Day 31: After a long absence

Today is December 10, and so it's been 20 days since my last post.

I know I've had a long walk or two in that time, but I don't remember and I didn't write it down.   I remember one Saturday I went to Miller's Landing, and that the path under the bridge still wasn't finished, and that it was closed off.  I did cross the footbridge north of the park that connects to Columbia Park, walked through the residential area, and over the Columbia River bridge and up the hill to the stop light and then back down to the park.  There were runners on the course who were discussing childcare, and it was before Thanksgiving Day.  So that should have been the thirty-first day, and then there was another day, but again, I didn't record the days, so that's that.

The weather about the time of Thanksgiving was terrible, with deep snow piled up and the parking lot frozen.  I did some stair laps, some television-led stretching exercises, some yoga, walking to the store and back, but nothing worth blogging about.  I have noticed that my tee shirts go straight down instead of catching on my stomach or hips, that I walk faster to the store and am not winded when I get there, that going up and down the apartment steps is now easy.

Today I walked to the bank.  Rain and snow fell earlier in the morning, but when I walked out of the apartment, the sky was a nice clear blue, fading to gray skies to the south, with strong winds from the south.  I kept my head down as I walked into the wind.  I was pleased to notice that the walk seemed to take any time at all, and yet it took 26 minutes to get there.  Even the large puddles that were inches deep were easy to step around.

On my way back, I stopped at the kitchen store at the outlet mall and bought a set of star shaped cookie cutters for the Captain America cookies I was making for a friend. (The star has to be small, to make the project work, and the stars I had were too big.)

The sky was completely gray when I left the store, but the wind seemed to have died down--either that, or it was just the right speed to push so lightly, I didn't feel it.  There were piles of gravel across the street where the new medical building will be built, but the machinery was idle. (I'd had a dream some nights ago, of sliding down the dark surfaces of the gravel pyramids, as if on an amusement ride, probably due in part to seeing a documentary on television of Disneyland.)  The new assisted living building had only one or two workers on it, pounding away at nails.

As I walked through the parking lot to my building, the snow started again.

The cookies turned out great!

 a youtube how-to video of Captain America shield cookies by Rosie's Dessert Spot.

Day 30: Orchard Park

Orchard Park has never been on any of my routes, isn't even on the radar.  It lies between Fifth and Sixth Streets, northeast of the Wagner Mall. It has a seasonal Porta Potty, and crews go to mow it or work on the playground.  I don't even remember ever driving by it, but I must have, as I went by the apartments when I was trying to find one.

This, from the parks brochure:  A grove of giant sequoia, an oak forest and an autumn orchard should help lure the neighbors back outdoors. The proximity of nearby apartments, a private school and daycare center make this park a popular spot.

I saw on a park map that there was a perimeter trail at the park, so I decided to go and check it out.  There were a few people there--a family with two children, a middle schooler shooting baskets.  The place has a large playground featuring a large green plastic T-rex or an alligator with a short square jaw that I think housed a small slide; a small basket ball court with only one pole and basket;  a sports field that can be used for soccer, as the soccer nets were lying in a shabby part of the park's outer edge; a couple of picnic tables and a small pavilion; and the trail.  The Porta Potty was gone for the season, leaving a stain on the slab of concrete that was the floor of its shelter.

Did I mention that it's a relatively small park? Bend's blocks are a variety of sizes--on the map, it looks like it's a large block for the neighborhood. It was tiny by my standards.  The apartment complex was on the north side, some older homes, maybe from the 1950's on the south. At one point on the trail, I could see what was left of a cement driveway.  After a couple of loops around the park,  I crossed Fifth Street, went down Thurston Avenue and checked out another apartment complex there, went down Fourth, back up Seward, and walked across the lawn to get to the trail again.

I never saw the grove of giant sequoia, though there were a couple of evergreens with unfamiliar bark and needles. I'd had Christmas trees that were taller. (I did see redwoods in northern California; one day when I was in a funk in Eugene, and I drove down the Oregon coast, down to Humbolt County in California, then up I-5 one after noon, back in 1982.  That Ford Fiesta was a great car, and the day was beautiful, but the trip didn't ease my mood very much.)  I didn't see any oak forest, I'm not even sure I saw an oak tree.  The leaves were gone, but there just weren't a lot of trees anywhere.  What there was of the autumn orchard were maybe four or five saplings that might have been apple at the southern part of the trail. There were some rather bare bushes that had twigs covered with what looked like blueberries, but I wasn't sure.  I thought of the Hunger Games' Nightlocks, so didn't pop any in my mouth.  

I was bored with my walk, even though I tried to vary it by going off-trail by the play areas.  Due to the looping, it was hard to get a good pace. I missed setting my timer, but after going by the T-rex the fourth time,  I decided I'd been there long enough and fled the place.

Photo from https://bendfamilyparktour.wordpress.com/page/2/

Not a day

Giving in to the weather and to news events, I stayed in and wrote essays, did housework, posted on Facebook, read short stories.  I have other blogs, but I haven't updated them.  I've been working on one article for one of them for a while, years, and it still isn't ready.

I am aware that I could do stair laps, I have free weights, I could dance to songs on Youtube.  I used to exercise those ways before we moved here.  There's a gym in the office building, with weights and such, that I still haven't used.

In the future, but not this day.

Day 29: Larkspur Trail, north

The Larkspur Trail is probably best done with two people, one car at each end.  Lacking a second person, I just did part of it.

What I had done before was the southern end.  The middle part goes from the base of Pilot Butte, under Greenwood, and on down towards Larkspur Park.  Where I was now was at the part of the state park, where I could park my car, use the restroom, and head out.  The weather was cold, with thick clouds and a strong wind, which was to my back on the first part of my walk.

The path goes past the playground, and is paved with asphalt and is nicely wide and for the most part, easy to go on in a wheel chair.  I looked to my right to the multiple family housing that was packed in like sardines and then to my left to the butte, sagebrush and junipers.  The trail was down hill from Pilot Butte Middle School, and I could see the tops of people standing by the track above me and the sound of voices.  There was a blasted, long dead juniper lying by the trail, and it was lovely to look at, as the wood had been polished by time.  The trail has the helpful little posts to remind you that you are on the Larkspur Trail, and the trailhead sign was inconveniently in a place where you had to walk a ways to get to it, and where there was no parking.  I walked down to the front of the school, to the crosswalk.

If I took the crosswalk, I was to walk down the sidewalk to Hollinshead Park, go through a residential neighborhood, and end up at the triangle of grass and trees and brush that made Sawyer Park.  I haven't been to Sawyer since my oldest was a toddler, and I didn't go there this time.  Instead, I turned and walked back to the shelter of my car, through the cold wind with its infinitely small flecks of sleet hitting my face.

Photo of school from http://www.bendbugle.com/wp-content/bdc-images/1408_1.jpg

Not a day

I don't do well in the cold and damp, and after church, I stayed in.  I did do my yoga, but it wasn't enough for my goal.

