Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Chilly January

Cold, cold, cold! It's been cold the past couple of days. When it gets like this, we burrow into the finished side of our basement to watch movies as a family, and spend quality time. That's been really nice and as a bonus, we're getting lots of laundry done.

January has been eventful so far, with lots of work to keep us busy, and the toddler is really quite a handful these days. We have fun playing, and I try to keep her involved in things -- like cooking, setting the table, cleaning up here and there. She's good at all of this stuff, but it's a double edged sword because sometimes you just want to cook the thing and be done with it. It is a chance to take a deep breath and find a new level of patience.

Running wise I've been going very strong with just over 100 miles so far in January. I've been stretching more, too, and I'm feeling the benefit of that in my piriformis, which had been experiencing some sciatica like pain since about September. It's much better to not be in pain. Even though I've been skeptical about stretching in the past, I think having built it into my routine in a really big way has helped, so I'm planning to keep that up.

Food-wise things are going well, with a couple of cheat days here and there. I'd like to lose more weight, so I'm trying to be really good about what I eat during the week. This week we failed at going grocery shopping, so I'll have to make due with what's in the house for today.

I'm thinking a lot about getting a cheap exercise bike and starting to grind out some time in my z1 for aerobic training. The cross training would help a lot, I'd get some extra calories in, but I'm hoping it would also give me a better base once the weather gets better and I'm out on the road more. Maybe even make it more comfortable. I'm going to need to do something like that because February is always a tough month running wise, and yesterday was already a -18 day where my eyes nearly froze shut.

My maternal grandfather passed away a few days ago. I've been estranged from that side of my family for nearly a decade now, so it's conflicting. I have a handful of good memories, but largely my memories  of that entire family are very tinted by my experience with my mother. Suffice to say, he was a product of his generation, race, and class. For good or for ill, that's a thing I can say.

It feels wrong to not mark it in some way, but being estranged it isn't like I was invited to the funeral. This is how I learn things about that side of my family now -- I tend to find out who has passed away by googling them, or on my genealogy websites. It is tough for me because I do not want to have this same type of fractured relationship with my own kids. They will be better off by not being exposed to toxic influences, but I hope that they don't ever view our relationship in that way. I do think, even with my own parents, that they did their best. That just can't always make up for what we go through in life...

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