I'm trying to do yoga. When I say that I'm trying to do yoga, it means I got a sudden urge to one day stretch and actually be able to touch my toes. I am not flexible. So I did a few sun salutations yesterday and felt pretty good about it.

This move from Virginia to Minnesota has been really smooth so far, so naturally I am waiting for the moment where my anxiety will kick in and I'll freak out about being so far from home. So far so good though, you guys.

But what do you do when you feel a little anxious or a little stressed to calm down a bit?

I made a list.

+ Call someone from home. Ask to talk to your dog as well.

+ Go for that run even though you're sore and really don't feel like it.

+ Make some tea. While the water boils, stretch.

+ Watch a couple episodes of

Friends

. Works every time.

+ Write something down. Step away from it and add or edit.

+ Look through old photos and laugh at your hair.

+ Lie down on the couch and read something.

What do you do when you need to chill out?

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This post is sponsored by 

Ice Mountain® Natural Spring Water

.

It's that time of year when I wake up with a shiver, giddy over the chill in the air and that smell of autumn that may or may not exist outside of my own imagination. I put on a scarf or a sweater, make coffee, and proceed to ignore the afternoon as it warms up, because it's still summer, but I'm ready for it to be fall.

I was running this morning and it was a damp and comfortable 60 degrees, but the sun was shining on parts of the sidewalk and I thought about how amazing it is that I could be running in Virginia (in Farmville or Roanoke or Charlottesville), or I could be running in Minneapolis, and although I am not the same person I was seven years ago, I can feel almost exactly the same at this moment that I did at that moment.

I made a turn on a new loop and was surprised by the smell of coffee coming from a shop on the corner. The coffee shop is right by our apartment building, but looking at it from a different angle; coming at it from a different street, startled me. It looked different, and I felt disoriented. I'm still getting to know my new neighborhood.

It reminded me of the time my old roommate Caroline, our friend Maggie, and I sat on the steps of a building on Longwood's campus before classes started our freshman year. I remember the cold roughness of the cement steps and the sort of horizontal platforms that jutted out on either side, and how later, one afternoon, I walked past that building on my way to something like I always did and realized that it was the same place we had sat that late summers night, weeks before.

I have moved almost every year since starting college in 2006, and each time, it has been at the end of a summer. August awakens a nostalgia in me, and I want to start over in some way every time autumn nears.

The promise of unfamiliar corners becoming ordinary fixtures is something I like. Settling in feels good.

When I first started my job last year, I impulsively bought a little potted succulent to place on my desk at work. I was standing in Kroger, and I don't remember what I had actually popped in to buy, but I remember that on the way to my car, I got caught in one of those torrential rain storms that seem to come out of nowhere from April until July in Virginia.

The succulent looked like a dinosaur. I'm not one to see a plant and think I have to have that, but I picked it up because it reminded me of a stegosaurus and made me smile, and because I was feeling really hopeful. It was summer, and Rob was home, and I was feeling less like a student and more like an adult (and enjoying the transition).

After about six months and too much watering and not enough natural sunlight, the soggy little succulent died. I took it from my office and stuck it in that magical windowsill, vowing never to water it again. The plant continued to die, but not before sprouting a hard, purple-ish little bud in between two grey leaves. I picked it off, abandoned the old plant, and placed the baby one onto new soil.

Lots of things have changed this year. I don't know if the new plant will thrive or struggle or walk the line between the two, but it's beginning to put down roots, and it's good.