Day 28: Historical Society

The county historical society has an annual chili feed.  I don't remember actually dining at it before--I have a vague memory, or was it imagined? of having pie with the children and Nancy and her children at one. 

The society uses the meeting room of the museum, which was a large classroom back in the day, and the black boards are still on the wall.  Banquet tables, chairs, and other diners filled the room.  The chili was quite good, mild, and I learned from a waitress that "Millie's Chili" had been served for thirty years, using the family's grass-fed beef, and now being made by the second generation of the family, which donates it for the feast.  I sat across from a couple who were 20 years older than me. He was from Ohio, and she was from Queens, New York, and her grandfather had been a tug-boat captain.  He told me of his history, but I don't remember it.

Afterwards, I went down to the Drake Park Neighborhood Historical District and walked for about 40 minutes.  The leaves were still thick and dry on the ground, and pumpkins were still in the doorways of the houses, the temperatures have been cool, as so they looked for the most part as if they'd been carved only a day earlier.  I saw the house that Greg Putnam, Amelia Earhart's husband lived in when he was still married to his first wife, and the company house that served room and board for middle management and the comptroller of the logging company, and learned that the camp towns were served with a motion picture theater and a forty piece brass band to keep up the morale.  (I knew from other sources that the camp towns were moved around the forest by rails, and were where loggers and their families lived, Les Schwab having spent his boyhood in one.)  I saw a couple getting what looked like engagement photos in front of a while painted wooden arch that decorated one house's front walk.  The houses varied from a three-story mansion to a small brick four-unit apartment row.  One house I remember driving by, back when we were looking for a house to buy, when the girls were little--it was only seven hundred square feet.


street sign from https://www.oldbend.org/drake-park-neighborhood-historic-district/

Not a day

I spent time trying (fruitlessly) to get Skype to work and (as fruitlessly) living in the past. 

But as this was November 13, I offer this excerpt from Kahlil Gibran's prose "On Children":

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams,
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Day 27: Bank

 

Once I was out of the apartment, it wasn't that hard to walk to the bank.  I discovered it takes only eleven minutes to make it to the store where our post office box is, and twenty-three minutes to the bank itself, and that was at a good steady clip.

Along the way, I noticed that the progress of the assisted living complex.  The windows and the air conditioners were in place, and siding over the Tyvek covering had started.  There's another, one story building between the new building and the memory care place on the back of the block that got got its plywood layer.

At the property that included the area where Greg Gibson's Auto Mart used to be, the pine trees are still there.  A few days ago, there were about a half a dozen or more of two story tall pillars of gravels and dirt that lined the roads, and now they are all leveled down. (Greg is retired, and puts in a few hours a week as a cart pusher at the west Safeways, where I last saw him.)

I was pleased to notice that I didn't feel tired after my walk, which included a trip to Fred Meyer before I returned to the apartment.


Photo-- http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMJBPJ_Bend_Oregon_97702_Butler_Market_South_CPU

Day 26: Veterans Day

The parade started at 11 a.m.  I went to my usual spot, south side of street, just west of the Franklin/Wall intersection.  After the introductory police car and honor flags, the Vietnam vets were the first ones to walk the route, and with them, a uniform and helmet with a gun in salute position--but no one was wearing the uniform.  It was a statue representing the missing soldiers.  Most of the parade had vets in classic cars, some had the tops down.  The weather was cold and I wondered how many who survived the freezing weather in Europe and Korea would die of pneumonia in a short while.  The combined high school bands came by, playing "This is My Country, Land of the Free," but there was no one I knew marching in it.  I was annoyed that, following immediately, was a radio station's pickup truck, blaring out Waylon Jenning's wailing some song, drowning out the band.   About 15 minutes later, the Cascade Horizon Band came by on a flat bed, Sue Stieger conducting.  There were vets from the Korean War and from WWII, but no one is still alive from the first world war, and no one was there from Desert Storm or the more current ones.  There were memorial banners, including Marine Lance Cpl. Randy Newman's.

After the parade, I thought about which park to visit, then decided to just walk down Kansas, catch Georgia and go to Hill Street, and head back.  This is the Old Neighborhood District, where the houses and lots vary from postcard size to a little larger than postcard, some properties seem rather Bohemian, while others are trimmed to the toenails.  I had visited twice, years ago, and was curious to see if anything had changed.

I walked by a house that I think I may have been in, when we were looking to buy ages ago, during a housing shortage.  The place I looked at, you had to go through the bathroom (which had an old porcelain tub without claws on its feet)  to get from one end of the house to the other.  These were houses built by mill workers on their off hours.  Many still had jack-o-lanterns on the door step and fall leaves were every where on the ground. Sidewalks are very scarce and for the most part, I walked in the narrow streets, which was not a problem as there was no traffic to speak of.  The sky was overcast and there was some sprinkling of rain, but no lights were on in any of the houses.  The only place I saw people was at the Taco Stand, a small place by a bike shop in what used to be a small mom-and-pop grocery store.  One of the apartments that I'd been at had new paint and windows.  I didn't see the other building, but it might have been refaced.

I was surprised to discover a little open spot signed "Mary Jane's Park," which is not part of the Bend Park and Recreation, but is the responsibility of the neighborhood.  The volunteers names were on a sign, and there were two memorial benches. It had clump grass and other native plants and the borders formed a triangle shape.

A "little library" graced a corner on Federal.  It was twice the size of a bread box, and had two shelves, but not a very interesting collection of books.

As I headed back, my half hour timer went off.  I continued to walk, checked out the "teaching garden" at the Environmental Center and made a lap around Troy Field, just for giggles.  The public hearing signs were on the fence.  December 3 is when public comment will be accepted regarding the fate of the green area.  The plans are to have it commercially zoned, and sold to the highest bidder.  It had been the place of Troy Laundry, and after the place closed, it was a hazardous waste site that was cleaned up and covered with lawn, and was used as a playing field by the next-door Catholic school.  When the school moved to the east side of town, and the buildings sold to McMenamins and made into a hotel and theater pub, Troy Field was used as a meeting site for various activites, including the Day of Yoga.  The field takes up half a block, while the other half is a parking lot, and was the temporary home (using modulars on cinderblocks) of the Bend post office during its reconstruction on Oregon Avenue.



top--from http://www.hackbend.com/2007/05/17/mary-janes-park-signage.php 

bottom--http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/3288264-151/bend-la-pine-accepts-offer-on-troy-field

Day 25: Choices

I wasn't feeling well the past two days, so I'm not counting them.

Today, I did my walk after I went to the Post Office.

Pioneer Park was the closest one that I knew. It is by the river, and was part of my route.  My head supervisor didn't like it:  "The place looks like a graveyard.  The restrooms look like a mausoleum, the memorial markers look like tombstones, and it's just dark."  It's a popular place for weddings, as the rose gardens are there and the lawn and trees in the back of the park make for beautiful photos and a pavilion for the wedding dinner.  It has fewer trees, thanks to last winter's storms and a diligent naturalist taking some down. The trail goes down stream and connects to First Street Rapids area by  a footbridge, and from there, you can follow the trail to Sawyer Park. I've been on the trail for a small distance but it felt creepy.  So I didn't go there.

