Another Lazy Morning

Not much going on this morning.  Talked to Beth briefly and all's well with her family.  They head off to Lake Placid for a weekend of skiing on Friday.  I  am in process of setting up a stress test in Westfield for tomorrow morning.  Dr Arruda, from UH hospitals, wants me to have one before I get my procedure next week, a good idea, I think.

I have decided to get serious about birding, so I am downloading pictures of each of the birds that I have seen at our feeder, so that I can identify them for easily and quickly and take part in the annual bird count/watch for Chautauqua county.  These are the kinds of things you do when you are retired...look at birds.  We are also going to work out at Turner later this morning, once I get things settled with my test.

We had a great stir fry last night, with the remainder of last Friday's pork roast; today we are making an interesting dish with the leftover chicken from Sunday, casserole with quinoa, mushrooms, herbs, cream, marsala wine and chicken, with a crust of shredded sweet potato.  Sounds interesting but I hope it's good.

We worked out at the Turner for about an hour; I did some Yoga, worked on my arms, some on the legs, but mostly did work on my core, sit ups and the rowing machine.  Taking Beth's advice, I set the machine for 2000 meters, did it easily in 12 minutes, which seems to be my normal pace, though it's only the 4th or  5th time I have used the machine.  Tyler does it in 7 and 1/2 minutes, Beth 9 and 1/2, so I guess I am pretty slow but I am happy and will keep working to improve my time.  I also shot hoops for a bit, so I go lots of muscles involved.  I even propped my legs against the wall, yoga style, for five minutes.  It felt good.

I made the best bread of the year yesterday, one I found on King Arthur Flour, it's a sourdough multigrain sandwich bread.  It uses wheat flour, potato flour, a mixture of nuts and grains, and sour dough started.  It makes great toast and Evie and I have been eating it with peanut butter and jelly all day.  At the moment, it's clouding up and beginning to snow, as a storm is coming in over night, though it's not supposed to be too severe, about 4-6 inches overnight.  We'll have to wait and see how bad it gets, if at all. The pictures above I took about 4:00 in the afternoon, just as it was beginning to snow.  I love the silhouettes of the trees and the rhododendrons, the almost black on white at this time of day.

I am sitting here sipping wine, fire is burning, NPR is on, dinner's in the oven and all is well with the world.  I just got back from a great walk outside, in the snow, a short one, just around the neighborhood and up the hill but it was invigorating.  There's something about walking in the snow, especially when it's dark, that pleasures me, gives me energy, and makes me feel good about myself, like I have done something healthy as well as aesthetically pleasing.  Maybe I am being too artsy fartsy.