Mindful breathing

Three weeks ago, I was trying to track down a BBQ that we were headed to and I couldn't find the street address that I'd written down. But I could hear the sound of people talking and laughing drifting from a backyard so I figured that that was the right place.  I headed toward the noise and was focused on figuring out which house it was coming from. I was so focused on listening that I failed to focus on, you know, walking.  The ground was super-wet from the previous night's storm and I ended up skidding, sliding, and eventually falling onto my knee.

Besides the indignity of showing up at a party (filled with work colleagues!) with muddy jeans, I over-bent my knee and by the end of the night, it was so swollen I could barely walk. I took a lot of ibuprofen for the inflammation, took it easy at dance class a few days later, and figured it would fix itself.

Shockingly, it did not. You know what helped? A yoga class that I took on Sunday.  Even though I had to be careful about which poses I did, by the end of it, my knee didn't hurt at all.  So I've been trying to work in a little yoga here and there to help speed up the process. I'm not sure if it's the tension-releasing aspects or if it's a specific stretch that helps or some combination thereof, but it seems to be doing the trick.

Only thing: very difficult to have mindful, peaceful breathing when your baby is in the same room. I have learned to kick the pets out when I do yoga or pilates because they tend to view the floor as their territory and thus if you're on it, they have the right to come check things out, and it's hard to relax when your cat is biting your feet or your cat and dog are having a rumble by your head. I guess I will have to do the same thing with the baby, at least until I can calm down about her a bit.