While I wanted to sleep in late, my early-morning alarm went off and I made the mistake of looking at the weather app. In no uncertain terms, it told me that the temperature was 58°F and dropping fast. That was, actually, the HIGH for today. It’s been a slow slide to back under 50°F since.
Thus motivated, Keely and I bounced out the door for our walk at around 6:30 am. Still a bit later than our usual weekday schedule, but also still dark and slightly drippy from the barely-cleared out rains. Keely was torn between excitement and dismay the whole walk. I know she was not too hyped as she did not try to get me to hike across Monroe, which for her equates “much longer walk.” Nope, short and sweet trip around Lake Ella and then back home!
Yes, I’m still not consistent with updating this as of late, which is mostly due to day!job. I turned in my resignation on the 4th and have been busy as hell there ever since. *sad face* But then, that is not unexpected, as the first few weeks of the term are my busiest usually. This was compounded by our new director starting on Monday, the 10th. Dr. Laventrice Ridgeway is a great guy and he really got slapped in the face with the start of term emergencies, but he didn’t run screaming from the building so we’re all counting that as a win. I’m trying to clear the deck for my departure as much as I can, to ease the transition, so between that and everything…yeah, I was coming home and crashing out, brain dead.
I don’t enjoy that. It also put the brakes on all my personal projects because I only have so much brainpower to go around.
A couple of friends and I were recently exchanging emails about consistency, endurance, resilience, and reinvention. One made the observant comment that no matter how positively any of those words ring for us, they still require energy. You can’t out-think exhaustion and you can’t catch up on lost sleep. Endurance can be trained up, resiliency strengthened, and we can practice positive mindset/meditation/compassion but there is still a point where rest and recuperation are required. I need to be more compassionate about that for myself.
Anyway, have some red trees from Lake Ella — in cold weather, the old, whitened bark is shed and we get this for a little while:
