Ending Silence and not ever wanting to go back

I lasted about 32 hours in silence before I accidently slipped up in asana class when I had a question. Oops.

It was ROUGH. Not being able to chime in and respond to all of the conversations around was frustrating. And even more frustrating was when I needed to communicate something of importance and writing it down on a little piece of paper wasn't do-able (like while hiking.) I decided I'd go for a second day though... I thought it'd be easier than the first since I kind of knew what I'd be dealing with. As aforementioned, the second day was not completed. I do intend to try again sometime even though I was pretty grouchy by the end of day one. Perhaps on Thursday?

Things have been good. The newness of the place has worn off, so I find myself being prone to more times of feeling like "old Michelle" but at the same time, maintaining the awareness that I've gained since coming here. Most days however, I'm still in bliss:-)

On another note, back a couple of weeks ago I had been driving Meg's car (her name is Ginger) and hit a garbage can that had been semi-in the road and taken off her side view mirror. Oops. I felt horribly, of course, worse than if it had been my own car. We'd gone to Napa Auto, where they assured us that the epoxy that they sold us would do the trick. Nope. So I bought a new mirror online and had it shipped to us. I asked Vishwanath if he'd be able to install it for me. He smiled, and wrote on his chalk board (he's been silent for 30-some YEARS!!!) that he'd take a look at it with me and set me up with some tools. He insisted that ladies should learn how to do this sort of thing :-) So I did! It took me a while, but I took door panel off, unscrewed all the screws, only lost one nut down the inside of the door, disconnected the wires, etc. etc. But I did it! I haven't been this proud of something in a long time. Ginger looks great.

Additionally, I think I have a plan formulating regarding what I'd like to do post-Mount Madonna. I'm not going to write it out here because nothing is set in stone as of yet... but I will say that I'm pretty psyched, and that it involves going to school. There are a lot of little pieces that need to come together, but my vision is getting clearer every day. VERY EXCITED.

Love you all.

Namaste.