Do You Want to Touch My New Callus?

I'll admit- I've been in a funk these past couple of days.  A lots-of-naughty-words kind of funk.  But all that changed today, and I'm pretty sure I know the reason why.

"Reasons", I should say.

The first is that, after a week of eating not-so-clean, I've gotten things back on track these past couple of days.  Also I got back into going to bed at a reasonable hour, which means that I've actually gotten full nights' sleep these past few nights.  This morning I got up when the sun woke me, at 0645, which is what time I'm supposed to get up, but never do.  So I had almost eight hours of sleep and felt fantastic, and I didn't have to rush out the door which meant I got my sun sals in, and even had time to drink a cup of tea with Nathan.  I mean luxury.

Work was work, but my afternoon walk was glorious- it was warm enough that I didn't need my fleece.  In fact it was so warm that after work I changed into my climbing clothes (t-shirt and a pair of yoga capris) and walked down to the gym that way.

I'd have to say, however, that climbing was definitely what pushed today over the top.  I got there and had a friendly chat session with my favorite lady worker, then did a 5.9 on the auto-belay that had thwarted me last week.  As I later explained to Nathan, doing it wasn't "easy", per se, but it felt right.  I felt in control of myself and my movements, whereas last week I just sort of scrambled and flailed (and didn't make it to the top).  So that was a really great way to start out my session.  Once I got down I chatted with my friend again, this time about the women's technique clinic she's going to be teaching (and I'm going to be taking) and then a fellow climber (who'd admired one of my yoga poses earlier) came over and offered to be belay-partners with me.  That was really nice, because he was much more advanced than I, and I was able to observe him and learn- plus he coached me some (after asking if I wanted it).  So I got in quite a few climbs today, and felt like I made some real progress (although I really need to get to the gym more than once a week if I really want to improve).  And then when Nathan came to pick me up he signed up for the belay class, because his birthday gift to me is learning to be my belay partner.  Hooray!  What an excellent husband!

I did eventually give up on that 5.10 (for now), but not until I'd swung around on the rope for a great deal longer than my belay partner probably thought I would...

On the drive home I was chattering about today's good experiences, and I said, "Look!  I got a new callus on my pinkie today!  Do you want to touch it?  Go on, touch it!"  (he did not want to touch it).  C'mon: I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who gets stoked about new calluses (in fact I distinctly remember my fellow college crew teammates being super stoked about calluses).

Dinner was fabulous (thanks again to excellent husband), and afterwards we went down to REI to pick up my new hiking shoes for Ireland.  That's right, Ireland: we're going in September.  Hooray!