Weekly Mileage #146 and First Snow of the Year!

catching snowflakes

This week we started getting back to our routine after the holidays.

Monday I wasn't able to go for a trail run and hike because I had a chiropractor appointment and groceries to buy. I'm moving my future chiro appts to another day of the week so that I can still squeeze in a trail run before doing the grocery shopping every other week.

I'm still working on moving content from one site to another. Technically it's all moved, but I had to re-brand the printable worksheets with my travel site's blog name, and as I started doing that I realized I could improve the printables with some editing and re-writing. So I've been working on that all week and am almost done. Unfortunately, the edits to the printables mean that the lessons that go with those printables also need to be edited and re-written. So, I'm not done yet with this project.

I also worked on two notebook orders. One was a second order from someone who ordered a music notebook and wanted a notebook (non-music) with more pages than I usually include. I did it, but I won't do it again. Trying to sew a thicker chunk of paper into the cover was a time-consuming challenge. It's not worth the time I put into it. A good learning experience though.

Tuesday we had snow in the forecast for around midday, so all the local schools closed. This has happened in the past, but inevitably there's no snow when they cancel school preemptively. Tuesday was the exception to the rule!

It started snowing big fat snowflakes just as we arrived at music lessons. By the time we left 45 minutes later, there was already decent accumulation.

leaving lessons- this is a gravel road, so snow stuck to it easier than it would a paved road

It snowed for the next four hours, with about 3 or 4" of accumulation. It started to melt a bit in the late afternoon, but temps dropped overnight, so it was still around Wednesday morning.

the custom order notebook I shipped out this week

I took the notebooks to the PO after it stopped snowing and then worked on my printables some more.

Looking down our driveway. I love this view when it's covered in snow!

I spent all day Wednesday working on my printables and making good progress.

beautiful sunrise

Thursday we finally got the date for our appraisal (we're refinancing the house and have been working on the process since October). Naturally it was for the next day. At least it wasn't till later in the afternoon. So I spent the rest of the day Thursday and most of Friday cleaning and tidying and telling the boys not to make messes (harder than it sounds). It's not strictly necessary to do these things for a refinance appraisal, but we do want the house to look as good as possible (it's got some definite weak points right now).

Thankfully the painting in the kitchen was all done and we'd already tidied up the yard. We've been working on things here and there so that we wouldn't have to do it all at once at the last moment.

Friday I rearranged the furniture in the living room and the library. The big desk that's been in the living room was causing serious traffic flow problems since it sat right in front of the door to the deck. I moved it to the library, where it just fits along one wall and makes it look more like an office. I left one arm chair in there and moved the other into the living room.

I feel like the furniture finally fits in the library after trying many different configurations over the years. It's a small space with two doors and two windows, which makes it hard to fill properly. The living room feels better with the desk gone. I don't love the current configuration, but it's better than it was and is probably about as good as it'll get. It's even more awkward than the library: it's long and narrow and has a fireplace and three doorways.

Saturday morning I went for a short trail run and hike. I've been so busy all week that I haven't logged any outdoor miles. My step counts were good Thursday and Friday with all the cleaning, but I didn't count them towards mileage. It was good to get out finally after spending so much time in front of my computer this week. It was a wet, drizzly, muddy run and hike, but I'm not complaining: I got to spend time outside.

A little later Jeremy and I went bowling with the other team leads and their wives. Bowling isn't my favorite thing to do and I dislike having to socialize with complete strangers,  but it went pretty well and we had fun. I even scored a double strike my last frame!

Then in the evening Sunshine and I went to a SCUBA experience hosted by our Scout district. We went to a local pool and a local dive shop brought equipment and we got to try it on and spend some time in the pool. It was disconcerting at first. It actually reminded me a lot of breathing through a CPAP, which I also found disconcerting (I tried Jeremy's one night awhile ago). The mask over the face and being forced to breathe through your mouth and not your nose just feels unnatural. Despite that, we had a good time. The water was so murky though!