Orchard Park was the closest one I didn't know.  It looked small when I've seen it on the map, so I decided to leave that for another day. 

Riverbend: I promised myself that I'd wear a hat the next time I went there.  Farewell Bend"s traffic is terrible.  Larkspur Trail from Pilot Butte to the south, again bad traffic.

So back to Juniper.  Nice walk.



Photo of a tree that missed doing massive damage to the Pioneer Park restroom last winter.  http://www.ktvz.com/news/pioneer-park-reopens-after-windstorm-cleanup/31133670

Day 24: Shopping

Today being the first Saturday of the month, of an odd-numbered month, it was our turn to help clean the church building. 

My body felt cranky when I got up in the morning, but when it moved around a bit, the pain in my hip sockets/top of thighs disappeared.  I went down the apartment stairs easily and quickly, and when I was at the church building, I was able to walk fast and carry the vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs to the stage, no problem.  Same with the other chores.

Back at the apartment, I mused over what I should do before the rain came.  Walk? walk where? Go to the apartment's gym?  Work out on my own free weights here?  So instead I answered questions on Quora regarding Harry Potter and How do I like my pumpkin pie? and read Facebook.

Later in the afternoon, we went to stores to look at couches, went to Ace Hardware, Lowe's and Home Depot, and to Taco Bell for dinner and Fred Meyer, not in that order. I walked, er, wandered around, looking at Christmas stuff and looking through magazines (did you know you can bake a pecan pie in a slow cooker?) and visiting with one of my former coworkers from Fred Meyer, who is now a cashier and employee of the month at Home Depot.

And so there's where my walking for the day was.  If I were to give points for getting exercise today, on a scale from 1 to 10, ten being the nature trail on Pilot Butte or the three mile river trail up the canyon, I'd give it a 2.  Maybe a 1.5.

Photo of an end cap display at Home Depot,  from https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1MNhNu8plmWEjzUyzWpRO_myMl6BLPl0IRcljE4wa0vqhRdDl

Day 23: Juniper Park, again

I chose Juniper Park as I wanted something that had some up and downs and a definite beginning and end.  The park was pretty empty, except for a guy who was grooving out to his earbuds on a little hill, and a couple of dudes at a picnic table who soon left.

The tennis court area had been under construction on earlier visits, but was now completed, with a new map showing the one-mile route.  It took me just over half an hour to go about a mile and a half, so my time is improving.  Bonus in that I've noticed I now walk faster at other places, too.

The weather was nice, a little on the chilly side, but I was warm at the end of my walk.  In the park, most of the leaves had fallen from the trees, but there was one thicket where the yellows of the aspens and the lotus trees were so bright, it seemed that they were shining.

Image of a lotus branch, from http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/driveway-garden/locust-tree-thorns.html


 

Day 22: Larkspur Trail

After a great "where to next" debate, I decided to return to Larkspur and try the trail, which starts by the Larkspur Pavilion and the fitness trail  The weather was cloudy, cold and breezy, but there were still people playing basketball, and some of my Parks coworkers were working there on the landscape, one who is year round, the others are seasonals who started later than I did and work into the winter.

The trail is a sandy gravel, and I had no trouble following it for twenty minutes out, through the Pinewood Natural area.  The trail runs behind fenced yards and the backs of apartments and duplexes, cuts through the natural area, and then back into more houses.  A couple of benches that had thoughtfully been placed off to the sides of the trail, with a nice view of the small (now empty) canal, and would be nice places to meditate on a day when the garbage truck wasn't making its run through the local neighborhood.  There were some trees, rock, brush, grasses and dirt, and of course, the canal and it was all very open and inviting. The area is not as isolated I thought it would be, even though I saw only three people there:  a dog walker, another hiker and a Parks employee who was taking care of the pine needles.

According to the map, the Coyner Trail is suppose to branch off and head toward Ponderosa Park, but I didn't see any signs to that effect, although I did see some short grey markers that informed me that I was still on the Larkspur Trail.  At the beginning, I walked through a cul-de-sac of an area of nice mobile homes that looked like houses, and all had garages, and when my timer announced that I'd been walking for twenty minutes, I was at Cessna Avenue.  I decided to save the rest of the hike for some other time, and headed back to the car.

Nope, no photo here at this time; didn't find one on Google.

Day 21: Rest

I spent the day working on the apartment, getting a corner of it cleared out.  My exercise comprised of taking stuff down to the garbage and getting some more groceries and making multiple trips to carry them up stairs. 

The weather was cold outside, and I made sure to wear my gloves.  I was glad to spend the day indoors.   I considered walking laps inside of Fred Meyer. but I think that some people already think that I live there.

Day 20: Larkspur Fitness Trail

Larkspur Park is where the Senior Center is, where I cleaned the restrooms early in the morning for most of a season.  It has a playground that is designed for children who have various physical challenges and its restroom is one of the potty-training ones (the others being Harmon and Blakely Parks) where people let their children go unsupervised and then the child trashes the place or misses the toilet altogether.  It is not my favorite restroom, and it wasn't one of my route's daily regulars. The trouble with this place is largely due to the placement of the trash bin in one stall/room, which is located directly under the handblower, making it very difficult to take out the liner and replace it, as well as the cramped custodial closet, which was created as an afterthought.  There is also a basketball court that doubles as a pickleball court, but no games were played when I was there. The pavilion by the trail head is where I won a lottery for one of fifty expandable lunch boxes at company luncheon. I picked a fashionable blue one, even though the organizers were frantically trying to get me to pick a pink one.


I went over to the trail head, and found an information board, showing a map of the one kilometer long Larkspur Fitness Trail that winds around the perimeter of the place.  It goes north of the parking lot, west of the Senior Center, to the south, on the side walk to the east entrance of the park.  I was surprised to learn that there was an east entrance!  It's for pedestrians, and the paved path lies east of the playground area, with the trail going off of it.  The trail winds around in an undeveloped area that had a lot of juniper trees, and then back to the trail head.  Every one tenth of a kilometer, there was a post, announcing the distance and that this was indeed the trail  The trail itself was covered with bark dust, and even with these helpful features I ended up in the parking lot twice.

At one point along the trail is an uprooted dead juniper.  What makes it worthy of examination is the large rock that the root wad enveloped: basic bubbled basalt that was tucked up almost to the trunk.  Near the 0.6 post, two junipers had shared a same spot, but one had been sawed off about a foot up off the ground.   A small new tree is growing out of the trunk.  There were no pines in the cluster of junipers, and then suddenly, there were Ponderosas of various ages on both sides of trail. 

