Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time. Jean Paul

 

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

― Rainer Maria Rilke 

As the year comes to an end, I urge you to take care of yourself and avoid accidents because spare parts for models as old as you are no longer in stock. 

I can't believe it's been an entire year since I haven't lost weight or become a better person.

(daily ex. update, 1 mile snowy walk with dog, ytd walk 829.8 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1389.3 miles.

ytd run/walk total=2219.1 miles, goal of 2022 miles in 2022 reached, tomorrow is day 1 of trying for 2023 mi. in 2023)

Happy New Year!

I still don't know what I'm wearing to the living room New Year's Eve. I might not even go.

I read this on FaceBook today:

One of my students tried to explain how "blink" is the plural of "wink," and I can't stop thinking about it.

(daily ex. morning dog walk 1 mile in snow and ice,  pm tm run 3.6 miles)

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

 (daily ex. update, shoveling heavy snow for 60 minutes,  dog walk 0.3 miles, pm tm run 3.3 miles)

“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, ytd walk 827.5 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1377.9 miles.  lots of snow predicted for overnight tonight)

What day is it? I need to eat a vegetable!

      It's that time of year, and is so hard getting back to normal routines. 

“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.” Alain de Botton

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, pm tm run 1.5 miles)

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).” Lewis Carroll

 (morning dog walk 1.4 miles, pm tm run 1.5 miles, it is warming up here but still icy out)

Grief is the price we pay for love, and worth it a million times over.......(Aunt Ruth, Boy Called Christmas)

      I've been watching Christmas movies.  Can you tell?

Happy Winter Solstice

 “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. The perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is the time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.

Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.

It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.”
—Katherine May, in her fantastic book Wintering

(

 When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound...

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.

I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.

For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free...

~ Wendell Berry ~

This morning I saw a lone coyote tearing after a running deer in the park. It came upon another walker with a dog and made an abrupt about face. It ran like lightning. It happened so fast, I almost could have imagined it.

(daily ex. update, morning walk with my dog 3.2 miles, pm tm run 3.5 miles)

Wintry weather is coming

 

It's time to watch this footage of a snowball fight in Lyon, France from 1896.

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

(daily ex. update, morning walk 4.8 miles, pm tm run 4.5 miles)

“You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 4.2 miles, pm tm run 3.5 miles)

People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.5 miles, pm tm run 4.6 miles)

If there is no wind, row. Latin Proverb

 (daily ex update, morning dog walk 1.2 miles, pm tm run 3.6 miles)

 The fossil is not the animal.

The fossil is not the bones of the animal.

The fossil is the stone's memory of the bones of the animal.

And that's a poetry older than words.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.1 miles, pm tm  run 3.3 miles)

 There’s actually no such thing as an adult.

That word is a placeholder.

We never grow up. We’re not supposed to.

We’re born and that’s it. We get bigger.

We live through great storms.

We get soaked to the bone.

We realize we’re waterproof.

We strive for calm.

We discover what makes us feel good.

We do those things over and over.

We learn what doesn’t feel good.

We avoid those things at all cost.

Sometimes we come together: huge groups in agreement. Sometimes we clap and dance.

Sometimes we look like a migration of birds.

We need to remind ourselves – each other – that we’re mere breaths.

But, and this is important, sometimes we can be magnificent, to one person, even for a short time, like the perfect touch – the first time you see the ocean from the middle.

Like every time you see the low, full moon.

We keep on eating: chewing, pretending we know what’s going on. The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t.

Each day we’re infants: plucking flower petals, full of wonder.

~ Micah Ling ~

(daily ex. update, morning cold dog walk 2.2 miles, ytd walk 796.6 miles. pm tm run 3.1. miles, ytd run 1342.1 miles)

“The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.3 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles)

Still, it’s comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she’s so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she’s seen you sleeping and wants me to know you’re doing well.” ― Clementine von Radics,

 (daily dog walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 790.1 miles, pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1335.9 miles)

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 3.7 miles, pm tm run 5 miles)

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” ― Desmond Tutu

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.5 miles, pm tm run 2.7 miles)

"I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim." ~ Frida Kahlo

(daily ex. update,morning dog walk 4.3 miles, ytd walk 778.4 miles. pm tm run 2.2 miles, ytd run 1323.7 miles)

"You can do it."---Coffee

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.7 miles, pm tm run 4.6 miles)

“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.” ― Bram Stoker, Dracula

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.4 miles, pm tm run 4.3 miles)

Dwell on the positive, but have controlled, passionate anger. Pat Tyson

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.7 miles, pm tm run 3.2 miles)

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.7 miles, pm tm cooldown walk 2.3 miles.  pm tm long run 6.4 miles)

“In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.” Carl Sagan

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 3.7 miles, ytd walk 757.3 miles, pm tm 2.6 miles, ytd run 1303 miles.  run/walk total ytd 2060.3 miles)

“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

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.2 miles, ytd walk 753.6 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1300.4 miles)

You are your own best thing. Toni Morrison

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.8 miles, ytd walk 750.4 miles.  pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 1295.9 miles)

“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 1 mile, snowy icy cold.  pm tm 4.5 miles)

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” ― Antonio Gramsci

 “all my grief says the same thing:

this isn't how it's supposed to be.
this isn't how it's supposed to be.
and the world laughs.
holds my hope by the throat.
says:
but this is how it is”
― Fortesa Latifi

"Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." - Gandalf the Gray

"The reverse side also has a reverse side." — Japanese Proverb

“Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.” - John Harrington

(daily ex., dog walk 0.3 snowy cold mile, pm tm 3.5 mile)

The most important step a person can take is......

 the next one.