I had issues equalizing my ears, finally got it to work and was able to descend lower. Sunshine couldn't equalize her ears, so had to stay in shallower water, but still had a lot of fun and wants to do more. We have a class Tuesday night where we'll learn more about SCUBA, and that will leave us with a SCUBA experience patch we can put on our Scout uniforms. We'd like to become SCUBA certified, but it would be about $1500 for the two of us and that's not in the budget right now. Hopefully in the not-to-distant future, though.

When we finished that, we came home and I worked on my YW lesson. We had a combined group so we could teach all the girls how to be a fully functioning, contributing presidency member, something that we haven't had in a long time. I also worked on a short talk for the Temple and Priesthood Prep class Sunday evening. It was a busy, busy day, but I somehow managed to get to bed almost on time.

mud on the trail shoes is a sign of a good run

I mentioned last week that I've been working on getting up earlier. The insomnia has improved, thankfully. I'm still not getting to bed as early as I'd like, but I'm getting there. I had good success getting up and getting some work done first thing in the am. I'm not getting up as early as I'd like to eventually, but I am getting up earlier than I was. So I didn't get up early enough to get a lot of work done, but definite progress was made and I didn't feel awful. Giving myself half an hour to get fully functional before attempting to work seems to be a key part of being functional and productive.

Another update: Ocean has adapted very well to life without bobby or thumb sucking. On occasion he'll carry a stuffed animal around with him, but he's not super attached to them. I'm not sure if there's a correlation, but he's also having more mornings where he wakes up dry. River still sucks his thumb at night, but has never had an accident, so there's not a strict correlation between the two. I suspect Ocean is just maturing out of it, and it happens to coincide with us taking away his thumb and bobby.

Definitely weird weather this week. We had snow on Tuesday and on Sunday it got up to 66*!

Weekly Mileage
Saturday- 1.21 mile trail run
Friday- 1.30 mile hike
total- 2.51 miles

2020 totals

1 hike towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

9.62 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
0.0 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
0.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
9.62 miles total

Sunday Funny

A month or so ago when we had a good snow that stuck around for a couple days, we went to a park to go sledding. While we were there, Sunshine made this little snowman, who she dubbed "Mini Man".

Weekly Mileage #100 and the Blue and Gold Banquet

I had headaches all week and a migraine on Thursday. My headache was lesser today, but still there. I'm not sure if it's part of the detoxing process I'm still going through, but it's at least partly related to the stiff neck I have when I wake up every morning.

Weekly Mileage #95 and the Start of Sap Season

snowball!

We had a snow day on Monday, so we went sledding at a local park, but it wasn't great snow. It was melting into a slushy mess, so while we did some sledding, we weren't able to do the snowshoeing I'd hoped for.

the boys sledding down the hill

Ocean had more speech therapy appointments (he's going twice a week right now) and they're going well. We can hear a difference already, but a lot of that is because he can actually hear sounds clearly now. Because he can hear clearly, he can hear what the speech therapist is saying and is getting better at mimicking correct sounds. He's already losing the cute mispronunciations he's been using for so long. It's a good thing, but it's also a little sad. He's getting so big.

Sunshine and her tiny snowman

The sap is running. I tweaked the lines Tuesday after the sap started flowing. I had a long stretch that was unsupported, and once the sap started running it was just too heavy and it hung too low for the gravity vacuum to work. I knew this was a possibility, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. Getting rid of the unsupported section just means we have two collection points instead of one, so it's not that big a deal.

the bubbles indicate sap in the lines!

