Rice University’s campus

Sunday: Biked to and from a wedding shower for friends.

(Skipping the mileage calculations since I took it so easy this week.)

Whew, finally some time to blog!  Now that the marathon is history, I’ve been back on the bike, to commute to work and to get around town.  My new friends Dana and Jason are getting married in a few weeks, and our friend Tonya threw them a wonderful wedding shower.  I rode my bike across town to the party.  As I was riding, I thought, Man, I am not in good bike-riding shape these days.  This is hard!  And on the way back, I realized why: the ride to the party was all uphill, so the ride back is downhill.  Which means I really feel like I’m flying on the way back!  Those turtles above were spotted on the way over to the wedding shower, and of course I cannot resist a turtle photo op.  You know me.

As you can see from my activity log above, I’ve been taking it easy since the marathon.  But more than that, I’ve just been BUSY.  I’m back on the job market, which is time-consuming.  But there’s been fun busy-ness too, like spectating at a ballroom dance competition at Rice University in Houston.  Paul and his dance partner Leah competed last Saturday, and I tagged along for moral support.  They took home a slew of ribbons, including two first-place awards!  Even better than that is how amazing they look on the dance floor.  They’re tall and attractive, and they look very natural and comfortable when they dance together.  They make it look easy, and I can assure you it is not easy.  Paul and I had our first dance lesson together a few weeks ago, and there is a lot to think about and practice when it comes to ballroom.  Paul was, I think, disappointed that despite the hours and hours he spends dancing, he found himself a non-dancing girlfriend.  What can I say?  I run, I bike, I bake birthday cakes.  But dancing?  It’s not on my list of current hobbies.

But we’re working on it.  Paul introduced me to the waltz and foxtrot (I think…).  While observing the Latin round, I thought, Hey, the rumba looks pretty straightforward!  So during one of his breaks, Paul walked me through the rumba, and Leah jumped in with some advice.  And the other night, Paul tried to samba with me, but I fear that trying to samba with a follow (traditionally, the female is the follow, while the male is the lead) who doesn’t know how to samba just looks like you are holding her hostage while you gyrate around the room.  In other words: not pretty.

But you know what is pretty?  Paul and Leah in their dancing outfits!  Look how beautiful they look together!  The gorgeous sunlight we had that day helped, too. 

Paul and Leah at Rice Competition

Happy weekend, friends!

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