(daily ex. update pm tm 3.6 miles)

“I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.” Charles Darwin 1861

 Even geniuses have bad days.

Home again from a road trip.  So much driving!

(ytd walking 746. 3 miles, ytd running 1279.7 miles. sum=2026 miles run or walked this year.  I've reached my Run 2022 miles in 2022 goal, with a month to spare)

"You cannot authentically live anyone’s life but your own. That is the deal life offers us." Gabby Giffords

 (morning dog walk 1.3 miles, pm tm 3.1miles)

“It’s frightful that people who are so ignorant have so much influence.” — George Orwell

 (still under the weather, 1 slow tm streaksaver mile)

“Everything will be alright in the end, so if it is not alright, it is not the end.” ~ Deborah Moggach, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 0.2 miles, pm tm run 1 mile, under the weather)

Beauty fades, but sarcasm is forever.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.7 miles, pm tm run 3.5 miles, 5k run streak day 42)

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.” ― George Bernard Shaw

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 0.7 miles, pm tm run 3.7 miles. 5 K run streak day 41.)

“If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow.”

 The deep grass moved and whispered   

And bowed and brushed my face.

It whispered in the sunshine:

"The winter comes apace."

                      The Summer Sun Shone Round Me by Robert Louis Stevenson

“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”

― Victor Hugo

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1 miles,  scooping snow 25 min.  pm tm run 3.2 miles,  day 40 5 K run streak. very cold day)

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. RUTH ANN SCHABACKER

 I have not yet embraced winter.  I need more time......It is just cold, icy, snowy and dark. Maybe when the sun comes out???

(daily ex. update, dog walk only 0.3 miles, pm tm 3.5 miles)

Quodophile

 What do you call a person who loves quotes???

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 738.1 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1251.5 miles.  5 K run streak day 38.)

You are a child of the universe, No less than the trees and the stars; You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should .. ~ Max Ehrmann from 'Desiderata ' ~

 I first read this when I was a freshman in college in 1969.  It is good to know that it is still comforting and true today.

(daily ex. update, morning walk 3.2 miles, ytd walk 735.6 miles, pm tm 3.3 miles, ytd run 1248.4 miles.  day 37 of 5 K streak.  also scooped snow for 20 min.  fell on ice in the street for the first time this year....it is going to be a long long winter.)

I am a lost girl, an adventurer, a dragon rider, a burglar, a dreamer. I am a reader.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, ytd walk 732.4 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1245.1 miles.  5 K run streak day 36)

 The world changes.

The ground shifts.
We still make plans.
We still find gifts.
Gmorning.
—Lin-Manuel Miranda, June 24, 2016, morning tweet

The world changes.
The earth spins.
We grieve our losses.
We eke out wins.
Gnight.
—Lin-manuel Miranda, June 24, 2016, evening tweet

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.8 miles, ytd walk 730.9 miles. pm tm run 3.3 miles, ytd run 1241.9 miles.  5 k run streak day 35)

I had my patience tested. I am negative.

 (daily ex. update, morning group walk 3.6 miles, ytd walk 729.1 miles.  pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1238.6 miles.  5 K run streak day 34)

Born to be wild but only until 9 PM or so.

 Today was the first really cold day of fall.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, ytd walk 725.5 miles. pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1235.5 miles.  day 33 of 5K streak.)

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits......James Clear

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.6 miles, ytd walk 724 miles.  pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1232.4 miles.  day 32 of 5 K run streak).  Cold weather coming tonight and will be here through all of next week. It will be tough to walk much. I'm a cold-weather wimp. 

Beauty fades but sarcasm is forever.  

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” Colette

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.8 miles, ytd walk 719.4 miles.  pm tm run 3.3 miles, ytd run 1228.8 miles.  5 k run streak day 31.) Tomorrow will be much colder so we'll see if I can keep this up over the winter.

Lede...word of the day

 

lede

/lēd/

Learn to pronounce

noun

US

1. the opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story.