As of Sunday morning we've collected about 11 gallons of sap so far. I tried to boil the sap on Saturday, but all the wood was wet and covered in snow and it started raining. A sugar shack would really come in handy at times like this. I'll try again this afternoon.

first time I've been able to pack snow around a bucket of sap to help it stay cold- I don't need to put it in the freezer just yet

We got about an inch or so of snow Thursday evening, on top of what we got last weekend, which had started melting, but was still on the ground. The temps have been rising and Saturday's rain took care of more of the snow. Such a muddy mess. Our yard is just a mud pit now from all the rain we got last year plus the snow we've gotten this winter. We'll have to do some intensive re-seeding if it ever stops raining.

bucket full of sap, partially frozen

Friday night I realized that I've been more clear headed this week and more productive with my time. I've spent less time feeling fuzzy and unable to concentrate. I'm thinking this is due to the new supplement I started last Saturday. I upped the dose a smidge (you have to gradually increase till you reach the full dose) this Saturday, and I'm curious to see if I see any other improvements. It can take up to 6 months to see the full benefits, so I'm excited to be seeing results after less than a week.

foggy, snowy morning on Friday

Weekly Mileage
Tuesday- 1.00 miles walked
Thursday- 10.0 miles biked
total- 11.1 miles

3 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

8.40 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
20.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
28.40 miles total

Weekly Mileage #90 and the Diagnosis

heading to the mailboxes

The 9" of snow we got on Sunday meant we had a snow day on Monday. River and I went snowshoeing while Mr M dropped the mower deck and attached the plow to our lawn tractor.

He always seems to do it when it's cold and snowy. The one year I took care of it, and got it done early, it never snowed enough to need it. So I guess doing it later is better than sooner, if it means we actually get snow.

view from the mailboxes- so pretty!

We bought snowshoes two years ago, but this was the first time we've actually gotten to use them. It was a lot of fun, and a good workout. The only issue we had was that River's snowshoes wouldn't stay on- the straps kept loosening up. Considering that they're plastic snowshoes for preschoolers, this wasn't actually a surprise.

Tuesday I rode my bike. I missed it last week because of the sleep study, and Monday night I realized my foot hadn't hurt in several days. Then I rode my bike and found that my foot still doesn't like all the flexing. It's still a bit stiff if I bend it in certain directions, but even that is improving and it's doing good otherwise.

Wednesday I had my sleep study followup. Remember how I said I didn't sleep during the first nap and only dozed off at the end of the second one? Yeah, that's not actually what happened. I fell asleep in the first 2-3 minutes of all four naps, and dreamed during all but one of them. That was enough for a diagnosis of narcolepsy (fast sleep + REM sleep).

No, I don't fall asleep mid-sentence, nor do most people with narcolepsy (that's a Hollywood exaggeration). I have a fairly mild case right now, and my main symptoms are excessive daytime sleepiness and disordered nighttime sleeping. I can be tired all day (usually the worst is mid afternoon and when I'm putting the boys to bed around 7, which unfortunately is way too early for me to go to bed), but come 9 or so, I'm wide awake and won't fall asleep until after midnight.

It's an auto-immune disorder with no cure (like celiac disease), but there are medications that can help you sleep at night and stay more alert during the night. They're not perfect and you can build up a tolerance, or they may not work at all, but at least there's things to try. I started off with a daytime medication that I actually took years ago, after my mission, when I was dealing with insomnia and daytime sleepiness. I took it and something else to help me sleep for about a year or so, then stopped taking them, and when I stopped I was mostly just tired all the time, without the insomnia.

I've got a post in the works about what I've learned from research and support groups, and my thoughts as I'm reframing past experiences through this new lens. In the meantime, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I fell right to sleep in all four naps, even though my brain told me otherwise. So weird.

snow and moss-covered rock wall in the woods

Thursday Sunshine led us on a hike to where her nature class was held. There was still snow on the ground, but it was warm enough that the ground was soggy. We did some slip sliding down a couple hills, but it was a nice little hike.

the vine swing she and her class mates would swing on

Saturday I hit the 365 mile point (for foot miles) while hiking after running some errands. Note to self: never run errands in town on a Saturday in December. The crowds were exhausting.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.57 mile snowshoe hike
Tuesday- 10.0 miles biked
Wednesday- 2.07 miles hiked
Thursday- 1.03 mile snowy hike
Saturday- 2.32 miles hike
total- 16.99 miles

43 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
2.14 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

366.82 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
345.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
713.96 miles total

Weekly Mileage #89 and the Sleep Study

The culvert that stopped us when we had the jogger.

