Rest Gone Awry and Regained, Plus Music to Chill By

I fully intended to rest my body completely, but somehow I felt compelled to knock out a long, physical workout in between two thick slices of rest--quite a sandwich.

The first part of the day was peaceful and restful. Thanks be to God for my pastor Sam's message this morning--it is likely to be the source of the morning entry tomorrow. Worship, fellowship, and the Word made for an enlightened start to the morning.

I came home after church and relaxed to the mixed tune of the NFL Playoffs and the Michigan-Iowa basketball game. I am not a huge NFL fan, but these are the biggest games of the year, so they tend to make for entertaining theater. And as for the basketball game, Michigan looks like an absolute juggernaut. The Illini fan in me was not all that happy to watch them dismantle Iowa. 

And then I did something I almost never do--I took a nap. You may be asking what the big deal is there--napping in front of sports programming on a Sunday afternoon--but it is truly a rare occurrence for me. It felt pretty good, to be honest--maybe I'll do that more often. And even as I woke from it, I was perfectly content to stay put until I got a text from a friend about a personal record he had just set at his gym. Those get me juices flowing, and they also make me wonder what I am doing sitting around when someone I know is getting after it at the gym. So I broke my rest day agreement and headed in for what turned out to be a pretty tough workout for myself. I felt antsy heading in and awesome when I was done, so I think it was the right thing to do. I am so blessed to still be able to do hard movements at my age--I hope God keeps blessing me with the physical capacity to do those.

All of which returned me to rest mode again--full circle. And as I'm writing, I am playing what I will share as the listening suggestion for the night:

Broken Bells, Broken Bells: One of my favorite discs of the last ten years, and extremely difficult to classify. Spacey, with a mixed feel of techno, folk and straight pop--oddly and beautifully sung (by James Mercer of the Shins, another band worth knowing) and full of interesting beats, echo, tempos. Kind of the kitchen sink of sounds and styles--I almost feel hip listening to it and knowing that I own it. Made many of the best album lists for 2010, and rightfully so.