pack light

I'm taking advantage of the freedom of my schedule and visiting a friend in Minneapolis for the weekend. I leave tonight so I had to get packed. When I wait until the last minute to pack it's easy for me to over do it and I HATE it when I pack way too much stuff, so today I am trying to pack light. I think I've succeeded. With this wonderful internet technology I can look up the weather so I don't have to pack something for any possible scenario but can narrow it down and pack what I need. I've also talked to my friend to see if we're doing anything that would merit a 'fancy' outfit so I can make decisions about what to include for that. Since she said yes, I've packed a dress, whole outfit in one instead of lost of extra pieces and have chosen earings and a necklace that will look nice for any occasion. Since I don't really need to 'impress' my friend and it's only about 3 days, all I need is the dress, jeans, 3 shirts, clean socks and underwear and pajamas. I even fit my coat in my bag and a scarf just in case 65 feels colder than I expect it to. And I've stuck in one of those bags that scrunches up small so if we do any shopping or I find anything I want to bring home I'll have space to do that too.

Now I just have to be sure I make it to the airport on time.

Push Yourself

I have run a few 5k races and manage just fine, not much training or anything other than my regular trying to go to the gym... so when I saw that there was a 10k for women coming up and me with all this free time, I decided to register. The first step was that I needed new shoes. I have a hard time swallowing the $100 price tag on good running shoes, especially when the money I have coming in at the moment is minimal, but my physical health is important and the chance of injury if I don't have proper shoes increases exponentially.

Now I just have to get myself to do some practice runs, especially considering that I have 2 weeks to prepare. There's a nice bike path by our house so I decided to take advantage and try it out. I thought a lot about it and spent most of the day coming up with excuses of why I should do other things instead of run so by the time I was going to leave the house it was starting to get dark, instead of letting that be another road block for myself I grabbed my headlamp. The bike path does not have lights and since it is used by cyclists I need them to be able to see me so they don't run into me and I don't topple them over. I wore it like a bracelet and it worked really well to provide some illumination in front of me and make me noticeable to others on the path. Then I also had to push myself to keep going. My initial goal was to run about 1.5 miles out and turn around and loop back but once I hit that point I challenged myself to push farther and continued another half mile down the path before turning around. It felt really good to get off my but and get out there and to go farther than I had expected to. Now to keep my motivation for a few more runs before the 10k.

Cauliflower Soup

Saute garlic and onion in a little olive oil

add desired seasonings - for example, turmeric, salt, pepper

add some fresh herbs - we used dill

add chopped cauliflower, stir and let begin to cook

add water and let cook until cauliflower is tender

Fall Traditions

My family is in town and my sister and I discovered that my parents have never been apple picking. My grandmother has some tress in her yard, so they have picked apples, but have never gone out to an orchard to do it. Apple picking makes me think fall in New England, it's a great way to get outside and have something to show for it so we looked up a farm and headed North. We had a great time at Brooksby and even treated ourselves to fresh cider donuts with a cup of fresh apple cider.

feels like a summer evening

We have been having nice weather - some days a little too humid for my taste but warm this time of year is nice. I'm babysitting a few nights a week for a very cute little 5 month old girl, to celebrate her 5 months today and get to enjoy some nice weather while we've still got it today I decided to take her out for a walk. My partner said he would join us and surprised me with a picnic. It was a wonderful way to end the week and a great way to take advantage of the end of the season.

stop for the details

I find myself in a rush for no apparent reason these days. I'll go out to get groceries and then race to the store and back. What am I rushing for? Am I scared to be away from the house? Why do I feel like I need the excuse of a destination and 'purpose' for going somewhere instead of just going to get out of the house and get some exercise, see something new or rediscover something I've seen a hundred times before?

Today I need to pick up some things from the store but I did not rush, I let myself look around and take in the little things.

Today, I noticed a sunflower. I've noticed them before, I like sunflowers but I never really stopped to look at it's beautiful face and today I did

and I noticed that it's made up of lots of tiny flowers around each of the seeds and at the end of the seeds were little loops, I'd never noticed these tiny loops before. This flower, which I like, I suddenly realized that I'd never really looked at, never really seen all the intricate details of it's growth that come together to make it so impressive.

It seems a bit strange to have such a sudden fascination with a flower but I feel like it was a good reminder, to pay more attention to all the details, that there is always something new to see, and that face value is not the whole of anything, everything is worth a closer look.

transplant

More work to be done on our house... in preparation for the front porch to be ripped off and replaced we had to make some choices about the plants in front of the porch. We haven't invested much in that part of the yard, aside from some weeding it's all been existing plants. Right in front of the porch that's being replaced is a nice, healthy rhododendron and we decided that was worth trying to save.

Today I tried to figure out how to dig it up and keep it healthy for the two weeks it should take to replace the front porch. It was a two person job, we dug up the rhode, lifted it in to the wheelbarrow so we could easily move it to the back of the house, and then decided that the wheelbarrow is probably the best place to keep it until we're ready to put it back. Now we just have to remember to give it lots of water.