   "the lede has been rewritten and the headline changed"

One of the best ledes:

Yasuhiro Makoshi is a gargantuan man who stands five feet tall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/sports/new-york-city-marathon-makoshi-yasuhiro.html?unlocked_article_code=738o5AGEUCEN6zQz9xd1O-pITfnS1qwDYca3YN3698GoegaLKTp9aoAcL8ogZ9hhfYKIqt8U-Sbx6vJrnRBQQPJQE6f_IUNLEfTwiCk9_H80XC5tjKPtkN2Gpok8B52rQFLlzdZuV2FFzPY1jkPt8CQmsEyBRLBVZMmGEZe7XND6NJJm0_BPQwYxJt0tLZ9RSwFUt2l8U7X3bjifupTrif10FLuowiysWxdb4m_I6pLUVsXCqZXuxIGwmrc_CTaQlpYu-tnSj9rQM93h8wE_rltQCJESKDL-uUAlKgKMHwe39H7uQSOG75hwHGNrWQ1nN-SlHXyBHMpDL85JqjgIh6CsUNyusI6g1nUVbas6hgc&smid=share-url

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 5 miles, ytd walk 714.6 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1225.5 miles.  day 30 of 5 K run streak.  It was a gorgeous day.  i know this beautiful warm weather won't last.)

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

 Today was a beautiful autumn day! I know it won't last but am enjoying it now.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 5 miles, ytd walk 709.6 miles.  pm tm run 5.1 miles, ytd run 1222.3 miles.  day 29 of 5 K run streak)

If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can't hear them anymore.

 I watched the NYC marathon this morning online.....inspiring, as always!

(daily ex update, morning dog walk 3.8 miles, ytd walk 704.6 miles.  pm tm run 5.3 miles, ytd run 1217.2 miles.  day 28 of 5 K run streak)

“One life on this earth is all we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.” ― Frederick Buechner

How have I never heard this song before?...Oh What a World, by Rufus Wainwright. The orchestration is great.  I have always loved. Ravel's Bolero.

                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLC4XFs5UhQ

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.2 miles, ytd walk 700.8 miles.  pm tm run 4.7 miles, ytd run 1211.9 miles.  5 K run streak day 27)

"I should have hugged you tighter and longer the last time I saw you."

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.6 miles, ytd walk 696.6 miles.  pm tm run 3.7 miles, ytd run 1207.2 miles.  5 K run streak day 26.)

I was injured much of the first part of this year so am trying hard to build a good exercise base.  All the excitement of Sunday's upcoming NYC marathon helps with motivation.  I love watching all of it live on YouTube....the elites as well as the regular runners finishing late at night.

“If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.”

― Kathrine Switzer, 26.2: Marathon Stories

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” ― Henry David Thoreau

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.3 miles, ytd walk 693 miles, pm tm run 3.4 miles, ytd run 1203.5 miles.  day 25 of 5 K run streak.  light snow this evening)

You are the result of 3.8 billion years of evolutionary success. Act like it.

 Also:  What doesn't kill you mutates and tries again.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.8 miles, ytd walk 688.7 miles.  pm tm run 4.7 miles, ytd run 1200.1 miles.  today was 5 k run streak day 24.  On our walk this morning we saw runners running with a mule and a donkey on the trail)

Confidence is silent, insecurities are loud. Remember that.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.2 miles, ytd walk 683.9 miles.  pm tm run 4.3 miles, ytd run 1195.4 miles.  Day 23 of 5 k run streak.)

Celebrate Samhain....

 Do something today that would have gotten you burned at the stake 400 years ago.

(daily ex. update, morning walk 4.8 miles, ytd walk 679.7 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1191.1 miles.  day 22 of 5 k run streak)

This blog is my Commonplace book.

A commonplace book is, therefore, essential for writers as it is a permanent bank of inspiration. If you keep a handwritten one, you've taken the effort to seek out the quote, idea or passage, write it out by hand and then refer back to it — so chances are, something resonated with you.

I like the thought of that.....a permanent bank of inspiration....a time-capsule.

Do you practice commonplacing?

(daily ex. update, morning walk 4 miles, ytd walk 674.9 miles. pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1187.9 miles. 5 K run streak day 21.)

“Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens. ” ― Douglas Jerrold

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 4 miles, ytd walk 670.9 miles, pm slow tm jog 4.1 miles, ytd run 1184.8 miles, 5 k run streak day 20)

“Truly human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.” ― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.8 miles, ytd walk 666.9 miles.  pm tm run 3.3 miles. ytd run 1180.7 miles.  5 k run streak day 19)

I see no good reason to act my age.

 (daily ex. update, morning snowy walk with dog, walk 1.1 mile, ytd walk 663.1 miles.  pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1177.4 miles, 5 k run streak day 18)

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

 

“I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.”

― Carl Sandburg

Autumn has arrived!

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.5 miles, ytd walk 662 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1174.3 miles, day 17 of 5K run streaking)

“Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.” ― Christina Rosetti

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 657.5 miles.  pm tm run 3.3 miles, ytd run 1171.1 miles.  day 16 of 5K run streak)

Elvis:

 “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.” 

- Elvis often used this adaptation of a well-known quotation. 

