Thanksgiving...

Another great Thanksgiving is over.  We celebrated as we have for the past several years, at the nursing home, with my mother, eating an assortment of Thanksgivingish foods that were "carry-in" ready.  The successes included turkey from Honey Baked Ham, sweet potato casserole from Pimentos and the family favorite, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.  The canned stuff is a tradition from my father's side of the family.  On the not so good side, green bean casserole from Pimentos that appeared to be pulverized before cooking. 

I have a favorite moment from this Thanksgiving, a moment  that I will tuck it away in my memory.  The moment involves my dad and a gentleman named Mr. Murphree, who lives in the nursing home on the same floor as my mother.  Mr. Murphree is 99 years old.  He used to live in the retirement complex and often ate lunch and dinner with my dad.  One of his favorite things to do as he entered the dining room was to sing "You are my sunshine" to the staff.  Sadly, Mr. Murphree's memory got the best of him and early this year he was moved to the nursing home.   

My dad often stops to talk to Mr. Murphree when he is visiting my mother. More often than not Mr. Murphree does not remember him.  Today, after lunch, my dad sat down with Mr. Murphee to talk.  Mr. Murphree kept reaching in the depths of his memory but could not quite remember my dad.  After a few quiet words, I heard my dad raise his voice and sing "your are my sunshine, my only sunshine..." .  Mr. Murphee's voice joined in and they sang softly, my dad who does not sing and Mr Murphree who remembered the words...

Play date...

If you think the blog looks just a little different, you would be spot on!  Sat down yesterday to do a little tweaking and  ended up with a big blue mess. Blogger has changed some of it's editing methods and somehow, in the spirit of edit exploration, I downloaded a new template.  There was no going back to the old one so with some effort, I remembered the name and location of my most favored template and reloaded. It's not exactly as before but I like the look so it will probably stay as is, unless of course, I make the same mistake again! 

Tonight we had reservations at backcountry Campsite #13-Gregory's Bald.  We have been glued to the most current  weather forecast over the past few days and each update indicated that backpacking tonight was an iffy proposition, especially for two people that haven't spent much time in the back country this year. 

This morning we pulled the plug on the trip.  7" or more of snow was predicted for the higher elevations and Gregory's Bald, at over 5000' was a prime target for accumulation.  As it turns out, our decision was correct.  While we are currently sitting in sunshine, accumulations in the mountains as of late afternoon had already reached 7".  Oh well, we are disappointed.  We had looked forward to sitting on the bald, cooking dinner and watching the sunset. 

To compensate, John took the day off and we went out to play around town.  After a delicious  sushi lunch, we went to the movie, "Social Network", the only flick we could agree on.  Being facebook addicted, I looked forward to the story of the early days  about but thirty minutes into the film, I found the whole process dirty.  I  am not sure that feeling is going away anytime soon! 

A longish run...

With vacation a little more than halfway over, I finally have a day to myself.  No appointments, no places to be, just doin' what I want to do!  Yeah!  I like these days!  

I planned my longish run for this morning for the reasons noted above.   The term longish refers to my goal of completing 10k and because the 13-mile runs I logged about this time last year are a distant memory.  As usual when the weather turns cool, I tend to overdress the first few times out.  This morning was no exception, the temperature was 46 ish and the sky overcast...looked cold to me.  Not long before my lightweight fleece vest was scrunched around my waist.

During the summer, when I am fighting the heat and humidity, I tend to forget what pure joy running can be.  No equipment needed, just simple body movement, one foot in front of the other.  This week has been dedicated getting that feeling back.  Today, as I commanded my feet to move across the pavement, my senses seemed to be heightened.  I could see the reds, gold and browns of fall, smell the damp earth and leaves and feel the intermittent rain that fell through much of my run. I was happy to be in the moment, feeling my body work through the miles.   While not every run is this good, I took advantage of this one.  I reached my 10k goal and kept going a bit, just because I could.   

Running (and bicycling) again...

I mostly enjoy my job but I am on vacation this week...off, out of the office, gone fishing. Reminiscent of the good parts of unemployment, I can sleep late, linger over coffee and facebook and watch Ellen on TV. Vacation also offers me an opportunity to refocus on running.  

Many times on this blog I have voiced my difficulties with running in heat.  I count my success by how late in the season I can run before putting away my running shoes. This year I actually suffered through August without completely throwing in the towel.  Good girl I thought, you made it through the worst of summer. But my success was short lived.  September arrived with back to back to back above 90-degree days.  Every evening the weatherman ticked off another sweltering day.  When the long, hot, dry month finally shriveled away, we were one "above 90-degree day" short of the all time record and my running shoes were in the closet.  I had lost my motivation, my mojo, I quit caring about the run.

Then a wonderful thing happened, the weather changed, fall arrived and I started thinking about running again. I laced up my running shoes and hit the road last week, it felt good.  This week, so far, has been great!  Yep, that vacation thing again.  I linger over coffee and facebook, then head out.  Running like this is comfortable, relaxed and fun.  It has been and will continue to be a bit of a rebuilding process.  Next week, when I return to work, I am going to have to find the discipline to slip out of bed in the cold, dark hours of the early morning instead of turning off the alarm for more sleep.  But I have hope and I have goals again.

With the onset of cool weather, I also pulled out my bicycle.  I have only  been on the bike a couple of times this year and last week proved a bit uncomfortable for my rump.  While I favor running, I am better on the bicycle, faster, more confident. I am trying to decide whether to abandon my 18 year old Trek 1400 for something shiny and new.  The answer should be easy but the investment is big and if I am not going to ride regularly, then the money is wasted...