Yoga and Meditation Retreat

Two things I very rarely do voluntarily are difficult exercise, and spending time away from my husband. Last month, I did both, and I felt great about it! (Don't get me wrong though; I still missed him, and my couch.)

When some folks at our church announced they were hosting a Yoga and Meditation Retreat, my first thought was, "That's great for other people." My second thought was, "Actually, I would probably benefit a lot from this." My third was, "Quick! Sign up now before you talk yourself out of it!" So I did.

Photo (and subject) courtesy of organizer Lauren

The thing is, I've never really done yoga or meditation before. I wasn't too worried about the meditation, but the yoga was another story. I bought a mat and found a free video guide online. It turns out my new living room is pretty much perfect for yoga in front of the TV. Just move the coffee table aside, and you're ready to go! (A side bonus of this practice is I'm motivated to clean the floors regularly.) The end result: I certainly didn't become a yogi in the time between sign-up and retreat, but I wasn't totally lost either.

The retreat was held at Raccoon Creek State Park over a weekend. (I went tent camping there last summer.) The facilities were much nicer than I expected, and we had the place to ourselves.

Our lovely little cabin

We started out Friday evening with yoga and introductions. Then we went to our cabins with instructions to stop talking to each other as soon as possible, and keep silent until lunch on Saturday. This idea freaked a lot of people out, but it was like heaven on earth to me! It freed me from social pressures so I could really concentrate on what we were learning. I was sad when lunch ended and everyone started talking again. I actually went back to the cabin to be alone and try to stretch it out a bit. That's one thing which really impressed me about the way the retreat was run: They made it very clear that you could skip out on anything if participation was not in the best interests of your self-care.

Yoga
(Apologies: I cannot recall this instructor's name)
(Photo stolen from Lauren's Facebook)

One of the things that surprised me about this retreat was the large amount of focus placed on meditation toward mindfulness. I was geared up for the yoga beforehand, but it turned out to be just a tool for mindfulness itself. I knew a little about the practice going in, but not as much as I thought I did. Brandi worked with us on basic principles and gave us a great hand-out. (It may be a helpful introduction if the idea is new to you.) She also put us through an intense yoga session to practice mindfulness in discomfort. Neil coached us in mindful walking and eating, and hosted a fascinating presentation about emotional mindfulness.

Brandi teaching
(Photo stolen from Lauren's Facebook)

The experience was peaceful and it was also a lot of work. The weekend blew by quickly. In the month or so since then, I've had a hard time incorporating what I learned in my daily life. We were warned that would be the case. Still, I can see some benefits which have stuck with me through the last month. I have been more calm and focused. I've had an easier time becoming calm and focused when I'm not. And for the first time in forever, I'm hearing music in the back of my mind again. (Those of you who know me well will know that's a big deal.)

Thank you, friends and strangers who organized this retreat! And thank you friends, strangers, and new friends who participated along with me. I hope this can become a regular recurring event. (...and I hope next time I can talk Shane into joining me!)

Meditation
(Photo stolen from Lauren's Facebook)

Namaste.

P.S. My new background image is courtesy of the Graphics Fairy.

Vacation - Part 5: Gettysburg

This is my last vacation post! I will try to keep it brief. It's a shame, really, because I remember being super excited to write about this final part of our trip. But a lot has happened since early September, and I am sick of waiting to write about it all. Hopefully, the pictures will help to do the talking.

We spent a day and a half exploring Gettysburg, PA. I think two would've been perfect. We were camping again; this time at Cunningham Falls State Park in Maryland. The park was wonderful! I hope to return someday just to explore the hiking trails. However, a word to the wise: the campgrounds got very busy on the weekend.

The first morning, we drove straight to the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center. It is a big, beautiful building with lots of parking. We booked a personal tour in advance. I highly recommend it! For almost the same price as two bus tour tickets, we had a delightful guide drive our car around the park for us. His name was Ted Gajewski, and we loved him! His delivery was polished, but he paused often to ask if we had questions. His enigmatic presentation made the battle feel real and immediate to me. When he concluded the tour on Cemetery Hill, I had to resist the urge to applaud him!

