“what's so beautiful about a fool is that a fool never knows when to give up” ― Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

 “Repository,” he finally says, “you know this word? A resting place. A text—a book—is a resting place for the memories of people who have lived before. A way for the memory to stay fixed after the soul has traveled on.” His eyes open very widely then, as though he peers into a great darkness. “But books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.”

― Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 0.8 miles, ytd walk 124.2 miles.  morning dog jog 2.2 miles,  afternoon tm run 3.3 miles, ytd run 254.9 miles)

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” ― Emily Dickinson

 (daily ex. update, beautiful day, morning dog walk 1.7 miles, afternoon walk with friends 3 miles, ytd walk 123.4 miles.  pm tm run 2.5 miles, ytd run 249.4 miles.)

 

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.1 mile, pm tm walk 1.1 mile, ytd walk 118.7 miles.  afternoon tm long run 11.1 miles, ytd run 246.9 miles)

“Happiness, is not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour." Walt Whitman

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles, ytd walk 116.5 miles.  Pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 235.8 miles.  Temps should start warming up tomorrow)

 

(daily ex. update, dog walk 1.5 miles, ytd walk 114.5 miles.  Still very cold.  pm tm run 5.2 miles, ytd run 231.2 miles)

You've always had the power.......Glinda the Good Witch

      I just read an excellent book, "Strong Like Her, a celebration of rule breakers, history makers, and unstoppable athletes," by Haley Shapley.

     As she notes, "history was written by men, and men, by and large, wrote about themselves." It was illuminating to read of our history of strong women.

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 0.7 miles, another arctic temperature day, pm tm walk 1.3 miles, ytd walk 113 miles.  pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 226 miles.)

"If a human being doesn't feel the pain of his fellow human beings, then everything we've created and established since the very beginning of existence is in great danger," Muhammad wrote. "We shouldn't let borders and differences separate us. We were made different to complete each other, to integrate and live together. One world, one pain, one humanity, one hope."

 (daily ex. update, only walked dog 0.4 miles, temps are Arctic out.  pm jog 3.1 miles, ytd run 222.4 miles)

 THE WAITING PLACE 

by Dr. Seuss

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

(daily ex. update, walk 4.5 miles, ytd walk 110.6 miles.  run 3.1 miles, ytd run 219.3 miles)

“When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.” ― Bernard Bailey

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles, ytd walk 106.1 miles.  3 runs = 10.1 miles, ytd run 216.2 miles)

 

(daily ex. update, walk 4 miles, ytd walk 104.1 miles, pm run 1.5 streak saver miles, ytd run 206.1 miles)

  (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3.3 miles, ytd walk 100.1 miles.  pm slow treadmill run 4.5 miles, ytd run 204.6 miles)

“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” ― C.S. Lewis

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1.5 miles after 30 min of shoveling snow, pm tm cool down walk 1 mile, ytd walk total 96.8 miles.  pm tm run 3.8 miles, ytd run 200.1 miles)

 

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2 miles before the storm rolled in, ytd walk 94.3 miles.  pm tm 5.1 miles run with 7 x 1/4 mile intervals, ytd run 196.3 miles)

 Mantra (a Sanskrit word!) can be broken into “man” which means mind and “tra” which means transport or vehicle. So basically, a mantra is a mind vehicle that’s going to carry you through your next workout!

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 92.3 miles.  pm tm run 4.1 miles, ytd run 191.2 miles)

“Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul.” ― Douglas MacArthur

 (daily ex., morning dog walk 1 mile, pm treadmill walk 2 miles, ytd walk total 89.3 miles.  pm tm jog 3.1 miles, ytd run 187.1 miles)

 

(daily ex. update, walk 3.3 miles, ytd walk 86.3 miles.  pm tm long run 6.4 miles, ytd run 184 miles)

 "A child who has been denied imaginative literature is likely to have far more difficulty in understanding cellular biology or post-Newtonian physics than the child whose imagination has already been stretched by reading fantasy and science fiction." Walking on Water, Madeleine L'Engle

(daily ex. update, walk 2.6 miles, ytd walk 83 miles.  pm tm 3.6 miles run, ytd run 177.6 miles. Morning snow shoveling 30 min. )

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." [Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.1 miles, ytd walk 80.4 miles.  pm tm 3.4 miles at 6% elevation)

I didn't come this far to only come this far.

 (daily ex., morning dog walk 1.7 miles, ytd walk 78.3 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 170.6 miles)

One moment you are twenty in the '70's,and the next you're seventy in the '20''s.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 76.6 miles.  pm tm workout 6 x 1/4 mile, total 4.2 miles, ytd total 166.1 miles run)

“If not now, when? If not you, who?” ― Hillel the Elder

 (daily ex. update, walk 2.8 miles, ytd walk 73.6 miles. morning run 1 mile, pm tm run 5.3 miles, ytd run 161.9 miles )

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

What a charming and picturesque description....being an extra sipping coffee in the background of others' lives.

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.5 miles, ytd walk 70.8 miles.  pm run 2.2 miles, ytd run 155.6 miles)

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” ― Lewis Carroll

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 1 mile, ytd walk 68.3 miles.  pm tm run 7 miles long run, ytd run 153.4 miles)

"We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names.” Nikita Gill

(daily ex. update, morning walk 3 miles, ytd walk 67.3 miles.  pm run 1.1 miles, ytd run 146.4 miles)

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. --Maya Angelou

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.1 miles, ytd walk 64.3 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 145.3 miles)

“The bridge will only take you halfway there, to those mysterious lands you long to see. Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fair, and moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share the twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there. The last few steps you have to take alone.” ― Shel Silverstein

 (cold, cold day, daily ex. update, walk 1.7 miles, ytd walk 62.2 miles.  pm tm run 4.4 miles, ytd run 140.8 miles)

This is the plan:

 

(daily ex. update,  pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 136.4 miles.  pm tm cool down walk 0.5 miles, ytd walk 60.5 miles.  I also scooped snow for 50 minutes)

 

(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 3 miles, ytd walk 60 miles.  pm tm run 3.6 miles, ytd run 131.8 miles.   It''s snowing out!)