Monday I went on two hikes. The first was a repeat of the hike we attempted last Monday, but since it was just me, I was able to cross the culvert without any problems.

The trail ran fairly close to the river, but it meandered further away at times. It was an interesting juxtaposition of houses and businesses in the background as I hiked through wooded areas. I continued to follow the trail until I came to a river crossing. I was running short of time, so I turned around and headed back.

rock path through shallow water

the actual river crossing, with a rope to help steady yourself (if it's on your side 😉)

After preschool, River and I went to the park and I let him pick which trails we hiked. We also went down to the stream to check out the water. Ocean was home sick with Sunshine (her co-op ended last week), so they weren't along on this little adventure.

Monday night was my sleep study. I went to a hotel next to the hospital, where they have a sleep lab set up. They attached all sorts of wires and electrodes, and then I had to try to go to sleep. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep, but it wasn't the worst, either. The stuff in my nose was to monitor my breathing and how deep I was or wasn't breathing.

this doesn't show all the wires, but it does show a good portion of them. such an attractive look.

I don't have sleep apnea (yay!) so I had to stay for the daytime sleep study. They woke me up at 6 am and I had to stay awake for an hour and a half, then try to take a nap for half an hour. This was repeated throughout the day for a total of four naps. Thankfully they had all the data they needed after four naps and I didn't have to stay for a fifth nap. The whole process was exhausting. I was already tired from a poor night's sleep and I've trained myself not to take naps because if I do, I can't sleep at night. So I had to lay there and try to calm my brain so I could sleep. I didn't sleep the first time, I dozed off right at the end of the second one, and fell asleep during the third and fourth ones. Getting woken up was the worst- I was so tired and groggy each time.

I'd hoped to get some work done in between naps, but that didn't happen. I was too tired and fuzzy. I just couldn't focus. I channel surfed a bit, but I realized that there's still nothing on during the day, even if you have cable, and I'm glad we cut the cord years ago.

got rid of some wires, but had a few more added

After showering all the goop they used to attach the wires out of my hair and off my face (so gross, and my face has broken out worse than it has in years because of that stuff), I was free to go. I took advantage of finishing a bit earlier than planned to take a hike along the river nearby before I headed home. These urban hikes have been interesting- traffic and houses and businesses on one hand, the river and woods and trail on the other.

Wednesday I went for a hike in the snow after dropping Sunshine off at her last nature class of the semester. Mr M was home for the day, using up some PTO, so I left the boys with him and hiked by myself. It was a smidge too warm, so the wet snow didn't stick around, but it was fun to hike as the snow was falling. I love the quiet that accompanies snowfall.

Friday we finally got our Christmas tree. I feel so behind this year.

little tree huggers

Saturday I hiked the yard in an effort to get another hike logged. We have about 1.75 acres and it's about  .3 miles around the perimeter, which means it takes multiple laps just to hike a mile. Not the most exciting hike ever, but I do have a better feel for our property. And it reinforced the idea that we need a much bigger property next time, so I can get some decent hiking in on our own property.

Since we finally had our tree, I decided I should really put up the Christmas lights, as well. And then I
used the mower to mulch and blow the leaves off the lawn one last time. As I put the mower away, I thought to myself that it was about time to get the mower deck off and the plow on.

Speaking of snow, Sunday it snowed all day. In fact, Stake Conference was canceled because they didn't want people driving in hazardous conditions.

Sunday evening, Christmas lights in the snow

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.72 mile solo urban hike
                1.55 miles hiked with River
Tuesday- 2.59 miles hiked along the river in town
Wednesday- 2.05 miles hiked in the snow
Saturday- 1.46 miles hiked around the yard
total- 12.4 miles

39 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
2.14 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

359.83 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
335.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
696.97 miles total

Sunday Funny

Back at the beginning-ish of March we got a dusting of snow, so the kiddos got all bundled up to go out and play in it.