Included with the tour was admission to the visitor center's museum, video presentation, and cyclorama experience. If I had a do-over, I would check out the indoor stuff first. We breezed through the museum before our tour, which gave me the background I needed to truly understand the story our guide walked us through. But I would've liked to have had a closer look. We saw the video/cyclorama presentation after our tour. The video was terribly redundant at that point, but the cyclorama is spectacular! It is a giant wrap-around painting accompanied by a recorded light and sound presentation. A voice-over talks about the battle with gunshots and explosions in the background. Sadly, I could not stay in that room for very long. After our immersive tour, it was too much for my poor emotionally spongy self to handle.

Me & Abe outside the visitor's center

After the battlefield, we took the free trolley from the visitor center to downtown Gettysburg. I was impressed by how non-commercial the place was (esp. compared to Williamsburg). It didn't seem like a tourist town so much as just a small town which happens to have some tourist business.

There was a house museum on my agenda which advertised a look at everyday family life around the time if the Civil War. I figured it would be a nice break from all the upsetting battle talk. Boy was I wrong! Please don't misunderstand; the Shriver House is a great place. The tour guide was nice and competent, and wore period clothing. But I was not going to avoid sad stories there. The Shriver family had it rough! Granted, most families in Gettysburg did. The battle left behind something like 15-20 times more wounded, dead, and dying soldiers than there were local civilians. Essentially, every building became a hospital in some way.

After all that sad, we went to Hunt's Battlefield Fries for dinner. It doesn't look like much, but the reviews online were great. They were right! We enjoyed awesome cheese-steak, and super friendly service. Also, they had more bottled craft soda than I've ever seen in one place.

We were beat after dinner, so we called it a night early. On our second morning in Gettysburg, we packed up the tent and drove downtown. We found good coffee at the Cafe Saint-Amand, but the wait time for food was super long. That was a bit of a problem because we had an appointment for our photo to be taken. The experience we had with Victorian Photography Studios was great, though. Check out our awesome wet-plate photo:

I plan to use it for our Christmas card! (Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a picture where are heads are being held still by metal brackets, right?) Incidentally, I'm still trying to come up with a good caption for the card. Something like "Party like it's 1859", but you know... good. Please tell me if you have any ideas!

After the photo session, we got delicious ice cream from Mr. G's Ice Cream, toured the Gettysburg Foundation's headquarters/free museum called the Rupp House, and hit the road for home. It was fantastic to take a whole week off! We saw family, explored history, and enjoyed the great outdoors. I ticked two places off my "Travel Dreams" pinboard, and discovered another destination that I liked even better! I don't know when we'll have another chance to take a vacation like this, but I hope it's soon.

Vacation - Part 4: Williamsburg

Thanks for coming back with me after my unintentional hiatus! It's been a crazy month. Let's get back to that summer vacation. (My goal is to finish writing about it before Christmas...)

The penultimate stop on our big vacation was at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. This was by far the most commercialized experience on our journey. It took me some sleuthing online to figure out the set-up, as their website is huge! It's pretty, but not so straightforward. Basically, anyone can walk around the small neighborhood called "Revolutionary City" for free. Here's the website's description:

"The Historic Area of Colonial Williamsburg stretches over 301 acres, and includes 88 original 18th-century structures. Hundreds of houses, shops and public outbuildings are reconstructed on their original foundations. Some buildings are open to the public, while others are private residences and administrative offices."

Inside these "open to the public" spaces there are often costumed actors. Some of them were tradespeople just going about their business and answering questions from tourists. Some were more classic tour-guides with a script to follow as they showed us around. All of these areas require a pass to access.

The Smithy

We arrived bright and early at the visitor center. It is a modern building which seemed to me like a cross between a shopping mall and a small airport. We found our way to a ticket kiosk which spit out two badges for us to clip to our clothes. Shane hunted down an employee for a map. After gaping at the long schedule of special performances and demonstrations printed on it, we decided to just wing it. (Insider tip: Another thing the website doesn't say is that tickets purchased online are about $10 cheaper than the ones you buy in person.)

