Move It Mama Monday! Sidewalks?!

For a long while now, I have bemoaned the lack of sidewalks in our area. We have a bit of sidewalk in our own little patch of suburbia, as well as a bit of running trail, but those only run intermittently through the neighborhood, and fail to connect us to any other patch of suburbia, which is kind of a problem.

Our neighborhood sits right off a very busy four-lane highway. Very busy. This road has no sidewalks along it, and the shoulders are rather narrow. The traffic along the highway is constant, and deadly fast, and I don't often seen anyone dumb enough to walk along the side of the road to get anywhere. It's just too dangerous.

If it were not for the lack of sidewalks along this stretch of highway, though, I'd be able to walk to the nearest grocery store (about 2 miles away). I'd also be able to walk to our local library and our YMCA (about 3 miles away). This would be great, in my opinion. If I walked to the grocery store once a week to get dinner for Friday, and walked to the Y 2-3 times a week to work out, I'd never have to worry about those 5-10 extra pounds I can't seem to lose. They'd melt away! Plus I'd almost never need to drive, since those are the three places I go most often during the week. I could just walk there, and save money on gas! Imagine that.

I mention all of this because Hubster just recently read that our local government is looking at putting in a stretch of sidewalk along that very busy highway. What they're looking at doing won't stretch as far as the library and Y, unfortunately, but it would stretch past the local grocery store. Also unfortunate, that prophesied sidewalk will only be on one side of the road, the side opposite where my little patch of suburbia is, so I'll have to figure out how to cross a four-lane highway to reach it, because I'm betting no one is smart enough to figure out we'll also need cross walks and signals too.

But still, it's progress, and it looks like there will be more sidewalks going up through our county, and I can't see that as a bad thing. Maybe some day, before I day, I'll have all the sidewalk I'll need to get around this area.

In other news, I do finally seem to be losing weight. It's a combination of water weight and fat, but still, my assets do appear to be shrinking. As I mentioned last Monday, I am taking a month off of EA Sports Active, since my weight gain and knee problems started about the time I started using that game. Instead, I'm going with a combination of Wii Fit, karate, walking, a bit of running, the elliptical machine, and Dance Dance Revolution. In the last three weeks, I've lost four pounds. When school starts up next week and both kids head off for the day, I'll be back to swiming and lifting on a regular basis again, and that should really help kill those extra pounds, I hope.

So how are you all doing with your waist lines? And what would you do if you had sidewalks in your neighborhood? Would you take advantage of them and walk everywhere? Or do you already have them and use them?

Sunday Afternoon Contentments

I had a lousy day yesterday, filled with temper tantrums and howling and pouting. All on my part, that is, not the kids. I think three weeks of travel and visiting family and having no time for myself finally got to me, and like an over-tired tot, I finally had a melt-down.

But that was yesterday, and this is today. It's Sunday, the Hubster has headed out with the girls, and I have the house to myself. It's my first time alone, truly alone, in over three weeks. Let's think about what's got me feeling all warm and fuzzy today.

Early morning writing - I've been busting ass on a story the last two weeks, churning out 1-2K words at a sitting. This morning, I finally wrote the last words and finished the tale. It's a good story, a funny story, and a good feeling to be done. Now I can get on with that horror story I need to finish by next Saturday.

Squirrel baffles and bird feeders - we finally got a squirrel baffle while my parents were here (they came to visit for two weeks, showed up right as we pulled into our driveway after getting back from Chicago!). This was a necessity, because one of the local squirrels, whom I have dubbed Lardo the Big-Butted Squirrel, has been wiping out the bird feeder every time we fill it. Since I also noticed a couple of humming birds buzzing around the rosemary bush in our backyard, I bought a humming bird feeder too. Since setting up these items in our backyard, we've seen gold finches, purple finches, cardinals, and what may be a Smith's Longspur, although this isn't the right range for it, so I'm probably wrong. We've also seen both a male and female ruby-throated humming bird. The girls get very excited seeing these birds, and I have a feeling we may end up buying a bird watching book before too long.

Spiders, cicadas and other creepy crawlies - yes, I am all about the Nature thing today! Earlier this week, while I was weeding the backyard, the girls found 16 cicada skins, plus bits of broken butterfly wings. I've saved them all, in hopes of photographing them, and maybe preserving them somehow. As for the spider, we've got a gorgeous yellow and black one that's woven a giant web along our covered porch. We call her Shelob, and everyday I go out to see what she's caught in her web. Again, the girls are fascinated (though Pixie is a bit creeped out by the sheer size of Shelob). The more interested the girls get in nature, the happier I am.

Shelob, with dinner

Tomatoes from my garden - I haven't got a lot of tomatoes growing, but I do have a few. Today, I made a sandwich with sliced tomato from my garden. It was GOOD.

Homemade bread - let's hear it for bread machines!! I've got a loaf of honey mustard wheat bread going in the machine downstairs right this minute. It's going to be good!

Home made soup - also cooking downstairs, in the crockpot. It's vegetable, with a few things thrown in from the garden. I love it.

Irish Breakfast tea - my mom picked me up a cannister in Busch Gardens, of all places, in the Irish section of the park. I can't recall the brand, but it's very good, and has been the kick in the pants I've needed the last few days or so.

Knitting - Mich got me started on knitting, saying that if I could teach Princess, she might learn to concentrate better at school. Princess has done some knitting, and enjoys it, but I've since become addicted. How addicted, you ask? On Thursday evening, I started work on a pair of wrist warmers for myself. By Saturday evening they were done. Damn that was fast! What can I make next?

My fancy new wrist warmers!

Tamarind soda - I don't know where Hubster got it from, but it's "Hecho en Mexico!" so you know it's good.

Books - thanks to my mom, I am stocked up on books for the next couple of months. I've got "Age of Wonder," a look at the time of scientific discovery and exploration prior to the Industrial Revolution. I've also got "Of Bees and Mist" and a few other choice goodies. The girls got a number of non-fiction books, including some of the Eye Witness books, which I love. We have plenty to read this fall.

E-books - to add to my joy, Barnes and Noble is selling e-books at prices competitive to Amazon.com, and their e-books don't require you to buy a proprietary device! I have a netbook. I love my netbook. I can type on it, blog with it, write with it, handle e-mail with it, surf the net with it, and now I can read the latest best sellers with it at a price I can afford (Fictionwise.com is also a good place to buy e-books, if you're interested). Between Barnes and Noble and my mom, I've done more reading in the past month than I've done all year! WIN!!

Egyptology - Princess was fascinated with the Egyptian mummies we saw at the Field Museum in Chicago, so we bought her an excavation kit in the museum's gift shop. She started work on it last Monday, and have so far gotten a small plastic sarcophagus, various trinkets, and a Bast figurine. Some of the books my mom bought for her included an Eye Witness book of Egypt, and Princess spent an entire afternoon sitting with her grandfather, listening to him tell stories of when he lived in Egypt as a boy. We've also been recording shows about Egypt on the Discovery Channel, which Princess watched with rapt attention. And now I discover that one of our local museums will be hosting a traveling exhibit on Egyptian mummies and other treasures later this fall. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see my girl take such an interest in something like this, something that has nothing to do with Hannah Montana, makeup, Disney Princess, or other contemporary girl things that drive me nuts.

The archaeologist hard at work with her loyal assistant.

Naps - I've had a long couple of weeks, and a few times, I've just had to lay down and doze. I love that pleasant, sleepy feeling I get when I pull my favorite afghan over me in the middle of the day and drift off. In fact, I think I ought to take a nap right now...