Day 71: Blog review and back up complete!

 

Done!

I have ended my career on Spark with a lot of memories, a lot of history.  I backed up 1,653 blogs in the time since Spark announced its closure.  While most of them were my own blogs, I also archived a few of MOBYCARP's, including the last one he wrote before his death, and his race report on the Good Life Halfsy (he drove halfway across the continent for our "family reunion" run in 2015).  Also his race report on the Wineglass Marathon he ran concurrent to my running the half marathon there in 2018.  That was his personal best 26.2 mile race, and it was a special time for the two of us to reconnect.  

I archived a couple of KALIGIRL's blogs, too, the ones where she showed up and served as my Sherpa at two triathlon outings, my first in 2012, and my last in 2017.  And a selected few from ALICIA363, including her take on that 2015 Good Life Halfsy. 

I put a couple away from WATERMELLEN, and STRONGDAWG, too.  OVERWORKEDJANET beat me to the deleting blogs punch, or I might have grabbed some of hers from our Boston meetings.

At the same time, a lot of my blogs ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.  Over the course of 12 years of blogging, a person can get repetitive.  And some of them had no redeeming value, they were good at the time, but... like yesterday's newspaper, if nothing of significance was in it... why keep it?

I know that some folks just walked away, leaving it all behind, and some folks saved everything.  Since I am retired, I pretty much cleared my calendar, rolled up my sleeves, and spent the last two weeks working on this project, full time, as if it were a job.

And now, we face the dreaded finish line syndrome!

Long time followers will recognize "finish line syndrome" as a danger signal.  The cue to celebrate the end of a project or a race can lead to falling "off the wagon".  ✋  This will be a good time to pay extra attention to behaviors and feelings.  Not that one shouldn't celebrate such things, just that such celebrations should be carefully considered for how they impact our healthy lifestyle initiatives!

Today's happenings:

The blog is late getting posted this morning because I had my annual eye-glass prescription check.  As expected, my right eye has deteriorated yet again.  But the cataract, he says, is still not ripe for harvest.  He wrote me a new prescription, and I picked out new frames, and in a couple of weeks you'll get a new selfie with the new lenses.

The lovely young lady there measures those new frames both with and without the mask.  We'll see how they turn out.  The cost!  Now's when you don't want to look!

When I got home, I cooked my healthy breakfast, and then went out for my walk/jog in what was an increasingly warm day.  It was already 79℉, and only proceeded to get warmer.  Still, I hadn't done intervals since my Saturday morning 'round the lake "long and slow", so when the Runkeeper cue said it had been five minutes, I started jogging and counting steps.  I was not cheeky enough to call it a run, but in the end I covered 2.14 miles at 16:56 minutes per mile, on average.  Ahhh... those endorphins!

Back inside now, with dry clothing on, going to put this up there, and remind us all that whatever the disasters in the world, and our responses to them (charities if we can afford to donate, prayers no matter what, for Haiti, for Afghanistan, and in my case for the very special family member who served there), we still have to remember to breathe in and out, nourish our bodies, and that exercise really, really helps with feelings!

I did manage to touch base with my son, to check on how he was dealing.  He said some very wise things:  "I don't know any service member who didn't see it coming and hasn't been coping with this coming reality since the draw down announce tbh, so we did the pre-grieve thing"

I told him that it hit me like a punch in the gut, and I could not imagine what those who served there might be feeling.  His response was:  "I can't really say it feels like a gut punch, more like just being slowly walking to higher altitude and there's just not as much oxygen to do the same stuff"  

What an eloquent way to state it.  I feel so much better for making sure he's OK (or as OK as he can be just now), and also for that walk/jog... hope you all have a way to deal with whatever feelings you're feeling today, too.

Now let's keep on living, this one and only Monday, August 16, 2021 we'll ever get.  One foot in front of another, one breath at a time... making choices that support our health:  physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual... so that we can be of use in dealing with whatever we challenges we face!

Spark on!  ✨💖🎆