It can be best to not say what I'm thinking

2/11/2019 - 2/17/2019

Monday (3 + 2) - A little too much indulging in beer, these days that amounts to 3, made for a slow start to the day.  Sweating out the last of the ick Muddy style, or maybe my irresponsible indulgence was a tribute to Muddy, guess it could go either way, with a 3-mile run including a run up ‘the bitch’ I made it about half way till that slowed to a walk and resumed the run the last 100 yards or so.

He has a ruff life.

Dave and I took Jax on a hike to round out the night.  Jax was hot on the trail of something and pulling us along.  We never did see what had his sniffer in overdrive.

Tuesday (3 + 1) -  Elliptical with Mikey and then Booty Core day #18, I liked this day, more band work.  The predicted snow happened, yeah!  Dave and I got Jax out to play in it for a bit, throwing lousy snowballs at him and each other, with Jax eating snow and finding sticks to break.  It was fun.  We got back into the car just as the predicted rain started.  It rained the rest of the night.  At least we had some fun in the snow.

It didn't last long, but we had some snow to play in.

Wednesday (4) -  The snow lasted through the night but vanished as the day wore on.  I was able to walk with Ro and Germaine before Ro went off to CO.    It was fun catching up over a peppy walk.

Well, sans chair seats, we have been eating in the living room.
He might as well clean the bowls in there.

Dinner out with friends was fun, other than one of them playing doctor with my health.  I assured her I was in good hands with my rheumatologist and the lupus isn’t a side effect of another medication.  People certainly do get kooky as they age and it was a good lesson in what is empathy (not what I experienced) and not losing my temper (I’m getting better at holding my tongue for longer periods of time) and not contradicting them outright (ok so I may have gone into some unpleasant gory side effects because I was feeling spiteful) for me.

Thursday (2) - Time crunch 2 miles on the elliptical and 15 minutes of Booty Core day #19.

I love his comics.
https://semi-rad.com/

Dave took Jax out in the daylight so no night hike.  Have to say I was pretty bummed but did get some much-needed grocery shopping and a load of laundry done.

Friday (5) - I felt that run in the last two miles as well as climbing the stair from the gym to the cafe and the cafe back to the long hallway to take me to my desk.  I honestly felt like I ran 15 miles.  Guess that is par for the course with 5 miles being a long run for me.  Honestly, I'm happy to be able to run at whatever distance or pace, I feel like I've accomplished something and won a battle.

I contemplated finishing BC #19 showering and eating won, priorities.

A gal I know through trail running invited me for "Drunken Knitting" I can do those things pretty well so I accepted.  The group moves from house to house once a month or so and the host finds a seasonal, or in this case, not so seasonal cocktail for the group.  This was a tequila-based one, Palmona I believe, more of a spring/summer sort of drink PERFECT for a rainy dreary Friday night.

Saturday (2) - Still feeling Friday's run and generally off, I napped till it was time to take Jax on an adventure.  Jax, Dave, and I went to TriTown Forest and hiked the part of the blue loop Jax and I skipped last weekend and cut back on the yellow trail for a short hike, good amount of elevation gain for 2.5-miles (475 feet).

The new seat cushions!
Nice to not sink through the middle of the seat!

Sunday (3) - The intention was to revisit TriTown Forest.  No dice, the parking area was packed as well as cars along the road.  No good for the crazy dog.  We drove around a bit and I decided on Hopkinton Land Trust Tomaquag Trail starting at the Kenyon Crossroads off Woodville Road.  Seemed like a very uninteresting place to park, perfect, the chance of running into people would be low!

Finally. On a trail.  -- Jax

It was a nice easy walkable trail.  Jax enjoyed running ahead and running back  He is definitely different than Gus.  Gus wanted to please me and he was happy to walk alongside me or sniff around run ahead and run right back to check in.  Jax pulls the whole hike, he wants to see what is up next, what is over there, what is up there, he is clearly in this for himself.  Over the months he has gotten better and will check in once or maybe twice, he finally slows up when I ask him to and will wait at the top of a rise so I can see what is up ahead.  I need to put a package of bribes in my coat pocket, maybe he will check in more.

The sections of trail are about 1.5 miles long and there are three, we will get to each of them over time.

Books:

"Grant"
by Ron Chernow

From this, I now gather different parts of history.  Had Mary Lincoln not been so difficult to get along with would Julia Grant have agreed to go to the theater and would Abe not have gotten shot or would we have lost both Grant and Lincoln?   From the gossip Chernow discussed in his book, times haven't changed much with the ability for people uninvolved in the situation being able to determine the outcome.  Fortunately for the folks of the late 1800s, they didn't have Facebook to spread ugliness from coast to coast in the blink of an eye like we have now, it still spread, not as quickly.  Human nature really doesn't change, does it?

"Stone by Stone"
by Robert M. Thorson

I am fascinated by all the stone walls.  Not quite fascinated enough to read every word in the chapters on the geology of New England.  I skimmed the first three chapters.  I was amazed to find out the bulk of the walls originated from the time period after the Revolutionary War until the railroads began construction.  It was the process of deforestation in the time before the Revolutionary War that brought the rocks to the surface.  I don't recall seeing miles of stone walls in virgin forests, however, they are plentiful in regrowth forests.  Not sure what else the book holds. I'm glad I picked it up at the library.

Knitting:

Finished another beer mitten.  I probably should make mittens for the other hand?  Might be a cute white elephant gift?  The yarn for Rusty Nail arrived, it is lovely.  Knitted up a gauge swatch, washed it and let it dry and the needle size met the required gauge so I cast on the sleeves and off we go!

They are cuff up sleeves.

Sincerely,
Beth finally on the other side of that horrible cold.