The Winter of our discontent.

The thermometer hasn’t budged much this week ... my car odometer either.

But my walk-o-meter continues to push upward. I think I might be getting greedy about grabbing all the miles I can this year, because it was simply not enough to be satisfied with beating last year’s record of 754 miles by one mile on October 9th. Suddenly, 900 miles was attainable, and then I pushed myself to 1,000 miles as my new goal that I aimed for, and I made it earlier this month.

After reaching that last milestone, I was still twiddling my thumbs. However, the clock was ticking as we began creeping toward year end. There wasn’t much time to get more steps in, and, those steps were not taken in the best walking conditions after this incessant snow and underlying ice, not to mention being in the deep freeze.

Yesterday, meteorologist Paul Gross tweeted that this was the 6th snowiest December on record and the month was not over yet. I am sure I am not alone in concurring with William Shakespeare’s phrase “now is the winter of our discontent” even if the intention for these words is not the same.

I have been diligent about walking this past week, although snow interrupted my trek yesterday. But, I must confess that since the year was winding down, I’ve taken to wearing my pedometer all day, as I run up and down the stairs doing laundry, or fetching things from the basement, as well as while I shovel or even go out to run the car. That’s because all those steps add up. Today, after shoveling even still more snow, I trekked over to Memorial Park to walk multiple laps and got my fresh air and steps in that way. I’ve not been back to Council Point Park since Christmas Eve as I know the path will be packed with ice and snow.

Right now we are more apt to be on the inside looking out, even missing New Year’s Eve festivities to hunker down in the warm house.

I know we were spoiled by the past two mild Winters, and, knowing we are heading toward the Summer Solstice is a nice thought, but that is a long journey and provides little comfort at the present time.

Speaking of long journeys, my boss left for South Africa today. He, too, has been grumbling about the snow and cold and has been in a bit of a funk because his 6:00 a.m. daily and twice-weekly evening swimming sessions at the local high school were cancelled due to school Christmas vacation. Every day I get a progress report on how many miles he swam that morning, to which I usually reply how many miles I walked that particular day. I told him about a news story I heard on WWJ that South Africa is in a drought right now and many hotels have closed down their pools, are restricting guests to a two-minute shower and no baths may be taken since the hotels don’t provide a bathtub plug. There is swimming in the ocean, but you must watch for sharks. Now that’s a little scary – maybe even scarier that those wild animals he’ll no doubt see, just like the old “Daktari” TV show. (I know I just lost a whole lot of my readers with that reference.)

One of my favorite go-to photographers for my blog posts is Jill Wellington, and she created all the photos featured in today’s blog. Not only does Jill Wellington have beautiful images for all the four seasons, but she is also from Michigan.

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/