“...the image is one thing and the human being is another...it’s very hard to live up to an image.” 
- From the press conference prior to his record-breaking Madison Square Garden shows in New York City, 1972 

     I just watched the new "Elvis" movie.  It was so sad. All the talent and money in the world don't necessarily lead to happiness, and can lead to tragedy. He was only 42 when he died in 1977.  It must have been difficult to be Elvis and live up to his own image. Here's video from his last performance shortly before his death.

                                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANcq2A-WezI

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 654 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1167.8 miles.  Not enjoying this colder windy weather.)

There’s a moment in youth when you begin seeing your elders with a more jaundiced eye, writes Pamela Paul, a Times Opinion columnist. “And it hits you: They don’t realize that they’re old.”

 (daily ex update, morning dog walk 1.6 miles, windy day, ytd walk 651.5 miles.   pm tm run 5.3 miles, ytd run 1164.7 miles)

Whenever a child learns critical thinking, a conspiracy theory dies.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.5 miles, ytd walk 649.9 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1159.4 miles)

“A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.” ― Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.7 miles, ytd walk 645.4 miles.  pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1156.3 miles.  I''m on my way to reaching 2022 miles run/walked this year.  I wish more of them were from running, however)

“Nine tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.4 miles, ytd walk 641.7 miles, pm tm run 4.7 miles, ytd run 1152.7 miles)

“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.” – William Arthur Ward

 (daily ex. update, morning hike with dog 3.9 miles, ytd walk 638 miles, pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1148 miles)

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” ― Georg Hegel

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 5 miles, ytd walk 634.1 miles, pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 1144.4 miles)

Always remember that life is very long, unless it's not.

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 4.2 miles, ytd walk 629.1 miles, pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1139.8 miles)

If you can't be a good example, be a warning.

 (daily ex. update, walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 624.9 miles.  pm tm Sunday long run 7.5 miles, ytd run 1136.2 miles)

“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.” ― Walt Whitman

 (daily ex. update, walk 4 miles, ytd walk 621.4 miles, pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1128.7 miles)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.1 miles, ytd walk 617.4 miles.  pm tm 4 miles run, ytd run 1125.1 miles)

 Drink your coffee.

Read your books.

It's chaos out there.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 614.3 miles, afternoon tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1121.1 miles)

“There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.” ― Jules Renard

 (daily ex update, morning dog walk 3.7 miles, ytd walk 611.8 miles, pm tm run 4 miles, ytd run 1116.6 miles)

I walk around like everything is fine, but deep down, inside my shoe, my sock is sliding off.

 

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 608.1 miles, pm tm 3.5 miles, ytd run 1112.6 miles)

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.” ― Mahatma Ghandi

 Always proud to be vegan.

Sometimes ashamed to be human.

(daily ex update, morning dog walk 2.6 miles, ytd walk 605.1 miles, pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1109.1 miles)

I thought of Milford, your great-grandpa, that time I asked him, did he believe in life after death? “I guess that you are my life after death,” he said......Robert Pinsky, Poem of Names

Your greatest contribution to the universe may not be something you do, but someone you raise.

 (daily ex update, morning dog walk 1.1 mile, ytd walk 601.5 miles, pm tm streak saver run 1.1 mile, ytd run 1105.5 miles)

 "It was not witches who burned.

It was women.

Women who were seen as

Too beautiful

Too outspoken

Had too much water in the well (yes, seriously)

Who had a birthmark

Women who were too skilled with herbal medicine

Too loud

Too quiet

Too much red in her hair

Women who had a strong nature connection

Women who danced

Women who sung

or anything else, really.

ANY WOMAN WAS AT RISK BURNING IN THE SIXTEEN HUNDREDS

Sisters testified and turned on each other when their babies were held under ice.

Children were tortured to confess their experiences with “witches” by being fake executed in ovens.

Women were held under water and if they float, they were guilty and executed.

If they sunk and drowned they were innocent.

Women were thrown off cliffs.

Women were put in deep holes in the ground.

The start of this madness was years of famine, war between religions and lots of fear. The churches said that witches, demons and the devil did exist and women were nothing but trouble. As we see even today, there is often a scape goat created, and the chaos escalated in Sweden when the Bible became law and everything that did not line up with what the church said became lethal. The Bible fanaticism killed thousands of women.

Everything connected to a women became feared, especially her sexuality.

It became labelled as dark and dangerous and was the core of the witch trials through out the world.

Why do I write this?

Because I think the usage of words are important, especially when we are doing the work to pull these murky, repressed and forgotten about stories to the surface. Because knowing our history is important when we are building the new world. When we are doing the healing work of our lineages and as women. To give the women who were slaughtered a voice, to give them redress and a chance of peace.

It was not witches who burned.

It was women."

