Thank you, tags, exercise log, and such

Tomorrow marks day 40 of my decision to try to walk at least 1 mile every day or do alternate exercises on the days I didn't walk. It's turned out a little differently than I originally planned. I'm walking 2 to 5 miles six days a week, and the past few weeks I haven't taken my camera at least 3 times a week so I could have a brisk walk without stops and starts. Since I'm walking about three times as far as my original plan, I need that one day when I rest. It's startling how quickly I've fallen back or rather leaped forward to where I was when I stopped getting regular exercise which was about 6 months ago.I suppose that the fact that I did at least keep walking with Bill on most weekends, during my six months of basically giving up on being particularly active, helped enough for me to establish a regular routine again. So far, knock wood, I am not finding myself feeling worse which was what happened for a while when I tried to be as physically active as possible.
I want to thank A Small Town RN who blogs at A place I call Home for passing the Be the Blog Award on to me in this post. I always enjoy visiting her blog both for her beautiful photographs from where she lives on Vancouver Island, BC as well as her thoughtful posts which cover a variety of topics including ones for her perspective as an RN. I appreciate her thinking of me for this award.Mary at Work of the Poet kindly thought of me for the Circle of Friends Award. I appreciate that so much. I enjoy her sense of humor, photographs, and posts on a variety of topics. I am so glad to have met Mary through blogging.I want to thank Mousey at Say Cheese for thinking of me for the Around the World Tag. To be honest, I'm so slow that I never quite run fast enough to tag anyone. Just kidding (sort of). What I thought I'd do is copy the links to the participants below in case anyone wants to visit some of the blogs. I didn't add my name since I'm supposed to tag 5 people and, as I said, I'm slow. But I thought I'd at least put the links here in case anyway wants to browse some of these blogs from around the world.

Instruction:1. Place your link after the list. If you have more than 1 blog, feel free to add them all here!2. After placing your blog’s address/es, you must tag 5 or more bloggers that is not yet in the list, this is to keep the ball rolling.Links around the world tag (update as of Mar. 11, 2008)

1 - Momhood Moments 2 - Business Mars 3 - Pinay Mommy Online 4 - OnlineBiz and Resources 5 - A Simple life 6 - moms….. check nyo 7 - Mommy’s Little Corner 8- Princezz 9 - Princess 10 - Random Thoughts 11 - Paradigm 12 - See Me For What You Will 13 - Pamp’s Blog Corner 14 - Pampered 15 - HappyHeart 16 - Qtcotzkie and Baby 17 - A Sorta Fairytale 18 -tragicseven 19 - Listen to the Beat! 20 Just Saying 21 Tipsy Tips 22 Different Angles 23 Delicious Corner 24 I Care 25 Blog Blag Blog 26 Daily List 27 - Life’s Journey 28- Welcome to my Crib 29 - Hearts Desire 30 - Island Paradise 31 - Texas Life 32 - Long Journey 33 - D’ Cooking Mudra 34 - My life 35- Swept Away 36 - Winged Words 37 - Rainier and Katrina 38 - Life! Learn it. Live it. Love it. 39 - Colour Our World 40 - The Next Chapter 41 - Painted Life 42 - La Place de Cherie 43- Chez Francine 44- Le Bric à Brac de Cherie 45- Missbodybeautiful 46. My Thoughts and Moods 47. My JOurney 48. Celebrate Life 50. Deeply In love 51. mY pReciOus 52. mY vOyAge 53.denz techtronics 54. denz recreational 55. Cashing 56. Icelog 57.Life’s Impression 52.Liza 53. Its Not A Weekend;Its a Lifestyle 54. Napaboaniya APAD 55. My Wanderings 56. Maiylah’s Snippets 57. Picture Clusters 58. Say Chesse 59. Stopover Your URL Here

Weekend Snapshot: Number 32

My second shot will be my official weekend snapshot because I took it this Friday. All of the shots in this post will be of water towers in my town, but the other ones weren't taken this week. I'm starting with a water tower which isn't a water tower any more at all but is an historic landmark now.
The shot above was taken downtown on March 1 and was erected in 1887, becoming Raleigh's first water tower. Prior to the erection of this tower and the beginning of a municipal water system, the water was drawn from privately owned wells and cisterns. The downtown water tower was abandoned in 1924 and a larger metal tower was erected further west. In 1938 the water tower was sold to Raleigh architect William Henry Deitrick who converted the aging tower to serve as his offices. In 1963 Deitrick deeded the water tower to the NC Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) with binding preservation covenants. The Raleigh water tower is designated as a Raleigh Historic Landmark.
The water tower above is the one closest to me and serves as a marker for directions. I know that I'm not the only one who does this because when googling for information on water towers I came across a dentist's office which says turn right after the water tower. When I started thinking about water towers the first thing I thought of is how they can be markers for getting your bearings. When I walk on the beach during summer vacations, I use a water tower as a marker for how far I've gone.
I was on my way home from my routine surgical oncology check-up the first week in March, when I spotted a water tower I had never noticed before. I was on a busy highway and was shooting blind. By that I mean that I couldn't risk looking at what I was doing but merely snapped a few pictures without doing more than pointing with one hand in the general direction. Considering that, I didn't do too badly and had enough of a shot that I could crop the water tower out of the wider vista. What amused me later was that I stumbled across a site which had a shot of this same water tower which I'm posting above, and they said that it wasn't safe to try to take photographs of it from the highway.
On April Fool's Day, I was leaving my appointment with the pain specialist who follows me, when I glanced down the road and noticed the water tower which is near the State Fair Grounds. Funny how once you start paying attention to something like water towers they crop up all over the place. This water tower is shown above and below.
Once I reached the stop light in my car, on the way home from my pain doc, I took a closer shot of the water tower. So, that's it for water towers and I am pleased to say that we had more rain on Saturday. All across the state we have moved out of the exceptional drought category and only a few counties are still in the extreme status. My county has made it to severe drought and that is such an improvement from exceptional or even extreme, that I'm very pleased. I may even stop talking so much about the drought soon but it sort of fit in with the water tower theme I have going here.

