It’s getting warmer and warmer these days.

I woke up this morning wanting to go bouldering. But as I sat up in bed, I realized my quads and bums were both very sore because I did Maddie’s 200-squats workout yesterday. I watched a few bouldering technique videos the night before, so I really wanted to try out some of them, but I wouldn’t be able to since my bums were sore, and many bouldering techniques revolved around hip rotation. I decided to wait for one more day to boulder.

My regular chores on Thursdays involve applying the 3-in-1 plant disease control to bushes and watering the all-purpose liquid plant food to the roses. Since I plan to boulder tomorrow, I did all this regular gardening work today, plus applying some mulch. I started around 8 a.m. and was almost done a little bit after 10. There were three bags of mulch outside of the dining room that I didn’t have enough energy left to apply. The sun was shining fiercely and I could feel the sweat drops running down on my chest and back. I guess these mulch will have to wait for a couple of days.

I turned the irrigation system on to water the lawns before I got back inside, marking the end of today’s gardening work.

From 10:30 to 11:30, I did yoga, following the video instruction from “跟鹅练瑜伽”. The class I picked was supposed to focus on stretching and be light on strength. But as all her other classes were, this one still entailed a few difficult poses. I was pleased that I was able to complete the class with ease. My balance has never been bad.

Then, I spent some time reading Raymond Carver’s short stories. The ones I’m reading now are less scary than those I read from his other collection, What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Love.

I call Carver’s stories “the quintessential everyday American horror stories,” if you know what I mean.