Tag Archives: in the neighbourhood

Friends, Lunch, New Studio Space and More Walking

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…..sometimes it just good to get out of the house

My good friend from high school, LB, and I had made plans to get together for lunch today. As much fun as it is getting all our high school buddies together, sometimes it’s just easier to plan with just one other person. We had a great time over our Japanese bento boxes, catching up on work, our kids and spouses and the trials and tribulations of our mutual friends and acquaintances.

After lunch I jumped on the Spadina streetcar and headed south to Queen St. West where I transferred to the westbound streetcar and got off at Trinity Bellwoods Park. My other good friend, AB has a new studio space in the area and I agreed to come down to see it and help her organize some of her stuff. She has a lot of stuff and we barely put a dent in it but it’s a start and she’s actually feeling very good about the progress.

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It was pretty hot and humid today so we quickly lost our energy and around 5:00 we decided to call it a day. AB drove me back to the subway station so that I could pick up my car and head home. I made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner but by the time I got home my husband had already prepared a meal for himself. When I called earlier I told him that I was still pretty full from lunch so he assumed that I didn’t want any dinner. Anyway the good news is that my husband must be feeling somewhat better if he’s cooking for himself. I was happy with just having an ice-cream bar.

One of the things that K isn’t ready for yet is taking the dog for long walks. After dinner I changed into more comfortable clothes and Frances and I headed out the door. I guess the last two days have been pretty exhausting for the dog so she was pulling to go back home after only a very short walk. I knew that I had to try to get in close to 3000 steps to reach my goal today so this ‘short walk’ wasn’t doing it for me.

I’ve discovered on past walks that if I change the route slightly the dog doesn’t resist. I don’t know if she doesn’t know where she is in relation to our house or if she also just wants a change of scenery. In the end we managed to put in an extra 4500 steps and I clocked in at 11 500 steps. Yay! That makes five days in a row that I have surpassed my daily walking goals. I’m sure that my Jawbone Up will be suggesting that I up my goal to 12 000 steps a day.

Sunday Trees – 196

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…..thanks to Becca Givens for hosting Sunday Trees

On one of our walks this week we spotted this tree in the park and thought that the leaves were already turning colour. Upon closer inspection we discovered that pink colour on this unusual maple tree came from the keys.

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Walking 10 000 Steps Takes Effort

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….but it’s very doable

When I’m at school I normally walk anywhere from 4000 to 6000 steps during the day, just walking from room to room, walking around the yard during recess and walking around the library putting away books. It’s those last few steps to reach my goal of 10 000 steps that takes effort.

Yesterday I found myself doing a lot of errands, using the car. There was a lot of waiting involved and by the end of the day I had barely clocked 4000 steps. In the evening I took a walk around the block with the dog and then I drove to the mall to do a bit of shopping. I parked farther away from the store than I needed to and I tried to walk around the mall after my shopping was done but I had left it too late and the mall was closing. In the end I only walked 5380 steps.

This morning, as soon as I woke up, I put on my running shoes and went for a long walk with my husband and Frances. It was a beautiful morning, even though the sky to the west of us looked pretty ominous. We walked to our favourite park and instead of going back the same way we came we took a slight detour to add some extra distance. When we got home I was surprised to see that we had already reached my goal of 10 000 steps and it was only 10:30. Ideally, now I should be able to add another 4000 to 5000 throughout the day as long as I don’t spend too much time on the computer or with my renewed hobby of knitting.

Here are a few images of what we saw on our walk this morning.