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| "Forest Festivities" by Jahna Vasht |
The winter solstice is my favorite day because the days are going to start getting longer, and I am grateful for this.
I'm also grateful for the fact that although I didn't go for as many long bike rides this year, I got out on my bike more frequently, and put in more miles this year than I did either of the past two years. (I think my decreased mileage those years was attributable to my lack of self-motivation when my riding partner Matt was on some international trips.) I'm also grateful that I got to do a long, masked-up ride with Steve and with Deb (separately), and that gravel-y fat bike ride with Matt that I mentioned in my last post as being - hands down - my favorite ride of the year.
Most recently, I took a week off in early December and got in some rides, including a longer-than-planned ride down to Grey Cloud Island one last time for 2020, and a hillier-than-planned ride back through South St. Paul.
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I rode to Grey Cloud Island many times
this year. The last time, there were still
leaves on the trees and dead cornfields,
which have since been cut down. |
These past two months, now that it has gotten colder and distanced patio happy hours in friends' backyards have gone by the wayside, I have been skipping biking when I can instead get in a masked-up walk with a friend outdoors. I'm grateful that people are willing to walk with me, despite my apparent reputation for tricking people into walking farther than they intended.
Although the fact that we all have Zoom fatigue, I am also grateful for being able to do a post-Thanksgiving Zoom Girl Craft Day (which actually worked really well!) and a couple of other Zoom get togethers with friends.
In general, I'm very grateful for friends this year. Like my friend Jen, who dropped off a full-size DQ ice cream cake; Matt, who made me a biking-themed card; and Marcy, who made me some goodies, including a very decorative jar of sweet and spicy nuts.
I am also grateful for my friends' senses of humors. Oddly, I got two sausage-themed cards for my birthday this year!
I'm grateful for my siblings (all of whom I really like), happy memories of my dad, getting to safely see Beth (my stepmom) a few times this year, being able to help my mom after her surgery (before COVID shut everything down), being able to visit my mom and Terry (my stepdad), and my mom having good post-chemo scans. I'm grateful that my husband and I still get along despite seeing much more of each other than we usually do, yet am equally as grateful that I have the luxury of being able to escape and do jigsaw puzzles while listening to audio books.
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| This weekend's puzzle. |
As we hunker down for the winter (Where did all the snow go? At least the ice skaters are happy about being able to move across all the lakes, unfettered), I am comforted by the fact that the first bike ride that I've signed up for in 2021 (
https://mssociety.donordrive.com/participant/Maggie-MahoneyTC) is less than 20 weeks away. In COVID-math, that can feel like either 5 and/or 40 weeks, all at the same time. Here's hoping I can do some of these events next year! In the meantime, I'm reflecting on this interesting swag from the Ride Across Minnesota two years ago.... Ha!
