Shedding It

I am a steady 2 km an hour swimmer. I can push it a little faster for a sprint or at the pool where I can take advantage of pushing off the wall, but 2 km an hour is my forever speed. I can swim In the open water for hours with no change to my stroke at that pace. Today was a perfect example of that. I had time for a quick swim at the Pond so I did three loops. Each loop was just under 350m long and took 10 minutes, give or take a few seconds. And George the Seagull was in his usual spot each time I swam by. George has been a regular for several years (though I suppose it could be a lookalike). I’d you look closely, you can see the little white blob that is George near the shore, about level with my left ear.

Many years and two swim clubs ago, I discovered the Million Metre Challenge and started tracking my swim distances. Today, I finally crossed the magic threshold with a 3.1 km swim. I immediately signed up for the Master Swimming Ontario virtual open water swim challenge. I have from now until Labour Day to complète up to four middle distance swims: 1.5, 3, 5 or 10 k. I probably won’t do the 10k as it is a longer distance than I have ever managed before. However, it is also the goal distance i have wanted to reach for several years. Maybe I will give it a try, if I can get Nadine to support. She’s the photo bomber below, my oldest swimming friend and the one who introduced me to open water and encouraged me to try longer distances. It was a beautiful morning and we had lots of seagulls, ducks and geese for company.

A friend described her house organization efforts that way recently, and I thought it was brilliant. Another friend asked me today if my decluttering efforts are in preparation for a move or something equally exciting. Nope - they are just an attempt to expand my areas of calm. I think it’s starting to work, too. My bedroom is getting tidier as I complete projects or get rid of unwanted stuff. In the past week I have reorganized bookshelves (and gotten rid of books), and started clearing my work bench (and gave myself permission to throw out all the leftovers from old plumbing projects). All week I have spent too much time at my desk and not enough time in the sun. Zumba is done, and I haven’t been able to swim since Saturday. I was in pain from sitting so much, so this evening I went for a nice long walk. The gardens have filled out considerably, and the sky was beautiful. It is clear that I need to expand my areas of calm to include the spaces in my head and the muscles in my body

Lac Philippe, in Gatineau Park. I went with my friend Mel, who has a favourite starting point well away from the official beaches. The lifeguards there are very strict about not letting anyone go beyond the buoys, which is no fun if you want a good swim rather than a waist-deep dip. The spot we went to is a 1 km walk from the parking lot. Along the way, we spotted a large garter snake, several minuscule frogs, a large frog, black and red squirrels and chipmunks. At the lake we spotted a loon  a couple of great blue herons,  and an entire family of ducklings walking along the path. There were also wild lupins flat peas  and a few Deptford pinks. We did more bobbing along than actual swimming, so it was a very relaxing afternoon, followed by fancy ice cream.

Six months have passed in this strange year, so it seems like time for a review. One of the things that inspired me to start this blog is the 220 workouts in 2020 challenge. Various bloggers at Fit is a Feminist Issue have been doing this one (some for several years). As of the end of June, I was at 152. I’m fairly pleased with that, even knowing that some of those activities were a replacement for walking or cycling to work (which I wouldn’t normally count towards my goal). I have expanded the kinds of activities I do - yoga, zumba, and Stu’s strength and stretch Facebook Live classes are all new. I am swimming more during the week, even if it is just a quick km at lunch or before work. I have little motivation to ride my bicycle anywhere right now, but yesterday I bought a bicycle trainer so I can cycle indoors in the winter. It’s something I have been thinking about acquiring for a year or so, so when a used one came up for sale nearby, I grabbed it. I haven’t been horseback riding

“I have resolved not to focus on the long list of things not done, but rather to celebrate those things I have accomplished each day.”  This seems like a worthy goal now that I am on vacation for a couple of weeks. So far, my list of things to do keeps getting longer and longer. Mostly it’s small stuff that I just don’t want to forget. But it keeps getting bigger as I think of new fun things to do. Today I did manage a couple of things on my list, and I have plans to do more this afternoon.  I tried a new sautéed radishes with vinegar and herbs recipe (used all the radishes from my CSA box, plus some herbs from the garden) I wrote a blog post on the history of chopped liver, and made a medieval version then blogged about it. Mostly though, I spent the morning doing something not on my list at all. I went for a swim with my friend Mel and we stopped to smell the roses.

I love Canada Day in the capital, even though this has become a weekend I often spend away camping with friends. This year was quite different of course. The camping event was cancelled. So were all the in-person festivities downtown, and the fireworks (I don’t go downtown, but I do enjoy watching the fireworks from a vantage point just down the street). I made fun with friends instead. First up was a swim at The Pond: Then I weeded my garden and discovered I had a visitor. Jane and I took him to a wooded area and released him. By then it was almost time for lunch, so we walked to. Mexican place That has set up a patio area and had lunch, complete with red and white Sangrias.  Then my Wednesday walk, this time just around the neighbourhood. We discovered a lovely view across the Ottawa River and up the Gatineau River.  It was quite warm and we walked over 7 km, so we were quite happy to discover a lawn sprinkler along the way. One is never too old to play i

I have a game I play, dating back to when I was a busy younger mom with two incredibly busy kids who were also fussy eaters. I had developed a routine of quick and easy meals: tacos, pasta and meat sauce, Swedish meatballs, and stir fries were my go-tos, served every week, with a little variation in between. One year, my son started complaining about this, so I made a promise I would try one new thing, from a recipe book (or the internet), every week. For the first few months, he didn’t even notice, because I had to stick with familiar foods. After all, this was the kid who wouldn’t eat any meat except chicken or ground beef because if was too hard to chew. Even after he moved away for university, I kept up the habit. Sometimes the experiments work better than others. This week was a fail, but I will likely play with the recipe because it has potential. https://simply-delicious-food.com/pasta-with-basil-cream-sauce-recipe/ . This was disappointing. I was sure it would be from the