Sephy’s Platzish

The week started out with not so great a bang with now walk on Sunday, but things did pick up with pictures being taken, albeit of some of the less interesting things in the world Let’s start with Monday, shall we?

Monday, 14th April

This has become a bit of a pain in my pocketbook as of late - while it may not be the most visible detail, the brakes on the car need replacing. In particular, the right front’s brakes are grinding, and whenever you step on the brakes, you have to be very careful, and even then you still get the grind. For that reason, I’ve started to use the other car (not to mention that that car gets slightly better gas mileage anyway…).

Distance - 3110 steps, 2.48km

Tuesday, 15th April

This is one of the trees that I go past on a regular basis on my walks - right now, since we’re just getting into spring, it doesn’t have any leaves on it just yet. Eventually, there will be leaves, flowers, and even fruit growing off of the tree.

Distance - 2663 steps, 2.13km

Wednesday, 16th April

This is another shot similar to the one that was posted last week, but on a different angle, and with a different focus. As I was walking along, I noticed this particular tree in the paddock area (still quite full with water as you can see here), and decided that it would make good fodder for a photo. I love the contrasting color of that tree.

Distance - 3946 steps, 3.15km

Thursday, 17th April

And, normal service has been restored. The face in the tree, often a portent of the way things are going (for what reason, I’m not sure, but it sounds cool, alright ), has been restored from its nadir a couple of weeks ago, with the disappearance of all of the snow that was surrounding it. Now, it can sit there and wait for the next snow to dislodge more of the pieces, I guess.

Distances - Before going to work (after walking) - 5612 steps, 4.48km; After work - 6569 steps, 5.25km

Friday, 18th April

I didn’t take any pictures - not that the inside of a mailroom would be that interesting (or that they’d appreciate me taking pictures of the inside of the building - something that I wouldn’t do anyway), but I did get a chance to do a bit of walking, including doing a little bit of a walk around the parking lot when I had my lunch outside on a nice grassy bank, though there were quite a few pine needles in in the way…

Distance - 3486 steps, 2.78km

Saturday, 19th April

I gotta fess up - it was a nice day, but I spent a lot of it sleeping…I’m still a bit of a vampire. The walking was held, for the most part, in the store where I went to buy groceries and other stuff that we needed for the house. The picture is of an area along the road I drive along to get to just about anywhere. Behind the trees is about a 10-meter (30-foot+) drop down into that grassy area. I’m not sure if a car’s gone off there, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone had a problem at the road that ends just up the hill and ran through the trees!

Distance - 3368 steps, 2.69km

In other news…outside of my issues with being the vampire once again, it’s remaining to be a good time for me. I’m still liking my job (and I definitely think that I’ve been accepted into the fray, since the folks I sit next to and I hold some banter while we’re working). As far as my confidence goes, I was involved in an interesting activity where a group of folks (from all age ranges, though I was the only person from my age range) discussing where the organization was headed. One of the strangest things is that I went into it thinking that I’d be bored out of my mind, but in the end, I think I was one of the most talkative people in the whole of the group.

And, one funny story before I hit publish on the post - on Saturday, as I was driving back from the store, I was approaching the turn off for the side road I need to take from the main highway. For some reason, the state didn’t put in a turn lane for the direction I was going in, so I had to signal and slow down while still in the main lanes of the road. As I was slowing down and getting ready to turn, I could see the driver in the car behind me get visibly aggravated at me for slowing down for the turn. So, I continue my action as I don’t want to fly around a 90° corner. As I go into the corner, the bright sparks in the car behind me finally realize that there is a second lane to use there, and they take advantage of it. Then, as they were passing me, the passenger made a punching like gesture (not the finger, but just kind of a shaken fist). How did I respond? I just waved and said hi, then turned off of the road.

Admittedly, it was the most lazy week I’ve had in terms of the walking for a while - in fact, I only took pictures on Sunday; and the rest of the walking that was counted was for work/volunteering steps.

Sunday, 6th April

First up is this picture of an old truck that was part of a group of 3 older vehicles on the road above; I don’t know where they were going or where they came from, but it was a cool sight nonetheless.

However, the piece de resistance in terms of pictures has to be this one. Sure the trees still have no leaves on them, but this is just some of the awesome scenery that you can have, especially when the temperature gets nice and warm in the springtime. Unfortunately, the weather for the rest of the week wouldn’t give this same kind of scenery - it was more of the winter grays that, quite frankly, are boring to take photos of.

Distance - 5776 steps, 4.62km

Monday, 7th April

This was a workday for me, however, I did some walking around during the time and actually remembered to put the pedometer on when doing it - usually I take it off in order to avoid it resetting on me accidentally.

Distance - 2620 steps, 2.09km

Tuesday, 8th April

More walking at work, but this time I didn’t put the pedometer on to count the steps.

