The Quiet of Morning

 

Tuesday November 29th

This morning I spotted a meme that said the cup you drink your coffee from makes a difference in how it tastes.

Do you believe this?  I do!  It's Christmas season, and I pull out my collection of festive mugs.  Several of these were gifts, one was a Christmas themed race swag thing, a couple I actually bought.  But in the dark month of December, I freely savor my hot beverages from these mugs in rotation.

I'm an "early to bed early to rise" gal.  And I find there is magic in the dark hours before sunrise.  I don't think it will get terribly bright today.  We are under a Winter Weather advisory.  

The flakes flurried a bit as I drove to my trainer workout, so I was appropriately "little old lady careful".  He and his wife drove back from Colorado on Monday, when the roads were less crowded, and before the snow started.  Their children all got to their respective homes safely, too.  

There is this big deal going on over in Qatar, and there's been a bit of "noise" about political stances around it.  I get tired of that kind of fuss but have found a workaround.  I am watching the Iran vs USA match... in Spanish language.  Understand little enough of the rapid-fire audio that it's just the action on the field!  Let the players play!  World Cup 2022.

As long as I'm talking sports, I just read an article that leaks news that has yet to be announced by the formal organizations.  Link to Triathlon Today article.  It looks like my dreams of being a spectator at the world championships on Kona might be constrained to only half the competition:  women in 2023, men in 2024.  The other half in each year will be a month earlier, and halfway around the globe in Nice, France.  I may have to make some hard choices:  to go or not to go, and which year... to see the women or to see the men.

I ended my day by once again turning on the tree lights while I did the whole bedtime preparation routine.  

Wednesday November 30th  

The snow had stopped yesterday before the evening news, and we ended up with a "trace", nothing measurable.  Sad, considering the drought.  This morning, I woke to cold temperatures, and cats that wanted outside anyway!  Oh, well, cats will be cats.

The mug for today is the Jingle Jog one.  It's the only squat round mug I have in my collection.  It is so cheery!

The funny thing about the weather is that tomorrow and Friday are going to get up into the 50's and 60's Fahrenheit.  Then we'll get plunged back into the cold again.  The roller coaster continues.

Oh, and thanks to those who gave me recommendations for preserving the banana bread.  I bagged and put several slices in the freezer.  And about half the loaf I wrapped to give away.  I figure the kids will have to come over at some point to return the pie plate and tea towel from Thanksgiving... good possibility for a destination.

Life is Good.  Keep on Sparking!

🔥✨💖🎄

A fresh new gratitude list Nov 25 - Dec 3

 

This one is to last from Black Friday to Christmas... a continuation of the Thanksgiving-to-Thanksgiving gratitude challenge.  We'll see how long I can keep this up.

Nov 25:  I was thankful for Leftover pumpkin pie.  Since I was alone, I was able to focus on exactly how it tasted.  And if I must say so myself, I got the spice rations "just right" this year.  It was yummy.

Nov 26:  For balance, I am thankful that my body tells me it's not a good idea to prolong feasting, it's time to stop.  Good body, fine body, I'll listen to you!  There is a thing called "enough".

Nov 27:  I promised I would include my thankfulness for the animals in my life in this list, since I missed it in the Thanksgiving-to-Thanksgiving list.  I'm grateful for how kitties come into my life, almost by accident.  I'm grateful for their little personalities and how we tolerate living in the same house!  They greet me every morning and follow me up the stairs at bedtime and accept they are not allowed in that room.  Which reminds me, I'm thankful for doors!

Nov 28:  Today I am thankful for my online contacts, and that some find what I post helpful in their own journey through life.  We all have so much in common, and knowing we are not alone is an awesome thing!

Nov 29:  Today I am thankful for my hearing.  I am listening to Christmas music, the accapello kind.  Yesterday on my walk I was appreciating wind chimes.  Over the weekend it was honking geese overhead, in their V formation, circling for a lake landing spot.  What a blessing our senses are!

Nov 30:  Today I am thankful for personal rituals.  I have morning ones, and evening ones, that keep life on an even keel, medications as prescribed on board and the dental health preserved, too.  Lighting the candles in the dark of the morning is one that feeds my spirits, too.

Dec 1:  Today I am thankful for the calendar, and how it is divided to give us "fresh starts"... a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year.  Renewal is wired in to us.  Some challenges may take bigger chunks to get past, but the whole linear progression, and taking personal stock as the pages turn gives us a way to see that life is good, that there is a purpose.  Happy December, all!

Dec 2:  Today I am thankful for another "best weather day for a while".  It got up to 60℉ and the wind wasn't terrible.  Good weather to walk in!  On the way back I encountered another critter I'm grateful to have in my life.  His name is Barnaby, and he's a rough-coated collie.  I got enough ahead of him and his human (Bill) to dash inside and get the doggie treats.  Barnaby knows I stock them and he sat down prettily to politely request his cookie.