There is a shuttle bus which will take you down from the visitor center. We decided to walk in though. It was not a short walk, but it was a beautiful morning. After winding around on hiking trails near the highway, we emerged behind the reconstructed governor's mansion. We were in! And we were hungry!

We found a historical tavern. (I am 90% sure it was the King's Arms.) We were seated in the basement; which is way neater than it sounds. The floor was the original brick floor from the 1700s, the old cooking fireplace filled a whole wall, and it was lit almost entirely by candles! The food was rather plain, but well made. I was super excited about the appetizer though: Pasties! Well, they were more like meat turn-overs... but they were still really good.

After our bellies were full, we walked to the far end of the compound, figuring we'd work our way back slowly. The farthest mark on the map was something called "Bassett Hall". When we arrived, we found a tour about to begin with only two other people, so we jumped in. We were told that this was one of the family homes of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Yes, that Rockefeller. It turns out that he and his wife were the philanthropic catalysts for the preservation of Colonial Williamsburg. It was not at all what I expected! It is decorated as they had it in the 1940's, and Mrs. Rockefeller's tastes were super kitschy. It reminded me of my great-grandparents' farm in Iowa, except you know... expensive. (Sorry, no pictures were allowed.)

We wandered back to the main road, and tried to get into a tour at the Capitol Building. The guard outside told us we'd have to wait fifteen minutes, but that the Declaration of Independence was about to be read. We said "Ok. We can wait." and his reaction was something like "Whatever you want, weirdos." Except he was stoic, and old-timey, and polite. But I bet that's what he was thinking, because it turns out the Declaration is kind of a big deal. So we wandered on over. There were costumed actors on the street with microphones, reciting reactions people might have had at the time like: "'All men created equal'? Maybe that means us slaves too." and "'All men created equal'? Maybe that means us women too." (The response to which was, in both cases, "Don't be stupid. It doesn't.")

Me with the stoic guard outside the Capitol Building & the declaration of the Declaration

After the performance was over, a ton of people headed toward the Capitol Building entrance. So we ended up skipping it. Also nearby was something Shane's brother told us we absolutely could not skip: the Coffee House. Boy was he right! We were given a pretty long speech describing how coffee houses were like fancy bars. They also rented out rooms for people who wanted to throw small parties. Then we walked through the house, and were given samples! My coffee was amazing: more like Turkish coffee than modern American stuff. Shane ordered a hot chocolate. It was un-sweetened, and very rich. We loved it! But it was definitely a more grownup taste than Swiss Miss with marshmallows.

We wandered around a bit more, visiting tradespeople. All told, we saw a joiner (frame maker), tinsmith, blacksmiths, basket weavers, gunsmith and the palace kitchens. There were bunches more to see, but we ran out of time! If I ever get to come back, I'll be sure to plan at least two days to take everything in.

 (Clockwise from top-left) Basket weavers; Tin-smith (With new baskets!);
Joiner with a planer; A typical meal in the governor's kitchen building (Yes, that's real food!)

Our final stop of the day was back at the Governor's Palace. We were given a tour by a very nice lady who told us she was a servant in the house, and just the night before the masters had fled in anticipation of the revolution. This governor was England's representative in the colonies. He and his family were the only true nobility around. The palace is a modern re-construction, but you'd never know it. They followed every detail they could find, right down to the correct number of dishes in the pantry according to the housekeeper's inventory.

How many weapons do you need, Lady?!?

The palace has beautiful gardens in the back stretching for acres. There is a whole plantation back there too. But we were beat! We waved goodbye to the palace, found a modern sandwich shop nearby, and took the bus back to the car. I hope there will be another visit to Colonial Williamsburg in our future. This time, we barely skimmed the surface!

Goodnight, Palace. Goodnight, big lawn. Goodnight, tourists and tiny dog.

