Finally, Snow

The forecast called for an inch, maybe two. At this point, I think we're around 4, maybe a little more. And the landscape is absolutely beautiful. With no wind, the snow fell virtually straight down, didn't drift or blow away. It's like a giant, white, goose-down comforter covering everything.

Snow on the Pumpkin
I shoveled our walk, our neighbor's walk, and our back deck. The upper body definitely got the workout, and I'm feeling it in my lower back. Like I said yesterday, core work is a must if I'm going to improve with the running and swimming. At one point, I stopped and had to wipe sweat from my face. Even though the temperature is only 30, with no wind and all the movement, I broke a nice sweat. Later I'm going to add to the sweat factor when I run.

This morning, as I was searching for an event to do that's somewhat close to home, I ran across this. Amazing. Puts lots of things into perspective, like my whining about not being faster. I'm not faster because I don't put in the effort. End of story. And now, end of whining. What an amazing man Jon was, and after watching this clip and reading further about Jon's life, I wiped the tears from my face, went outside, and shoveled snow, giving thanks for being able to dig into the heavy white stuff, for being able to feel the falling snow against my face, for just being. I have a pretty good life. It's time to recognize this and step up to show some appreciation for it.

Comments

Natalia said…
Hi JK, thank you for visiting my blog. The upper body workout is good for building endurance, and it will show in the pool. I loved the piece on your new bike. I feel pretty much the same about mine. In fact, we have 4 bikes in our very small flat. My husband will not allow my bike into the bedroom!
December 7, 2010 at 10:27 PM
JK said…
My kids laugh at me about my bike being right next to my side of the bed. They think their mother is a loony tune. But I think they also see their mom loving an activity and this motivates them to find their own thing to love.
December 9, 2010 at 7:58 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marriage: A Meeting in the Middle?

Monday marked the 9th wedding anniversary for Hubby and me. We went to a nicer restaurant in town to have dinner and celebrate. Unfortunately, what should have been a lovely dinner spiraled downward, each of us unhappy with the other by the time we left the restaurant. One comment Hubby made stayed with me the next few days, and Friday, on our way home from taking Lovely Beautiful Daughter and her boyfriend to the airport (another unfortunate event--they were flying to Boston after learning of the unexpected death of her boyfriend's father), Hubby and I talked further about his comment to me at our anniversary dinner. I told him I was considering writing about it here, and he replied that he would love to see what comments I receive regarding this subject. So, here goes. My perspective of a marriage is it is a partnership. Each member of the relationship helps the other out simply because, to me, that's what a partnership entails. Including housework. Yeah. This is why our di...
Read more

Taking My Health Into My Own Hands (Cuz My Doc Certainly Isn't All That Helpful)

After a month of tracking my glucose levels, I've learned a few things, the most important being I need to have something sweet in the evenings. An orange. A fruit smoothie. A vegan chocolate chip cookie. When I don't, my glucose dips with each consecutive morning after not having something sweet, the monitor showing my glucose going lower and lower. While I never went below 79, I was inching lower each morning after not having something sweet the evening before. So now, I make sure I have fruit or a smoothie with dinner. Every now and then I'll have an orange juice mid-day just because. While I don't think a month is long enough to really know if my glucose levels were the culprit for the tachycardia, I have felt so much better. The weird feeling I'd been experiencing when the tachycardia was happening has not happened. The waves of heat that would wash over me, causing me to peel off my sweatshirt or sweater even though my house is at 65 degrees haven't happen...
Read more

Searching for Some Truth

A friend mentioned in a comment that he read David Perlmutter's Grain Brain , and is especially interested in the studies that "show a strong relationship between high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and cognitive / neurological problems." I, too, am very interested in all of these ideas, so I decided to check out Grain Brain . Just a few pages into the book, I was thinking, "My gosh. This is some scary shit." Part of me wanted to think Perlmutter is fear-mongering and working for some big business of some kind, and that eventually I was going to get to the chapter where Perlmutter was going to try and sell me something. Granted, I'm not that far into the book yet, so I haven't come across the selling chapter if there is one, but what I've read so far has been extremely interesting, making me want to continue reading. A month or so ago, I read Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, and one chapter in her book that really got me thinking ...
Read more