To find other weekend snap shot participants, the home of WS is here - weekend snapshot, or you can browse on technorati, here - Weekend Snapshot

Photohunt: Twisted

The photohunt theme this week is twisted and I thought I'd feature a twisted plant. Below is a closeup of a bloom on a very twisted vine. The vine is wisteria and I took these shots early this week at the end of a trail I walk on. I am always on the lookout for the wisteria to bloom and it rewarded me. The first shot doesn't show how twisted it is. But never fear, I'm sure you didn't think I'd manage to do a photohunt with only one shot.
If you look at the shot below you can see how the wisteria is twisted around on itself as well as how it has twisted around the trees. If you look at the next shot you can see how it has twisted its way around many trees. I've heard that wisteria can be so twisted as to bring down small trees with its weight. Now that's twisted when you think about it. A pretty flower on a vine seducing you in the spring until bam, it pulls down a tree.One last shot of the wisteria is below. I'll admit that I love wisteria and am including the last one because I think it's prettier than the middle shots which emphasize the twisted nature of the wisteria. Perhaps I'm not very twisted (although those who know me best might argue that point) because I like the first shot and the last shot where the emphasis is more on the flowers than the twists and turns.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. On Saturday participants post at the home of the hunt, here - PhotoHunt to let you know their posts are up. Some like me, tend to post early, and you can browse the early bird photohunters at technorati, here -photohunt

Are You Grateful?

I put together the collage above as a statement of gratitude for Are You Grateful? a "Monday Morning Power" site. You can go follow the Are you Grateful link above as well as the one at the end of this post, if you are interested in preparing your owns statement of gratitude or if complain, complain, complain is more what you are up for there is a site for that linked below too. I think they are both good ideas but since I tend to complain plenty, I went with the gratitude statement. If you participate, your statement is posted on the homepage and it's up to you if you also want to post it on your own site and tell others about it. I decided to post mine here too, as you can see above, and at the end of this post are links to the sites of others who have participated so far, and you can browse their gratitude statements at Are you Grateful ?
It was an easy choice for me to make when preparing a gratitude statement because one of my favorite aspects of the natural world in which I live is the seasons. Thus, I went with I am grateful for seasons and I thought I would expound on that in my post here, although I went with the collage alone for my official one. I like all of the seasons. I'll admit that I tend to complain about the summer when it drags on and wouldn't mind living somewhere with a longer winter but no doubt if I lived somewhere with a long winter, I might feel differently. This time of year is so much fun because the changes unfold almost before my eyes. The shot above was taken on March 20 and the shot below of the same tree and branch was taken on April 7. I was facing in a different direction for the two shots which is why it almost looks like the dogwood branch is against the oak below where it looks like it's against the sky above.One of the fun blooms for me, in the spring, are the ones on the redbud. They do flower near the top on small branches for a more conventional look but as you can see below they also pop out on the big trunk like branches too.
There is something about a flower growing on a trunk that makes me laugh. Not sure why but it does and in my book, laughter is something I'm grateful for. The shot below is of the same redbud tree but is taken on the street that is beside my neighbor, where you can see just how secret my secret garden is.
I am grateful to know that I can go out into my back garden in my nightgown, secure in the knowledge that my privacy screening is sufficient to avoid my scaring small children. The shot below is of one of my neighbor's secret garden from the outside. I've watched that garden grow through the years and I am grateful that even if my garden goes totally to seed, I can enjoy other people's nearby gardens without the work it takes to maintain mine.
This time of year, it's all I can do when I'm walking around my neighborhood to keep from bursting out with the Mr. Rodger's neighborhood song. Below is a shot taken during a neighborhood walk when I came very close to singing, It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I am grateful that if I'm ever arrested for inappropriate singing, I have friends and family who would bail me out of jail.I think I'll stop on that note although I could go on and on and for that I'm grateful. Nice to know that when you come right down to it, I can think of many, many aspects of my life that I'm grateful for.

