New Gear and No Excuses

Here we are at nearly the midpoint of February, and cabin fever has set in.  I got up this morning and knew I just couldn’t face another day puttering within these walls.  Sure, I got up and went to work and did the errands and drove the girls to dance this week like I always do.  I don’t know about you, but for me, doing those things does not bring relief to the winter doldrums.

Daphne and Teddy agree.  It is time to do something different, get out of the house.  Teddy regularly goes to the basket that holds the leashes and nudges it with his nose.

“But Teddy,” I try explain, “the boots that I have are no good for going for walks.  They give me blisters on a long walk.”

Teddy looks at me with his pointy-nosed-yet-wise face, “Then you must correct this situation, don’t you think?”

I agree with Teddy. Hubby stumbles out of bed this morning.  I announce before he can even get in the shower, “I have cabin fever.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I don’t know.  I know I need to get out of the house.  I know you’ll tell me to take the dogs for a walk, but I just can’t in those boots.”

“How about this?  We’ll go to the mall and get you some boots.”

BINGO!  That worked well, didn’t it?  I came home with these:

A pair of Columbia Coremic Ridge 2.  I don’t know much about hiking boots, but hubby assured me that Columbia is a good brand and these would be good to my feet and provide what I wanted: comfortable, warm and dry feet.  I know I can’t take these through the 2+ feet of snow on the ground or stomping through puddles, but these should hopefully take me through the remainder of winter and what will surely prove to be a long, wet spring in walking comfort.  Besides, I needed to stop making excuses for not getting out and walking with the dogs.  Maybe it is a trend some of us bloggers have decided would be a good thing since we obviously spend plenty of time at the computer.  Robin, in addition to her commitment to going outside every day for at least 30 minutes for a whole year, has added a short term, early morning yoga commitment.  Tracy has recently gone back to her elliptical machine after some time away.

I could hardly not take the new boots out for a test while our temperatures reached for 40° degrees again today and the sun was breaking through the clouds.  I suited up and took my favorite trio – Daphne, Teddy, and Andre – out for a walk.

We took the sidewalk/neighborhood walk today since I didn’t think my path through the woods would be clear.  I noticed something for maybe the first time today.  Or maybe I noticed in the past but it didn’t stick.  I saw that our local “mountain” was visible through the leafless trees:

Funny, I’m not sure of its name.  It could be part of Minnechaug Mountain, I suppose.  I’ve lived in town virtually my entire life and never called it anything but “the mountain.”

Next, I turned down a side street and saw the sun starting to break through the afternoon clouds:

Dog sees shadow, but does not run and hide like the groundhog, so that still means a chance for an early spring, right?

Back down our still ice-covered-snow-rutted street:

Upon returning home, I sat down at the computer to write up this blog post.  I casually turned to glance out the window, and… remember that expression, “if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute” ?  BAM:

Snow squall!

I swear these pictures were all taken today – you can even check my EXIF data on Flickr if you’d like!

Then, just as suddenly, the sun was breaking through again:

That isn’t “noise” in this shot – those are giant snowflakes floating down in the middle of a pink and blue sky.

And then it was over, as quickly as it began.

I hope that won’t be the case with my commitment to get out there more often with the trio! 😉

E.T.A.: I was neglectful in not mentioning another blogger’s daily commitment to going out and walking her dog. It isn’t a new commitment, but lucky Ozzie gets a nice walk virtually every day!