I made two laps of the trail, which totaled about 1.24 miles.  The first took about nineteen minutes, the second, about fifteen, mainly because I wasn't getting lost.  Then I decided to go up the Larkspur Trail, which is 3.4 miles long, but I only went a short while, about five minutes, between the small canal bed and the fences of the subdivision.  I got to a cul-de-sac, turned around, and returned to the car.

Above:  Photo of Larkspur Pavilion from http://bendparksandrec.org/parks__trails/facility__park_reservations/pavilions_picnic_areas/

Below:  Photo of Senior Center and general landscape from http://kirbynagelhout.com/portfolio-item/bend-senior-center/ 

Day 19: Miller's Landing

The weather today was cold and breezy, with a feel of dampness in it.  I went to the post office, and then the library, where I got the Dr Who eighth season (the one after Matt Smith left), and as I was in the neighborhood, I went down to Miller's Landing Park.

The park is a low use one.  When the girls were young and we used to frequent McKay Park, it was a field of rocks, dirt and weeds that was across the river, where people would take their dogs for romps and games of catch.  Some developer wanted to put condos on the area, so a number of people pooled their money, bought it, and turned it over to Park and Rec to keep the land open.  It features a restroom that was on my route, a picnic pavilion, and community gardens.  I walked by the gardens and saw that there were a number of tomato plants still standing in otherwise empty spots, frozen marigolds, some defiant rhubarb, and a glorious vine of peas that stayed untouched from the frost.  The special needs adults' spot was void of its flamingos.  Down by the river lies a Japanese style sand garden (a patch of fine gravel, with some small boulders to give it character).  It is my thought to bring down a rake and drag out some patterns, but I also think that instead of creating some Zen-ish artwork, I'd find the town's largest litter box.

I set my timer for half an hour, and walked the paths, the perimeter, the inner area, observed the riparian area.  Many of the bushes that were at Shelvin are also at Miller's, but here they seem to be a week late and were crowded and riotous in their colors of yellows, oranges, light greens and brown.  The white waxy Christmas berries were plentiful, while the ones I saw Sunday were scant.

I saw a Park's truck pull up in the parking lot, and a park steward, one of my co-workers, got out and talked to the woman who had three large dogs playing off-leash.  He went to the restrooms while she rounded up the dogs and left.  He doesn't have the authority as a steward to give her tickets, but he is also a police officer in his other job and could when he was on duty.  I had a dog that got injured from another dog that was off-leash, and I had little sympathy for her, especially when I saw one of them squat earlier and she apparently either didn't see it or did and did nothing.

She left and he reappeared, spotted me and came over for a short visit.  The construction area by the Colorado Bridge is coming along, and should be done in a couple of weeks and we watched the work for a short while as we talked shop.  My timer went off, the topic was done, and so I left.

I made up for the moments I spent talking by shopping at the store and making two trips carrying bags of groceries up the apartment's stairs.

Photo from http://www.gogobot.com/millers-landing-park-bend-attraction
Columbia Park can be glimpsed across the river.  The Japanese-style sand garden is right of center

Day 18: Shevlin Park

I brought along my walking shoes to church, and after the meetings, my husband and I took a short trip out to Shevlin Park.

Shevlin is to the northwest, and in a long ravine.  The land was donated by a logging company, as it wasn't profitable for anything else.  The road down to Fremont Meadow was closed off, but we found a parking spot near the gate.  We walked past the pit toilets (I didn't have to clean them this year!) down the slope past the picnic pavilion and over to the Tumalo Creek path.

For all cars that were parked, there were few people, probably because there are so many areas to walk at in the park.  The aspens were pretty bare, but there were plenty of green pine and fir trees and plenty of yellow-leafed bushes.  We walked on the path, that like other paths in the Parks, was marked by a small grain of grey gravel/sand. Tumalo Creek was full, probably due to the recent rains and snows up in the mountains.  There were a number of Ponderosa pine trees of various shapes and ages, including a few snags that were in the process of losing their bark.  e started noticing yellow fir trees--tamaracks!  The small, thin needles were still on the trees, by a lot were on the ground, making a soft glow in the woods.  We found one with black bulgy bark, probably from one of the fires that have touched at the park at times.  We examined the creek and found a recently oiled bridge--the linseed odor was so strong, we wondered if the work had been done yesterday.  Some of the picnic tables were recently pained green.

We didn't make it as far as the covered bridge but we did have about an hour of enjoying our sweet Sabbath walk.

Photo from http://www.glitteranddust.com/cim-training-learning-take-chill-pill/

Day 17: Discovery Park

I live about a three hour drive to the Portland Oregon LDS temple, which pretty much limits my visits there.  So when I feel the need to go to the House of the Lord and serve therein, I go to the Stake Center on Saturday and help with the cleaning, whether it's my turn or not.  Like today, where I spent a half an hour washing and rinsing floor mop pads.

Afterwards, I went to Discovery Park and walked the perimeter. Except for the dog park and two or three other people, the park was empty. I discovered that the south part of the park is missing part of its trail, so I had to gingerly climb down a sandy slope to get over to the paved path.  The wind was blowing strong, and there were few people there.  I asked one woman how long the perimeter was, and she didn't know.  She walks it with her friends regularly "and it does wonders," she said.  She told me that people who wear Fitbits know, and then told me of a friend of hers, who, when a smoke alarm went off in the hotel they were staying at, ran to the stairs with her husband.  He stopped and ran back for his Fitbit, so that his going down the stairs counted on its register.

For me, it took me a little over 40 minutes to walk the perimeter one and a half times.


The park opened earlier this summer, and has a pond in the center of it, which is fed by a well and by run-off, and has a water pump to circulate the water to avoid mosquitoes from plaguing the area.  Countless families brought their kids and dogs to play in the water in the hot ninety degree plus days..  The signs went up for dogs to stay out, but people have their special exceptions.  My supervisors groused about lack of water safety:  "What do we do if someone drowns? or just drops off a dead body?  Don't we have any "closed" signs ready? What do we tell the media?" 

A few weeks of this, and the Bulletin newspaper put out an article about something or other of water safety, with a side bar, announcing that Discovery Park's pond would be tested twice a week for e-coli, salmonella, and other bacteria.  The rest of the week, only two or three families were there, and then they heard the news, and afterwards only an occasional paddle boarder or two were at the water.  Today, there was nothing but the wind-churned water.

Day 16: Pilot Butte

"If you want to lose weight, walk Pilot Butte three times a week.  If you want to lose weight faster, then six times!"  (a saying I heard some years ago)


After a short debate, I decided to keep my promise to myself and go up Pilot Butte.  I'd walked it in the past, and even got my 50 trips--100 miles reward of having my name posted on the bulletin board.  All that had been done on the road, and this time, I was going to take on the nature trail.

At the base of the butte, by the parking lot, is a flat, paved quarter-plus mile trail.  I learned in past times that if I walked a loop before and after, it was easier going up and my legs didn't cramp on the way home.

