A Week of Dipping!

I've done seven days of dipping in a row, and I'm going to try to keep going! Most of the dips have been with at least one other person, but today, like Thanksgiving, I went on my own. It's a different ballgame, because I just go there, jump in, swim around for 5 minutes, get dressed and leave. As opposed to waiting for everyone to arrive, choreographing a dive routine, dipping, getting out, eating chocolate, sitting in someone's car warming up, and then leaving like 3 hours later - which of course is also fun. Yesterday I was hanging out with this woman in her car before swimming, and we were watching this pontoon boat coming across the lake, and just chatting about it - like, why does someone have a pontoon boat on such a small lake, and was it battery powered, etc. When it stopped at the dock, we realized that Santa was on the boat! Apparently he was coming from a Christmas party at this club on the lake - so funny! We got a picture with him. I'm not sure if there's really any long term effect of all the dipping, it seems to help my sleep and stress levels. 

Today I had the day off and instead of going for a nice hike like I was hoping, I took my cat to the vet. She attacked me a couple times - it was pretty scary actually. Now I know how poor Rufus feels. Anyhow, he thinks it's her thyroid, but the numbers don't make it seem like she needs meds yet. I bought her a supplement from Chewy - we will see if it helps. 

PS. Water is around 47 degrees!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to my reader. :) It's been a minute since I posted, but I've still been swimming, doing yoga and parkour. The water in the lake is getting cold again - it's down to 48. I've been swimming for three days in a row now - it's weird how much I like it when it's so cold! Today I stopped by the lake on my way to my sister's for Thanksgiving. When I got there, this guy told me that there was some ice on the lake already! He'd been kayaking and I think thought swimming was a bad idea. I thanked him politely, and went and down to the water. Since it was just me, I was able to get there, lay out my stuff, strip to my swim suit, and jump in. I've been jumping off the dock lately because it's so much easier - you just have to be decisive for one step and then your in the water. I do try to breathe out to make sure I don't gasp in air. Will have to see how long I can do this.

I stayed in the water for just 5 minutes, got out, dried off, got dressed, and left. It's at the point where my skin feels cold and a little numb, but not freezing. Getting out of the water feels warm because I'm a little numb, but it's not so numb that I can feel my skin.

I made two pies - pumpkin cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and a sour cream and turmeric glaze. My sister was like "turmeric is so healthy!" Tee hee. And an apple pie. I'm only pescatarian 364 days a year (except leap year, which is 365) and I have to say I ate a lot of turkey, and it was delicious! I even carved it and didn't mind.

One of my cats has a bad case of food aggression. I'm going to try some CBD oil to see if it helps. I should take her to the vet I suppose, but we were there just a few weeks ago, and her blood work was fine.  

Beach yoga and a Baptism

I've never seen anyone be baptized before, so it was kind of fun to have a baptism at the beach! One of the new swimmers is a yoga instructor, and she offered to do a 20 minute restorative class on the beach. There was actually a pretty good crowd, probably about 20 or so of us, which isn't that common for our winter swims. The beach is a little bit hilly, which added to the intensity of the yoga, because we were tilted downhill for our dogs and planks. We started the class by setting an intention and doing some gentle stretches, which felt really nice on the beach in the sand. Then we did some cat cows and sun salutations.

As we started moving, the church group came down to the water - I think they were surprised to see a yoga class on the beach. They had a little ceremony and the four guys who were being baptized gave speeches, and then they went into the water. There were two guys who did the dipping, and a woman who was in the water taking photographs. The first guy walked in, and we could hear them doing some prayers, and then they dunked him! Everyone from the church group clapped, and the yoga group all paused our warrior 2 and clapped too. The four went in one at a time, and we clapped for all of them. It was a pretty funny day at the beach. (There were a few people there who were just there to be at the beach, and they were like "WTF?")

The church ceremony ended right around when the yoga class did. They all left and we changed into our swimsuits and went for a swim/dip. I'd already been to a kind of killer parkour class, so I just went in and treaded water without swimming. It was about 61 degrees in the water.