I'm ridiculously chuffed right now. I just succeeded in mowing my *entire* back yard in one straight go. Years past, the first few mowings, I had to take a break in the middle...of course, while taking that break I had to have a cigarette...but I quit that in October...so...Huh. Could there be a connection?

Nah. Probably not.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and sweaty and my hurty shoulder hurts, but by GOD the yards have both been mowed (I did the teensy front yard last night).

I would NEVER have expected to be able to mow the back yard on a week night, after a full day at work (plus about 90 minutes total on the interstate getting there and back). This opens up so much goodness! I haven't even begun to realize it all yet. For one thing, I can do yard work after work instead of workouts! (I've started doing those again. Blegh.) (And I just used the word "work" three times in one sentence. Go figure.)

There's a lot more to do before I'll consider the yard "summer-ready" - and for me, that's NOT Martha Stewart Just-My-500-Best-Friends-Party-under homemade Chinese lanterns ready. It's just *acceptable*, to me.

Anyway, now I can face the neighbors. :)

No walkies this weekend. I think I've got bronchitis. Energy level 0. And, since I have the Envirothon (State level) next Saturday, I'd better not push my luck, health wise.

Nothing else to report, certainly nothing interesting.

Maybe next blog.

When I'm reminded that I'm weird - by me.

Yesterday on the way home I found myself weeping, hard. Why? Because I'd just emerged from an about-10-minute fantasy of me doing a music video to Charles Aznavour's "Dans tes bras" ("In your arms") - me singing and dancing all over the Pont Neuf in Paris, singing it as a love song to Paris. It was a great video, wish you could have seen it.

But, Egad.

Why do I have this deep, painful, incurable yearning for Paris? I almost wish I hadn't gone there, in 2007. I think it just made it worse because now I KNOW what I'm missing...to bring myself back in off the Run Away to Paris Ledge I have to remind myself that one of the things I'm missing is paying $800 a month for a 15' x 15' "apartment" on the fifth floor with no elevator. That's usually a pretty good dash of the old "eau froid."

I do wish I was capable of producing a music video, though. I promise I wouldn't star in it myself.

I haven't had anything really worth blogging about for quite awhile, so I didn't bother. Things were going on – good things. I've been taking advantage of a new program with our health insurance by stopping smoking (last October) – they paid for the patches, and they provide a coach who called me up every 6 weeks or so to visit and touch base. That's about as much coaching as I want or need. I've signed up for the coaching program again this year, this time to increase my physical activity. I've become quite the slug. You look at my rear end and you know what the shape of the recliner in my living room is. THAT much of a slug.

I'm not aiming for weight loss this go-round. I'm just trying to become more active. The season helps (I'm sore from yard work over the weekend, but “it's a good sore.”) And we did have a pretty extended, nasty winter. No wonder I didn't want to go outside and frolic! But it also left me with PLENTY to do out in the yard.

I'm going to put the gym I've got in the basement to use. A nice Tunturi exercise bike (that helped me lose 55 pounds in 4 months in 1994!) and a full-blown free-weight set ($1000 in a half-price sale from a gym equipment store, about five years ago) that's been pretty much gathering dust for five years. My goals: get in the habit of working out every day. That worked in 1994; I'm now 16 years older (GOOD GRIEF!!!!!???) and I don't know if I can do that again. So, I modify the goal to say, on evenings or days when I don't do any vigorous yard work or walking (more on that in a minute), I'll work out. When you start from zero, anything is an improvement.

As for the walking, I'm going to be going out, every other Saturday or so, and doing the “9 in 2009” Great Omaha Walks whose maps and info sheets are found here:

http://www.omahabydesign.org/2010/04/9-great-walks-brochures-available/

And I'm going to take my sketchbook and pens & pencils & things, and try to draw things I find interesting or pretty or awesome or whatever. If they don't embarrass me too much, I might post some of them here. In other words, I'm going to blog these walks. When I get back. When I get my breath back. Maybe after a nap... Ahem.

And then I'm going to look around town for my own “great Omaha walks.” I'll make maps of my own, maybe a list of special features and/or historical highlights, and go give them the blogger's treatment, too. I've got a friend or two who might accompany me on some of the walks. I plan to stop at the Benson Farmer's Market at 8 a.m. On Great Walk days and getting yummy things to take along for lunch.

This is sounding like so much fun, I'm getting excited about my first walk – this Saturday – to Prospect Hill Cemetery. It's a short walk so I think I can make it...