I was under dressed.  I had a short-sleeve tee shirt and a hoodie sweatshirt.  Other people I could see on the trail wore gloves, hats, jackets.  The wind was blowing cold, the sky was overcast and I imagined getting soaked before it was all done.  I started with my back to the wind and walked the loop quickly with my sleeves pulled down over my hands.

The sun broke out as I finished the loop and headed to the trailhead.  The rose bushes had been severely pruned.  The bulletin board now had Janice Stencamp at 7200 miles--or was it 7500?  My name had been removed from the 100 mile listing a couple of years ago.  Today?  Perhaps the start of my 200 miles.  A yellow sign warned that a cougar was spotted on the butte on March 23, 2015.  Good to know.

I hesitated a moment at the divide.  I could still do the road trail, but I decided to keep my promise and went straight up on the nature trail.  The wind was less, due to it being behind me again, and the amount of trees that bordered the way.

There are no less than five benches on the  trail.  Years ago, I sat on one while my youngest daughter played with a bubble gun.  This was as far as I got, looking over St. Charles Hospital while she praised me for making it that far.  This was so long ago, that she was only two-thirds as tall as she is now.

It is shorter than the road trail, but much more steeper and is all dirt.  I got to the point where I would stop, rest a moment, start again for 45 or 50 or 70 steps, stop, rest, repeat.  I stayed out of the benches.  I charted my progress by guessing where I was in relationship to the road.  There were wooded posts along the trail that I noticed, and some had numbers painted on the top.  I thought that they were some sort of distance markers, but the numbers repeated, or so it seemed, and therefore made no sense.

When I was a child, one of the first books I owned was "The Big Jump and Other Stories."  The first one was of a king who could jump to the top of his castle tower in one leap.  A young boy met his challenge of jumping to the top by jumping up one stair at a time.  I put myself into the story:  The important thing was to get to the top, and so, no matter how long it took with my many rest breaks, I would make it to the top.  After all, I did this before when I first walked to the top, and over time, I was able to walk up and down without any rest breaks but the bathrooms.  I imagined repeating my successful trips. I unzipped my hoodie, it became so warm.




Up at the top of the butte, I took my victory lap, my trip to the outhouse, and then went up the ramp to the top.  I wondered if the butte had been closed to vehicular traffic, but a Toyota soon showed up.  There was one other person, but then a whole bunch showed up, having taken the road route.  To the west, the mountains were all covered with low clouds, making it look as if they had never existed.  To the east, a sunny area at Powell Butte, with the surrounding grounds being shady from the clouds.  To the south, thick rain clouds sat over Newberry Monument and Lava Lands, and I wondered if I would make it down before they hit.  To the north, Mt. Adams was gone and Smith Rocks didn't look so well.  The wind was still strong as I flapped my sweatshirt to cool off.  I headed down the paved road, seeing no advantage to taking the steep trail down.  I took the loop at the base, and then drove off to Costco.

The whole event took about an hour an a half, time well spent.   I was tired in the afternoon, and laid down for a short rest that turned into two hours.  I will do yoga tonight.
 

Day 15: Riverbend and Farewell Bend Parks

I mailed off some last minute Halloween cards, paid a bill, and drove to Riverbend Park and used the restroom.  It is weird to me, to go in there as a "customer" or a park patron, instead of a custodian.  I did a quick check, and remembered that it would have been probably the first one cleaned today, and that there may have been only one on duty that day. It wasn't bad, just a bit scruffy.  I also didn't have any way to tidy it up, which led to a rather odd realization that the custodial closet was now completely off-limits.  I set my timer on my cell phone and took off.

I walked down to the foot bridge and noticed a new sign on it, announcing that the bridge's weight limit was 3500 pounds, approximately 20 people.  Good to know.  I crossed it solo, and walked into Farewell Bend, down the river trail to where it goes under the Bill Healy Memorial Bridge, and did a U-turn, walked back past the restroom and follow the pavers back to the foot bridge.  On the way I found a Post-It note on the ground:  "Dave, please change the neon sign It flickers"  there was more on the other side, but the fact that it was on the ground meant that, perhaps, the job got done.  Even though I was walking at what I thought was a fast clip, people easily strolled past me.

I crossed back over, kept walking on the sidewalk, past the restrooms, past the otter statue, past the river access area, past my car, and was halfway to the dog park when the half-hour alarm went off on my cell phone.  I walked back to the car and decided to do a "victory lap" around the inner path that ran out in the center of the field.  As I finished, I heard "Barb! Barb!" and my co-worker showed up, second day in a row.  He was running with my former supervisor, and explained that they did a run together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I told them about my goal, of the ninety days and wanting to find out who I'd be at the end of it.  They told me that I'd like what I'd find, and that I would not want to go back.  Getting rid of the stress and getting the happy endorphins were reasons for their running.

Photo of Riverbend Park, featuring the restrooms building and the inner lap.  From http://www.bendrealestatepros.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/20140606-20140606_144236.jpg
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Day 14: Shopping

After a day long struggle deciding where I was going to walk (it was raining in the morning, so that tears it for Pilot Butte; I want to save gas/too lazy to deal with going to the garage and facing all the stuff in there; (fill in name of park) is too isolated/has bad parking/is too small; and it look like rain, I finally decided to walk to JoAnne's and buy me a pad of colored cardstock as a reward for my walk, while it is still on sale, so I can make my lists on something that stands out.  I did my yoga at 3 a.m., and slept the hour after Doug left for work.  The Republican National Committee called, and so got me out of bed.  I did not call back.

On my way there, the little story scene was at Powers and 3rd, where a former U-haul truck was stopped.  The driver behind honked his horn a couple of times in a friendly way, then jump out and ran up to the other driver--the back door was completely open!  So the could-be disaster was taken care of.  "I didn't want you losing all your stuff!"

At JoAnne's the checkout clerk was a pretty blonde woman, maybe in her forties.  Her voice was very low, as if she'd had throat surgery and I wondered if it hurt her to talk.  I didn't ask.

On my way back, I decided to go by the store fronts of the Outlet Mall.  One of my co-workers from Park and Rec drove up, and he introduced me to his wife.

At Fred Meyer, I was going down the dairy aisle, and saw Nick, holding his son in front of him so as to have constant eye contact, and so I got to be introduced to Jaxon and congratulate the proud parents, as Nick's wife was there too.

And so to home, to make a dinner of shrimp, fried boiled potatoes, and coleslaw.  My walk lasted more than half an hour, and it went well.

Day 13: Hid under the bed

Basically, today I didn't do much, but I did send out some Halloween greeting cards and make a nice dinner, bought some groceries and stayed on the computer too long, answering questions on Quora and getting distracted while trying to find addresses. 

Better work tomorrow.


 

Day 12: Rough time

So I did my walking at Costco to buy some stuff.  Then when I got back to the apartment, I walked to the manager's office and paid the rent, then to Fred Meyer to buy a bunch of groceries and a gallon of milk, then pushed the cart to the edge of the lot and carried all the groceries in one trip to the apartment unit's bottom step.  And then I made two trips to get it all upstairs.