Author: Fia Forsström @thisisfiamusic

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1 mile, ytd walk 600.4 miles, pm tm 1.2 miles run, ytd run 1104.4 miles)

How introverts make friends:

 10% ...they don't

 90%.... an extrovert found them, liked them, and adopted them

(daily ex. update, run 1.1 mile streaksaver, ytd run 1103.2 miles, cool damp dreary day)

“There's only one age: alive.” —Agnes Varda to Oliver Jeffers

 (ex update, ytd walk 599.4 miles, ytd run 1102.1 miles)

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

 (ex. update, ytd walk 597.5 miles, pm tm run 1.5 miles, ytd run 1098.4 miles)

Don't be afraid of witches. Be afraid of the ones who burned tham.

 (daily ex update, am tm 1.2 miles, ytd run 1091.9 miles, walk 1 mile, ytd walk 597.3 miles)

I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.3 miles, ytd walk 596.3 miles, afternoon run 3.2 miles on tm, ytd run 1090.7 miles)

“Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy.” —H.L. Mencken

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 594 miles.  pm slow streak saver run 1.1 miles, ytd run 1087.5 miles.  covid booster shot today)

A person's a person no matter how small......Dr. Seuss

 A few GOP governors need to re-read their Dr. Seuss! Or have they banned that too?

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.8 miles, ytd walk 590.5 miles, pm tm run 1.8 miles, ytd run 1086.4 miles)

“If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. Deepak Chopra.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.5 miles, pm tm run 1.5 miles)

 As life goes on it becomes

tiring to keep up the character

you invented for yourself ...

And so you relapse into individuality

and become more like yourself

everyday.

- Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.7 miles, ytd walk 581.2 miles, p.m. tm run 6.7 miles, ytd run 1083.1 miles)

“Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wow! I've never looked at it this way.

(daily ex. update, morning walk 3.6 miles, ytd walk 576.5 miles, pm tm streaksaver run 1.3 miles, ytd run 1076.4 miles) 

 It may not be a pleasure exactly,

but it’s your solemn duty

to live one more day

to spite the enemy.

—Nâzim Hikmet

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.7 miles, ytd walk 572.9 miles. pm tm 4.4 miles run, ytd run 1075.1 miles)

“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.” ― Rumi

 (daily ex update, morning misty dog walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 569.2 miles,  pm tm run 3.1 miles, ytd run 1070.7)

“The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.” – Queen Elizabeth II

 (daily ex. update, morning walk dog walk on a cooler day 5.2 miles, ytd walk 565.7 miles, pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1067.6 miles)

“The more you know, the less you need.”

 —Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, in “Let My People Go Surfing.” Chouinard, a crotchety old outdoorsman known for walking the talk and putting his money where his mouth is, gave away his company last week in order to preserve Patagonia’s values in perpetuity and fight the environmental crisis.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.8 miles, ytd walk 560.5 miles.  pm tm jog 3.3 miles, ytd run 1063.1 miles)

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.” – Cicero

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.3 miles, ytd walk 556.7 miles, pm tm 3.2 miles run, ytd run 1059.8 miles)

"It's the road signs, 'Beware of lions.' " Kip Lagat, Kenyan distance runner, during the Sydney Olympics, explaining why his country produces so many great runners.

 (daily ex. update, morning hike with dog 3.2 miles, ytd walk 553.4 miles.  pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 1056.6 miles)

"No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself." Virginia Woolf

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, plus 5.6 mile hike with friends at Staunton State Park, pm tm streaksaver run 2 miles.  ytd walk 550.2 miles, ytd run 1053 miles)

"The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.” Arnold Bennett

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, ytd walk 543.1 miles, pm tm run 1.5 miles, ytd run 1051 miles)

“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages... Far too many people misunderstand what 'putting away childish things' means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and 'be' fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.” Madeleine L'Engle

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 541.6 miles,  afternoon tm run 5.6 miles, ytd run 1049.5 miles)

HaHaHaHa

 “There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” – George Bernard Shaw

(daily ex update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, pm streak saver 1 mile jog)

You can't burn out if you never catch fire.....Bob Hodge

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3. miles, pm cooldown tm walk 1.2 miles,  pm tm run 4.8 miles, ytd walk 537.6 miles,  ytd run 1042.9 miles)

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. Segal's Law

 (history:Supposedly, the saying was coined by the San Diego Union on September 20, 1930: "Confusion.—Retail jewelers assert that every man should carry two watches. But a man with one watch knows what time it is, and a man with two watches could never be sure." Later this was — mistakenly — attributed to Lee Segall of KIXL, then to be misquoted again by Arthur Bloch as "Segal's Law)

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.5 miles, ytd walk 533.4 miles.  pm tm run 2.7 miles, ytd run 1038.1 miles)

"When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense." — @ShaneAParrish

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, pm tm long run 11 miles)

‘Look, we talk a lot about winning and losing in our society and the real thing is to endure, and to stick around, and to stay in the game.’

 “But you cannot control everything...All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference...You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow...That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling.”

― Brian Doyle

(daily ex. update, morning walk 3.7 miles, pm cool down tm walk 1.2 miles, pm tm run 1.1 streak saver miles. )

"But what can I do, I am just one person" said 7 billion people.

