Weeds in the gardens and tangles in the health journey

Saturday, June 15, 2013

First, thank-you to SparkFriends who sent me messages discreetly inquiring if my Spark quiet was in any way sinister. It's nice to be missed, and for sure I'm missing my Spark interactions. Nothing serious going on here. It's just as the blog title says: weeds, weeds, weeds, WEEDS, both real and symbolic.

I used soil from the municipal composting program and fertilizer direct from the farm next door when I put in new gardens last fall: neither source has facilities to sterilize their product. You can imagine what that means -- the weed seeds in the soil have taken full advantage of the new nutrient sources of the fertilizer, and the weed seeds in the fertilizer have taken full advantage of a new growing medium! coooo-eeeeeee! Pigweed! Thistles! Convolvulus! Plantain! Chickweed! Quackgrass! I'm one busy weed-picker. And that's on top of the regular push to keep a couple acres of grass under control during the spring growth period and do all the other spring yard stuff.

And of course the trips to the 'city', the occasional day of teaching, the volunteer time at the Tourist Info centre, church and church meetings and Regional District meetings are as frequent as ever. *And* I make sure I steal every possible moment to take advantage of good outdoor tanning conditions when they happen!

So, yeah, I'm not Sparking and I'm missing it, but I'm fine. Well, if sliding backwards by about 5 lbs and neglecting any kind of serious cardio exercise can be included in "fine", then I'm fine. Won't be long till the pool is warm enough that I'll be able to do some water aerobics every day and that will help. All good, nevertheless.

Keep Sparking, you faithful ones, and savour summer, everyone!

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WNGD May 4

Monday, May 13, 2013

And I went and missed it. How 'bout you?

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Unusual start to the day.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Felt *so* good to wake up today. I've been looking forward to this completely schedule-free day for a couple of weeks. Time to Spark properly. Time to garden. Time to suntan. Bliss.

Woke up early without the benefit of the alarm. Gave thanks for the beauty of the perfect sunny morning. Got up, turned on the coffee, and did my customary walk from window to window, revelling in nature's beauty on all sides. When I got to the windows overlooking the lake, I noticed something strange floating a few hundred from shore. An escaped swim float? A dock? Got the binocs. Whoa! It was a rowboat. Empty, so far as I could tell.

Derelict? Escaped with the high water? Disaster? What now? Call 9-1-1? Too slow a process if there's been an accident. Best go check it out. Got dressed, put on the life jacket, grabbed a spare life jacket, launched the canoe. Paddled out to the floater, thanking God for calm water, praying to find nothing untoward.

Happily, it was a derelict. No identifying number. Probably floated off someone's beach with the spring high water. No use to me, but a more adventurous person might want to salvage it further down the lake. It was floating high, no worries that it would sink and become lake junk. It'll settle on someone's lakeshore at some point and they can have the satisfaction or frustration of dealing with it. This lake is 13 miles long and has many bays and promontories--the boat could have come from anywhere, including somewhere upstream on the river that feeds the lake--trying to find its owner is out of the question. Have to be content letting karma take this event to its appropriate conclusion.

So, an unusual start to the day, but whatthehell, whatthehell, an early morning paddle on a calm lake is a pretty spectacular way to do it : )

On another note, it's *so* good to have enough time to do more than log-in and Huddle on SparkPeople today. Over the past couple of weeks I've managed to read what all my SparkFriends are up to, but there just hasn't been time to contribute much. Looking forward to checking in to all my discussion threads today. Fun!

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I ran all the way : )

Friday, April 26, 2013

How could I not? Adrenalin! Excitement! Volunteers! Music! Good weather! Encouraging bystanders! Great running partners! The Sun Run was definitely a great experience for me, one I'll want to repeat. Plans already in place for next year--the 30th consecutive Sun Run!--and Sis and I have our eyes peeled for a HM event this summer.

Thanks so much, SparkFriends for all your encouragement and for sharing your own excitement at participating in Events. I think that was what prodded me to give this a try as much any anything else : )

After the run, Sis-in-Law, DW, Bro-in-Law and Niece had a celebratory parade around the living room and presented me with a personalized troply : ) I posted a pic on my SparkPage. What fun!

Now? harrumph. i seem to have contracted bronchitis somewhere on my travels. Coughing and hacking and eager for bed mid-evening : (

Better times next week, no doubt.

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Inexplicably sanguine.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

That's how I'm feeling on this eve of my first major running event. It's the Vancouver Sun Run, 10K. 47,000 partipants registered, several thousand last-minute entrants in response to the Boston Marathon tragedy.

I expected to feel terrified at this point. I know I haven't trained as consistently as I should have. I know I didn't prepare mentally--it was a busy week leading up to now. But nevertheless, I feel sanguine about it. Excited--in a low-key sort of way. But quite "cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident"--sanguine. My goal is to feel and savour the entire experience. I know I'll finish and it doesn't matter to me if I end up walking a lot of the course--I've registered in the slowest cohort so I don't have to apologize to anybody if I don't set any speed records. It'll be my first 10k run this season but I was doing 10k pretty regularly last summer. It won't be as easy this time, but it's doable. And so I'm sanguine as I head to bed.

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