A Thursday off from hiking

My neighbor's flowers next to the stairs

I was contemplating my post as I came home just now and saw these lovely flowers grown by my neighbor Keith, who lives on the left-hand side of the stairs. Since I'm upstairs, I see this pretty bouquet every day. Usually I describe my Thursday hike with the Senior Trailblazers.

The reason I'm not hiking today is that the hard hike (Ridley Creek) would have been too hard on my knee, and I wanted to protect it and use it to hike another day. And then it turns out they might not have gone there after all, since the weather projected an inch of rain in the area for today. But I had other plans anyway; I decided to try a new yoga class, one a little harder than my gentle yoga.

It was quite successful, and I decided to go ahead and try it this coming semester. That means I'll still take one gentle class and one Level I class. The only day this new teacher holds the class, other than Thursdays, is on Sunday at 9:00am, which means as soon as I get my Sunday post done, I'll be getting up and heading off to my class. I really kind of like early exercise, as you might have noticed. I'm a little sore right now from the class, which is something that never happens in gentle yoga (obviously).

Blackberries already ripening

In order to get my regulation number of steps in, I took the bus to the yoga class and then walked the three miles back to downtown. Although it was sprinkling, it never really rained on me, and I spied these Himalayan blackberries on the side of the trail that are already beginning to ripen! They are really early, like maybe a month early. It's a strange summer already and we just got started.

Maybe it's a good idea to mix things up now and then, because now I'm excited about this new yoga class. I didn't have anything scheduled for Sundays, so now every day of my week has got some exercise on the agenda. Makes me smile that I now can look forward to Sundays!!
:-)