Once they got outside, they were underwhelmed. They played a bit, but there really wasn't much to do anything with. They ended up playing on the back porch because that's where the most snow was.

Weekly Mileage #53

Snow!

Last week, unlike the previous couple weeks, I didn’t log any official miles. That’s not to say I didn’t do any exercising, though.

Mr M wasn’t feeling well on Monday, so I had to take him to the doctor, which derailed that day’s exercise plans. He had a sore that got infected and the infection spread to his bloodstream, but after some antibiotics he’s feeling a lot better.

Wednesday we finally got some snow- about 5-6”, and I took advantage of Mr M being home (and feeling better) to get a lot of work done. I’ve been trying to buckle down and get some social media stuff set up for one of my businesses (I did the minimum needed last year, and it’s past time to take things to the next level).

River helped Mr M plow-first time we've plowed in 2 years.
We probably could have skipped it since it melted off pretty fast.

Thursday is our usual hiking day, but we were car-less while the CRV was getting some maintenance done, so we were stuck at home. I could have gotten on the treadmill or the bike, but I wanted to be ready to go as soon as the shop called, and that wouldn’t be the case if I was in the middle of a workout and all sweaty. So naturally, the car wasn’t done until 3.

I thought I could squeeze a hike in Friday morning after dropping Sunshine off at her co-op, but after running some errands the boys and I were done. They've been fighting low-grade bugs for a while now and they were being grumpier than usual that morning. We went home, ate some lunch, and the boys went down for naps while I plopped down in front of my laptop to get more work done.

Saturday I made up for the week of inactivity. The weather was great: cool, but not cold, and sunny. The snow had mostly melted by then, but the ground wasn’t super soggy.

I grabbed the loppers and garden saw and went to work de-junglifiying our driveway. The last time I did this was seven years ago, when we first bought the house, and it was way over-due. Saplings had sprung up close to the driveway and tree branches were overhanging the driveway, both of which meant large vehicles (like our RV) got scratched by the branches.

It didn’t take long to figure out just why we’ve ignored this task for so long. Even after pulling out the extension ladder I couldn’t get all the branches with the loppers or garden saw- they were too large in diameter and higher than I felt comfortable with. So Mr M was the lucky person to climb the ladder with the chainsaw. That’s what he gets for being more than a foot taller than me- his reach is so much longer.

We’ll miss the feeling of driving through a jungle in the summer (it’s especially strong at night), but we won’t miss the sound of branches scraping the RV as we go up or down the driveway.

pile of branches and small trees, ready to be chipped

While the chainsaw was out, Mr M cut down a pine tree that’s in the way of our future carport. It was tall, but the only branches were at the very top, so there wasn’t as great a chance of it getting hung up on other trees or damaging them. There’s just one tree left in the carport site, but we’ll have a tree company come and take that one down, since it’s very tall, dead, and has a lot of branches that will make a clean take down difficult.

 

we ran out of time while clearing up, so the pile of branches on the trailer needs to be added to the other pile of branches so they can all be chipped

I didn’t have my Garmin on, but I should have. I did lots of walking- first hauling branches and small trees to a pile by the chicken coop, where they’ll eventually be run through a wood chipper. Then more walking back and forth as I relocated lengths of the pine tree from our parking area to the other side of the driveway circle. Thankfully the trunk pieces were almost completely round and had no branches, so I was able to roll them across- no carrying heavy logs for me, thankyouverymuch.

pine logs moved over by the tree Mr M took down in the fall
once he cuts that one to length we'll need to rent a wood splitter

Sunshine helped haul branches roll logs and the boys each managed to roll a couple of the smaller trunk pieces.

Even though we didn’t track it, we all got a lot of exercise on Saturday and slept very well that night. Despite not tracking my mileage, I know I walked at least two miles. It's half a mile to check all the maple and black walnut spiles, and since I finally got around to pulling the spiles (maples were bone dry, but one of the black walnuts was dripping sap- we definitely need to do tubing next year to prolong our season), I did that circuit. Add all the walking back and forth I did, and it was at least two miles total, so that's what I'll record for the day.

