Foot Notes*

It's melting... melting... melting....!

The glacier that is my front yard is beginning to recede.  (I’m still waiting for a verdict on the shrubs up by the house.  The front yard faces north, so it takes a LONG for anything to melt in the front yard.)

I don’t see anything awful in the 7-day forecast.

The stock market seems to be holding its own for the time being.

The Girl Scout cookies that I ordered from the little girl who lives next door arrived yesterday. 

I’m recovering fairly quickly from a little stomach something my grandson brought home from pre-school that laid waste to the entire family this week. 

I finally got around to loading up the Theme from Rocky(the first one) onto my iPod.  Can’t believe it took me so long.  I can almost picture myself bounding up a flight of stairs two at a time (after I completely recover fromt he little stomach something, of course!)

The vernal equinox is only 16 days away.

All these things lead me to conclude:

Life is good, my friends.  Life is good.

Weekend Runs

The Saturday run is from Market Station.  I might just be up for that by then.  No muss, no fuss, just a friendly out and back on the W & OD. (no 10K loop for me!).

Just watch that first step...

My shrubs are starting to re-emerge from under the mounds of snow that were heaped upon them as I shoveled out my driveway weeks ago and for the most part, they seem to be in pretty good shape.   The ones that were directly under that monster icicle that fell last week are still buried so I’ll have to wait a little while longer to see what damage might have been done to them.

I see a few little flakes on the weather map for Saturday, but I haven’t heard any warnings of impending doom — at least for the DC area.  Is it possible it might be OK to try and come out to run with the club this weekend?

I got out my Winter Run Schedule, dusted it off, and took a look. Taylorstown! Oh boy! The last two miles of this run is a really cool out and back walk (up) and run (down) opportunity. And the W & OD trail from Tuscarora Creek Park on Sunday should be pretty well clear!

Hey.. it could happen!

I hope I’m not setting myself up for a big disappointment here.

Saturday:

Directions to Taylorstown run

Sunday:

Directions to Tuscarora Creek Park

I’ve got my fingers crossed for a twofer!

This could be really ugly when the sun comes out...

My insurance company sends me too much snail mail, and so does my mortgage company. Since I’ve got my payment going out automatically, I don’t need to see the monthly statements, or pay attention to the equity loan offers and refinancing deals.

I make several different piles when I go through my mail:

Bill — set aside to pay.
Statement — set aside to reconcile.
Junk — straight to trash.
Other junk — to be shredded
Other stuff — worry about later.

The envelope from the mortgage company was going into the last pile, but since it was a pretty slow mail day, I went ahead and opened it.

Holy Canoly, there was a check for $200 in it! Seems my escrow account has gotten larger than it needs to be (the bad news is this has happened because my taxes have no doubt gone down because the value of my townhouse has gone down), and they are going to be lowering my monthly payments, and they sent me the overage.

Woohoo. Found money!

Grateful for small favors

And I wasn’t under this when it fell from my neighbor’s roof:

Yeah..  I’m putting this in the “It was a good week” column.

I’ve spent my time this week running at the rec center, and walking indoors at Dulles Town Center, where I’ve been enjoying watching some Police K-9 teams training some dogs in the food court in the mornings. 

(At least I hope it is a training exercise! )

Weekend Runs:

The parking lot of Dulles Town Center has some mighty huge MOUNTAINS of snow piled here and there within the lot, but for the most part, the perimeter is clean.  I’ve run around the perimeter  in the past before the mall is open and it works reasonably well.  It’s about 1.4 miles in circumference, and it’s not completely flat.   I might head out there Sunday morning.

If anyone else is interested, let me know.

Does my insurance cover a collapse?

After I had finished digging out my driveway last weekend, I saw some of my neighbors tossing snow off their decks and  I considered whether or not I should follow suit.  My initial decision was negative.  As predictions for yet another major snowstorm started to bubble up in the forecast, I started to think seriously about the possibility that my deck would collapse.