Dec 3:  Today I am thankful for the burr under my saddle provided by my cousin asking for my mailing address.  It actually spurred me to write a Christmas letter and get a card in the mail before my faithful friend in Texas landed one in my own mailbox!  

Hustle and bustle

 

I shipped off a batch of t-shirt "sides" Monday morning to have my 4th memory quilt made.  Many of these are the ones I wore at my racing weight, and I don't look good in them any more, but they will look fine on the guest room bed.  This is only a "full" size quilt, not a "Queen" like two of the other three.  I don't think I'll get delivery on it until sometime in January.  But when I do, I will post its picture.

Oh, and Sunday I got the baking bug, because I had a banana that was getting past its prime.  One loaf of banana nut bread, making the house smell wonderful.  Now I have to figure out how to get it spread around, since I don't go to work any more.  

I gave it the taste test Monday morning with my breakfast.  A nice veggie omelet with the heel of the banana bread.  Very satisfying.

This time of year it is hard to remember the day of the week.  I have the trainer on my calendar for Tuesday, hope I have the time right.  I'll probably text him later to be sure!

Monday afternoon I went out for a walk to take advantage of "the last nice day in a while".  It was 54℉ with the wind supposedly from the north at about 15 mph, but lessening according to the forecast.  As I walked, I mused about many things, like I do.  One of those things was how that phrase "the last nice day for a while" changes in its definition as the seasons roll by.  Just a couple of weeks ago, that "last nice day" was 20 degrees warmer.  And the sunlight lasted longer, too.

Another musing related to the sounds I was hearing.  My Saturday walk, I was drawn to look up by the honking of geese.  Didn't hear or see any geese today, but I did hear the wind, the traffic noises, the construction equipment that was pouring concrete down the street, and wind chimes.  I heard a dog or two barking.

I had an encounter with a woman who was backing out of her driveway.  We valiantly tried to out-polite one another before I got brave enough to cross behind her.  Then we gaily called greetings to one another by way of apology for our hesitations... "you're bigger than me, so I will be cautious", I said.  "I don't blame you," said she.

Life is good.  Spark on!

Time to connect to others

 

As the holiday season is here, thoughts turn to friends and family, don't they?  Is it time we reconnected with fellow Spark refugees, too?

I know I follow a few blogs, and several with whom I connect follow others.  Our life rafts are drifting apart, perhaps?

In any case, I'm dedicating this entry to links to the blogs of those I follow, in case anybody who meanders by mine can spot someone they miss and would like to send a "holiday greeting" to them, in the form of a blog comment, or whatever.

The photo today is a memory shot, inspired by speded2Jeanne's blog yesterday.  She discusses in her blog the history of Advent.  Three of the ornaments in the photo were advent presents from my mom to my son, when he was a toddler.  The tiny packages were to be opened one a day leading up to Christmas.

Jeanne has just recently moved over here to Blogger with her thoughts.  Some of you may remember her from My Fitness Pal, beyond the Spark demise.

A few of the regular bloggers preferred WordPress and may or may not be posting really regularly.  SelfhelpSunday was only posting once a month, and there are a few months that got skipped entirely.  For those of you who might want to follow WordPress blogs, there is a feature on most of them that allow you to sign up to get e-mails when they post.

Another former Sparker on Wordpress is tmzee22, who blogs as Wherever My Heart Lead Me.  She just posted some great thoughts on finding the right path this morning.

Right here on Blogger, I'm sure many of you already follow Lynda, who went by LeanJean6 over on Spark.  And Paula, who was ADivaGlows on Spark.  Both of them blog almost daily, and you can find links to their blogs and others that I follow off to the right of the blog text on my pages, under "My Blog List".  

Anybody remember endurovet from Spark?  She's blogging, too, but I relatively recently re-found her blog.  Warning, there's a delay from when you publish your comment to when it pops up publicly.  She must have it set to review before posting or something.  But it was good to see her adventures, too.

Anyway, I wanted to give a shout out to all these folks, who help keep me going when they post.  Others are over on the Google Maintenance Group threads.  I don't get over there very often, but there is quite a little community.  They do some daily check ins.  There are also a few Facebook groups, I am part of Sparking Seniors and Friends private group over there.

Hope you have contacts of your own to keep up the spirits as we approach the holidays and the winter hibernation season.  We all need hope and kindness!  Spread it far and wide.

Life is good.  Keep Sparking!

🔥🎄💖

It's beginning to look a lot like...

 

I don't do outdoor decorations.  Or rather I only did them ONCE, the year I divorced.  My 19 year old son helped put them up.  However, I live in a neighborhood, so I get to enjoy the things others put up.  I snapped three photos on my walk.  

This first one is where the 12-foot-tall skeletons were at Halloween.