Vacation - Part 3: Jamestowne

After visiting awesome family in NC, we drove up to Williamsburg, VA. We pitched our tent at Chickahominy Riverfront Park. The park is at the intersection of two rivers. This made for swampy conditions, but spectacular views.

click to embiggen

There were practically no other people, but we weren't lonely. I have never seen so many raptors in one place! At first, it was cool. But by our third night, I was pretty sick of the vultures.

Our fist day was devoted to driving and getting settled. The next morning we woke up bright and early to get to Historic Jamestowne in time for the "In the Trenches" tour. This was my favorite part of our sight-seeing! I knew it was only offered twice a month, and I knew it was lead by the Project Director: Archaeologist Dr. William M. Kelso. What I didn't know is that Dr. Kelso discovered the ruins of Jamestowne fort.

Jamestowne was the first successful English settlement in North America. It started out with just 100 men and 4 boys in 1607. They had a lot of trouble at first, but the settlement eventually became a thriving town. For nearly 100 years it was the center of English commerce in America.

In the 1960s, a young Bill Kelso toured the island (which was a peninsula in the 1600s) and was told that the remains of the fort had been covered by the James River. Two decades later, now an archaeologist, he discussed the fort with his mentor who agreed that the ruins might still be buried on land. A group of lady historians had been given a portion of the island in the late 1800s  to protect a 17th century church tower. They had a concrete barrier erected to protect it from the encroaching river.

The tower was being restored.
The attached church was erected in the early 1900s.
It's only a guess at the original.

After another decade of paperwork, Dr. Kelso was given permission to dig on the land still owned by the historical society (now called Preservation Virginia). He went to the park alone with a shovel and chose a nice shady spot between the church and the river. After only a half-hour of digging, he found a piece of pottery! He turned to a tourist nearby and told her "I found Jamestowne!" He said she responded by slowly backing away. :) It turns out, he'd found the basement of a building in the fort!

Now fully excavated, they've made a recreation of the frame of that building.

The site is still an active archaeological dig. Most of the first fort walls have been located, and replicas have been built. The first Anglican church in America was discovered. (Where Pocahontas was married.) A few other structures have been excavated; and many, many human remains have been found.

Above, Dr. Kelso shows us the basement kitchen where they recently discovered evidence of cannibalism. The winter of 1609-10 is called the "starving time". It was said that the settlers resorted to eating horses, dogs, boots, and even settlers who died first. But that last one was considered a ridiculous rumor until May 2013 when the skull and a few bones of a 14 year-old English girl were found with the marks of butchering. Jamestowne settlement was important to the forming of the US, but it was not a happy place to be...

Even though many of the stories are bleak, it was exciting to be so close to history. And it was even more exciting to see it in the process of being uncovered. The sense of mystery about the place was exhilarating (for me anyway). The number and quality of artifacts unearthed is incredible! It doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon either. I could go on and on about this place, but I'll leave you with this brief overview. (Not everyone gets as jazzed about history as this nerdy girl!)

Me and Dr. Kelso

If you want to learn more, I suggest checking out the website. Or, you could visit yourself! The park entrance is managed by the National Park Service, so it's probably closed today... But when it opens again, there is a lot to see! The park visitor center includes a museum (which we didn't have time to check out). The dig site includes a beautiful Archaearium: a collection of exhumed artifacts on display. There is also a very nice little cafe right next to the dig site. And if you like monuments, you'll feel right at home.

Capt. John Smith

The National Park section of the island hasn't been excavated at all, which I find a little unnerving as the island is still eroding away. We walked around a bit, looking at the more recent (mid-late 1600s) ruins. We also drove around the rest of the island reading plaques and marveling at how crazy swampy it is there. (I have never seen such giant flies before!)

A friend in the Nat. Park ruins

Swaaaaamp

If you can swing it, do try to take the tour with Dr. Kelso. His enthusiasm for the project is infectious. And of course, his stories insights about the fort are second to none.

