Today I reached my goal of 1,000 miles walked in 2017.

A couple of weeks ago, I confidently stated I’d get there, then, with this wintry weather, I was starting to have some misgivings about “putting it out there” for the world to see, even though there were still a few weeks left in 2017.

This morning, I planned to head to Council Point Park, figuring I jinxed my walks, as well as the poor squirrels, by buying six bags of peanuts a few weeks ago at Meijer.  I felt I owed them bigtime for these missed visits.  After all, up until last weekend, I was still walking four or five miles daily.  Now, all those brand-new packages of peanuts are stacked up in the cupboard, as well as a slew of Ziploc bags of peanuts ready to grab and go … but zero trips to the Park.

I warned those squirrels this might happen, and they should be prudent about squirrelling away some of those peanuts I was doling out so freely and plan for the long, cold Winter ahead.  But, even if they heeded my good advice, how in the world could they hope to find those peanuts under all the snow?  I doubt their other benefactors are beating a path to the Park now that the trail is covered with snow.  Maybe Tuesday’s temps in the 40s will help with a big meltdown of the white stuff.

Yesterday was perfect for a long walk, but, the sun was missing this morning – all day in fact.  Also, there was no light covering of snow to cushion those occasional icy patches on the neighborhood sidewalks, so I decided not to take a chance on a slip and fall by heading to Council Point Park, and moseyed over to Memorial Park instead.  To get more steps into my trek, I walked along Fort Street, and, as I neared the corner where the First Baptist Church is, the snow was littered with hay, and trampled down by hoof prints … and boot prints as well.  Hoof prints you say?  Yup, this church has a lovely living nativity reenactment every December and that event was last night in front of the church.

I headed to the Bandshell parking lot and did my laps, and, as tedious and boring as that trek was, it got me my desired steps and I headed home, happy to have reached this pinnacle in my walking regimen.  I know I could have reached this goal earlier, had I not had all the house issues this year … unfortunately, contractors and their aftermath kept me off the perimeter path many mornings.   Luckily, our mild January through March, and the fact we never had snow until the first week in December helped boost my walking miles as well.

I’ll keep on striding until year end and see how many more miles I can garner.  I hear we have a dry weather week though Friday which may be a mixed bag of precip – we shall see.

I will leave you with this quote and pat myself on the back and say “yeah me!!”

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Norman Vincent Peale

[Image by VCT310 from Pixabay]