Right next door to the skeleton house

Up a side street, I found a dachshund leading a reindeer.  I think there's a sleigh behind the reindeer, but it didn't get into the frame.

It's always fun seeing how the decorations either change or stay the same over the years.

My son's fiancé has been decorating at their house, too.  I'm showing theirs in sunlight but there are stunning lights, too.  The animals are toasting marshmallows, which she created from moldable clay.

Also, on Saturday, I got the indoor decor up.

Our old friend Frosty the demented Cookie Jar is back.  For anybody who did not already know, Frosty was a re-gift to me from my son's first wife.  She got it in one of those White Elephant work exchanges.  He's goofy because whoever heard of a cookie jar that holds salt and pepper shakers and a cheese spreader?  In any case this cannibalistic snowman tickled my fancy and he has had a prized position in my home every Christmas since.

And of course, there is the crèche that came into this house the first Christmas we spent in it.  I was still married then, and my son's dad was present the first time we put it up.

I put the tree together and went through the usual attempts to figure out how to plug those lights together.  This morning, I lit the candles to enjoy the glow.  Rituals can give us peace, and this is one of mine.

Back in my working days, I would get up in the 4-5 a.m. hour, and light the candles when I came downstairs, to enjoy them while I got things ready for work, including packing my lunch and simmering breakfast of steel-cut oats in skim milk.

In retirement, I have moved from the steel cut to the rolled oats.  The nutritional value is the same.  Every so often, I take the time to make the steel cut kind, for variety.

At some point this season, Frosty will get filled up with goodies.  The little Laplander with his reindeer pulling the sled used to belong to my dad's mother.  The cardinal is a wax warmer that reminded me of my own mom.

Rubia posed with the lit tree in the morning darkness.

Life is good.  Keep the Spark alive!
💖🔥🎄

The Geek Report: what kinds of things was I grateful for this season?

Looks like in terms of categories, I did end up with some duplication and I'm not sure I categorized them the way anyone else would, but I here present the list of what kinds of things I said I was thankful for, over the days of the Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving exercise!

Environmental:

1. Warm blankets
2. Clean running water
3. Calm sunny weather
4. Safety from nearby wildfire
5. Autumn colors, smells, and crispness
6. Schedule flexibility in retirement
7. Earlier sunrise due to time change
8. Cloud cover promising rain
9. Good driving conditions over holiday travel season

Mental/Spiritual/Discipline/Habits:

1. The gratitude exercise itself.
2. Dreams
3. Memories
4. Trust
5. Procrastination (patience in disguise)
6. Elections and honoring the process
7. Specific days of recognition, such as Veterans' Day
8. Music
9. Humor
10. Love of learning

People and services:

1. Neighbors who plant flowers.
2. Grocery store staff who shop for me when I order online and the convenience of curb-side pickup.
3. The life of my Dad
4. The SparkPeople community (and its remnants)
5. Kitty duty swapping sister
6. Online friends who introduce me to games, and who offered greetings on my birthday
7. Heroes who fight fires
8. My cats' vets and their skills
9. Reconnecting with my niece
10. Lawn service guys
11. Court personnel and the justice system
12. Uniformed branches of the military
13. Younger generations 
14. Older generations, gone before me.
15. Storytellers

Physical objects:

1. Coffee mug collection
2. Home appliances
3. Alarm clock and that it rarely needs to be used.
4. Soap
5. My body and that it's still working!
6. Books

Food and cooking

1. Herbs and spices
2. Measuring cups
3. Shelf-stable food
4. Black coffee (that I learned to drink it in college)
5. Supply chain that gets groceries in wide variety into my stores.
6. My cookbook & having learned to cook.

Technology

1. Online games
2. Streaming platforms
3. Smart phones and tracking apps

I notice I left out being grateful for the animals in my life... so I guess they will headline the start of the next list:  Thanksgiving to Christmas, the Advent season (for Christians)... I'll probably start that list tomorrow.

Thanksgiving safely, we hope

Smile with your eyes, ladies!

Navigating the need to see one another, and the need to keep one another safe was the theme of yesterday's feast.  The host and hostess masked, except for when eating and drinking.  Lacey's mom and I followed suit.  Son did a good job of distancing himself, while keeping Carl out of trouble.

 

Our close contact fellow, keeping his social distance

Carl was in heaven, with FIVE people to give him pets and praise.  And bits of acceptable treats, of course!  He feasted, too.

Grandpa Bob and Carl

The meal itself was traditional perfection.  The turkey done just as we all arrived.  The mashed potatoes were brought by Lacey's mom, and were excellent.  They paired well with the gravy that Lacey put together.  Well, I'm sure you all had your own favorites, and I did not take photos of the food... although Lacey did get one of her second turkey!

