This year instead of doing New Year’s Resolutions, I am doing small monthly resolutions. January’s was getting our financial records in order, which actually took all of January and February. And yes, it was a huge project (which I still intend to blog about), but it should not have taken two months. But with Miss Munchkin about, the best laid plans of mice and men … well, you know how that goes. March I didn’t set any goal, since I knew I would be traveling a fair bit (one week to Alabama, the next week to Ft. Lauderdale), but I did manage to get our taxes done and filed in record time. One of the little perks from the two months of working on getting our financial records organized!
So that brings me up to April. For April I had two very ambitious goals. One was to get back to regular blog writing (yeah, I know it’s the 8th of April already and this is the first post, so I have failed miserably) and also get some much needed updating done on my blogs (new software, new looks, etc.). All of which does not seem to be happening. Can you tell that Miss Munchkin is back home? She spent all of February and the first two weeks of March with her daddy, which is the only reason I managed to complete January’s goal in February! But with her back home again I am really accomplishing so very little and it is rather frustrating. And this week she is sick with some cold/fever/sore throat/ear hurt something that she has passed on to David and now I am coming down with it. She is better today, a bit, anyway, but not totally well. At least she’s eating some today and not running the fever.
Anyway, April. My second goal for April is daily exercise. I’ll be fifty this month (gasp!) and I really would like to be in better physical condition. Losing some weight would be an added bonus, but stamina and conditioning is really what I’m after. So beginning on March 30th (a Monday – I begin things better on Monday’s than on the 1st of the month) I set the goal of getting to the gym just as soon as Bill goes out the door to work in the morning. So far, pretty good. Of the eight possible days (I am not counting weekends), I have made it to the gym seven days. And the day I didn’t make the gym, I went for a long, long walk.
I first thought of walking to the town center in Southwood back in February, when Miss Munchkin was not here, but it never seemed to work out, mostly because we had one of the coldest February’s on record. Last Friday, though, was the perfect day, sunshine, low 70s, and Munchkin spending the day away from home with Mommy. So after Homeschool Chat, around 12:30 I headed out, water bottle, cell phone and debit card in hand. I walked to the town center (a distance I figure is about 2 miles) and then had lunch at one of the little cafes there. Then I walked the two blocks to the lake. Halfway around the lake, I sat on one of the benches and called my mom and chatted with her for about half an hour. Then I finished walking around the lake (a total of 2 miles) and headed for home, taking a scenic path that I had not walked before (at least 2 miles, possibly a bit further).
It was a beautiful walk and I wish I had a smaller digital camera that carried easily, as pictures would have been lovely. These pictures of the lake path from last summer will have to do. But I think I went just a tad bit too far. I was extremely sore the next couple of days and didn’t sleep well at night. Also, I should have thought of sunscreen, as I got a small bit of sunburn. Luckily, it was the sort that turns to tan instead of blistering and peeling.
I am ready to walk it again soon, although I’m not sure walking it at the noon hour / early afternoon will be a good idea in the summertime. Probably I have about a six week window where it will be the perfect walk before it gets too hot. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to walk it again soon. And I definitely want to drive the route I took (as nearly as I can) to see how far I really walked. I figure it was at least six miles.