Some days are better than others.  I look forward to a better day tomorrow.

Day 11: Edgar Allan Poe and Drake Park

'An Afternoon with Edgar Allan guarantees a chilling, informative, and fun filled glimpse into the strange, sometimes dark and always intriguing realm of the life and works of America’s premier master of the macabre and literary bad boy Edgar Allan Poe.

"This award winning one person show will showcase dramatic recitations of some of Poe’s best loved works along with informative sidelights into Poe’s life and times. Great for lovers of literature, the theater or those that love a good scare. The show concludes with an audience interactive portion where people are invited to participate in a question and answer session with Mr. Poe himself."  
~from the library's Facebook page

This presentation has been produced somewhere or other in Bend for nine years, at times as a two hour program, and I'm guessing today's free production at the library may have been about an hour.  Alastair Jacques now lives in Portland, but the audience at the library meeting room compared notes of when he was in Bend, and in what theater productions.  I was the newbie of my neighbors, everyone else having seen him once or four times.  I learned that the "Author, Author!" series at Bend High was a fund-raiser for the free events at the library, as explained by the library events coordinator who did the introduction.

Mr. Poe's visit here took place in the year 1849, four years after "The Raven" was published.   It was a few minutes before I realized that he was acting out "The Cask of  Amontillado," and then later "The Tell-Tale Heart."  I am not familiar with the poem "Lenore," but I have attempted to memorize "The Raven."  Afterwards, he did a question and answer, staying in character.  It was excellent, and I'm glad I got a front row seat.  If there is another production next year, count me in.

After the program, I went for a walk in Drake Park.  The weather involved a light shower, so I was glad to have my hoodie.  I visited the restroom, happy with the thought that I would not be cleaning it for the next several months, and satisfied that I had made sure to fill the soaps before I left.  There had been very light use, probably due to the downpour that took place hours earlier, when I was in Relief Society, probably because it was still cloudy and rather chilly.  

I walked fast, down the slope to the river, and along the riverside, heading south.  I remembered that it had been more than two years since I walked that part of the trail, back when I had to park my truck at Harmon Park, and walk through tiny Pageant Park and over the foot bridge through Drake to clean the restroom, due to road construction.  I went to the southern end of the park, and walked back, the sun breaking through the clouds before I returned to where I had entered the park.  I went up to Wall and Franklin (checked the restaurant, "Drake," prices on the posted menu--ouch!) and then south on Wall to my Subaru. 

I don't know if I got the full 30 minutes in, but I did get a good brisk walk.

 http://www.bendsource.com/bend/deep-into-that-darkness-peering/Content?oid=2296323

Day 10: Local

I walked to Carl's Jr. fast food restaurant for breakfast for Doug and me.  It's 0.6 miles away, on Third Street.  The temperature was 45 degrees, the sky was overcast but didn't feel like rain, and I wore my lilac colored hoodie.  I passed by a beggar who was sitting outside of Fred Meyer, where the can redemption machines used to be.  I wondered how long he would stay there before a manager or a PIC sent him away.  His sign claimed that he was a vet, and he wore a U.S. Army shirt.  Directly across the road from the store is the Central Oregon Veterans Outreach, and I wondered if they had contacted him yet or if he were a poser.

At Carl's, the sausage, egg, cheese sandwich was two for three dollars and fifty cents.  I got two and my bacon, egg, cheese biscuit, and headed back, stopping long enough to hand him the warm sandwich.  There were a couple of cigarettes on the ground next to him, and an apple, hidden from casual view by his backpack.  The cigarettes would be reason enough for a few people I know to not give him the sandwich: "If he can smoke, he can take care of himself."  I don't argue with the people in my head; what would be the use?  He looked up at me, simply thanked me as he took it, and I was on my way.

So there was my half-hour walk. 

In the evening, I walked over to the Dollar Tree and bought Halloween greeting cards.  I walk faster, surer, and am not breathless when I get home. 
photo of breakfast sandwich from a Carl's Jr. web-site:

Day 9: Back to Juniper Park

So now I'm one-tenth of the way into the experiment.

I debated a number of places before I settled on Juniper Park.  I know that the route is about a mile, and that the west side and the east side are about the same.  I did my walk in the afternoon, hoofing it as fast as I comfortably could without breaking into a run.  The sky was overcast, the temperature cooler, and there were creeps hanging out at the bench by the outdoor restroom, and at a couple of picnic tables, there were guys hanging around them, so I didn't go on those paths.

Some trees still had their autumn leaves, and they were bright next to all the dark evergreens.  The sand covered trail was slightly spongy.  I could feel the workout in my hip and thigh joints.

Afterwards, I went to the library.  I had no trouble taking the steps up to and down from the second floor.  After my shopping bit at Freddy's, I was able to carry the groceries to my apartment with ease.

For years, I'd put in work orders at the end of my season, asking that Juniper restrooms to be bulldozed.  Looks like I'll be getting my wish.  The indoor people are tired of people from the outdoor pool getting water on the floor, among other things.  The plan is to extend the outdoor pool's perimeter fence, and build the new restroom so that half is in the pool area, and the other half is in the park, with no passage between the two sides.  The set-up will be similar to the restrooms in most of the other parks, uni-sex and wheelchair accessible with changing tables and family dressing room size.  No more waiting for men to get out of the men's room when we clean! Or the guys having to wait to clean the women's side for the same reason.  Bye-by too, to the clearly phallic artwork that graces the building.  No photos of it, so sorry--not!


photo from https://bendfamilyparktour.wordpress.com/tag/juniper-park/

Day 8: Slough

I slept most of the day, having had nightmares the night before.  Narrow bridges, shrinking parking lots, deep narrow canyons with rock walls, people who get in the way, and an unfamiliar car.  It was cloudy, but not raining.  If it had been, my solution would have been to walk over to the lodge and let a tow-truck deal with it all.

I went visiting teaching, and then parked the car in the garage, took the garbage out of the apartment, and walked over to Fred Meyer.  It took three minutes to get there, and after shopping, I was home a half an hour later.

So that was my thirty minutes of exercise for today.

The retirement party was today.  A whole restaurant was reserved for the event, but I decided not to go.  I'm not comfortable around people who have been drinking, and the restaurant prided itself on the wide variety of beers it offered.

Day 7: The walk to the bank

On my first day off from work, I slept, did some housework, met with my Visiting Teachers for a bit, and then decided to go deposit my last paycheck.

According to the Google map, the bank is 0.8 miles from my apartment complex, a 17 minute walk.  Traffic was pretty bad, and I had stop lights to wait at, and then there was the time at the bank.  I left at 4:11, and got into the apartment at 5:06.

I noticed as I went up and down the stairs of the apartment that I moved faster, easier, and when I walked to the bank, I did so at a faster pace.  The store where our post office box is was only 12 minutes away.  The Google map says that it's half a mile, and should have taken 10 minutes.  Again, there is traffic and stop lights, but it was still better time than the last time I went to the Dollar Tree.