 (First chilly day.  Morning dog walk 3.5 miles, plus pm tm cooldown walk 1 mile, pm tm run 2.5 miles)

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.....Jimmy Buffett

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, pm cooldown walk 1 mile.  ytd walk 517.5 miles.  pm tm jog 5 miles, ytd run 1020.8 miles)

"You don't have to win all your fights, but you must fight them all." - Damon West

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.7 miles, ytd walk 514 miles, pm jog tm 5.3 miles, ytd run 1015.8 miles)

“Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.” ― Terry Pratchett

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, morning slow jog with dog 2.5 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles)

“Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” Maya Angelou

 (daily ex update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 509.1 miles. pm tm jog 3.6 miles, ytd run 1004.9 miles)

We don't talk about trees getting older, we say they are growing. Let's use the same language for ourselves. We are not getting older, we are growing. ~ Sue Fitzmaurice.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.3 miles, ytd walk 506.1 miles.  pm tm slow long run 10.6 miles, ytd run 1001.3 miles.  this was run streak day 2924, 8 years done, starting year 9, over those 8 years I've run a total of 14,452 miles or 4.94 miles per day average)

...unless I am myself, I am nobody. Virginia Woolf

 (morning dog walk 2.7 miles, pm slow jog 1 streak saver mile)

Cleaning with a dog in your house is like brushing your teeth while eating oreos. So Much Dog Hair.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 501.1 miles.  pm tm run 4.4 miles, ytd run 989.7 miles)

I love how the air changes....you can feel it, you can smell it, and suddenly it is autumn. Melody Lee

 (morning dog walk 0.8 miles, ytd walk 498.6 miles.  pm tm jog 5.8 miles, ytd run 985.3 miles)

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” ― Arundhati Roy, War Talk

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles, ytd walk 497.8 miles,  pm tm jog 2 miles, ytd run 979.5 miles)

My favorite childhood memory is having energy.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles, ytd walk 495.8 miles, pm tm jog 4 miles, ytd run 977.5 miles)

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 493.8 miles,  pm tm jog 4.5 miles, ytd run 973.5 miles)

“Never fool yourself, and remember that you are the easiest person to fool.” ― Richard Feynman

 

“We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules.”
― Richard Feynman

“The thing that doesn't fit is the thing that is the most interesting.”
― Richard Feynman

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.1 miles, ytd walk 491.3 miles.  pm tm jog 3.5 miles, ytd run 969 miles)

“If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.” ― Francois Rabelais

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 4. miles, ytd walk 488.2 miles, pm tm jog 4.5 miles, ytd run 965.5 miles)

There are roughly 6500 spoken languages in the world, but we all sound the same when laughing.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 484.2 miles, afternoon tm jog 3.5 miles, ytd run 961 miles)

We are all just a work in progress.

 (ex update, morning dog walk 3.6 miles, ytd walk 481.7 miles.  pm tm slow jog 5.5 miles, ytd run 957.5 miles)

"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Bertrand Russell

 (daily ex. update, walk 3.6 miles, ytd walk 478.1 miles.  afternoon tm jog 3.4 miles, ytd run 952 miles)

Sometimes....money costs too much.

 This was my fortune cookie fortune from lunch.   Wisest fortune ever!

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.7 miles, ytd walk 474.5 miles, pm tm jog 5.1 miles, ytd run 948.6 miles)

Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 471.8 miles, pm tm jog 3.1 miles, ytd run 943.5 miles)

“Don’t let anyone treat you like regular glue. You’re glitter glue, baby!” ✨ - Bradley Rose

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4 miles, ytd walk 468.8 miles,  pm tm jog 5.3 miles, ytd run 940.4 miles)

 “It will never get easier,”

What happens is you handle hard better.”

(daily ex. update, morning walk 3.8 miles, ytd walk 464.8 miles, pm tm 2.2 miles run, ytd run 935.1 miles)

History is a vast early warning system. Norman Cousins

 Of course in Republican states it is not allowed to be taught in schools.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 461 miles,  pm tm 4 miles, ytd run 932.9 miles.  The morning walk totally tired out my dog! )

"I came home and my dog peed a little because she was so happy to see me.  None of my friends pee when they see me.  I am surrounded by fakes."

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” ― Neil Gaiman, A Game of You

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 458 miles. afternoon tm jog 3.5 miles, ytd run 928.9 miles, getting back at it)

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 455 miles,  pm tm jog 3.5 miles, ytd run 925.4 miles)

“A poem will not stop a bullet, a novel cannot defuse a bomb,” Salman Rushdie said. But writers can still “sing the truth, and name the lies.”

      I'm sorry I've been away so long but I've had no internet service until today. I really missed the online connections.

      Also I've taken a slowdown in running to heal some niggles in my hip (my medical diagnosis).  But I'm back.

