Walking & Urban Wildlife

My quilting project is out and I enjoy looking at the parade of color draped across the sewing desk.  That said, adding to that parade has been a bit elusive the last couple of weeks.  No worries.  Progress is being made in other avenues.

In addition to the desire to bring quilting back into my life, I also have wanted to resume my long absent exercise.  Finally, the last couple of weeks, the weather has been cooperative enough to allow me to start walking.  I'm not doing too badly.  If I do miss a day, I don't let it cost me momentum - as such interruptions have done in the past - I just keep at it, resuming the next day.

I live in an apartment complex, in a group of apartment complexes.  The landscape set up between them makes it easy and enjoyable to get out and walk - a meandering path around this large water feature.  The pond comes complete ducks and geese - and much to my surprise, these baby goslings.

The mother wasn't overly perturbed at my picture-taking.  No squawking or flapping of wings.  Just a warning hiss, that seemed like a fair deal in exchange for my proximity. 

Actually, the wild birds here seem almost completely lackadaisical about the human presence.

Monday Miscellaneous

Painting:

I'm afraid dear readers that you're doomed to listen to me whine about painting in the same vein that we listened to Mrs. P. of Quilting in My Pyjamas whine about kitchen renovations.  And so it begins.

We had four days in the house before our furniture arrived, and we didn't pass the time idly.  No, we began painting immediately.  Decided we had just enough time to prime and paint behind where the fridge and washer & dryer would go.  Here is a picture of that work:

Then our walls sat like that for three and a half weeks.  Today we finally got back to it.  Got the remainder of the laundry room primed today.  The previous owners did something a bit odd; they painted the door with flat paint instead of semi-gloss.  You can see how grubby it is near the knob.  We'll be using semi-gloss.

In priming, I realized that part of the issue with the paint job in the house is not just the color, but that these shades seem to suck the light out of the room.  It may also be because they used a flat paint, as opposed to the satin paint we are using.  Not sure.  Just know I'm tired of walking around and feeling like it's dark in every room.  (Really, I'm not crazy.)

Joined A Gym:

On Saturday, my mom and I joined a gym for the first time in our lives.  We know the Kansas winter will preclude any outdoor activities like walking much of the time.  In Nevada, we could almost always go out and walk at some part of the day.  But I'm excited about having access to the weight machines.  I've got creaky knees--which I'd like to blame on old age, but I've had them since my late 20's.  My uncle, the physical therapist, told me what he would recommend to strengthen the knees, and the exercises really require weight machines.  We've got our orientation appointment tomorrow afternoon at 3PM.

Latest Book Read:

Undue Influence by Steve Martini
Genre:  Mystery/Courtroom Drama

This is the 2nd book I've read by this author.  Steve Martini has written a series of books featuring defense attorney Paul Madriani.  The basic formula is that the attorney must solve the mystery in order to defend his client.  Good mysteries with a twist.  The courtroom action is intriguing because it demonstrates how the same set of circumstantial evidence can be viewed logically in two or more ways.  Also a little unsettling for the same reason since it must play out in real life in a similar way.

I hope you all have wonderful days in the week ahead.