Weekly Mileage
Friday- 2.00 miles walked
    total-2.00 miles

3 hikes towards #52hikechallenge

49.60 foot miles towards #365milechallenge

45.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge

Sunday Funny

It snowed last weekend, which is unusual for us. We don't usually get snow in December, so getting snow this early in the month was even more unusual. We're hoping this means we'll get lots of snow this winter, but we'll have to wait and see. We got several inches of snow, but it didn't stick around very long because it just wasn't cold enough.

River kept asking if Santa was coming because it snowed.

Apparently he thinks snow = Santa.

We don't really do the Santa thing though, so I'm not sure where he picked up on Santa and snow, unless it was from watching shows like Frosty the Snowman.

Weekly Mileage Recap

Monday I had a massive sinus headache, which derailed my plans to get much of anything done. I did take the boys out to play for a little while though and Sunshine got to do some more sledding with the neighbor boy (it was a snow day for everyone!).

I wasn't feeling up to chasing the boys around, so I put them on the trampoline. Turns out that the trampoline was a great idea- it kept them contained with no chasing needed! There was just enough snow to play with and do snow angels and make marks with sticks. Though it would have been better without all those leaves mixed in.

I guzzled water all day and by the time I went to bed, the sinus pressure and headache had lessened.

Unfortunately, the temps rose and it rained on Tuesday, so our snow all disappeared, much to Sunshine's disgust.

Thursday we went for a hike and it was 66*! So crazy since we were in the teens and twenties the week before, and just a couple days later it was so warm. We went to a different park for our hike since the ground was so wet and muddy. Our usual park is also open to horses and mountain bikes and they don't want the trails being used in wet conditions because the trails will get chewed up.

The park we went to doesn't have an extensive trails system, but we did manage to squeeze a two mile hike out of two connected loops. The difference in the single use trail was quite obvious. These trails were much narrower, steeper, and more twisty. They also follow the shore line of the lake, which was neat. We found a tree that had been felled by a beaver, but it had been there for a while and we didn't see any other signs of beavers. Sunshine was looking forward to seeing a beaver dam, so she was disappointed that we didn't see more evidence of them.

We also discovered that the lake we thought was just water was actually just a little bit of water sitting on top of a layer of ice. We thought most of the ice had melted and there was just a thin layer near the top, but when I carefully put my trekking pole in the lake, I discovered there was a very solid layer of ice still in there. Super cool!

I made plans to go running with a friend Saturday morning, but had to cancel at the last minute. I had the worst case of insomnia I've ever had. I went to bed around 10pm and didn't fall asleep until 6am! I only slept for a couple hours before the kids woke me up. I made it through the day, but I was ready to go back to bed at 6:30pm. I didn't, but I wanted to :)

I randomly caught this picture of River looking back with a funny expression

I'm not sure why- he wasn't upset or anything, I think the timing was just right :)

he looks rather upset, right? he wasn't though...

maybe he was concerned about being in front of all of us?

I'm still trying to improve my time management and didn't manage to get on the treadmill this past week. I did wake up earlier than usual several mornings so I could get an earlier start on my day. That was partially successful, in that I woke up and got going, but I wasn't getting to bed early enough, so I was super tired and not as productive with those early hours as I wanted to be. On the other hand, that insomnia bout is making it a lot easier to get to bed earlier, which also makes it easier to wake up earlier.

Posts here will continue to be a bit scarce while I concentrate on getting my businesses up and running. I'm making good progress, but still have a ways to go before things are established enough that they don't take as much time. Short term pain for long term rewards.

Weekly Mileage
Thursday: 2.01 miles
       total mileage: 2.01 miles

hike #2 for the 52 hike challenge
4.71 total miles towards the 365 mile challenge (I'm behind, but it will be easy to catch up since I will be training for two half marathons this year)