After dinner, before pie, we moved to the living room for the puzzle of the day, Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving:  What ARE those little "cheetos shaped things" in multiple colors?  They are too big to be jellybeans, but shaped and colored such that they should be just that.

We concluded that the relative size was unimportant to the artist, and they MUST be jellybeans.  Peppermint Patty does not name them in her listing of the foods, either.  So... question to the readers... if you are familiar with the film, have you ever thought about what they are?

From the movie to the video games.  This is a gaming family!  I found another point of commonality with my fellow "mom of the young couple".  We were both hooked on the original Legend of Zelda, with the gold-colored cartridge for the Nintendo machine.  The kids laughed at memories of how their mothers were playing their game!  I recall I was not the only mom in Newark Valley, back in the day, who grabbed her kids' game and played that game through to completion!

I like this pie photo of the blind baking "done" test.  If the knife, inserted halfway between the center and the rim comes out clean, the pie is done.  This test works for all custards, and my pumpkin pie recipe is even titled as "pumpkin custard" in the recipe book.

So, yes, we did break from games to have the pie with decaf coffee.  And whipped cream.  There must be whipped cream.  Tradition!

At the end of the pie and coffee, I started my fast.  Not too much damage on that front.  The program is intact, as long as I defer breakfast this morning until 8:50 a.m. or so.  And to be honest... not... hungry... at all.  Typical of after feast, right?

Now we all monitor our health for the next couple of weeks, to make sure we did NOT get infected by the invisible hand of Covid, and son's close contact.  His co-worker did the responsible thing and let him know.  She did not have symptoms until after the workday, and then she lost her sense of smell, took a test, and bingo... positive.  Given that Son had an appointment at a house with cats, he showered before entering his house after work, so hopefully between that and all the vaccinations and boosters, and everybody doing their best to distance at the gather, we'll all be good.

Some of the gamers, we rotated the three controllers.

Masked hugs and a careful drive home (it was after dark) closed a most satisfying holiday.  Friday morning, I'm still on kitty care duty for my sister, so I'll head over a bit after sunrise and take care of that, then I'm on my own for a peaceful day.

Hope you all had a similarly satisfying and health-conscious holiday!

Life is Good!  Spark on.

Risk balancing at the Holiday season

 

Meet Prance (the tiger cat) and Kinley, the shiny-hoofed reindeer.  They are my birthday buddies.  Y'all know that Beanie Babies have their own birthdays, as listed on the tags, right?  Well, several years ago (in 2012), my elder sister presented me with Prance, because his grey and tabby stripes reminded her of my cat, The Prisoner, and because once she read the birthday on the little tag, knew Prance was meant to live at my house.

Kinley is a new acquisition, a birthday gift from a younger sister (who seemed to be unaware of Prance.)

In any case, they are now together, brightening up the bookshelf.

Here is Prisoner when Prance first joined the household, welcoming him.  Or suspicious of him.  You be the judge.

This morning's hot headline is that just after I got home from medicating and feeding my sister's kitties (she's celebrating Thanksgiving in Kansas), my phone rang.  It was my son.  He started out the phone call with "I have some rather bad news."  "How bad?" I asked.

You see the last time someone started out a call to me with "I have bad news", it was my niece telling me her father had died.  My thoughts went to a very dark place, concerned for the health of my ex, my son's father.  Now comes the chuckle part... I was relieved to hear that son had been in close contact with a co-worker who just came up positive for Covid 19.  His sleep was interrupted in the night by a text to that effect.

But of course the next part of the conversation was whether we would be on for Thanksgiving, since it was planned to be at his home.  We are a small party, but three of us are either over 65 or have those ominous "underlying conditions".  However, we are all five of us fully vaccinated and up to date on our boosters... and vaccinated against flu, too.  Son and his fiancé were leaving it up to the three elders whether we wanted to risk gathering.

He wanted to let me know before I started baking the pie for the gather, in case I wanted to skip doing that.  Nonsense, said I, I'm baking that pie regardless.  How about this?  We all take those at home Covid tests, and depending on the results, we could decide.

Bottom line, all five of us tested negative.  All five of us have decided it is worth the level of risk, as we are all pretty careful.  The feast in on!

The pies are baked and cooling.  I'm patting myself on the back as I did not break my fast until they were out of the oven.  (Just don't break your arm in the process, Barb!)

Now I'm about to head up to shower and dress, and find appropriate cardboard boxes in which to transport said pies.  I made two because the pumpkin measured out to 2 cups.  I adjust the recipe based on how much pumpkin I have to work with.  But part of the decision was based on wanting to leave one with the host and hostess.  A comfort pie for a tough week.

That's about it from here.  Sending warm thoughts of gratitude out across the world with wishes for peace and harmony.

And withes of health to all, too.

Life is good.  Spark on!

