Chillin On A 7º Morning

Old Man On His Skiis

7:27

7:28

7:30

It's 6:30 and I have been up since 5:45.  So much for sleeping in.  It's still pitch black outside and according to the Weatherunderground, the skies are clear,  thus the 7º outside.  Evie has just joined me so it must be a full moon, something like that to get us up so early.  It's now 7:00 and the ice fishing tents have appeared despite the cold.  And when I went out to take a photo, I could hear the fishermen talking.

7:40

Yesterday was a good day despite the gray skies, the snowy, sometimes slick roads.  It took me a few minutes to get the ice off my car windows but I was able to get to yoga on time, at 10:00.  There were just five of us and  I continue to wonder why one class is so popular, the other not so much.  Both are really good.  I stopped for coffee, then made my bi-weekly trip to Wegman's as we are stocking up for what may be a winter snowstorm, with up to a foot of snow.  I also filled up my car as I like to have a full tank just in case of an emergency, a careful boy. 

When I returned home, Evie had the vegetable soup heating up for my lunch.  She then drove off to the YMCA, for a spin on the treadmill while I had the rest of the sub sandwich with my soup.  I watched another episode of Friday Night Lights and Matt has just been told the freshmen phenom will take over his position as quarterback, always trouble, trials, and tribulations for East Dillon football.  I am reading an interesting book by Swedish novelist Fredrik Backman, known for A MAN CALLED OVE.  This novel, US AGAINST YOU, is set in a small hockey crazy town in Sweden.  Jobs are disappearing, rivalries are turning violent, as a winning hockey team takes on too much importance, dwarfing other more human concerns.  I took my nap and was up just as Evie was returning from her inaugural workout, a good one.

Cross Country Skiing, Late Afternoon

Around 4:00, the gray outdoors lightened up a bit, so I got out my cross country skis and skied out on the lake for the first time this winter.  There was hardly enough snow when I headed south, in fact, it was too icy so I went back the other way and it was much better, the snow a couple of inches deep.  I had forgotten how different skiing on the lake was from skiing in the woods.  On the ice, the wind is either in your face or on your back, rarely so in the woods.  I was out for forty-five minutes, getting a good workout, joining the crowd of ice fishermen, enjoying the afternoon on the lake.

After skiing, we had an enjoyable wine time, with Trader Joe's 'Unexpected Cheddar,' our most recent favorite cheese.  Evie had spent part of the afternoon making dinner, chicken marsala set on a bed of noodles.  So it was keeping warm in the oven as we had our wine.  Dinner, then, was merely plating the delicious chicken on garlic spinach and we were happy in our TV room, watching the finals of The Great English Baking Show, Colbert, and Vice News.  It was a good way to end the day.