The long and winding road to fitness, day 25

Sheesh, I got so wrapped up in playing a game that I almost forgot to post this tonight…what is the world coming to?  I had a pretty good day again today.  Slept until about 6:30 (it gets later and later as my vacation continues, then it gets really difficult to get back into my work routine.  I think I’m really a night owl who trained herself to be a morning person.  But I’d be willing to bet that, once I’m able to quit working…haha…I’ll totally revert to my night owl tendencies.), wrote my 750 words and two blog posts, did a little gardening and housework, then had to get ready to get out of the house to run some errands.  I kept my appointment with my new eye doctor (she can’t be much more than 16…) then went to the grocery store.  I just picked up a few things to tide me over.  I’m planning to go to the farmers market Saturday morning to buy my produce for next week.  Someone was in the store the other day and said she’d gone last Saturday and that some of the vendors now have their fresh corn for sale…yummo!!!  And I’ll have to buy more peaches…there’s only a short period of time when you can buy peaches that are perfect, and that time is now.

I got in quite a bit of exercise today…biked this morning for 20 minutes, walked for 30 minutes, did upper body strength training, 8 exercises, 2 sets each and a little stretching.  I’m planning to go out for a long walk early in the morning and take some pictures along the way.  I walk by myself, but I try to stay in fairly populated areas…I don’t really know if that’s safer or not.  I’d like to go hiking through the woods, but am a little hesitant to do that by myself.  When I was a kid, I didn’t think anything about heading out for a day in the woods by myself…well, my big old tom cat always tagged along, not sure how much protection he would have been, but he was good company.  I guess everything was different back then.  You didn’t worry so much about crazy mean people doing crazy  mean things.

My eating wasn’t as good as it could have been. I did have a couple of small pieces of pizza after I finished my errands.  People always ask me if I’m sick of pizza after owning a pizza place for all of those years…if only…I still love pizza, only now I try to make it a little healthier…whole wheat crust, lots of veggies and not quite as much cheese.  It’s good, but it sure doesn’t compare to the full fat, high calorie pizzas of years gone by…ahh…the trade-offs we make when we decide to focus on our health and fitness.  I ended the day with a little over 1700 calories and a bit too much fat and sodium…more veggies for me tomorrow, for sure.

So how did you all do today?  Tell me, when you exercise outside, do you go by yourself or with someone else?  Does anyone know where you’re going, the route you’ll be taking?  Do you take your phone?  Any money?  We’ve got a nice trail not too far from where I live, but people who have been walking or biking by themselves have been attacked on more than one occasion…isn’t that sad?  Here these people are, out trying to get in some exercise or just enjoy the fresh air, and some idiots decide to attack them.  I know for sure a girl who was running by herself was attacked by a guy, but she managed to get away from him.  Then there was the guy who was biking and was attacked by two other guys, he got away too, after punching one of the guys in the face.  I don’t know what I’d do if something like that happened while I was out walking…and so often, no one knows that I’m even out there by myself, much less where I’m going…not sure what to do about that…I definitely don’t go walking on that trail by myself…too bad that people have to destroy the peacefulness of something like that. 

This picture isn’t part of the trail I was talking about earlier, this is an unfinished portion of the B Line which runs through downtown Bloomington…this was a railroad track not too many years ago, now you see walkers, runners, bikers, families, dog walkers and so on taking advantage of this wonderful walkway.  One of these days, I’ll get some pictures of the finished part of the trail…it’s really pretty, so well designed.

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When did all the doctors become Doogie Howsers?

Image via Wikipedia

I went to a new eye doctor today.  She was very personable, listened when I said I liked to wear just one contact to adjust for both nearsightedness and farsightedness, didn’t jump all over me because I waited so long to schedule a visit.  Overall, I really liked her.  The only thing is…she’s so darn young!  I’ve been noticing this alarming trend in the medical profession in which children are now the doctors who treat us..what’s going on?  Remember the show, Doogie Howser?  Well, we seem to be living that show now.  Child doctors all over the place. 

But, when you take the time to think about it, do we really want to see doctors who are older than we are (presuming you’re in the same general age bracket I’m in…)?  I think I’d rather see a doctor who is up with all the latest in medicine, who has a sharp, young mind, who isn’t thinking about retirement.  No offense to the older docs.  I understand there’s something to be said for wisdom and experience, but I think I’ll opt for a doctor who isn’t set in her ways so much that she can’t accept progress.  I may as well opt for that, since that seems to be all that’s out there now anyhow.

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Gold finches in the garden

Image by DanielJames via Flickr

I walked into the kitchen this evening and saw a tiny little bird perched on a big leaf of one of the sunflower plants outside my kitchen window.  The bird kept leaning over the head of the sunflower then perching on the leaf again, presumably eating the sunflowers she was pulling from the flower head (hey, that’s okay, the birds planted those sunflowers in the first place).   It was quite the balancing act and very amusing to watch.  A few seconds later, I saw a larger bird doing the same thing.  When he flew up to the top of the garden arch, I could see that it was a gold finch.  Shortly, the other bird joined her mate on the garden arch.  How adorable, a male and a female gold finch.  They kept me company for a few minutes before flying away.  I’m sure they’ll return again…the buffet is still open, sunflower seeds for all.

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