Now, since I’m not able to immediately lay my hands on the latest epistle from my insurance company outlining precisely what my coverage is, I finally decided on Monday to eat my Powdermilk Biscuits and do what needed to be done.  My deck has a southern exposure and with the sun shining that morning, it was actually quite pleasant out there.  I got most of the snow off — definitely to the point where there was no longer a danger of collapse — and then a funny thing happened: 

All clear -- at least for 48 hours...

I hit wood.  A little bit here and a little bit there, and then I started to see the possibility of the entire deck being cleared off down to the wood and I just kept going.  The longer the remaining snow was exposed to the strong sun, and the more I kept shaving, the softer the icy/slushy stuff at the bottom got and the easier it got to keep going.

I suspect it is something like this that must happen in order to turn a wimpy runner into an ultra-marathoner.

Weekend Runs

I see absolutely zero possibility there.

I just hope the rec center opens again one of these days.  Never thought I’d say it but…  I need to run!

...before the melt...

The arrival of Groundhog Day this week, plus the now-familiar forecast for more snow have not surprisingly brought back memories of the 1993 movie  Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.  Evidently there’s still more to come. 

With a 90% chance of snow on Saturday and predictions of an accumulation to rival that received last December 19, I don’t know what else to say except… who am I kidding to even pretend that I’m going to be outside running this weekend? 

I have made a rather interesting discovery — listening to a podcast of This American Life or Radiolab seems to work  just as well as music does to give my mind something to do when I run.  That was a bit of a surprise.

…and I’m sorry that you’re not going to be able to get Sonny and Cher out of your head for the rest of the day.

Really.  I’m sorry.

Ellen Kephart

Ellen Kephart died in Herndon this week at the age of 94.

She was a wonderful woman and she was warm and welcoming to me when I first came here 22 years ago. She became a sort of substitute grandma for my two young children, since their own grandparents lived half a continent away and weren’t available for regular hugs.

I haven’t seen her for several years. She used to walk around downtown Herndon, going to the Post Office or the Great Harvest Bread Store, and occasionally she would stop into my gallery when it was located downtown. She’d been in a nursing home for a long time and I knew from inquiries made to her sister that she had gotten to the point where she didn’t know anyone anymore.

For years, I kept thinking that I should go visit her, but I never did — justifying my inaction by thinking “she wouldn’t know I was there.”

The problem I’m having this week is that.. I know I wasn’t there.

Weekend Runs

I think I’m going to pass on the sponsored runs this weekend. If Sunday is somewhat pleasant, I may start from Partlow Brother’s in Ashburn (if you haven’t had one of their BBQ sandwiches yet, you need to put it on your TO DO list), and run on the W & OD trail for a while.

If you want to join me, let me know.

I can do it myself!

I was glad to see that Meryl Streep won the Golden Globe the other night for her performance as Julia Child — I thought Julie and Julia was one of the most delightful movies I’ve seen in a very long time.

Because I enjoyed the movie so much, a few weeks ago, I watched a special on PBS that aired three of the classic episodes of The French Chef.  I watched dumbfounded as Julia Child made am omelet in 20 seconds.

All these years I’ve been doing it wrong (which is probably why I’ve always been so sorely disappointed by my omelets!)  After watching her make about 10 of them, I decided to give it a try myself and you know what?  My omelet flopped around just the way hers did, and it folded over on itself just like hers did, and after 20 seconds it was on the plate and it was tender and light and absolutely delicious. 

I’ve been looking forward to breakfast ever since.  I added some sauteed mushrooms first and that worked out well.  Then, I added some guacamole.  I’m sure I could easily move on to various cheeses.

What fun to discover something new to cook!

Yesterday I straightened up the shelf in my kitchen where I keep my cookbooks and I realized that I don’t have to accept life without mushroom soup just because Wegman’s doesn’t fix it for me anymore.  I opened my Williams Sonoma SOUP book and there it was — a recipe for Three Mushroom Soup with Sherry.

With Sherry!

