I postponed lunch Saturday and moved the hiking plans, thinking they might actually be getting sick, but now that it's Sunday afternoon, I think it was more that they were wiped flat out and we all have a mild tummy blah-or have just been eating too much junk. I slept most of yesterday afternoon myself, it's funny how your brain can start in, 'Ooo, the flu is going around and my head hurts and my legs and stomach muscles are achy...I feel HORRIBLE.' Never mind I have walked 3+ miles a day every day this week, setting the incline at least 5 to work my thighs more and done crunches every night. And I stayed up way too late reading. No, I am dying of the flu. Until I got bored with laying in bed and decided I must be okay after all. So I walked 3 miles and then did crunches. *sigh*
Today I had big plans to go hike anyway, but now Matt is feeling puny. hahahaha. The kids are still at about 90%, just tired and irritable, but not feverish or actually sick. So we opted for one more day of laying low-no need to get out among the masses and contract something!
I read all morning and did a little cleaning. We have had company for 5 of the last 7 days- a glaring clue in my hindsight of 'I think the kids are just super tired' and so not only have I not been able to walk around in just my underwear, I also have been pretty lax on the chores. We got the kitchen and laundry squared away and vacuumed, got the animals all fixed up with fresh bedding and clean water, refilled the food stocks and so on.
By this afternoon, I was feeling the need to stir my blood, so I took the dogs for a walk in the pasture. This implies I had some kind of control over where they went and that in fact-these 3 hours later-know where they currently are. But what it really means is they stayed with me long enough to decide I knew where I was and then took off. With some 800 acres behind us, most in long and winding valleys that feed into a creek that gets wider and deeper the further away from us it goes, they LOVE to get out in the woods and run. I go back and forth from wanting to run with them to envisioning a snapped ankle a half mile out. I think established trails are just fine.
I wandered for half an hour, amassing an impressive 334 steps on my fitbug. Tracking my every step is the new fun hoop we are jumping through for our insurance company, I do the 10k every day, but it's stopped being a challenge and started being a chore and I am starting to resent it. Waa
Anyway, I had my camera and took some pictures. And, here they are. It's mid-December...well, okay early December, and things are reblooming or still in bloom. It has not even come a hard frost up here yet. I am not complaining, just making note. I love mild winters for my own selfish reasons-mainly being that I seriously hate to be cold. Lots of people want to point out that mild winters are bad things, but really, think about that. There are whole countries where 'winter' means it might hit 65. You don't need a period of everything being dead, plants go dormant on their own. And I don't believe one word of the whole 'kills off bugs' because whether it's 30 below for a solid week or rarely dips below 40, there are bugs every dang summer.
So bring another mild winter!