      (exercise update, today I walked the dog only 0.5 miles as I was awaiting the internet line technician for most of the day, but I ran 3.8 miles this eve. on the treadmill.  My ytd walk total is 452.5 miles, ytd run total is 921.9 miles.)

Hey sky, take off your hat, I'm on my way! - Valentina Tereshkova.

To be silent the whole day, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself. ~Henry Miller

 Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said..

A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made..

Or a garden planted..

Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die,

and when people look at that tree

or that flower you planted, you're there..

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something

from the way it was before you touched it

into something that's like you

after you take your hands away..

The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said..

The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all..

the gardener will be there a lifetime..

-Ray Bradbury

(daily ex. update, morning walk 4.1 miles, afternoon tm run 1.2 streaksaver miles)

“So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me for I, too, am fluent in silence.” ― R. Arnold

(daily ex. morning dog walk 1.8 miles, afternoon tm run 3.2 miles)

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” – Zora Neale Hurston

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles, pm tm run 4.6 miles)

“We should all be eating fruits and vegetables as if our lives depend on it – because they do.” — Michael Greger

 Also from Dr. Michael Greger:  The best-kept secret in medicine.  Sometimes, given the right conditions, the body can heal itself.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, ytd walk 430.2 miles, pm tm run 5.3 miles, ytd run 894.3 miles. am trying to front load my week's miles as I won't be running much on the weekend or next week)

“It reached the boat. Long clammy fingers grabbed the side, and a lugubrious face rose level with Nanny Ogg’s. ‘’ullo,’ it said. ‘It’sss my birthday.” — Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett

 It'sss my birthday!

I want to age like sea glass.

Smoothed by tides, not broken. I want the currents of life to toss me around, shake me up and leave me feeling washed clean.

I want my hard edges to soften as the years pass , made not weak but supple. I want to ride the waves, go with the flow, feel the impact of the surging tides rolling in and out.

When I am thrown against the shore and caught between the rocks and a hard place, I want to rest there until I can find the strength to do what is next. Not stuck . just waiting, pondering, feeling what it feels like to pause. And when I am ready, I will catch a wave and let it carry me along to the next place that I am supposed to be.

I want to be picked up on occasion by an unsuspected soul and carried along , just for the connection, just for the sake of appreciation and wonder. And with each encounter, new possibilities of collaboration are presented, and new ideas are born.

I want to age like sea glass so that when people see the old woman I’ll become, they’ll embrace all that I am. They’ll marvel at my exquisite nature, hold me gently in their hands and be awed by my well-earned patina. Neither flashy nor dull, just a perfect lustre. And they’ll wonder, if just for a second, what it is exactly I am made of and how I got to this very here and now. And we’ll both feel lucky to be in that perfectly right place at that profoundly right time.

I want to age like sea glass. I want to enjoy the journey and let my preciousness be, not in spite of the impacts of life, but because of them ..

~ Bernadette Noll ~

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.3 miles, afternoon tm run 7.1 miles for my birthday)

“No matter what the fight, don’t be ladylike!” — Mother Jones

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, pm tm run 3.1 miles)

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 424.2 miles. pm tm long run 6.5 miles, ytd run 878.8 miles.  run/walk total=1303 miles toward 2021 mile goal)

Even monkeys fall from trees.....Japanese Proverb

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 4.1 miles, ytd walk 421.7 miles, pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 872.3 miles)

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” – W.H. Auden

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.6 miles, ytd walk 417.6 miles.  afternoon tm run 5 miles, ytd run 867.7 miles)

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles, ytd walk 415 miles.  pm tm run 5.5 miles, ytd run 862.7 miles)

“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” ― Ellen Glasgow

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, pm jog 1.3 miles)

“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” ― Anaïs Nin

 (daily ex. update morning dog walk 2.1 miles, pm slow jog 1.1 miles to save streak)

“Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, pm tm run 2.6 miles)

Your patience is your power ~ k tolnoe .

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.1 miles, ytd walk 407 miles.  pm tm long run 6.2 miles, ytd run 852.2 miles.  total = 1259.2 miles toward 2022 goal)

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” ― Aldous Huxley

 (daily ex. update, walk 4 miles over 2 walks, ytd walk 404.9 miles.  pm tm 3.3 miles run, ytd run 846 miles)

“When people throw stones at you, don't throw them back. Collect them all and build an empire.” ― Anonymous

 (daily ex. update, dog walk a.m. 2.2 miles, ytd walk 400.9 miles,  pm tm run 3.4 miles, ytd run 842.7 miles)

“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” — Robin Williams

 Robin Williams   July 21, 1951 - August 11, 2014

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 398.7 miles, afternoon tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 839.3 miles)

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” ― Terry Pratchett

 (daily ex. update, walk dog 2.4 miles, ytd walk 396.2 miles.  pm tm run 2.6 miles, ytd run 834.7 miles)

“Scars are the proof you're stronger than what tried to hurt you, duckling. Don't be ashamed of them” ― August Clearwing, Never Have I Ever

 (daily ex. update, walk 1.7 miles, ytd walk 393.8 miles.  pm tm 4.5 miles, ytd run 832.1 miles. total 1225.9 miles, on my way to 2022 miles in 2022)

“Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.” – Plato

 Clearly!