Vacation - Part 2: Fambly

Friday morning following the concert, we slept in, packed up the car, and drove to a Prince William Forest Park. The park was a little over half-way between home and our first destination. I miscalculated a bit, so we didn't arrive at the campsite until past midnight.  After haplessly wandering around by the office building to make sure we didn't need to sign in; we managed to find our site, pitch a tent in the dark, and get some sleep. We took a risk and skipped putting on the tent's rain fly. With the exception of one bit of bird poop, it proved to be a wonderful decision!

My view upon waking

On Saturday, we drove another three hours or so and checked into our hotel room. Once everything necessary or melty was in the air-conditioned room, we headed over to Shane's brother's house.

You know the expression "You can't choose your family"? Well, these family I would choose. Shane's oldest brother, Avery, lives in North Carolina with his wife, Heather, and their rapidly growing children. The kids are very dear to our hearts. Shane feels especially close to them since he acted as a sort of "third parent" one summer years ago to help out during a medical emergency. I just think they're amazing!

We went out to Chick-fil-A for dinner and hung out a little bit afterward. The next day was Sunday, so we attended church with them. We met lots of folks there who were sincerely welcoming in a beautiful way. We went out to lunch at a nice buffet, and made a pit-stop to buy injera before going back to their home.

Injera is an Ethiopian bread made from teff flour; traditionally with special yeast cultures passed down through generations. It tastes a bit like a bitter beer-bread pancake. We needed injera because Heather made Ethiopian food for dinner!

I requested this meal specially because I had never had Ethiopian cooking, and it's a semi-regular thing for their family. It was amazing!! For one thing, I have never liked beets before in anything. For another, no matter how full I am, I cannot look at the above picture without craving more! The meal was also accompanied by Ethiopian coffee and herbal tea in beautiful little cups. Even the kids drank the coffee! (They did put tons of milk and sugar in it.)

After dinner we played a board game, and stayed up past all our bedtimes. The next morning we stopped by for a few more hours. (...and some leftover Ethiopian food!) The girls performed a cups song for us. It was super impressive, and must have taken lots of practice!

Leaving was tough to do. Every time we see these fine folks, I wish we could see them more often. But we do have friends and jobs and stuff in Pittsburgh. Besides, we had a lot more fun vacation plans ahead of us!

Summer Break

A cell phone picture of a butterfly from my walk home

So I feel like I haven't been keeping up with the blog the way I'd like to. (Not that I ever promised to be consistent...)

The last month has been eventful, but not in a photogenic sort of way. Shane's dad had surgery a couple of weeks ago, and we spent that weekend at the hospital helping out and hanging out. He's home now and recovering fine. It easily could have been a much more negative experience than it was. Of course it still took energy to support my husband and his family; and that kind of knocked the wind out of my blogging sails.

I still have a couple of fun experiences to share from the beginning of this summer. I'm also excited about a vacation we have planned for the first week in September! This will be my first real vacation as an adult. I think of it as "real" because I'm going where I want to go and because I chose it, instead of joining family/friends in their plans or at their home. Which isn't to say we won't be seeing some family folks... but I asked them if we could visit. That may not seem like a big deal, but it is to me I guess.

While I'm very happy about these plans, another first in this vacation is that I'm spending money for fun's sake in a big way. Of course we've had fun dinners out or seen fun concerts or what-not. But I've never spent on fun on this scale before. It's messing with my head a bit. I keep having to remind myself that we worked hard to save up, and we're being super frugal (like camping most nights instead of staying at hotels). I also think it will be good for me. Not just because of the break from routine, but because I'm currently in the process of learning to live more for today. The theme of my thoughts lately keeps turning to: "Be grateful for what you have now. Don't just plan for tomorrow."

Our Pioneer Camping Trip

Well, now. Since my friend (and soon-to-be neighbor) amberZon mentioned me on her blog yesterday, I suppose it's about time I start catching you guys up with some new material! (Welcome, Zonbie fans!!)

