Winter Photo Walk

I haven't been going on photo walks this winter like I was doing during the fall, mostly because I've been pushing to make my walks as aerobic as possible. Today I was determined to walk in spite of being rather weary because tomorrow we have sleet and snow in the forecast. Snow wouldn't keep me from enjoying a walk but a quarter of an inch of ice under the snow would and that's what they are forecasting. I decided to take my camera with me since I knew I didn't have the energy for a brisk walk much less incorporating any jogging into my route. It was a little on the chilly side for stopping to take pictures but I bundled up and I enjoyed myself. I enjoy the contrast between how my neighborhood and closeby trails look during the different seasons. This winter almost has different seasons within the space of a few yards. Some of the sunny areas have been confused by the wildly fluctuating temperatures. We have gone from 70 degrees F to 20 degrees F within the space of 12 hours many times this winter. A few of my neighbor's lawns are mostly green although most have the winter brown look. I even spotted a few bent over daffodils that bloomed and then got zapped by the cold. I am approaching the two year mark since my diagnosis with melanoma and feel very fortunate to have done as well as I have. I may complain about the chronic issues I've dealt with since my groin lymph node dissection but when I look at people who not only deal with that and worse but are also fighting active melanoma in important areas of their body, I am aware of how lucky I've been. I have also been relieved that when push came to shove I was able to work very long hours over the past month. That may sound like a silly thing to be relieved about but a key ingredient to it working out for me to work from home has been that I get a lot of flexibility some of the time and other times I make up for it by putting in long hours. I've been lucky over the past two years to rarely have more than a week or two when I worked evenings and weekends as well as regular hours and I didn't worry about it since I had so many other years since I started working from home that I did put in a ton of extra hours as the trade off to not having to commute anymore. However, I have worried recently about what would happen if I had to try and work long hours for months without a break and wasn't sure if I could physically handle it. The answer, at least this time, was yes I can handle it. I am glad though that work is slowing down at least somewhat at the moment.