What I've noticed so far

Yesterday, while walking and doing my 5K training, I noticed that the songs I had loaded on my iPod at the beginning of my 5K training were now too slow.  Really?  When I started, I could barely walk to the beat of Queen's "Under Pressure" and now I find myself thinking it is too slow? The songs I loaded just because I wanted to give myself a spurt of quick minutes are now the songs I walk to most of the time!  Isn't that cool? I guess I need to find more songs like that, but not until I can manage to walk to the quicker beat for more than just 5 minutes at a time. I will do that next week.

I also noticed that walking the distances that used to feel so far, are now too short.  Last night my husband and I wanted to take a "leisurely stroll" around the neighborhood because he wanted to work out the kinks from his 5K on Sunday, and I had already walked earlier in the day. The route we used to walk for our longer jaunts seemed so short!  Let me add too that our leisurely stroll turned into a mini training session because neither one of us could walk slowly, especially when I had taken all of my slow music off the iPod and I was in the lead.  What can I say?  I need to walk to the beat of the music!

I am continuously amazed at the things that went un-noticed by me for so many years. For example, just watching squirrels and birds in my back yard has been both therapeutic and fun, as long as they are not digging up my plants or frolicking in my attic. I probably have more pictures of squirrels in my files than I do of my family at this point. I am finding that we have many different birds around here too that I didn't know we had. I was too busy to notice.

I also never took the time to garden and now I really appreciate the way different plants need tender nurturing.  Sure, you can throw a squash plant in the garden and it multiplies with whatever is in its path ~ but plants like beans and peas and strawberries need gentle care.  I found this out when I just threw them in there and watered ~ possibly too much. I lost one little strawberry and felt bad, so I decided to pay better attention.

While admiring my roses the other day, I noticed they really were not that healthy so I decided to learn more about roses.  I found the University of Illinois Extensions website and the roses section is very helpful! It is also very pretty so I spend a lot of time on there now.

Spending time with family and friends has become more important to me too.  I announced last night that I wanted to have a 4th of July party and my husband suggested we have everyone just come to a local festival we have gone to for the past 2 years, that happens to be a few days later.  I thought, OK ~ lets do that TOO! So we will have two parties in one week. 

I will close this post with a quote of John Lennon's that I really like ~ Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.