After skipping karate Thurs and doing Yoga instead, and laying low this weekend (other than cleaning the house), my neck/shoulder feels much better! I think the acupuncture was KEY.

Monday I went out for a run, about 2.25 miles. At .75 my neck started to twitch but it wasn’t actually painful so I kept going and even added a set of pushups at the end without trouble. Tuesday night is usually karate, but it is a testing night so I figured I’d have one last day of recuperation. My sensei it seems had other plans. She called last night and said Wendy and I are both ready for testing. So quickly ran to a Monday night karate class with a different teacher to get some extra review in before the test. As luck would have it we were the only ones there and he helped us with technique one-on-one and found little tweaks here and there no one had found before. Because we usually practice in front of the same people, and learned from the same people, we made many of the same mistakes. Now I have to remember all the corrections for tonight’s test! This will take me to green belt. I probably won’t have photos this time. The other half of the family will be at the gym while we are testing. It’s a shame because there are at least 4 people testing for black belt, so they should be presenting some fun tricks tonight.

While we were in Tennessee, our sensei had a BBQ at her house. Because we missed it, and because she has been so generous with us, we’re having her for dinner Fri night. Another mom with 2 girls who used to be in the same karate school who I am friends with is coming. She and I enjoy cooking together. Indian food was requested – and curry and aloo gobi she shall get!

My laptop is dying. It’s quite sad. I thought it was totally dead, but it turns out it was the monitor, and when light hit it just right I realized it was working. So I am hooked up to an external monitor until the new one comes. I’m almost out of memory and it keeps doing weird things – 5 years old, it’s time. Thanks for some great time, Gateway, but I’m on to Dell now.

If you are in my area, a day-long health and wellness event will take place in St Pete during National Yoga Month. It’s called Energize Tampa Bay, and they’ve secured the PUSH dance club space for the day. I volunteered to design the logo and web site. The web site is a WordPress work in progress, but check it out if you want…

I’m (not so) secretly hoping the Hoola Monsters will come perform!