It will be on my table tonight.  I’ll let you know…

Weekend Runs

Looks like it might be possible to thread the needle in between the wintry mix tomorrow and a 60% chance of showers on Sunday and do Greenberry’s on Saturday.

My son -- 1982

My son is 30 years old today, and I don’t know how that happened.

How did he manage to go from being this adorable little boy, peeking into the hospital nursery to get his first look at his baby sister, all the way to being a 6′4″ law enforcement officer who knows how to break down a door and clear a room — when I haven’t changed at all?!

My grandson -- 2010

Last weekend I baked some chocolate chip cookies with my grandson, and now looking at these two pictures, I’m having a serious bout with deja vu.  I have to realize that the next 30 years are going to zip by even faster than the last 30 did.

I want to be around (and able) to teach a great-grandchild or two how to lick a beater properly.

And that’s why I keep running.

Weekend Runs

How nice it was this week to get back outside for a couple of days.  Still a bit nippy, but at least without the wind it’s crossed over into the wimp-acceptable zone.  And by golly, the forecast for Saturday looks down right half-way almost  kinda pleasant (in comparison, of course). 

Sunday?  Not so much.

So I’ll be aiming for Saturday at Hamilton:

– for some kind of out and back modification.

I do not like it, not one little bit!

The sun it was shining, though the windchill was low.

The ice was not melting, wouldn’t you know.

But I put on my gloves and I put on my hat

And I laced up my shoes and said good-bye to the cat.

“I am no wimp!” I said, as I went out the door.

“I can do this today, I’ve done it before!”

I plugged in my iPod and selected some tunes

And charted my course, around the ice dunes.

“This isn’t so bad” I said as I ran.

“Are you out of your mind? I don’t think I can!”

My forehead was stinging, my cheeks were beet red.

My fingers were tingling. “I hate this!!!”  I said.

“You’ve got to keep going, it won’t be so long

Just another two miles — think of the song!”

“I want to go home, I don’t like it out here!

It’s cold and it’s windy and I can’t feel my ear!”

“OK, then, you wimp. Cut your running time short.”

“What a splendid idea,” I said with a snort.

Weekend runs

 Snow showers tonight, and on into tomorrow.

Not so great for the weekend, to my greatest sorrow.

Sunday’s no good, I’ve got plans for that day.

Though the weather looks better, I have to say.

Possibly Saturday, out at The Woods

Though I must admit, it’s not looking good.

%#*@**!!!

I know things change and time marches on, but why can’t there be a few more things you can depend on?

When I bought my first real running clothes, I didn’t know anything about it, other than it needed to wick the moisture away.  I found some inexpensive tops at Kohl’s and I bought three of them because the tag said they wicked moisture away.  I really liked them.  When I was ready to buy a few more of them, I went back and couldn’t find the same ones.  I figured it didn’t matter and I bought some different ones.  I didn’t like them as well.  I’ve bought several different ones over the last couple of years and I haven’t found any that I like better than those original ones. 

I bought some fitted running pants from Target the second winter I ran (can you believe I ran the first winter in jeans?!!  =:O ).  They are comfortable and they keep me warm and I like them waaaaay better than jeans.  I went back to get a few more and evidently they don’t make that same kind any more. 

Eddie Bauer changed the jeans that I love.  Wegman’s got me hooked on their three mushroom soup from the soup bar and then BOOM, it disappeared.   After nearly a year, I still don’t like my car as well as I loved the one I had before.

I’m also annoyed because once again, the forecast for the weekend looks less than acceptable for a wimpy runner like me.  I don’t like the word “wind” coupled with below freezing temperatures — two days after yet another coating of snow/ice.  I’ve ventured outside a couple of days to run in the last couple of weeks and have quickly retreated to the rec center in the face of a cold wind, or a thin SLICK layer of frost on the trail.  Not to mention actual precip. For me, running is about exercise – not about being miserable.

I suppose there’s a chance I’ll venture out on Saturday — but not much of one.

I sure hope the new year brings the traditional January thaw.

Happy New Year. 

Be Safe.