Took the girls out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner tonight and they wanted to dress up fancy.

When we started the goal was 8 as we both have been a little down for the count. As we approached stopping at 12 I swayed the vote to run another loop to get us on par with plan. Overall legs were good but my stomach not so much but we got the miles. Also ,we have been spoiled as it was cold today!

A cloudy sky over a tranquil body of water with a wooden birdhouse on a post in the foreground and a forest lining the far shore.

Decided to take the big dog for a longer walk this morning as we have very little on the schedule today. 🐢

On this day...

In my blog gardening (thank you Jamie I am stealing your term) I have stumbled across when I was in Germany for two weeks for work back in 2018. Granted I only have a handful of pictures that are in this blog and most of them came through my Instagram import I did a while back.

However, as I have been cleaning up some of the posts I see by adding the location of where the picture was shot for reference (thanks to Google Location Tracking), it has got me thinking should I take a little bit of extra time and recreate some events on my site? Maybe more specifically at a minimum, recreate or document places we visited and saw as I did for my family Trip out East and around Superior a couple years back (note you will not find it on the site yet as I kept track and never could figure out how I wanted to publish it). I do wish I did a better job of keeping track of those types of events or trips prior to the past year or so.

I was talking to my uncle the other day and my Grandfather (his dad) who was an accountant and had to bill his time to his clients by the hour kept record of pretty much everything he did but in very brief formats. He had a paper journal book for every year that would lay out people he met with and events in his life. For example, I saw the entry of where my mom was born (they wrote a different name than was hers so I guess they changed it later) in the morning and then in the afternoon it seems my grandfather had to go back to work as he then billed a client a handful of hours working on something. He also wrote down how much everything cost which was interesting to see that back then it only cost $18 for delivery and two nights in the hospital. Not sure how much insurance covers then but that is a shocking number compared to even what it cost for my kids 9-14 years ago.

I think of all that work he used to do journaling briefly moments of his life and I wish I had something similar but I do get caught up in that do I capture enough or do I capture too much. However, I just wrote out a paragraph of text explaining the couple of sentences I saw and could piece it together and found it interesting.

Now granted this day and age we even have the further benefits of quickly adding photos, GPS tracking, and stuff other data that could be easily included to our events in our life. However, that might be the problem is we try to correlate or craft the perfect end product vs just quickly jotting something down that if anything will jog our memory to what we were doing or thinking at that moment in our life. Maybe life changing like a birth or once in a life time trip or maybe just something like met a new friend in person for the first time.

One could say that sounds great start today and move forward why go back and put together something that took place 6 years ago. Well, I think it is because I have still been finding great joy in clicking the “On this Day” button and finding out what I did years ago. This is also the perfect time to remind myself and anyone else that needs some encouragement that in the end I am not doing it for anyone but myself. Maybe in the end my kids will look through it but I am not counting on that if anything it is interesting for me now so why not!

Decided to make it a short easy run today on as many trails as I could find. Was the perfect start to the day in the woods with the sun peaking through.

A tranquil woodland trail surrounded by leafless trees with a bed of fallen leaves covering the ground, indicating late autumn or winter. Sunlight filters through the branches, creating a serene atmosphere.

Some days it feel hard and today was that day. I decided to use the not feeling great run to pick up some streets I hadn’t completed. Nice to see the new completed building at Round Lake, should be a nice addition as the old building had no windows, no places to sit, and never used.

A modern building with large glass windows, a prominent wooden facade, and a sloped roof, nestled in a barren landscape with a leafless tree to the left and a pine tree to the right. A concrete pathway with steps leads up to the building

Well it has happened… This is the first to get braces (and not the last). I think Boo is pulling this look off and she was super good/nervous excited the whole time.

Before

During

After πŸ₯°

Where did the trail go? I thought they hadn’t started construction around Braemar yet and I was right and wrong as I found myself running through chopped up trees. Let’s just say I don’t know if I was on the trail at points, had to walk over bad parts, and I got some nice cuts on my legs.

A landscape of a deciduous forest in late autumn or early spring with bare trees and a ground covered in brown leaves and fallen branches under a clear blue sky.

A forest trail covered with fallen leaves and surrounded by bare deciduous trees, indicating it’s either autumn or winter, with sunlight casting long shadows across the path.

A serene nature trail with barren trees and a wooden bridge in the background, illuminated by soft sunlight filtering through the branches.

I really hope that there is nothing wrong with drinking too much plain sparkling water as I think my consumption level of that has increased 5x. In addition, I just dug out my old SodaStream to further drink more 🫣

Now that is is finally getting warmer out and the millage is creeping up I realized I am in need of a new Hydration pack since the last time I wore one the strap broke and I never replaced it. So does anyone have any suggestion for a good running one?

Over 60Β°F run wow! Such nice weather out today but deep down I know my body needs to start getting used to warmer weather on the horizon. Glad that whatever I picked up yesterday seems better now as I was out of it and today I did feel good.

A wooden boardwalk meanders through tall, dry grass under a clear blue sky.

It was such a nice day to head out for a long run. Pace for some of the miles were maybe a little fast for building but when you get to talking it happens. Then you get punished in the later miles with tired legs. 😡

Guess today is National Barbie day so when the local grocery store has Barbie-themed donuts it makes sense to get some.. 🍩

Today is going to be powered by lots of coffee… β˜•οΈπŸ”‹

These bacon wrapped scallops really hit the spot πŸ˜‹

πŸ“DiMillo’s On the Water, Portland

Well this was a very wet run this morning as it rained the entire time I was out there. I tried my best to avoid puddles but found myself on a muddy trail and stepped right into it.

Shorter and quicker run today because I had to get into the office very early before a long day of meetings. Interesting sunrise this morning with a small slit before complete cloud cover.

Decided to hit the streets of Portland and with no running plan. Along the way I stumbled upon this building and had to look it up later. The Hey Building (Charles Q. Clapp Block) which was built in 1862 by a local very prominent architect. I would love to take a glance inside as it is very narrow!

Good morning from the East Coast! I am sure some of it just a change of scenery and helps that the run rises earlier here than home but I really do enjoy these morning runs watching the sunrise. πŸŒ…

Reminded why I like app based ride services

Say what you will about ride-sharing companies, but honestly, a coworker and I arrived at the airport at the same time and were going to share a cab. However, we were staying at different hotels 2 blocks apart.

The person coordinating the cabs said “nope you have two people and two destinations, so you need two cabs.”

It was 11:30pm at night and I am sure the look of confusion crossed my face when I just said whatever we need one cab. Honestly, what the heck? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, as I could have just used Uber and selected two drop-off locations.

So, what did I do? Told my co-worker to jump in the cab and we would head to his hotel. The cabbies when we walked over to the cabs questioned me about the 1 and 2 locations but I just said we were going to his hotel. I can walk 2 blocks vs spending another $25 for a different cab to goto the same location.

Granted, it wasn’t my money, but it was a matter of principle.

A man hails a taxi at night on a foggy, illuminated city street lined with parked cars.