Slice of Life Tuesday: Daily Walk

Every day I take Dave for a morning walk around the neighborhood. This is our little Slice of Life. We try to go early on days that will be especially hot and we go later on cool days. Today was a cool day, but I put on a hoodie and we started out around 9:00.  Here is a snapshot of our usual walk.

Our first stop was on the corner where these lovely flowers are growing. I don't know what kind they are, but they are beautiful right now.  Dave thought he should check them out and smell them.

Our next stop was at the end of a street where there is a big field. They just cut the wheat that was planted there and Dave likes to do some sniffing there, too.  We have seen a black squirrel in one of the nearby trees and there are always some rabbits for Dave to try to chase.

As we turn and go east on the street we come to an area that has lots of vacant lots and houses in the process of being built. Dave likes to find sticks or pieces of lumber in this area. Sometimes he brings them home with him.

Every week our local paper puts out a paper full of ads.  This is for the people who not subscribe to the local paper. After a couple days of seeing that paper just sitting on the driveway, he decides it is time to clean up the neighborhood. He grabs that paper and takes it home to put it in the recycling.  He is such a good neighbor dog.

We love our morning walks and enjoy the time outside and time spent together.  What are some of your daily rituals?

Saturday Celebration: Training Time

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Saturdays in the summer are training days for me.  This is the day that my husband and I set aside time to do our big training run.  A few weeks ago we did our first race of the year.  It was 6.2 miles or 10K. We have run that race for 20+ years in Atlanta on the 4th of July with 60,000 runners! The race starts at Lennox Square and goes to Piedmont Park. One of the miles on the race is the actual mile that the Olympic runners ran when the Olympics were in Atlanta. The race is fun with many bands and other musical groups encouraging the runners with their music. That is the kick off of our summer running.

Before the race this year.

Today my celebration is running the training run this morning. At the beginning of the summer, we started off our training by running two miles in our neighborhood. When we felt good at that pace and could run the whole thing we jumped it up to four miles and ventured out of the neighborhood onto other city streets. Last week we did that four miles with no walking and felt great. So, today we decided to add another miles to our run.  We drove the route to be sure we had the mileage correct and then started off.  It was hot, but we had set out water, so we were fine. We made the whole five miles, but had to walk up a hill, so we will continue to do this course until we are ready to add another mile.

Last year's Fort 4 Fitness 4-miler

Our ultimate goal is to run the Fort 4 Fitness race in September. This year we are signed up to do the 10k (6.2 miles). Last year we did our first Fort 4 Fitness race with the 4-mile run. This year we feel we are ready to take on the longer challenge. If we continue our training as we have planned, it will be a successful run.  I am celebrating our run today and having the best running partner ever!

Slice of Life Tuesday: Moments Turn into Hours

We had our Saturday all planned. It was to be a rather relaxing day just sitting by the pool. Then, life happened!  On Friday, I had decided to open our patio umbrella to give us some shade as we were to eat lunch on the patio later. As I cranked the handle just one more little tug, it came off in my hand.  There I was with an umbrella crank broken with no hope of fixing it.  Well, for the moment it was fine. The umbrella was up and was staying that way. No problem.  That is until we would eventually close it...

So, our project on Saturday was in the morning, run out to Home Depot and pick up another umbrella.  I was even thinking... how nice, it will be on sale probably!  As we asked for directions to the patio furniture, the worker pointed to a small amount of items in the middle of an aisle. That was all they had.  Well, one of the items was an umbrella. We looked it over but we weren't sure it would fit exactly. 

We left and decided to travel 20 miles to the next large town and go to a few of the bigger stores there: Home Depot, Lowes, Menards.  We went from store to store...nothing!  By now it is past noon and we were hungry so we stopped for lunch then returned home...without an umbrella.

Later that night, after checking online options, we decided to go back and get the original umbrella we had seen that morning. We checked it out and brought it home.  After my husband worked and worked to get it up and working he came inside.

"I think you need to come out and see this, " he said.  I followed him out and he explained that the umbrella was great except for one thing.  The tilt button on the pole did not work. So the umbrella would be straight up in the air and then all of a sudden take a dip to one side or the other. After trying and trying to fix it, we finally gave up and boxed it up to return to the store.

We are back to our old umbrella...still open ALL the time until we get the new one ordered and hopefully set up successfully.  So, much for a nice relaxing day by the pool!

Celebration Saturday: Pool Date

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The weather has been very cool for July here in northern Indiana. Due to that issue, we have been postponing our pool date for several weeks. Yesterday turned out to be the perfect time for using the pool to stay warm!

Angie and the girls, Audrey 6 and Mallory 3, came up for a nice lunch and a swim. Gramma made sandwiches for the girls and Grandpa brought lunch for the adults! We ate and then got ready to swim!

Audrey had lots of races with everyone. Here she is racing against her mother! She usually won, even though she would hold you back just so she could get a good start on the second lap of the pool.

Mallory had fun swimming, too. She got tired of playing Marco Polo and just wanted to spend time perfecting her swimming skills!

Audrey had fun wearing some goggles she found in the pool toy bag. We finally got them to work and fit her.  I don't think she ever actually wore them in the water, but they made a good photo op!

Mallory must have gotten worn out with all the swimming. She crashed and took a nap before heading for home! We had a great day and the weather even stayed warm enough to enjoy the pool.  We are already planning our next Pool Date!