🔥💖🦃🍽

The gratitude connection, From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving

Pumpkin pie from TG 2021 - long gone, of course.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian (and other international friends) who celebrated the annual harvest feast on Monday Oct 10th. For several years I have used the time period between the Canadian holiday and the US version (Thursday Nov 24th this year) as my one gratitude a day season. Not that I'm not grateful every day, but I try to adhere to the discipline of posting at least one small thing I'm grateful for here on FB, daily.

The traditional family rules are it can be small or large, concrete or abstract... the thing you're grateful for... but "no repeats".

I'm going to build this list, and share what I was grateful for, day by day, and then post the final list on Thanksgiving Day in the USA. The point of the exercise is to build up our gratitude muscles, and prepare our hearts for the Winter Holidays ahead!

• Oct 10th: warm blankets I crawled out of this morning. Others added theirs in the comments: their cat, their warm home on a chilly morning, their A/C (she lives in Florida), their dogs across the years, and Wordle.

• Oct 11th: I posted as a comment on my cousin's starter that I am grateful for this exercise, and those who join me in it. Her gratitude of the day was books!

• Oct 12th: I am thankful for clean running water, hot and cold. This is easy to take for granted, but HUGE if you don't have it. I think that was one of the hardest bits of news out of the hurricane coverage (Ian) in Florida, that hospitals lost their water supply. Yikes. So the fact that I have this today, and every day that I do have it, gives me a boost of gratitude.
• From others: music, and beauty of autumn leaves.

• Oct 13th: Thankful for neighbors who plant flowers that surprise me every year.

• Oct 14th: Thankful for dreams that can blend folks still living and those passed on into a pleasant, restful sleep. Also thankful that anxious dreams are just that, dreams, that we can feel relieved to awaken from!

• Oct 15th: Thankful for the memories contained in my collection of coffee mugs... from Spark to ObCo Donuts, to the Christmas ones, to the Calamity Ware ones... all have memories attached. On Facebook I posted a photo of my blue Spark mug with my gratitude, and got a lot of friends over there that I met through Spark commenting on the post.

• Oct 16th: Today I am thankful that among the lessons of the pandemic was learning to trust that the produce will be just fine if the young people pick it out for me and I pick up the groceries at the curb! In the process, I discovered a convenience / luxury I didn't think I needed and didn't realize how much I would appreciate.

• Oct 17th:  Today I am thankful for a calm and sunny day.  The temperature is chilly (seasonally so), but the wind isn't fighting the sun and the sunshine makes it feel warmer.

• Oct 18th:  Thankful for the life of my Dad, on the 23rd anniversary of his passing.

• Oct 19th:  Thankful for home appliances, from vacuum cleaners to washing machines to microwave ovens.

• Oct 20th:  Thankful for old SparkPeople dot com, and all the friendships formed on it.  While these friendships may be virtual, they are genuine, and thus in my book, they qualify as real!  That includes all of y'all who are reading this!

• Oct 21st:  Thankful for my kitty-duty swapping sister.  Thanks to both of us having feline co-habitants, this ability frees both of us to travel when needed.

• Oct 22nd:  Thankful for herbs and spices. 

Pumpkin and spices in oatmeal.

• Oct 23rd:  Thankful for friends who introduce me to challenging online games, most recently sedeorcle, which is wordle on steroids, with 16 5-letter words to solve in parallel with the same alphabet and 21 guesses total to win.  So far, I've won only one daily game, but three practice ones.

• Oct 24th: Thankful for safety from the nearest grass fires of the season.  With the severe drought locally and extreme drought around the state, I am thankful that there are heroes willing to go out and contain them, and heads wise enough to order evacuations to keep people safe, even as property is destroyed.

• Oct 25th:  Today I am thankful for procrastination. Sometimes it is just the way of letting my mind prepare for and adjust to a change before I make it. Sometimes it is waiting for all the facts to unfold, so I can make a wise choice. Sometimes it results in a missed opportunity, sometimes it teaches a lesson, and sometimes it saves me from a mistake. As bad a rap as it gets, it is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it is patience in disguise.

• Oct 26th:  Today I am grateful for the beauty of colors in the Autumn. Spring has its own beauty, but Autumn has a ripeness to it. The smell of drying leaves or of an autumn rain only add to the visual display, when every tree and building seems to stand out in its complete three dimensions, backed by either bright or cloudy skies.

• Oct 27th:  Today I am thankful for my alarm, and that I rarely have to use it to get up in the morning.

• Oct 28th:  Today I am thankful for soap, and that clean smell my favorite brand gives me. The favorite kind may be different for each of us, but whatever the scent is, it will smell "clean" to us!

• Oct 29th:  Today I am thankful for my kitties' vets, and that they spot things I do not. Their questions on Friday led me to realize I was completely missing the real symptoms Rubia was exhibiting.

