Groundhog Day has come once more. Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog I grew up paying attention to, did not see his shadow when he was awakened on February 2nd. According to the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition, that means we will have an early spring this year. I gotta say, I do hope this is one of the 40% times he is right. It’s been a gloomy, damp, off-and-on chilly/warmish, little snow winter. And I am ready for it to end. Although I am not too very upset about the lack of snow. Its pretty on the trees and hills, but not so much on the roads and sidewalks!
We started using a food tracking app to record our meals and other foods. Along with the strength training at the gym, we get some nutritional counseling to help with fitness and health goals. I also have a specific weight loss goal for the first half of this year. Tracking is the only way to ensure I stay within the goals for all of that. It’s a bit of a pain, and as with all new apps, there’s a bit of a learning curve (and the thing is a bit wanky in certain areas), but it’s better than some others. The one the gym uses is a real pain because the food database doesn’t have a lot of stuff that we use and that means either fudging with something close or adding a whole list of stuff. This one seems to have a lot already there and the bar code scanner is really nice. Lots of analytics available, as well, and, boy, howdy, do I love me some nice charts and lists! LOL We’ll see how it goes.
I got my annual mammogram done at the end of the week. Not an exciting time but a necessary one. For all the ladies, but I also have some family history of breast cancer, so I need to keep up with that. And got the knees x-rayed in preparation for seeing the orthopedic doctor next week. I didn’t understand all the “doctor speak” in the results, but I do understand words like “degenerative”, “significant”, “narrowing of spaces”, and “both knees”. Yeah, I get it. The knees are trash. But then, from the way they feel most of the time, I knew that. We’ll see what the doc says. I assume I will at least come home with steroid injections done in both again.
It was nice and sunny both Saturday and Sunday. I decided to try walking the dogs on Saturday, just to get outside in the pretty for a while. It actually wasn’t too bad. Between the two, I got almost a mile in at a decent enough pace. But I also hadn’t done any significant walking for at least a week and a half, if not more. I have to do better than that. both for me and the dogs. Which is, of course, why I am seeing the ortho again. Anyway, it was nice to be out in the sun, even if it was a bit chilly.
February will start some late winter garden chores. I need to trim the dead flower heads off the hydrangea out front as that type flowers on new wood each year. I like to leave the dry flower heads on over the winter because they look kind of cool out there. Also time to tidy up the plastic covering the big veg garden box so the sun can start warming the soil. Some early cool weather things will go out there in March, if the soil warms enough. And inside here, I will start mapping out a plan for the next phases of the landscaping I want to do. Time to shake off the winter sleep, and think about growing again!
That’s my world at the moment. Drink your water. Eat a vegetable. Get outside and refresh. Be nice to one another.
My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.
There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here
And So On... 