The internet had been iffy all day, and I discovered why, as I past a box by the outlet mall, and about seven broadband linemen were clustered around it, examining its contents like Druidish priests over rabbit entrails. I was on the wrong side of Third Street to examine the Land Use sign near where Greg Gibson's Auto Mart had been.  I regretted not having taken a photo of the little houses that were on the lot, where we'd spent so much time, shopping for used cars and buying them, and where he had tons of McDonald Happy Meal toys decorating his office.  The other house was occupied by a renter, and Greg's own home is somewhere else in town.  He closed the office when the Recession hit, and he'd gone for months without a sale.  Greg is retired now, yet works as a box boy two or three days a week at a west side supermarket, and seems quite happy there.  The nine or so trees look like they will be spared, as the back hoes tore up the asphalt lot and left them standing and the land surrounding the small grove has been bulldozed and smoothed.  A medical clinic is slated to be built  at the corner of Badger and Third Street, next to where the car lot had been and where decades earlier had been a farm.

Day 6: Last day of the season

I work for Park and Rec. from April to October, more or less.  I have for about five years.

This morning, I woke up with pain in my hips.  I did my yoga, and then took an ibuprofen tablet.  By the time I got to work, I felt fine.

I could tell the gains I'd made from my earlier walks.  I was able to move easier, stand easier and had more energy.  Although I couldn't tell how much was from the exercise and how much was from the idea that I would not clean the restrooms for another six months!

I did the paperwork, joked with my co-workers, got stuff done.  I almost ran when I was at Pioneer--usually I've dragged myself up the slope.  I needed the speed at Pine Nursery South.  (Another cross-country meet?! When do these kids go to school?!  And what's with all the toilet paper on the floor?  A parent notifies me of a mess clogged toilet, and half of the toilet paper has been stripped....I was so counting on just a quiet day like yesterday.)  I got back to the shop and got everything done, running over a few minutes, which was just as well for the most important of the good-bye to be said:  the director is retiring and moving to California, and I will probably not see this person again in this life once he is gone.  I was never "just" a custodian when I was talking with him or around him, but I was an important member of the team, no less than anyone else he worked with or for.

Turned in my shirts, sweatshirt, phone and keys.  I'll get the phone and the keys back next year; they get put aside in some safe place until my supervisor gets them out for me next year.  The clothing, though, gets sent to recycle, where it's cut up for cleaning and polishing rags for the shop.  It is more economical to get all new every year than to wash out stains, check for tears, and deal with fading.  I somehow splash peroxide on a shirt sometime during the season.  And the clothes all have the logo on them, so they can't be kept and worn to the store or the gym, as comfortable as they are.

So tomorrow I'll do another walk, maybe more.  I do want to see how and what will have changed come January, as the little changes I noticed today were so welcome.

Having smaller tee-shirts next year would be really neat, too.
















I look like a fluffy dandelion.  The (now) former director is wearing the yellow flower. 

Day 5: Employment

Today was the next to last day of my summer employment.

It is rather physical, as I climb in and out of a Ford Ranger pick-up truck at least ten time a day, drive it around, get out at the restrooms, walk to the restrooms, clean the restrooms, stock up the custodial closet, collect garbage, replace toilet paper, take stuff to the dumpster.  All that, plus the walk to and from the parking lot, and today I even got out and heaved a rock out of the middle of the road!  (I'm a bit proud of that, as I decided to stop and do it, not knowing that my department's supervisor was watching and aware that others had driven past it.  I almost didn't, but I did.  Whew!) 

Foodwise, I took in the left-over wedding open house cake to the break room, where it was cheerfully devoured by my coworkers.  At lunch time, I shared my goals with Karen and another coworker who was from the District Office.  Karen offered to walk with me in the winter after her shift, and gave me her phone number.  She and her husband are going on a cruise for the next two weeks, so I'll call later in November.  I even made sure to put her number into my phone before I left the shop.

I did lose fifteen pounds this summer, even with the ninety to one hundred degree temperatures and my not being as fast as I was in past years. The trick is to not gain the weight back on this winter, but to get it off.

I decided that today my work was my exercise.  Tomorrow, I'll buzz through my restrooms (if I can--today I had stuff that needed extra work) and turn in my company shirts and sweatshirt, my phone and my keys and go pick up my check.  Most of it is going into a dedicated savings account, to pay my medical bills during the winter season and for Christmas.

I got my new winter shoes at the beginning of the month.  I ordered them from Shopko, as the sizes weren't in the local store.

 Photo from the internet.  I need to get a digital camera and learn how to use it....

Day 4: Getting out

It was hard to get out of the apartment. 

It had already been a busy morning.  My husband and I went to church with two of our daughters.  The other one and her husband were staying at a motel, and we learned from a text message that their car wouldn't start, so Doug and one daughter left early, and our other daughter and I watched the annual children's program.  After the meeting, we went to the motel, where we who didn't know cars thought it was the starter, but Doug found out it was a corroded battery terminal.

We all came back to the apartment, where the newest wife made breakfast the two of them, and the other sisters packed up their stuff, we had prayer, and they all left. I got on the internet for a bit, answered a question on Quora regarding the duties of a stock clerk and read the Sunday funnies, and then got off to work on a Samurai Suduko puzzle.  I wanted to go, but didn't...look at the clouds, will it rain?  I don't know where to walk.  I'm sleepy.  PBS is on television and it's interesting.  Doug was napping; where should I leave a note?

He woke up, I announced I was going for a walk, and went. 

It takes ten minutes to walk to the Dollar Tree.  It took the half hour to walk from the apartment to there, north on Parrell Road (very few cars but a notable lack of sidewalks, and what there were were short), down to Brosterhous Road, onto the canal road, heading south, behind the motel and such, out to the bridge (no sidewalks, and the narrowest bike lane on the whole of Third Street--I waited for traffic to have a gap before I crossed, and then make it to the bus stop, where I learned that the first bus there was a few minutes after 6 a.m.  My alarm went off, but I don't think I had it set right in the first place.  I walked down to the intersection of the Dollar Tree, crossed over and headed back to the apartment, feeling a sense of accomplishment ("smug" would have been faster to write) for having done my half hour.  Even if the alarm wasn't correctly, I still met my goal of walking a half hour, and some minutes more.

I'm not concerned about making a certain distance these first ten days; right now, it's about getting out getting out of the apartment.

(below--someone else's photo of the Dollar Tree at Reed Lane and Third Street)

Day 3: Light showers in the a.m.

I'm noticing a pattern:  I'm getting up earlier.  Even though it's Saturday, I am up before 7.

I leave a note for the family.  My youngest daughter is sleeping in the front room, my oldest in the computer room, and my husband is asleep in bed and I don't want to wake anyone.

I open the front door to discover that it is wet outside, so debate a few moments before I go through the parking lot to the garage and get out umbrellas and my jacket, back to the apartment with the umbrellas and I leave them outside the door, taking one for myself.  The rain is very light, and there are moments I where I wonder if it's stopped.

