A day at the Beach

Yesterday, I (mostly) took the day off and we all went to the beach. Fortunately, Betsy, a woman in our program, suggested a lovely beach with no fast food or high rises, let alone any development - Crane Beach. Was it relaxing? Nah. Was it fun? Mostly. How'd it feel? Besides the sun burn? Overall, great to hang with the family outside my school realm, though a tad stressful as I kept thinking about all of the homework I needed to do.

I ran into Lesley, the summer program director, there. Of course, that only added to my anxiety over not spending that time studying. I consistently tend to analyze each situation - could I have done better? Could I have been more efficient with my time? Made better decisions? Though I have been definitely happier settling into a piece of advice from Paula. Make the best decision at the time 'cuz there ain't no perfect decision.

The kids had a blast, and it was nice to just tool around Ipswich, though once again, we had lousy luck with going out to eat. Our choices in our budget were pizza, pizza or did I mention pizza? I wasn't planning on bringing any work, but as I was walking out of the house for the beach, I saw a package on the porch - a used economics book I had ordered for my class. I threw it in the car. After dinner in Ipswich, it was about 6pm, and Chris had suggested staying there until 7pm since Liam hadn't napped - that way if they fell asleep in the car, it'd be ok since it was bedtime. Hmmm...an hour to kill? Did I chill out with my family? Nope, I proposed Chris take the kids and I sat in the car to read my econ book. He understandably wasn't thrilled with the idea, but it made me feel a little more grounded, of all things. When we got home, we put the kids straight to bed, and I studied for another hour and then Chris and I settled in to watch "Bee Season" - we hadn't watched a movie since we arrived.

Today, I had wanted to go to the Mysore yoga class at the Back Bay yoga studio, where I've been practicing, but I was worried that by the time I got home around 9.30 or 10, that it'd be late morning by the time I started to study - I've been having a really difficult time focusing on my quant/calculus work at night or when I'm tired - and I'm simply freshest in the morning, but I can rarely get to my homework til late at night - and it's incredibly challenging. Anyway, I ended up just practicing at home - on our deck/porch.

Yoga teachers often talk about "working your edge" in yoga poses - i.e. don't go beyond your edge where you can hurt yourself or over due it. Likewise, if you never even approach your limit, you're not challenging your mind, breath or body. I feel like my Calculus class is just at my edge - any more and I would be utterly and completely lost. Unfortunately, though, I end up taking hours and hours to do my homework 'cuz it's so challenging.

Had fun tonight playing with Liam - we pretended that our car kept breaking down and we had to jack up our car. Everything became a jack. It was just as fun as our day at the beach.