Walking is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside. Elizabeth von Arnim

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Monday, January 03, 2011

Decorations down and put away

The cold weather was back this morning for my walk. It was 24 degrees with a slight breeze.  I went around the lake today and was surprised that there were not a lot of people.  Usually the beginning of the year there are lots of people with a New Year resolution to get more exercise.  Maybe they were all just waiting till later when the sun came out and it warmed up a little bit.  It was a pretty quiet walk and pretty routine.  Workers were back working on the pier.  Maybe by spring they will be done.  Didn't really see any wildlife except for the geese who are always there.  I came across this little black snake on the path to the lake but it was dead - frozen!!  I moved it over to the side of the path.
 I walked 6.4 miles.
Sunrise 7:27
Sunset 4:57
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I spent the day taking down Christmas decorations and putting them all away.  Started with the outside lights on the railing as soon as I came back from walking.  Didn't even make it inside the door first before they were all down.  I stepped on a couple of lights and broke them and couldn't get the tiny lights out to replace them so I threw the whole strand right in the garbage.  They were very inexpensive anyway and I bought a whole slew of them and had some that I didn't even use this year.

With the tree down and decorations put away, I then vacuumed and dusted and got things looking back to normal. While dusting off the book shelves I decided to rearrange all my books.  I had them in alphabetical order in groups of fiction, nonfiction, and children.  I mixed them all up together and then put them in alphabetical order.  I still have my collection of Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and Honeybunch separate though. I gathered up all my books that I have yet to read and put them all together. I'm really going to try hard to get a lot of them read this year.  I just did a quick count and there are 76 of them. That is a crazy number of books to have that haven't been read yet!!! That is one book more than my goal to read for the entire year.  I'll be lucky if I read a quarter of them because I'll be at the library most every week too!! 

So that's what kept my busy so far today.  Now, I'm ready to have a sit down, read a bit until it's time to get supper started.

Hope all is well in your part of the world!
A smile from me to you.
Happyone :-)
If you want beauty in your life,
you simply have to go outdoors 
from time to time.
~Thomas Kinkade

14 comments:

Helen said...

I would not like to meet that snake although it was dead....
I want to put away the Christmas decoration too, but my husband want me to wait - so I`ll wait some few more days.

Happy@Home said...

I thought that looked like a snake in your photo that appeared on my side bar. I couldn't imagine a snake at this time of year, but now I see it was a snakesicle?? Poor guy.
I got my decorations all put away yesterday and it is looking a bit bare right now. Hoping to find time this week to make it look a bit cozier.
I'm familiar with Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew, but I don't think I've heard of Honeybunch. Sounds cute, though.

KathyA said...

What was that snake doing out and about??? I guess survival of the fittest is really true. Even frozen they give me the willies!!

I'm trying to get the inside undecorated, but not having much success.

Gwendolyn said...

You are ahead of me in putting away your Christmas decor! What a lot of enjoyable reading you have ahead of you!

Vee said...

Shiver over that snake...I'd have been really booking it after seeing that. You're way ahead of me, too, but that's normal. You walk way more and you read way more. But this is not a contest or so my grands always tell me. :D

Cheryl said...

And a smile from me to you too!

Retired Knitter said...

Yikes! I am so not a snake person, but I did feel alittle sad to find it had died. I guess in that small warm up it got confused. It should be curled up in a safe place sleeping till spring.

My decorations went up so late this year that I don't plan to take them down until after this coming weekend. We are having company on Saturday - my son's girlfriend and her family for our Christmas eve dinner that we had to cancel so I want the tree up. We didn't have much up, just the tree. So when it comes down it will be fast.

See you tomorrow at knitting.

George said...

You're ahead of us -- we don't have all of our decorations down yet, but we're working on it. After reading your comment about the unread books you have, I won't tell you how many I have (it's more than 76!).

Rathi said...

Oh I like snakes so much. Yesterday was a day that i wasted literally and i felt so guilt-ridden later last night. I didn't even jog in the evening as i was busy with filling up application forms. but i did eventually go to the park for a short walk but it was very cold. I finished The Good Earth and now I am all set to finish While I was Gone. I think i will be seeing Bonnie and Clyde today.

Suz said...

Poor little garter snake...I can't believe he wasn't snatched up by a hawk or crow
i put my decorations away...a favorite thing to do
the house gets really cleaned again and I sit in silence at its beauty of neatness and order and less

Anonymous said...

I often wondered if you ever saw snakes on your daily walk during the summer months. It’s odd that one would be out in January, especially as cold as it’s been. I see enough in my yard during the summer months to last me all year. I have seen them out in February, but it was after we had very warm temps for a few days. I really, really can’t stand snakes!!!

Wanda

Mary said...

Poor little snake. A big sully snake probably ran him out of his winter hideaway. It was nice of you to move him to the side.

Dick said...

Poor thing, I wonder what he was doing there.
I've put all Christmas things away and I'm back to work now, things are back to normal, lol.

karen said...

My son found a snake in our yard a few weeks ago. I had to put the cat up because he would not leave the snake alone. It was a cold day too. I hope the snake went back home. Never thought about it freezing.