Independence Day, Yoga, and Laughter

Thanks to everyone–in real life and the blog world–for your kind words about my grandmother the last few days. It’s been great to have what I know reaffirmed through so many: Grandma Tudor was a hell of a woman. For those who didn’t know her, you’ll get to hear more about her in the coming weeks; don’t worry. 🙂

It has been a stressful week. I leave tomorrow for a mission trip with the middle school youth at church, which I am so looking forward to, but there has been a lot to do related to the trip this week. On Wednesday morning, hospice let us know that my grandmother was in her final 24-48 hours. I think the anticipation of her death was, in some ways, worse than her actual passing. I felt like, I am sad, but I can’t start grieving yet because I have too many other things that I need to do that will be much harder to do when I am actually grieving!

As Andrew walked through the door Wednesday evening, he made a playful jab about an email I’d sent him earlier in the day. I immediately burst into tears and said, “I’m stressed, and I’m sad… can you not pick on me??” (What can I say? I am good at articulating how I feel and what I need… even if I word it the way a 6-year old might. ;-))

After dinner that night we went to our yoga class. I’d been looking forward to it as a stress reliever, but I didn’t anticipate all the ways in which it would help. We set up our mats in the middle of the room; some people were already sitting or lying down, meditating. The instructor entered the room and began setting up at the front of the class, but had not started the music yet, so the room was very quiet. As I walked to the closet in the back of the room to get straps and blocks for Andrew and me, I heard a strange noise through the quiet of the room:

fsshh fsshh fsshh fsshh…

I turned around to scan the room. Everyone was perfectly still… except my dear husband, who looked like he was trying to make snow angels on the floor, his socks making the fsshh noise as they moved back and forth. I think from his position, he couldn’t tell how loud or obvious the motion was.

I hurried back over to our mats and whispered,

Andrew! Stop! What are you doing?

The floor is so slippery! They just redid it, and it’s SO slippery!

That’s great… but stop…you’re being a lot louder than you think!

Then we did our best to stifle our laughter. What is it about laughing when you aren’t supposed to that makes it so hard to stop laughing? The harder we tried to stop, the harder we laughed, and laughing is great stress relief. 🙂

(But seriously, we are the worst yogis. Let me apologize now if you ever happen to be in the same class as us.)

On Thursday, after the news about my grandmother arrived and I spent some time crying and talking to family, we decided it would be nice to get out of the house rather than spend the day moping.

We harvested some veggies:

…ate lunch at Burger Bach, by which neither of us were wildly impressed. We were lured in by the gluten-free bun option and grass-fed beef. The burgers come with side salads, which is nice, and you purchase fries and dipping sauces separately. We were turned off by the fact that a small fry comes with one sauce, and if you wanted to try multiple sauces, you have to pay extra–that includes ketchup. Come on… just put the bottle of ketchup on the table; people will still try the other kinds. Also, the cooking options were “pink or no pink.” Well, I don’t want it to be pink, but I also don’t want it charred, which is how my burger arrived. To be fair, I was having a bad day, but don’t be lazy; a “medium-well” option won’t kill you.

After lunch we went to Maymont to see the goats (I’ve mentioned this before, but I really love goats. I regularly petition Andrew to let us get one as a pet.)