“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

     Here's to a good 2020 for us all!  Look out, 2020, here we come.


     Dan Fogelberg, Same Old Lang Syne
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving, in our eloquence
Another "Auld Lang Syne"
  



(update, 1561.4 miles run out of 2019 mile goal, + 566.4 miles walked, elevation gain 37, 297')  
Run streak days 1944.          

Mysterious swarms of giant drones have started to appear in the Colorado and Nebraska night sky, and nobody knows where they're coming from

https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-drone-swarm-mystery-in-colorado-nebraska-skies-2019-12?fbclid=IwAR3fi62M5Ad1N-5bLHAkSHjSvcS9Rbc1UIO48hFdWpMQUgxdZL56IJXEzcQ

People ask me what I'm doing tomorrow, I answer "Come on, I don't have 2020 vision", Dad Jokes

Wise words

                                                                     Wild Woman Sisterhood

"You are a future of multifarious possibility."

     I need to simplify my life and give away excess stuff, but books are hard.This must be why.

I'm so sorry.......(LOL)

I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.
  
From:                

Invictus

William Ernest Henley - 1849-1903

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” ― J.M. Barrie

     I hope you all had an awesome holiday season thus far.  I'm back home.  It is snowing and I will have to shovel later.  The mail brought me a jury duty notification.  But I got Charleigh-dog from the kennel and home again without sliding into a ditch, so all is good. And Christmas was awesome.  I hope yours was, too.

Celebrate this winter solstice! The days will soon be getting longer.

     This seems to fit the times in which we live.

New thought for the holidays.....

What's the best that can happen?

Happy Holidays.

A big thank you to everyone who made me smile this year. 

Fascinating nature fact of the day.....

     On yesterday's walk we saw masses of ducks continuously paddling in tight rings. There were multiple circles operating at once. Some birders happened to be nearby doing a bird count.  It turns out these ducks are northern shovelers. It is thought that they swim in tight circles to set up a rotation, an agitation or vortex, that brings up food to the surface.....algae, crawfish, slugs, and whatever else ducks eat. We could learn a lot from their cooperation.

I saw this today and felt the need to share.

                         

                                                                                        The Other 98%

     It's getting to be that time of year to start planning for 2020.  What are you contemplating? I'm not sure yet....LOL. I need to try new things, though.

Health-related info I found today and want to share:

300 MEDICAL STUDENTS IN DETROIT COMPLETE THE FIRST MANDATED PLANT-BASED NUTRITION PROGRAM IN THE US

https://vegnews.com/2019/12/300-medical-students-in-detroit-complete-the-first-mandated-plant-based-nutrition-program-in-the-us?fbclid=IwAR1FZwcjiwKEsiDSXZl83ZdPtZBXwDz9s0qSXxCiZHvrFR8PdG_95A5olws

The Benefits of Early Time Restricted Eating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cAhfZa1Rac

At long last doctors are starting to receive some nutritional education.
Have a healthy holiday.

This made me laugh and it is so true.

Dare to live a great story...

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” ― Voltaire

     I read this quote today.  Is this where the label "snowflake" originates?  I had to do a little research.

In Missouri in the early 1860s, a 'snowflake' was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery—the implication of the name being that such people valued white people over black people. This use seems not to have endured.

From Chuck Palaniuk's book "Fight Club":
In the 1999 movie adaptation the lines go like this:
“Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not the beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. We are all part of the same compost heap."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-less-lovely-side-of-snowflake

Now:
Snowflake: The pejorative sense of "an overly sensitive person" 

I prefer:
'Please keep calling me a snowflake. I like being different than the next person. Every snowflake is unique. They all come from the same place, but are able to establish their own identities, free and clear of any other snowflake. Snowflakes make this world beautiful.”
― Ed Krassenstein

I love this suggestion.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

(the above quote is by Franklin D. Roosevelt)

When you have more than you need, build a bigger table--not a higher fence.

Such a striking reminder.

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss

Happy Thanksgiving!

Interesting.......

OMG.  The snow is already 2 feet deep....up to the top of my big labrador's back.  And it's heavy and wet and still snowing.  I may never get my driveway cleared.

Don't you just love this!

“The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.” ― Joyce Maynard

Why is this so difficult, this letting go...........

     I saw this today.  I need this.

     This one-antlered feisty buck was in my front yard today with several female deer.  He certainly was not afraid of me! Pretty darn cool.

And since snow is the theme of the day, and as I'm sitting here eating a bag of peanut butter pretzels, this came to mind.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

Franz Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he went walking daily. She was crying. She had lost her doll and was desolate.

Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot.

Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met.

‘Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.’

This was the beginning of many letters. When he and the little girl met he read her from these carefully composed letters the imagined adventures of the beloved doll. The little girl was comforted.

When the meetings came to an end Kafka presented her with a doll. She obviously looked different from the original doll. An attached letter explained ‘My travels have changed me.’

Many years later, the now grown girl found a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll.

In summary it said:
‘Every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.’
- Kafka and the Doll, The Pervasiveness of Loss
                                 Shared from 

                                 Hippie Peace Freaks

Just a reminder from elementary school science class.......

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

     I read this today, and agree. Traditions need to be evaluated.

Happy Hug a runner day

    (that's me on the left)

      quote by Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland

Thriller

     I just can't watch this enough.  So much happiness. Be sure to watch until the end. (full clip)

                                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prDjOhQCges

     Unfortunately, one of my hobbies is cooking.

     A friend shared this today on her 50th birthday.  It is worth re-sharing.

A great quote for Veteran's Day

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

― Heraclitus of Ephesus, Heraclitus of Ephesus: The Fragments of the Work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature and Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae

Race morning.....

     I saw this on FB and it made me laugh.  I guess it is not just me!

     Why I should exercise:

    but mostly why I exercise:

My new mantra for winter

Wow! Just Wow!

I agree. This makes me sad and angry that America has come to this.

This is so true.

     I've been thinking about this a lot lately and was pleased to find it posted on Facebook to share.  You need to do your own research and do the work.  They can't do it for you.

Inaugural Day of the Dead 5K

     It was fun after a very chilly start.  The costumes were pretty amazing....a lot of Frida Kahlo's as well as skeletons.  The turnout was also great for a first-time event.  I saw race bib numbers close to 4000. I'll do it again next year.  And the extra hour of sleeping in before hand was nice.