A New Routine

As the teachers went back into their classrooms last week to set up for the new school year, it was very strange to still be out enjoying the best continuous summer weather in recent memory. While Toronto is certainly hot and humid in July, it is rare to enjoy almost ten weeks in a row of sunny, warm days, and yet there it was for 2011 for all us to savour. Saturday, it was still 40C with the humidity, and then it fell like a stone to the high teens, which it has been ever since. It's as though Mother Nature has children in the school system, and wants them to be comfortable as they put the holidays being them.

For me, the last week and a half has been about transitioning to this "free year" I am plunging into. I've signed up for a gym membership at the local community centre, and have started each weekday with a 9am class: there's low cardio, fusion, step alternating every day, with floor work and weight components and stretching in between. I am, despite the still less-than-100% shoulder (I would guess 85% at this point), managing the fitness component without much difficulty and can do most floor exercises most of the time. To keep myself from jumping in too drastically, I am only using 2 lb. weights to start for the arm work, and the step platform is only on the first riser, lest I destroy what is left of one knee in the first month. The people who take these morning classes are a mash-up of the retired, the off-hour working, and the leisure set: all in all, a friendly, encouraging bunch who take their classes seriously, but not themselves. No make-up and glam yoga wear on this group!

It is good to get the fitness workout behind you by 10:30 am, and to have an open day to look forward to. I have promised myself that a daily jaunt to the dog park in the afternoon will not only keep Whiskey happy, but my legs and heart as well. I suspect my iPod is going to get a lot of use this year as a result, but I am quite happy about the prospect of long walks in the fresh air. I'm also still on track to walk shelter dogs one day a week, and go for my final training on Saturday.

In between all this activity, this year is going to be about writing. I have contracted out a former student to supply me a front and back cover for the book I am prepping for e-publishing, and am in my final content edit in between all the physical activity. For those of you who know me, you know I am quite incapable of sitting or lying around for long stretches, and so the shift back and forth between movement and literary solitude is going to be a perfect balance.

We're also trying to plan out some year-long trips now that I am not tied to the school calendar. So far, California is the early October trip, and we are NYC bound for early November so see my brother-in-law in a play, and then are trying to combine a visit to Atlanta to see our in-laws and then possibly a Caribbean cruise from Miami on a second leg. That's as far as we've gotten with the excursions, and are debating the relative merits of Vancouver/Alaska, Italy/Germany/Netherlands for the late spring. It might be an expensive year, but I also suspect it is going to fly so much faster than if I were working.