Wednesday, 9th April

More work and some more walking; this time it was just normal walking - to and from the car, to the lunchroom, etc.

Distance - 1428 steps, 1.14km

Thursday, 10th April

The walking for today included some walking around in the grocery store to get lunch for Friday’s volunteering; not the most exciting thing I know, but it’s different to the normal work walking

Distance - 2112 steps, 1.68km

Friday, 11th April

It was another day of volunteering for me, and it was another day where I did a bit of upper body workout - with stuffing envelopes (another 1000 done, still a few more thousand to go!), along with a bit of a walk outside between rain showers which had been persisting since Tuesday.

Distance - 1331 steps, 1.06km (it got reset after walking outside, and I didn’t take note of what it was at beforehand)

Saturday, 12th April

The weather persisted for yet another day, with snow being the main attraction of the day. I also did quite a bit of walking around in the stores, but didn’t put on the pedometer for the walking.

In other news, this week marked the end of weekly visits to the therapist; now it’s time for me to continue on doing all that I have been doing and making more success happen for me. And you know something? I can see myself succeeding; at what exactly, I don’t know yet, however I am learning quite a bit about building themes for WordPress, and I want to look at what kind of classes are out there to learn stuff. One thing that was mentioned by my therapist is that I’d probably be someone who, because I have such a vast array of knowledge in my head - conversion factors, and all kinds of stuff like that - there has to be something that I can make tons of money with my brain.

I should also throw in an update on my WordPress theme here, as it is part of my personal development - learning a new technique (or three or four) - I’ve gotten it to the point where I now have a comment form on the single post page, but I still need to figure out how to get it so that the box where you leave the comment doesn’t start at the left side of the post and go all the way to the end of the window (it’s probably just a simple CSS thing that I haven’t set out yet ). Also, in the next couple of days, I’ll have an announcement about a new service that I will be offering to everyone out there who has a WordPress blog - it all stemmed from helping someone out who asked for the help, and realizing that (and this is something she said herself) there are tons of people out there who probably would love to have something like that for them.

And now, let’s get our week back to the normal routine with the walks post on Sunday, shall we?

Speaking of Sundays, last Sunday was the only day I didn’t record any walking, so I’ll just jump to Monday, with the majority of work walks.

Monday, 31st March

This was the view for most of my drive on Monday; it was even worse on the way home, when the visibility, I swear, could have been no better than about 100 meters the whole way, and to make things even better, I was the leader for quite a bit of the trip, and unable to use high-beams…an interesting experience, I say so myself.

Distance - 1339 steps, 1.07km

Tuesday, 1st April

Quite mundane, I know, but it was a part of my day, and the rest of the photos I took were mostly of scenes around the polls and of other gas stations (which would kinda give away too much about where I live).

Distance - 3170 steps, 2.53km

Wednesday, 2nd April

Well, something not “on the road” for the first time in a while; I took the first step towards a proper walk again by getting to the end of the first section of pavement. These ducks were in the area of where the horses are in the summer.

Distance - 2656 steps, 2.12km

Thursday, 3rd April

Erm, this is what happens when you have a camera that likes to focus on something else - you get the tree in focus, but the train’s not. While going over the pix, however, I thought to myself that I could do something with it - the solution was a crop to take out other bits of the photo

Distance - 3195 steps, 2.55km

Friday, 4th April

A while back, I showed the toll that the early winter snows had taken on the tree in the face. Well, now that the winter is just about completely over, there ain’t much left to it. Actually, it’s half gone. Part of me wonders if that’s got more to do with winter or with the growth of the tree.

Distances - after volunteering - 4953 steps, 3.96km; end of day, 9334 steps, 7.46km

Saturday, 5th April

Up front, I gotta admit that this picture is, I think, quite cool (though I have an even better one from today ). This is the full view of the normal horse paddock. The water’s there from all the snow runoff (and possibly other sources) from the winter. Despite the count of the pedometer (it was inverted in my pants for part of the walk), I made what would be considered a “regular” walk into the park, which is once again open for public use. There were quite a few folks out there enjoying the temperatures that were in the 60s (Fahrenheit, 15°C or so). It was also a good test of my new water hydration pack.

Distance - 3733 steps, 2.98km

In other news, this week might see me taking a break from my weekly visits to the therapist, that way in case things crop up in the future, we have the flexibility to have an appointment when it’s necessary, instead of going over there and just kind of recapping on how far I’ve come up to this point.

One other note about this - do you know how hard it can be to type when you have a band-aid covered in gauze on your left index finger? I do - it’s not impossible, but a bit more challenging. That’s what I got for trying to cut a piece of bread and slightly missing and (ironically) nicking my left index finger for the second time over the last couple of years…

I’ve delayed this a week, so let’s get to it. I skipped one day’s walk, and as I had mentioned on Saturday, didn’t have the pedometer, but did quite a bit of walking anyway.