• Oct 30th:  Today I am thankful for when reconnecting works out.  Met a niece I hadn't seen in about ten years at her shop this morning.  Sometimes we get SO out of touch we can't pull off reconnecting.  I'm glad in this case that did not happen.

• Oct 31st:  Today I am thankful for measuring cups.

• Nov 1st: Thankful that the lawn mowers took my leftover Halloween candy off my hands.

• Nov 2nd:  Thankful for shelf-stable foods and the tech that makes them so.  Some of that tech is really old, such as drying grapes to make for raisins!

• Nov 3rd:  Today I am thankful to be able to afford the surgery that my younger kitty needs. I may have to put off some other spending, but at least I didn't have to choose between her life and the heat or the groceries. Our pets really are more than companions and friends. They are luxuries, sometimes. 

• Nov 4th:  Today I'm thankful for the schedule flexibility of retirement. I'm also thankful for advance notice coming from government and businesses that enable me to adjust. Oh, and totally unrelated, I'm grateful for the early college years that trained me to drink black coffee. So it's not such a shock when I have to take it that way.

• Nov 5th:  Today begins my week of acknowledging my gratitude for those who have put on the uniform. In this time where we have an all-volunteer military, less than 1% of the population of the United States do so. Why today, and leading up to Veterans Day? Because 13 years ago today, one of the worst mass shootings occurred on an Army Base in Texas. It was a horrible day for me, from afar. My son was part of the unit hardest hit by it. It was not nearly as horrible for me as it was for 13 families who lost someone, or for the 32 wounded, or even for the people present on base at the time, in the midst of the chaos that surrounds such events.

One of the lessons that has come from the awfulness was the renewal of a commitment to live every day. In the years following, I started doing the gratitude exercise earlier, because I just couldn't take facing having to be grateful on its anniversary, when it was only "day 5".

But here's the meat of today's gratitude: Following bad things happening, we have choices. One of those choices is to learn from them. It is a choice to remember. I still have Facebook friends among the other families who were affected by this. It is a choice to do our best to take care of our own health, so that those who are wearing uniforms in our families don't have the added burden of worrying about us, "back home".

I'm grateful for the reminders to "make good choices", "remember", and value one another. And I am grateful for those who signed that blank check, "up to and including" their lives, in service to their country.

• Nov 6th:  Today I am grateful for live streaming platforms, since I can't get several of the "live TV" over the digital airwaves.  And for the amazing tracking technology we now have on our Smart phones.  I can follow specific friends that I know are running, well beyond the elite runners who "win".  Today I'm particularly grateful for access to the NYC marathon streaming, where I can relive memories of the year I flew out to be a spectator there.

• Nov 7th:  Today I am thankful for the boost my attitude gets from an earlier sunrise. Here is my neighbor's tree, framing today's, at 6:55 a.m.
  
  
  
• Nov 8th:  Today I am thankful for the cloud cover. Even though it means I can't see the full lunar eclipse this morning, these clouds might bring us a bit of moisture, and we need it!

• Nov 9th:  Today I am thankful for the fact that even while in any given election we may not get EVERYTHING we want, every time, we have the ability to vote, and have that vote respected. I am thankful for the wins, accepting of the losses, and valuing the process.

• Nov 10th:  Today I am thankful for the younger generations in my life. They do give me hope that the world is in good hands.

• Nov 11th:  Today I am thankful for all the "once a year" days of recognition. While we all know that we should be grateful every day, that we should thank Veterans every day, honor our mothers and fathers every day, we don't always say it out loud. It's easy to just go with the flow. These holidays remind us how important people, pets, organizations, etc. are in our lives.

• Nov 12th:  Today I am thankful for central heating, my warm breakfast and coffee, and my cracked corn bag.  Can you tell it's a cold morning where I am?

• Nov 13th:  Today I am thankful for music.  And for the richness of sign language, even though I don't speak it.

• Nov 14th:  Today I am thankful for all the personal trainers who have helped me through the various phases of my life.

• Nov 15th: Today I am thankful for the justice system, and for the court personnel who educate those of us called for jury duty. It might not happen often, but I have always learned something from the experience.

• Nov 16th: Today is a good day to be grateful for the generations that came before me. This would have been my great-great grandmother's birthday. Tomorrow would have been my mother's. My own falls just a few days later.

When I was a child, knowing the birthdays were close together, although separated by many years, enabled me to feel connected to history. G-G-Gram had been 4 years old when President Lincoln was shot. I met her when she was 101 and I was 9 or ten, I think.

The trip across two states to see her was a big deal back then, in the early 1960's, before the Interstate Highway was fully built and connected. See? Connection to history!

• Nov 17th:  Today I am thankful for humor and a sense of the ridiculous.  I need to go back and re-read Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.  'Nuff said.