(daily ex. update, dog walk 2.2 miles, pm slow jog 1.1 miles streak saver)

"And the boy loved the tree... very much. And the tree was happy." - 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein.

 (daily ex. update, walk 4.7 miles, ytd walk 389.9 miles.  2 runs = 5.6 miles, ytd run 826.5 miles)

"You've got more than money and sense, my friend: you've got heart."

 (daily ex. update, walk 4.1 miles, ytd walk 385.2 miles.  pm tm run 1.4 miles, ytd run 820.9 miles. Injury improving but still needing ibuprofen, but it is better)

Something to think about:

 “The danger of adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort.”--Paul Coelho

(daily ex. update, walk 2.7 mi, ytd walk 381.1 miles,  pm tm run 4 miles, ytd run 819.5 miles)

“Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.” – Thomas Hardy

 (daily ex update, morning walk 2 miles, pm tm 4.5 mi)

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” – Isaac Newton

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 376.4 miles,  pm tm jog 2.3 miles, ytd run 811 miles)

“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come depend on what you do today. It’s been that way all this year. It’s been that way so many times.” —Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls

 (daily ex. update, morning walk 3 miles, ytd walk 373.9 miles, pm tm jog 3.3 miles, ytd run 808.7 miles)

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard

 (daily ex. update, dog walk 2.2 miles, pm tm slow jog 3.1 miles)

Eleanor Roosevelt:

 “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”

(daily ex. update, dog walk 2.3 miles, pm tm slow run 4 miles)

"Man’s inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals." — George Bernard Shaw

 (daily ex. update, walk 4.1 miles in 3 walks, pm slow tm run 3.4 miles)

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” ― Vincent van Gogh

 (daily ex., 2 walks=3 miles, pm tm 2.2 miles)

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” – Henry David Thoreau

 (daily ex., 2 walks=3.7 miles, pm tm 3.2 miles)

“You cannot save anyone. You can be present with them, offer your groundedness, your sanity, your peace. You can even share your path with them, offer your perspective. But you cannot take away their pain. You cannot walk their path for them. You cannot give answers that are right for them, or even answers they can digest right now. They will have to find their own answers…" Jeff Foster

 (daily ex., 2 slow walks of 2.1 mi each, pm slow jog 2.4 miles)

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” ― Maximilien Robespierre

 (ex. update, dog walk 1 mile, pm jog 1.1 mile)

“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” ― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

 “This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Walt Whitman - Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.7 miles, pm slow jog 2.3 miles, still trying to shake this back/hip injury. skipped my July 4th 5k race, I thought it was prudent)

Due to a shortage of actual independence, July 4th has been moved to November 8th this year.

 (daily ex. walk 1.8 miles, pm jog 1.5 miles,  still injured, painful, but trying)

Embrace the glorious mess that you are......Elizabeth Gilbert

 (daily ex., walk 3.3 miles,  pm slow jog 1.1 mile, hip/back worse)

I'm older now but still running against the wind........Bob Seger

 (daily ex. update, walk 1.5 miles in 2 walks, tm run 4.7 miles, still trying, injury maybe better)

None of you will take this advice

 Listen to your body's whispers before they become screams.

(ex. update,  walk 0.6 miles, ytd walk 342.1 miles, pm slow jog 1.6 miles, ytd run 776.4 miles.  Trying to listen to my body more and heal)

Some people are never going to clap for you. Win anyway.

 (daily ex. update, walk 2.2 miles over 2 walks, ytd walk 341.5 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 774.8 miles.  Still injured but trying to exercise anyway)

“the Chinese proverb says, when sleeping women wake, mountains move.”

 and oh, how they love the woman who won't take any shit from anyone, until they realize that she won't take any shit from them, either.

(daily ex. update, 2 walks = 2.1 miles,  2 tm jogs = 5 miles,  hip and back still painful but I need to get back into this.   ytd walk 339.3 miles, ytd run 770.3 miles)

 Today won’t be a great day.

It wont be a bad day either.

Today will just be a ‘day’.

24 hours of absolutely everything.

Moments of joy, fear, uncertainty, pride, love.

Flashes of loss, happiness, connection and loneliness.

Moments swathed in every colour of the spectrum of emotion and humanity

Moment by moment.

Wrapped in hours, that make up one day.

JUST A DAY.

You’ve lived through plenty and you’ll live through many more.

So.

Do not entitle this 24 hour parcel as anything other than what it is…

A slice of life.

Go live it.

Moment by moment.

And be ready for them all.

Donna Ashworth

(daily ex. update, 2 walks = 3.6 miles, pm slow tm 3.2 miles, injury starting to heal, still can't bend or twist)