Monday, 24th March

Ah, yes, the snow was back, and this was about the last you’ll see (hopefully) of the white stuff in mass quantities for a few months.

Distance - 2718 steps, 2.17km

Tuesday, 25th March

Hard to believe, but this picture was taken a mere 24 hours after the last one was - that is definitely the power of the March sun at work.

Distance - 687 steps, 0.54km (plus extra from before the pedometer reset thanks to me hitting the button on the desk at work)

Wednesday, 26th March

Another day goes by, and this time the masses of water that were crossing the driveway have gone away, due to the ground absorbing the water that came from all the snow that melted the day before.

Distance - 2733 steps, 2.18km

Thursday, 27th March

A pretty awesome shot, if you ask me - this is a 1:1 crop of a picture of some Canada Geese (I believe) flying in the sky, making their noise as they go along. Usually my bird shots come out blurry, but this time they were close enough to get a good shot.

Distance - 2661 steps, 2.12km

Friday, 28th March

Two shots of the sunrise on Friday morning - one is from a more open area, and the second is while I was sitting stopped at a stoplight in a built up area. I almost had a complete sunrise/sunset compilation, but I realized that it’d hard to get a decent picture of a sunset through a glass door.

Distance - 4940 steps, 3.95km

Saturday, 29th March

While I didn’t have the pedometer on, I think this shot is quite fitting for the day’s walking - the ingredient list from my risotto adventure. Alongside my notebook is the lemon that was used for grating into the dish at the end.

In other news, I’m really liking my job - although it can be hard to come to the final most desired outcome, it’s enjoyable being able to talk to so many different people in such a wide area of the country. For me, this is really a big change from when I’d be absolutely afraid about answering the phone when I was even a couple of years younger. It would even be rarer for me to take the initiative to pick up the receiver and make a phone call on my own.

It’s also quite amazing how much I’ve changed in the last nine months since I started on this journey. If you would have asked me a year ago about where I would have seen myself by opening day 2008, I’d have probably said in the same place. Yet, here I am, driving (in my own car) to work, socializing with people at work, and really, enjoying life. Now, my challenge is to get myself back into the walking habit - as it is finally going to warm up (double digits by the end of the week!). Really, I just have to force myself to do it - put walk onto the to-do list for the day, and make sure that it gets done.

Yet another week goes along, and I went out for a more proper walk finally, for the first time in a few months. I also have some different pics from the days when I only counted work steps.

Sunday, 16th March

walking1603.jpg

A look at some of the snow that was still left - the piles were getting smaller…

Distance - 504 steps, 0.40km

Monday, 17th March

There was some green on St. Pat’s day - the green of a trash truck stopped by a cop at the side of the road. Quite a strange occurrence indeed. The walking was at work, just so ya know.

Distance - 2589 steps, 2.07km

Tuesday, 18th March

Believe it or not, the scene that is beyond this vehicle’s front bumper (it could move because the right turn lane had nobody in it, even though the light was red) was empty not that many years ago. In fact, if you were to look at a satellite picture from about 3 years ago, most of the development you see there wasn’t there.

Distance - 2073 steps, 1.65km

Wednesday, 19th March

My pup looks towards something in the distance; you can never be so sure what a dog is looking at.

Distance - 1816 steps, 1.45km

Thursday, 20th March

Apparently someone got sick of “Sweet Home Alabama” and threw their Skynard disc to the side of the road…

Distances - Before Work: 2134 steps, 1.70km; After: 3817 steps, 3.05km

Friday, 21st March

Just as a sign of how quickly the snow was falling, I had cleaned part of that path further up the driveway, but the snow had already filled in to that portion. In the end, it did wind up being in excess of 12 inches.

Distance (including shoveling) - 1867 steps, 1.49km

Saturday, 22nd March

Just to get a gauge of how much snow actually fell, this is what the roof of one of the cars looked like in the morning, before the sun got a chance to melt away a lot of the snow. If I had to guess, it had to be around 15 inches there. The walking was done when I went out to run some errands - including buying new windshield wipers for the car since the ones that came with it kinda fell apart partially. It didn’t hurt either that I wound up parking pretty far back from the store

Distance - 4039 steps, 3.23km

In other news, it’s been a relatively quiet week, especially with the snow falling on Friday. However, thanks to the power of the March sun (and higher temperatures in spring), a lot of the accumulation has gone away already. My job is going quite well, and thankfully the post office got their act together so I’m not doing a ton of running tomorrow.

This week, I’m hoping that the weather will stay clear enough to get a couple of proper walks in again.