• Nov 18th:  Today I am thankful that one is never too old to learn, or to try something different. You can buy six cotton handkerchiefs for less than a box of premium facial tissue. Budget and better for the planet, too. Thanks to friends and family who have been doing this for years, I finally got on board.

• Nov 19th:  Today I am thankful for the amazing variety of good, nutritious food available in our grocery stores, and for all those who contribute to getting it there.  From farmers and ranchers to truckers and railway and shipping workers, from butchers and bakers, deli workers and checkout clerks, to the ultimate luxury of personal shoppers... I thank you for helping to feed the world.

• Nov 20th:  Today I am thankful for the body that seems to keep on keeping on, trip around the sun after trip around the sun. I am thankful that it still responds well to being treated well. All those things your mom and grandma told you were good for you, still are. Nutritious food, fresh air, brushing your teeth, going to bed on time, and being active (as one can be).

• Nov 21st:  Today I am thankful for the amazing outpouring of greetings for my birthday, yesterday. People are just wonderful, you know! I do not need a whole lot of attention, and on-line greetings are just fine in the "getting rid of physical objects" phase of life. It turned out to be a perfect day for me, right down to the weather!

• Nov 22nd:  Today I am thankful for books and the storytellers that write them.

• Nov 23rd:  Today I am thankful for good driving conditions in the region of the country I live in.  People I know are driving for the Holiday weekend, and the forecast looks good for them.

• Thanksgiving Day, 2022:  Somehow the day itself makes me want to be grateful for something profound.  But the profound is built from the ordinary efforts of each of us.  If we desire peace on earth, let it begin with peace in our hearts, and be extended from there to everyone we meet in daily life.

Today I am grateful for my cookbook, and for having learned to bake a pumpkin pie many decades ago.  I am grateful that my son likes my pie, and that I'm still able to put one together at this phase of my life.  I'm grateful that the oven works and there is power to my home to make it so.  

A very blessed Thanksgiving to you all, whether it's celebrated in your nation today or not!   

 

Life is good.  We are Thankful!  Spark on.

Cabbage soup and Thanksgiving on IF

 

Cabbage Soup.  Filling, warm, comfort food.  And so good for us!  I put this together on Tuesday.  It will make a wonderful filling pre-feast day meal, paired with a protein.  The photo is the pot in progress.

I started experimenting with "Intermittent Fasting" as a regimen on Halloween (I've dropped a note here and there about it in the blog).  In any case, I'm currently fasting 15 hours with a 9 hour eating window, at least on the app, but have been pretty regularly achieving between 16 and 17 hours for the fast, and shortening the eating window.  

I generally have been starting my fast between 3 and 4 p.m.  Thanksgiving dinner will be at my son and his fiancé's home, at 3 p.m.  Consequently, some adjustments are being made.  I have extended my fast from yesterday so that I will break it in a little bit.  (approximately 10 a.m.)  That will shift the end of today's eating window to 7 p.m., and similarly shift the start of Thanksgiving Day's eating window to accommodate the festivities. 

I am in charge of the homemade pumpkin pie.  Like last year, it is my plan to bake that pie tomorrow before the feast.  No nibbling outside of the fasting window!  Should be a "piece of cake" as I've been making this particular recipe since I was in my teens.  I know it's good, don't need to taste test.

Oh, you want to know how this regimen is working?  I can say that the major goal of this effort was health, but losing a few pounds would be welcome.  I feel less bloated.  Not experiencing as much heart-burn (because I'm not eating the junk, nor as close to bedtime).  That means I am sleeping better, too.  The scale has also been kind.  From October 31st to this morning, I have shed the weight I gained in September and October.  Plus a smidge.  For a total of 9.3 pounds down.

Happy?  Yes, very.  But more because I feel like I'm just living life, not "dieting".  I'm recording the general content of meals and their timing, but not tracking precisely or counting nutritional content.  It's easier for me, at this phase of my life.

One thing observed is that I am essentially incorporating into this everything I have learned over the decades about nutrition and adding in more recent experience with specific foods where I didn't feel so great after eating.  Nothing is ever done in a vacuum, is it?

Here's wishing all my US Spark refugees a Thanksgiving filled with its original purpose:  gratitude.  Also as a bonus, with family members (born or chosen) and love.  For peaceful interactions, good food, and maybe a nice walk or romp with the kids, grandkids, or pets, depending on your situation.

Life is good.  Keep on Sparking!

🦃😋🍲🔥💖

A Hero bracelet

 

Good Morning, Sunrise!

And if you don't have music playing in your head, you are not of my generation.  😍

Went walking this afternoon, checking out the progress of the construction down the street.  The weather being nice, the big machines were active, and the workmen, too.

I had barely turned the corner when my phone chirped with an instant message.  "Do you have a spare 467th and 1908th hero bracelet?  Mine broke today?"