Last fall, Shane and I went camping for the first time. As a kid, Shane would go out roughing it with his friends pretty often, but I had never really been camping myself. Some of our friends invited us to join them for an overnight, so we bought a tent and dug out our sleeping bags. It turns out you need to have a bit more equipment than that for a truly successful camping trip! But our friends had lots of those other things, so we still had a blast.

Our piggy-backed camping trip last fall

Thanks, Wells and Dutras for showing us the ropes!

This spring I got it into my head to flesh out our camping supplies. It started with just an air mattress. Then a travel French press. Before I knew it, I'd amassed quite a kit! I found a giant Rubbermaid container lying around the house and it became home to our camping supplies.

Our set-up, complete with giant Rubbermaid.

Once I had all of the equipment, I couldn't wait to use it! Shane had a birthday coming up. So I took the Friday of his birthday weekend off, and we made a mini-vacation! Friday morning, I picked up the rental car and took it to buy groceries. Then I went home, filled the cooler, and loaded the car. After a short break to catch my breath, I drove out to Carnegie, PA to pick Shane up from work. Now that I drive very rarely (because we don't own a car), I find driving stressful. So, I felt really proud of myself for trucking all over kingdom-come. Shane drove for the rest of the trip. Bless him.

We stopped off at Lowe's for fire wood (which they had trouble finding for us...), and were on our way. I had reserved a plot online at Raccoon Creek State Park. It's just an hour out of town, and I read somewhere that it was a good place for novice campers. It turned out to be a nice enough place, but I don't think we'll go back because it was close to an airport. The low-flying planes interrupted the peaceful feeling of remoteness we otherwise enjoyed.

Our plot: Before & After

It was a lovely little spot; very large, and far removed from the other campers. We set up shop, made dinner,   and sat quietly by the fire until we were tired. I started the fire too! I don't believe I've ever started a fire all on my own before. I was super ambitious with my choice for dinner: steak and potatoes. The potatoes (and green peppers an onions) turned out great! But while Shane was able to save it, I will not be trying to cook raw steak over a fire ever again. (Maybe if I cooked it at home a bit first...)

The next morning, we woke earlier than I expected to. It was the beginning of May, so the morning was very cold. I was glad to have thought to bring our winter coats along! Shane made eggs and coffee for breakfast, and we took our time.

We put together deli sandwiches for lunch, and decided to bike to the wildflower reserve at the other end of the park. We thought the map said it was 2.5 miles away. The map lied. It turns out, it was more like 5 very hilly miles away. When we stopped under a bridge near the reserve and ate our sandwiches, I proclaimed that I could bike no further. Shane, being a saint and in better shape than I, happily rode all the way back to camp and came back for me with the car. He even had the energy to walk around the wildflower reserve with me! He took lots of pretty pictures. Here are a few:

After our flower-gazing, we hopped in the car. On the way to meet me, Shane had run into a ranger who told him about a store nearby selling ice cream. We decided a pit stop was definitely in order! It was hilariously back-woodsy (intentionally, I think). The ice cream was great, and they had cheap wood for sale, which was good because we underestimated how much to pick up at Lowe's.

We went back to camp, and cooked up the fried rice I'd packed for dinner. I pulled out my little blue ukulele, and we sang together by the fire. Then, we made s'mores with roasted bananas! It's my new favorite thing. It's super messy, but delicious! We read books by flashlight until the fire was low (and I was "attacked" by spiders one too many times). Some noisy neighbors had moved in that afternoon, and they woke me up once. But otherwise our cheap air mattress gave us another good night's rest.

Banana S'mores!!!

The next day, we were beat. There were more eggs for breakfast, and more deli sandwiches for lunch. I gloated a bit in my head while watching everyone else pack up early, knowing we had the whole day to get ourselves together. When cleaning up, we discovered that our tent had been pitched near an anthill! But we never had any trouble with them in the tent. Yay tent! (And yay for the tarp I bought to put under it!) Around noon, we loaded the car and headed home. We were happy and relaxed from our weekend in a way I've never experienced with a "vacation" before. But we were also happy to go back to our bed and shower!