2017 in 2017

I’ve gained quite a bit of weight in the past two years. I’d be more specific, but who needs the depressing details? Let’s just say that the bathroom scales and I have climbed to previously untapped heights and leave it at that.


Early on New Year’s Day I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post about a challenge to walk/run 2017 miles in 2017. The sign up deadline was midnight on 1/1/17, so I hesitated for only a moment before clicking on the link and paying my money. 

I’m now committed (or perhaps should be). 2017 miles in 365 days means I need to average 5.5 miles a day this year, or 38.5 per week. I jokingly told a blogging friend that as of Friday I only have 2016.5 miles to go. The truth is, I’m kind of on track. With one and a half days left in this first week of January I’ve walked almost 32 miles! 


Hopefully I’ll have more weight loss success than this guy ^^^.

Remember the scene in the original Peter Pan where Tinker Bell is on the verge of fading into oblivion and Peter, a.k.a. Mary Martin, begs the audience to applaud to bring her back? I used to clap so loudly that the folks next door complained to my parents. Well, I’m going to need your applause here if I’m going to succeed in walking 2017 miles this year. Exercise is not my first (or third or ninetieth) inclination, but with your help, as Peter Pan is my witness, I can do this.

https://youtu.be/A6IKaLF4Fqc

Peace, people! Um, I can’t hear you. 

Comeragh Mountains

I still can’t believe I’m going to Ireland in June. Granted, I’ll probably not get near any of these sites, but a girl can dream.

inese's avatarMaking memories

comeragh

Today we will do a bit of hill walking as most of us have consumed those extra calories between the Christmas and New Year day 😉 Comeragh Mountains is a good place to start since you have already seen them from the top of beautiful Slievenamon. Here she is, my favorite mountain, as seen from the ascent to the Long Hill of the Comeraghs. First of all we will find the source of peculiar clouds that look so nice in the photographs, so let’s walk towards Slievenamon and have a closer look.

slievenamonBulmers! Or Magners, as the product is called outside of Ireland. Famous Irish Cider brewery is situated right next to Slievenamon. It also produces clouds 😦 Just look at the next image.

bulmers

It is not always that bad though, but some days are worse than the others.

bulmers

Dramatic clouds enhance your photographs, but is this steam emission harmless? I don’t know.

comeragh

The…

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One Answer

Humbling and moving piece by Jan Wilberg.

Jan Wilberg's avatarRed's Wrap

From the pay phone attached to the coral stucco wall of the La Jolla Resort, I could see the Chinese lanterns lit over the shuffleboard court, a couple sitting in lawn chairs holding hands and looking out on to the Florida Bay, a rented fishing boat with a Bimini top rocking, the sound of its sweet tapping carrying across the yard of sand and palm trees, softened by the bougainvillea draped at every turn, every corner.

It was 1988.

The trip to Islamorada was to celebrate my 40th birthday and the fact that we were finally out from under the expense and difficulty of having adopted a little boy from Nicaragua with a heart defect 18 months before. He had had surgery, was in day care, and was bright and happy. The four of us, my husband and I, our 15-year old daughter, and our mended boy were in love…

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Wishing

First star knows about wishes.
She hears them murmured wistfully:
Star light,
Star bright,
First star I see tonight,

First star understands wishes.
She gathers them like forget-me-nots:
I wish I may,
I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.

First star hears wishes,
and then promptly forgets them.
Star light,
Star new,
I wasted many a wish on you.

First star regrets her lapses,
but what can we expect from a ball of gasses?
I wish I may,
Oh, wish I do,
To someday have a wish come true.



Donald Trump and Christianity

Excellent piece. Conservatives don’t have a lock on Christianity. In fact, I’m not sure they know how to find the door.

alotfromlydia's avatarA lot from Lydia

The New York Times today published an article titled “Why Rural America Voted for Trump”, written by Robert Leonard. I am still struggling to understand Trump votes, so I read it.

The article describes an entirely different mindset between the two political parties. The author quotes a baptist minister JC Watts who said “The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good,” — meaning if a person commits a crime, Democrats try to find what societal trigger made the criminal, and Republicans think the criminal is a bad person. He went on to say that Republicans believe God made them and Democrats believe they are their own God.

“We teach them how to be good,” he said. “We become good by being reborn — born again.”

He continued: “Democrats believe that we are born good…

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I’m Dreaming of a Baby Elephant 

My dreams are technicolor wonders. Many mornings I wake up and feel like I’ve just attended the world premiere of a major Hollywood movie. Of course upon further reflection the dreams come closer to being low budget indie productions, but still quite entertaining. 

Take last night’s offering, for example. For some reason, Studly and I were living in an apartment complex. He sent me on an errand, and I drove around the inner courtyard of the complex trying to find an exit to the street. As I turned a corner I came face to face with the cutest baby elephant you’ve ever seen. 

I couldn’t wait to tell Studly, so I hurried back to our apartment where I discovered him dressed in a beige plaid suit. Beige. Plaid. I tried to tell him about the baby elephant, but he told me to hurry up and get dressed because he was going to be in a friend’s wedding. 

Most of my clothes were at our old house, but I quickly found a floral tutu type skirt in my closet and paired it with heels and a black t-shirt. As we set off in our car, the road became narrower, turning into a single lane, then a sidewalk, and finally something no wider than a curb. Our car morphed into a motorcycle and then a bicycle built for two as the road grew smaller.

Just before I woke up I looked back and the baby elephant was attempting to catch up to us. My arms ached with the need to cradle this little one. 

Interestingly enough, I’ve had the narrowing road appear in my dreams often. In my amateurish attempts to analyze my dreams I’ve come to believe that my subconscious is reminding me that my options are narrowing as I grow older. But the baby elephant indicates that there are still sweet surprises awaiting. Where are you little elephant?

Peace, people!

Arched

From Jan Wilberg. Brilliant and oh, so relatable.

Jan Wilberg's avatarRed's Wrap

She examines my eyebrows, using her fingers with maroon nails to smooth the tiny hairs, pulling the light and magnifying glass closer to see exactly where the line of the arch should be.

I lie on the table, my head on a slight incline, a pillow under my knees. I fold my hands like a person might in a casket and I wonder to myself, will she come to the funeral home and fix my brows and do my hair. But then I remember that my brows and my hair won’t matter because I want to be cremated and then planted with a sturdy tree. If they did matter, I would want Kris to take care of them. I trust her to make me a good looking dead person.

She drips the hot wax under the full line of my right eyebrow. I know what is next but the stripping…

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