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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

120 days, birds fuzzy with personality

I've hit the 120 day mark of my latest effort to become as active and healthy as possible. In those 120 days I have walked, on average, two miles every other day. May not sound like that much but for me it involved talking myself into doing what I didn't always feel like doing. Quite a few weeks I was able to walk 4 or 5 days so that took care of the weeks when I wasn't able to walk. Some days I've managed a 3 mile walk which takes care of the days when I can't quite handle 2 miles. I still occasionaly have a jogging interval although I'm not pushing that as it's counter productive. I wasn't always able to make my walk aerobic but I decided that it was more important to do what I could rather than do nothing. There have been a lot of perks along the way. I've literally watched my neighborhood and the near by trails spring to life. I've also managed to lose quite a bit of weight. Still have a ways to go but in addition to the story on the scales, I've dropped a clothing size or two. I am back to thinking I may hit 50 in fighting form. I have almost 6 more months to do it. Having dramatic improvement in my shoulder helps everything. I thought the early spring, with flowers and trees alike ahead of schedule, was going to be it until summer, after record breaking lows zapped so much of the new life and buds. I didn't mind, except for the farmers, because so many of the large azaleas and trees had already bloomed. However, spring is back in spite of being chilly. Although some buds turned brown and dropped off the side of my azaleas that faces my back garden, it is blooming after all. The early roses are happier than I've ever seen them. I'm still after the elusive good photograph of the birds that hang out in my bushes and trees. In spite of being fuzzy these two shots capture so much personality, I'm going to post them anyway. The first bird was photographed this morning. The second one was taken through my bedroom window in the middle of a strong storm a few days ago. It was pouring down raining and a little bird was singing it's heart out, right outside my window or rather a few feet away in the ligustrum which afforded it at least some shelter. There are so many birds that have nested in the overgrown bushes around my house and garden that I have to be careful when I cut out dead branches. They start screaming at me if I get too close. I've pretty much decided not to do any pruning to speak of until I'm sure the babies have all hatched and left their nests. I've already seen some robins with their babies and hopefully we are done with hard freezes for their sake, as well as for the sake of the revived burst of blossoms.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Carver,

I think 120 days is awesome! You have a lot to be proud of. I remember reading somewhere that you burn the same amount of calories per mile whether you run or you walk. You just burn them faster running because you finish faster. And there is no increase in health benefits if you run instead of walk. Consistency is the key, and boy are you consistent!

I like the pictures... even the fuzzy ones. The bottom fuzzy picture almost looks like a water color painting.

You are consistent with your blogging too. And you always make an interesting read.

Keep up the good work!

melissa