Music Mondays: Stop, breathe, reset.

I woke up to a jackhammer annihilating the pavement in front of my house this morning at 7:30. Since today was the day I gave myself to sleep in, you may go ahead and safely assume that I was not exactly thrilled about this aggressive wake-up call. Now, when I say "sleep in" I mean until around 8am but still, that half hour is crucial! Anyway, my annoyance was only momentary because really, what could I do about it? I was now awake and the work outside did not appear to be stopping anytime soon. So I dragged myself out of bed and into my workout clothes. Although my day started at Pure Barre with lifting, toning, and burning to Top 40 music, it feels more a serene Monday. It feels more like a day I want to stop and enjoy rather than rush through it while listening to Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, and Selena Gomez.

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Music Mondays: Paper pusher's playlist

I'm not usually the kind of person who's like, "Ugh. Mondays." But today has been one of those Mondays. You know the ones - the hit snooze two (okay, three) times, forget to do one stupid thing and it puts you a half hour behind schedule, spill your latte, forget to pack a drink with your lunch, drive around the God-forsaken parking garage-turned-death-trap because no one uses turn signals for literally 15 minutes until you find a spot, then walk into work and get handed this: 

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Nothing but time.

The moment I jumped off the tractor the sticky-sweet vapors of Suncrisp, Macintosh, and Granny Smith wafted through my body as I instinctively closed my eyes, and took a slow, deep breath, turning my face toward the blazing autumn sun.

Without even deliberately trying I was stopped short by the beauty of my surroundings. As my boots left behind the ethereal dust cloud that formed when I hit the dry, dirt ground, I looked around and realized that upon first glance there was nothing particularly astounding about where I was. Rows of trees that had lost the bottom half of their fruit from the eager, early-in-the-season apple pickers. Overgrown grass threaded through with vines, ensnaring the unsuspecting, happy-go-lucky people uniformed in chestnut brown riding boots and plaid button-downs who have decided to spend the day reaching up tree trunks and weaving themselves in-between branches in hopes of finding that one shiny, perfect, succulent, unblemished apple. Apple picking is kind of strange when you think about it, right? So why do we love it?

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