Good Mornin'!

Mornin'! Happy Monday...this morning, I was thinking about how different my mornings have become. Back in the city (as I always refer to NYC), mornings were a hurried and rushed experience. After hitting the snooze button way too many times, and jumping out of bed (because I slept too late, not because I was all that excited to be getting out of bed)...I'd tear through our apartment getting dressed and making breakfast and rushing off to school. Breakfast was always eaten en route to school...many a morning I would walk through the East Village streets carrying a bowl of blueberries and yogurt. And yes, I would walk to school even in the snow...

After the walk to school, there was no coffee in the morning for me...a small herd of 5 year olds provided all the energy I needed. It seems almost silly to compare life here to life in NYC...but it provides a relative comparison.

Here, as you can probably imagine, things move at a much different pace. We wake rather early...whoa, relative term. I should say that we naturally wake up at what feels like an early hour. Since we don't have an alarm clock, early usually means 7am or so. Breakfast has become a leisurely meal...we sit on the open-air terrace of our hotel and watch the waves crash and the rain fall.

We often sit for hours, long after the coffee grinds are all that is left in the bottom of each cup. Usually during breakfast, Julia writes or reads and I busy myself with blogging or e-mailing. It has been a rare pleasure to allow myself to peruse the internet in ways that previously felt like wasting time. It's quite lovely to be able to read articles and blogs online, and to simply enjoy them. I recognize in saying this that most of you will read this and think, 'oh, dear, what a lazy gal.' But it's taken me some practice to get good at relaxing into things. I've always been the type of vacationer that feels a need to 'go' and 'see' and 'do'...so it's been good for me to just 'be'. I think the yoga I've gotten into recently has helped me to 'be' in the present...lovin' that.

After breakfast, I go for a run. Or we go to a yoga class. Running has been a wonderful way to explore this rural town, and my regular route takes me down a gravel road next to farms and lush jungles -- with the sounds of the waves never too far.

When we announced our move to CR, the second most popular question was “What are you going to do all day?” The lovely aspect of this answer is that there is no one answer to this question. I'm keeping myself busy with graduate school applications and wedding planning...but also with reading and yoga and walking on the beach. It's often hard to believe that my days feel as full as they do...but it's nice to know that I truly feel like I'm enjoying every moment.