Below are the links to the host for Are You Grateful? as well as the links to the people who have participated in one or the other of these blogger activities. I copied and pasted the information below from the home site.

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In order to be able to achieve and maintain happiness we need to, actively, be able to do two things:

1. Complain and then let go (Dump the baggage, the roadblocks to happiness.)
2. Express Gratitude (The open expression of gratitude promotes happiness.)

After all everyone has something to be grateful for and/or something to complain about. If you would like to share, please follow the appropriate link and do so: "Are You Grateful?", "Complain Complain Complain."

Contributors to "Are You Grateful?" & "Complain Complain Complain.": 1-Attitude, the Ultimate Power 2-Max 3-DianaCA's Metamorphoses 4-Mental Poo 5-My Thoughts 6-Baba Doodlius 7-Wake Up America 8-Life is a Roller Coaster 9-Life is Beautiful 10-pinay mommy's love blog 11-My Happiness Haven 12-And Life Goes On for a Filipino Mom 13-Blessed Sanctuary 14-Expressions And Thoughts 15-Memories by Jenn 16-Reminiscence of My Adventures 17-In the Life of Mne 18-Juliana's Lair 19-Pinay Wahm 20-Lucid Creativity 21-Winged Words 22-Irresistible Fascinations 23-A Little Time 24-See Me For What You Will 25-Greatest Reviews 26-ETC ATBP 27-Gandacious 28-We Are Family 29-Journey to this thing called LIFE 30-www.rajeshrana.net 31-www.rajeshrana.com 32-BaReFooTeD Me 33-Uncomplicated 34-Points of View 35-Pride & Prejudice 36-Colorful World 37-Nora's Notes 38-A Daily Walk With Bill & Gina 39-Strange but True 40-Everything Under The Sun ( Beth Rebokon ) 41-Kaleidoscope 42-Fil-Oz Blog 43-By Osc@r Luiz 44-Comedy Plus 45-Blogging by Sandee 46-Soul Meets World 47-Mae's Memoirs 48-Beyond the Rave Reality 49-Amori, poesie, arte, chat by Hanna 50-Attached at the Hip 51-Carver's Sight or is that Site? 52-Empress Reviews 53-Simple Pleasures In My Heart 54-Lourdes' mia 55-A Grateful Heart 56-YOU
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Rain at the End of the Downspout

After many months of being in an exceptional drought condition, the county of the state I live in made it to extreme drought which is better. As of April 1, 2008 we were still listed at extreme on the US drought monitor but I think having rain every day for 6 days after that may put us into the severe category. It's odd to be excited about making it to extreme and thrilled if we make it to severe. Not so long ago, severe drought sounded bad. However, after over a half a year (I think I have that right) in the exceptional category, it's all relative.
It's certainly sobering to open the newspaper day after day and read how many days worth of water are left, if there wasn't any rain, and to go week after week with no rain. Until this week we were on Stage 2 restrictions which included no city water being used to water outside, no car washing at home, no new or drained pools could be filled. The recent rain has been sufficient to switch us back to stage 1 restrictions which means we can water outside once a week (staggered by address), cars can be washed at home on certain days, and I assume pools can be filled since that's not listed on the stage 1 list.
Perhaps my biggest concern has been over the birds. For some time, long before the restrictions, I have only watered outside with water collected under the gutters into barrels I have strategically located. I also have large and small open containers which get replenished with rain and serve as bird baths. The concern I had with the tightest restrictions was what to do if we got no rain and the wild birds had no water. I realize they could go to lakes and ponds that have some water. However, so many birds nest in my bushes, and nesting boxes, and do depend on water nearby which I have made available to them all these years. Fortunately, recent rains and changes in restrictions, for now, should take care of the birds.I am glad that my city is putting permanent conservation measures into place so that even if the drought conditions improve, it won't go back to business as usual. One of the nifty tools that my city has online is a water consumption calculator. You can use the calculator to figure out how much water your household consumes. That was an eye opener for me. I am trying to be frugal with water. I've started collecting water I run while it's getting warm for a shower, or even when washing my hands. That makes me realize how much I've wasted in the past when I see how much I can collect.
In the past we have frequently had a month or so in the summer where people could only water every other day but it's always gone back to the restrictions being lifted. This was the first time we had to have increasingly stringent restrictions on through the winter. I am glad that the city realizes that even as we start to pull out of the worse part of the drought, for now, that it will be necessary to implement permanent restrictions. Common sense never seems to be enough.
I took the photograph of the dried up creek bed several days ago after we had rain six days in a row. The fact that there is no water to speak of in the creek, even after the most rain we've had in probably 8 months said something to me. However, the moss looks happy and the periwinkle healthy so there are some signs of the good the rain is doing. All of the photographs in this post were taken from my yard except for the one of the dried up creek which is off one of the trails I walk on near my house. Speaking of walking. I am on day 33 of my latest effort to walk regularly. I have walked 26 days out of the past 33 days, and I got alternate exercise on 2 more. Therefore, I've had some kind of exercise for 28 of the past 33 days. Can you tell I'm pleased? Well, I am.