Ten Days and Thousand Mile Journey

Wow, has it really been ten days. I won't even begin to try to explain.

We had a great karate class last night, and we really benefit from the small size. In fact, there were three of us, and three teachers, so we had the one on one thing going. When you trim the diaspora and focus on the serious students, you end up getting so much more out of the class, and the few people that are there really end up working together. I don't know how it works when you have twenty to thirty people in a class. I've been trying to practice more of my karate outside of class but seem to begin the week with the best of intentions and get nothing done. At the very least I'd like to get in better shape, but can't seem to manage even that.

I've been putting a lot of thought into my sparring and feel that by keeping it in my mind and working on my footwork and technique, I can move forward. In fact, I think it will take some practice but felt like my efforts paid off last night. At least I was more aware of what I was doing and felt more capable and in control. I had the chance to spar with D, one of the black belts, and I jumped at the chance because I've found sparring with someone who can kick your ass elevates your level and teaches you a lot, even if they beat you up.

I'm also grateful that PC is a regular, and clearly he gets a lot out of it because he keeps coming back. We are well matched and have good sparring matches, and being an adult and all he takes it very seriously. The class really benefits from having more adults, though the kids add a lot of vitality and fun to it all. It must be tough, though, after a long day at school.

I finished cutting our woodpile, for anyone interested, and I couldn't believe it. I went from being a chainsaw novice to being Paul Bunyan in the span of two months. Seven cords. It started out as one of those jobs that fills you with hopelessness because of the sheer magnitude of it all. Each time I cut a log the pile just seemed to get bigger, but I kept repeating the fortune cookie mantra, "Thousand Mile Journey Begins with First Step." It helped that I liked using the chainsaw, even though the thing scares the hell out of me. Just take it slow and use loads of common sense. Don't be stupid and try to rush things, and when you feel tired, stop.

Anyway, I'm glad I got the saw I got, I felt it was more than adequate and the extra $100 I would have spent to buy a bigger saw was not necessary. I love my saw, BTW. The hardest part of cutting all that wood was relocating it by hand. After it was all cut, I had to haul it to where I was going to store/split it, and I did it all with a wheelbarrow. Talk about feeling hopeless, the pile was enormous, but I managed and now I have this amazing pile of blocked wood that I now get to split, which I love to do, so I'm in hog heaven.

So much so that I've actually ordered another truckload of tree length wood. I'm kind of excited about it, though until it gets here, I won't make any assumptions.

On the home improvement front, I went to paint the back of the house and when I opened the can I realized it was the wrong damn color. My fault, I should have checked it when I bought it, but it was wrong, and I bought it six months ago. Oh well, I've got to try to exchange it. They're usually very cool at Fogg's so we'll see.

I needed to tuneup the lawnmower but wanted to run the gas out, but the tank was full, so I ran the thing out but not before I cut the entire lawn. And we have tons of grass, so it took me about five hours. Luckily the weather was perfect, cool and breezy, so I wasn't suffering as much.

Restained the picnic table yesterday, which took a beating after the winter, and if I have time today I'll put a topcoat on it and it's good to go.

Until then, thanks for reading.