where I'm at

The past two mornings have seen me up and out the door for a 3 mile run.  I've been keeping with it since December (except for a good deal of February, when I was sick and it seemed to always be sleeting) and most weeks now I try to get out at least 2 or 3 times.  I will occasionally do a 4-6 mile run but much more often it is around 3 miles.  One thing I've quickly realized is that absolutely, certainly, without a doubt, summer is NOT going to be my favorite time to run.  Call me crazy, but I much preferred the 35 to 45 degree temperature range for running.  When I run and feel like I'm wearing summer on my back like a hot, heavy, drippy cloak I think unhappy grumpy thoughts and I don't like it one bit.  So there.  And yet, I'll keep at it and find ways to make it work (going early or late, I suppose, when it is coolest) because in so many ways I enjoy it so much.  It clears my head and helps me sleep and improves my overall mood and quite obviously, my overall health.  I go to the river and run past the farm fields and cow pastures of a local college.  That is where my longer (5 and 6 mile) runs have been, and I was very happy to realize that I could just dip my feet in the cool cool water at the end and just sit for a while.  I go to the recreation park and take my pick of several different paths.  I can go creekside or I can run along mulched paths with blooms of wild daisies and vetch at the path's edge.  I can run through the community garden or along the paved greenway.  I can run through the forest, shaded and therefore somewhat cooler.  Ferns below and my mind playing tricks on me by taking in the rotten stumps in my periphery and concluding "bear cub".  One particular route pops me out on a pine needle lined path between hundreds of 25 year old (or so) white pines.  25 years is my rough guess by counting the whorls, but seeing as how I was whizzing by so incredibly fast (or something like that) I can't be sure.  Also, looking up and attempting to age trees while running isn't so smart anyway.  Tree roots and all, you now.  And I'm not known for my physical grace and balance, generally.

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The county schools let out last Thursday, which means this here mama is on summer break.  So far there's been a lot of popcorn, some pool time and splash fountain time, and a bit of ice cream.  This week we're heading north to meet a new baby niece and to visit with family and friends, and then we'll park it back here at home for a good while before traveling again the last week of July and first week of August.  In that home time I plan on embracing summer's glory by doing a whole lot of nothing.  Well, nothing plus a respectable amount of cold beverages, ice cream, and cool water.  It's already hotter than I remember early summers being (and it isn't even really summer yet!) around here- mid to high 80s daily and humid.  Most days there is a bit of rain or even a quick thunderstorm.  Some plants in the garden are loving it.  Actually, they all look to be loving it, but I know what a humid, rainy early summer often means for those tomatoes.  At least down here in the south.  It means blight-y blight blight and it's no good.  I look at the plants.  Right now they are a deep, dark green and many are already up past my shoulders.  I see their flowers and it all looks so promising.  But.  But I've grown tomatoes from seed many years down here now and I know that often all those months of careful tending end in heartbreak.  And so I'm trying not to get too attached.  We'll see.

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I treated myself recently and upgraded my camera body.  I've wanted to for quite a long while and I finally just went ahead and did it.  I've been putting myself out there, too: setting up some photography work, bartering that for things like chicken-sitting and house-cleaning, pasture-raised pork, homemade medicines, and original art.  I don't quite feel comfortable taking money in exchange, but this I feel good about.  I just might try to wrangle up some interior painting help out of it.  I'm also writing regularly for the local paper (what fun!) and other little writing opportunities come up now and again as well.  I don't take myself very seriously when it comes to my little bits of writing and photography that I let out into the world, but it gives me satisfaction to be able to say that I paid for the new camera with money made from writing and photography.  And that's something.  I suppose that at least makes it a self-sustaining hobby.  I'll take it.

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That about sums it up, where I'm at.