Screw guilt.

I feel guilty.

It's a stunner of a day for the first of July, 68 degrees and sunny. Yet I remain sedentary on the front porch, sipping mango black sun tea and fidgeting with shoulds and supposed tos. I should be mowing the lawn and repainting my shutters. I'm supposed to take the dogs to Island Lakes to go hiking and canoeing with Goat. Yet I remain in my spot, contemplating a nap and a long stretch of sitting in a sunny patch on the carpet and reading. Watching that movie I've had from Netflix for three weeks, cozy on the couch with the dog and cats.

I have another 5k run this evening and I'm still sore from my bout of obsessive gardening yesterday. I ripped out some grass, weeded for hours, laid mulch around the boxwoods, trimmed back the shrubs, swept, hauled dirt and set all the yard waste by the curb to be swept up by the garbage men and composted. I am sore and tired and all I'm going to do today is relax until I go pick up Champ and we head up the the race.

Yet outside calls to me, all blue skied and wind whispery. Temptress you are, you beautiful day you. Calling to me to step out into the sunshine and replace the storm door. Feel the breeze tickle my ears and sun toast the top of my head as I clean up the back yard.

This totally reminds me of swimming parties my coach had back in my early teen years. A few times a season on the day of a swim meet (usually against our big rivals, Bloomfield Surf) Coach Dan would gather up the younger team members after practice and bring them to his house to watch scary movies and hang out for most of the day. Every good swim coach knows that a swimmer's favorite thing to do after swim practice is swim all day until we were so tired we could barely see straight. Fat lot of good we would have been competing in a swim meet if we were near drowning from exhaustion. Dan was a great coach and knew to keep us quiet, he would have to supervise all of us. Zombie movies, healthy snacks and girls giggling about boys are the things I remember. Good times.

So today, I am without my team mates of days gone by, but I still feel that little excited wiggle in my belly. I get to spend a decadent day napping in the sun and other limited energy output activities. Tonight I get to go run.

I kinda feel like a kid again for the first time in a long while.