I responded that I would look when I got home, but I thought that I did.  You see, my son has been wearing this hero bracelet for 13 plus years, through two deployments overseas.  It bears the names of five of his fellows who lost their lives on November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood.

I found it the first place I looked.  I had been hanging that "spare" on the Christmas tree every year since.  (I wear one myself, and it's been through triathlons and mud runs and all.)

I messaged him back that my search was a success.  He called me and asked if he could come over and get it.  He felt nekkid without it, it has been such a part of him.  Of course he could!

I wasn't going anywhere and he sounded kind of down, so a mom hug might not be amiss.  He put the new one on his wrist, and showed me the broken one.  It had snapped at a flexion point when he took it off to go through a metal detector as he went about his workday.

He couldn't stay long, as he had another appointment to get to.  Still, he got three or four mom hugs out of the stop.  After he drove off, I sent him a link to the web page of the place that put my brother's Boston Marathon medal into a shelf-display case for me.  I figure they might be able to help him find a way to preserve the original, as clearly he has a deep (and understandable) attachment to it.

Some keepsakes are just that.

Here's sending vibes of peace and healthy choices to everyone.  Life will have these choppy waters some times.  We are better suited to survive them if we take care of ourselves, best can do, body, mind and spirit!

Life is good!  Spark on!

🔥💖💪

Personal Trainers

I am cross-posting this to the blog from the FB group Sparking seniors and friends.  I wrote it in response to a question one of the group members asked.

Personal Trainers

You asked how it was going with the Personal Trainer. Someone suggested this might even be a luxury. I agree. Sometimes a necessity, but at my phase of life, it's definitely a luxury!

The first one I ever hired was not even for me. It was for my then teenaged son who was having some health issues. He got amazing results. Enough so that I considered hiring one for myself.

I was at an incredibly high level of body fat and was working at losing the weight. I don't even remember her name... Tammy? I was in my late 40's, maybe, at the time. She met with me once a week for four weeks, I think it was. Each time she introduced me to a new workout, and when our engagement was ended, I had four different workouts to do in rotation, to continue to work on my fitness.

Then there was Alicia (not my sister, another Alicia). Similar drill. Ended up with 6 workouts in her rotation. We only met once month for 6 months, then she moved out of state. I was bereft!

Before the next personal trainer, I hired a swim instructor to help me "make the cutoff" in my first Olympic distance triathlon. Her name was April. She gave me drills and exercises to do in the pool to work on my efficiency (which also increases one's speed in the water).

Next personal trainer was Dalton. I called him "the boy Wonder" because he really was a wet behind the ears kid, but he knew his stuff. He was the first trainer I hired not to design a workout or set of workouts for me, but to just keep me accountable and work me out, once a week. I hired him to "keep me fit over the Winter".

There was a gap after that while I pursued running, and biking, and swimming, outdoors, and quite apart from the gym work. During the height of my triathlon "career", I wasn't working with trainers. But then came 2016, and three falls over the course of Winter. Out of concern for concussion symptoms, I was forbidden outdoor cycling.

I turned to trainers again. I hired BJ, who had lost weight herself and participated in obstacle races. I told her my tale of woe and said, "I don't want to lose the awesome" (meaning the feeling one gets crossing three finish lines in one race, triathlon). We laid out a plan to get me prepped to run a 5 mile footrace the following September as my end goal (to feel that awesome). She worked out beside me and we giggled as much as we worked. But then she left the employment at the gym I belonged to, that held my contract.

She bequeathed me to Chelsea. Chelsea was another youngster 20-something to my 60-something! But like Dalton before her, she knew her stuff. Her favorite trick was to give me a heavier weight without telling me she did until after I'd done my reps with it.

That contract ended, and I was without a coach for a while. Then when I retired, I had this grand plan to up my game in Triathlon now that I had time to train. I hired Gary, a level 2 certified triathlon coach. My triathlon dreams kind of died in burnout, and a few bouts of illness, etc. I decided I would just run for a while. Gary stayed with me, adapting the workouts to my changing goals.

In 2019, my brother (some of you remember him as MobyCarp from Spark) died. Gary kept me working even in the shadow of grief. Up to the pandemic, when I stopped going. For an entire year! To stay safe. I walked outside. Every once in a while, I would lift weights at home. I stopped running races, though, after the NYC 5K in November 2019.

Gary got sick over the 2020 year, but recuperated. He contacted me as the vaccines became available, and I started back with him two weeks after my second shot. And I'm still with him, most of the time twice a week. The workouts have adapted as my goals have changed, even to the point of "I just want to remain functionally fit to live my life, a good quality of life".
Luxury? Yep. But some luxuries are so worth it.

And that is how it's going! I'm not as fit or trim as in the finish line photo (Sept 2018), but I'm keeping the feeling of awesome alive.