I know that Carl's Jr. fast food place is a half mile away, as I checked out Mapquest a month ago for distances to places we frequent.  I head there, going through the Fred Meyer parking lot.  At the stop light, I check my time:  fifteen minutes.  I head back, and decide to try the canal road.

All ends well, as I go down it, find the gate open, and go up on the parkway, down to Reed Lane, and then back through the complex to the apartment, stopping to pick up the mail, which includes envelopes from my mom and youngest sister, addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan B__" and "Sarah and Jonathan B___."

Back at the apartment, it is still dark.  In a few moments, my oldest comes in, as she went to the store while I was gone.

Day 2: Juniper Park

 I did my full course of yoga this morning, before Doug's alarm went off, but I'm not counting the yoga in the 30 minutes, as it is basically stretching.  I think, though, if I'm in a yoga class I will count it, as classes are generally 50 minutes long and work harder than what I'm used to doing at home, including having a greater number of moves.

I've set exercise goals before.  One was to walk up Pilot Butte 50 times and get on the bulletin board in the park for doing my 100 miles.  Which I did, and bonus! someone had their photo in the paper with the bulletin board behind them, and there's my name, forever in the archives.  On the healthy point, I started my work with Parks and Rec., and I was strong enough to get through the season.  I also posted about each walk up there, including the unsuccessful ones, on LiveJournal. It took me almost two years to do them, but I did do them.

A few months ago, I set a goal of doing yoga every day for two weeks.  Some days had the full course (which I will explain in a later blog) and some wasn't so much.  But I still felt better at the end than when I began, and it was easier to move around and work.

I also set a goal before I started work in April, that I would have lost 40 pounds before Sarah's wedding.  I lost 15, but they were pounds I gained during the winter.  Today I was 263, which is down from the high two days ago of 268, which was post-wedding trip, and was at 265 yesterday.  So it's good, and it is on the way down.  Cutting out the pumpkin pie Blizzards at Dairy Queen after work helps, even though most have been mini ones.

So only 88 days to go of the 90....

Right now, the goal is to walk 30 minutes a day.  I'm doing it at Juniper Park, as the path there winds around and laps back into itself, it has ups and downs, is shady, has a restroom, and is about one mile.  I'm not concerned about the mile, though it is nice to have as a unit of measurement.  After all, some day it would be nice to go miles on a walk, but not today.  Today there were still autumn leaves on the branches, clouds overhead, and Jessica.  Jessy also works for Parks, as a steward, or unofficial police officer.  She can exclude people from the park for a day, but cannot write tickets.  She is a cheerful person who has a lot on her plate, as she is her parents' caregiver and guardian.  She stopped on her rounds to visit with me, and offered to go on walks with me in some of the other parks.  She used to exercise regularly, but hasn't been able to lately, and she's feeling it.  It would be good for both of us to have a walking partner, as some of the places, such as Sawyer Park, really don't feel safe when you're alone.  We exchange phone numbers, and then she is off to "visit" some teenagers who are smoking in the park on their way back to Bend High.  I walk an extra leg of the path to make up for the time I spent talking, and then walk extra to use the restroom.

Sarah and Jonathan are in town.  Elizabeth and Rachel are on their way from Ontario, where they spent the night on their way from Utah.  Tomorrow evening is the Open House for the newly-wed Bakers.



Photo of southeast side of Juniper Park from http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/20732562.jpg

Day 1: In the beginning

Okay, the kids are grown.  One is now married, two have their careers.  We "downsized" due to financial (fill in the blank here), no longer have the house, and are living in an apartment.  My husband is gainfully employed for the foreseeable future, and Tuesday I end my summer season with Park and Rec.

I weigh about 260 pounds.  Some days it is one or two pounds more.  Once or twice it has been a pound less.  I am aware that the scales are off, and in my favor.  Either that, or the scales at the vet and the swimming pool are centered over pools of gravity.  I have a large gut, large boobs, fatty upper arms, big rear, and even my fingers are fat.  Actually, they are.  My diamond fell out of my wedding ring, so I had to have my ring removed by having it sawn off.  That has been a couple of years, and the dent from my ring is still visible, but barely. My ankles swell when I sit, and even my feet have lost their edges.  My legs, well, I've been working as a custodian for 6 months.  What happens is that my pant legs length during the season as my thighs get trim. 

I found this article at Quora, and decided to do 30 minutes a day, for 90 days and see what happens.

Today I walked Juniper Park, for 30 minutes.  The trail is one mile, plus the few yards to walk to the car.  Beautiful weather, nice walk.  I have the day off from work as it is my "weekend" (I have Thursday and Friday off), so I made the time.  Now to clean the apartment--I have important company coming: My daughters and son-in-law.  And I think my husband would really like to see the place looking nice when he gets home. 

At the end of the article it says:  You'll be surprised who you become in 3 months.

Today is October 15, 2015.  January 15, 2016 will be three months.
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What are the top 10 good habits that I should follow daily to have a beautiful life?

Imran Esmail, Founder @ EscapeYourDeskJob.com

44.2k Views

Unlike everybody else (sorry guys), I am going to ignore your question and share only one.

The ONE habit to change your life.

Because the truth of the matter is...99.9% of people struggle to even maintain ONE good habit.

Most people (not all) can't do anything with enough regularity to have a MEASURABLE impact on their lives.

So what is it?

Exercise.

Yea yea, I know you know...but do you do it EVERYDAY?

Let's talk about why you should:

Here is what some famous names had to say about it:

I’m thinner and healthier with more muscle, for one thing. But I’ve also gotten out of debt, improved my relationships, become a better dad, started my own business - Leo Babauta, Founder of  Zen Habits

It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor - Cicero, Roman philosopher & politician

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. - John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States

So here are a few ways exercise is the best habit you can possibly take on:

1. It makes you more confident
After you work out for a few months, people will compliment you all the time (oh you look so thin, or look at those big muscles, or just blank stare downs from the opposite sex).

Imagine how that will make you feel.

You will start walking taller and your confidence will skyrocket.

2. It makes you eat better
You start to eat better because why would you put crap into your body when you've spent so much time making it perfect.

Also, you just stop craving bad foods because you NEED and your body knows you NEED vitamins, nutrients and all that good stuff.

This leads to a longer and healthier life.

3. It makes you smarter
Dr. John Ratey, author of “Spark – The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” says that exercise improves your brain in the short term by raising your focus for two to three hours afterwards. Check out this article for more info 6 Ways Exercise Makes You Smarter.

4. It gives you more energy
Eating bad food puts a huge metabolic load on your body - thats why you feel tired after eating a heavy meal. But now that you are working out and eating better, you have more energy. Even just walking and lifting things is easier because you are stronger.

5. It creates a base for other habits
Finally, exercise is whats known as a keystone habit - that means that its 10x more powerful than all other habits you can take up.

Its the building block, the base for your entire life.

So start working out today.

You'll be surprised who you become in 3 months.

Good luck!