Bursts

Saturday: mid-morning walking from McKinney library to St. Peter’s and back

White flowers open

wide as if spring has arrived

and soak in the sun.

Along the path back I sweat.

Petals and vines burst with light.

Tuesday: twice walked across campus, the journey more arduous than it should have been

Wednesday: morning walk along small square route with Cleo who seemed more energized afterwards than before

Friday: morning walk with Cleo along small square walk with addendum

Sprinklers his at grass.

A rabbit hides in the yard.

Houses remain dark.

Trying to give chase, my dog

strains against my back muscles.

This week reading:

This week listening to:

Returning to New Habits

Wednesday: morning walk, L route (rowdy-circle-circle-rowdy), with Cleo

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach, unless our preaching be our walking.” --- St. Francis of Assisi

Thursday: morning walk, L route, with Cleo; nice conversation with neighbors at end

A bag of stuffed toys,

a computer monitor,

and tall sunflowers.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.” --- Aristotle

Friday: wanted to walk the L route to see the sunflowers after last night’s rain, but Cleo was too excited about a stray dog in the neighborhood; walled the small square route (trent-singleton-brandon-rowdy) with variation (pena-santo-keyes, which adds ten minutes)

Rain has cooled the earth

overnight

and even the ordered flowers

stand bright at attention.

Dark clouds hang

overhead

but the sun is coming.

Has come.

“We are witnessing the Internet going mobile. Remember that the faster that information travels, the faster that misinformation can travel.” --- David Kirk

Reports: can’t find my glucose monitor or my sphygmomanometer; weighed around 250 on my mother-in-law’s scale, but I don’t know how accurate that is

This week reading:

This week listening to:

The headache thing

First of all, I have been sick. I have only walked once in the past week.

Second, the heat in Texas (coupled with my schedule) has made it very difficult to walk with any regularity. The best times to avoid the heat are early morning and late evening. In the morning, I write. I cannot break this routine, and I can have even less flexibility once school starts. Then, I’ll have to get up at four a.m. just to get a few minutes to write before going to work. (Of course the plus here, is that I can walk between classes and grading papers, and be inside when I return to work.)

At night, I have my family to attend to. Some activities have started already, but when school begins, I’ll have to take my kids to practices, rehearsals, and scout meetings. I’ll have to stay at most of these, and won’t be able to walk all that much.

Third, I have this headache thing going on. Whenever I get excited or try to do something more physical than refilling my water glass, I get this piercing headache. If I push myself, I only end up making the headache worse and being sick at my stomach the rest of the day. Even reading or watching television become difficult then. I don’t think walking in the hundred degree plus heat with that is a good idea.

I know that much of the headache thing is due in part to a lot of factors that I am working to control (diet and medication are going to help). But for now, I’m even more sedentary than before.

The library

Walking the perimeter of the library during class serves many purposes. One, is the obvious benefit of exercise. (Though I'm not sure I'm burning a lot of calories. At least I'm moving.) The other benefit is finding all those students who seem to think that "research day" means: sign the roll sheet, surf the net for porn, check personal email, sleep, chat with classmates, sign the roll sheet again.

Not walking

Car died again over the weekend. Should have walked more, especially since I was depressed about the vehicle situation. Instead I worked. Back to old habits, I guess. Here's to hoping I get the car fixed soon and walk more. I will be at work a long time today, waiting for Brad. That gives me time to grade some papers, but also to walk. Will try to do so after lunch.