| Winter getting you down already? Ohio gray skies pressing down on your mentality? Have no reason to get out of the house? Then you sound like me. I have a solution. Join the "Y" and go swimming. That's what I did finally a year ago. I wasn't getting any other exercise in my life because it hurts too much to go bouncing around on my knees so water exercises were just the perfect thing. And the buoyancy of the water feels just so wonderful. The pool is kept at 86 degrees F so it's well tolerated except when you first go in. I have developed the habit of diving in. That just gets the shock of it over with all at once. Shortly thereafter, the water feels pretty darn good. I must say that except for the instructors, Mike and Pam, I am the only one in that class that dunks my head under the water. The rest of the ladies can't let their hairdos touch the water.
I am in a water arthritis class. Except for the two instructors, I am probably the youngest one there. All the older people complain continually about how cold the water is. I'm feeling more cold this year myself so I have to agree at times about how cold the pool gets but I don't let it stop me from coming like some of the others do. What's interesting is that when the air temperature outside is warmer, the water in the pool feels colder. After the hour workout, I stay for another fifteen minutes or so and I have to admit that I get to feeling chilled. I look forward to the hot shower very much.
Sally and I are the designated singers in the class. There is this one exercise that involves wiggling the fingers under water and moving them from side-to-side as if you were playing the piano. During this exercise, it has become the tradition that someone sings a song. Irene was the singer for a long time but when she wasn't there I started picking up the gig. Then when Sally joined the class she started doing the singing, too. Irene died a few months ago so it is solely up to Sally and me. Before the class begins, we try to cooridinate who's going to do the song. Sometimes Sally surprises me and starts singing even though she told me I should be the one that day. She likes to be unpredictable. So afterwards, I razz her a lot about it.
Got one more picture for ya. The weather has been very mild here this winter. Global warming and all that? Maybe that's why the racoons and possums haven't been in the yard the past couple of nights. They are still finding other food sources that haven't frozen over. But that doesn't explain why they were around every single night when it was summer. I dunno. It has been perplexing me. I put yogurt out three nights ago and it hadn't been touched. I was going to pull it all in this morning so they aren't eating rotten food but I see from my window here that the yogurt container has been moved outside the milk carton tray that I have out there to feed them from. There's one thought that has started to haunt me. Maybe some of them are road kill victims and that's why they're not coming around. Well, that's nature red in tooth and claw only this killer is a car. But this picture isn't of a raccoon or possum. It's of the Cooper's hawk that was sitting in a tree in our backyard. Bill was able to stealth his way through the back of the yard and grab a picture of it.
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Pictured here is the after class bunch. We four usually stay after class and float around and chitchat with each other and with the lifeguard. That's my buddy Sally on my left. This picture was taken at the pool Christmas party that the instructors put on for us, hence, the reason I'm wearing reindeer antlers and Sally has a Santa hat. We had a blast. Mike and Pam are two of the sweetest people I have ever met. They are genuine and they are fun. Sally and I pal around during the class and after. She is a hoot. When she first started coming to the class last April she was very quiet and looked grumpy. But that's just her look. I started talking with her and before the whole class knew it she turned into the class clown. I'm a big ham, too, so we feed off each other and our antics either annoy of entertain the class. For the most part, I think we entertain. I know we sure make Pam and Mike laugh a lot.
I didn't have room to put this picture up yesterday. This is Addy playing with her favorite toy she got from Christmas. More Play-doh. She loves Play-doh. She's very neat about the colors, too. She keeps them separated. When she opened that package, she stopped all Christmas present unwrapping to go to the dining room to play with it. Seems that her other favorite pasttime is getting two plastic or stuffed animals, bringing them to me and having them talk to each other. That was something I started when she was a lot younger and has been fascinated with ever since. Almost too fascinated. Her mother thanks me every day for teaching her that. Ha. But it is effective to use to help her calm down. If she's upset about something, you just get an animal to talk to her and she starts talking it out. Amy is expecting another child sometime the end of January. I keep teasing her that this one is going to be the hellion child. Although, Addy does have her days where she is cranky about everything. But don't we all?
This little guy has hung around our yard frequently over the past year or more. I'm always elated when I see him but I am also dismayed because it means that the red squirrels and the chipmunks are in danger. The moles, too, but I never get to see them so I wouldn't know if they are missing or not. I've not seen him make a kill in our yard yet but evidently he thinks he's got a pretty good chance of finding something here because of the way he keeps coming back. Actually, I think the squirrels and chipmunks are in more danger from the cats that frequent our yard. Sigh. Once back in Jackson, Ohio, I saw a hawk take down a mourning dove. I believe it was a Cooper's hawk there, too. I haven't seen this one threaten the doves yet. It is an interesting sight to see a hawk pass through the yard. There may be a couple of dozen birds outside my window milling around, hopping on the feeders, checking out the deck railing and then, all of a sudden, there is a flurry of wings and they are all gone. All is dead quiet in the yard. No sign of little rodents anywhere. And then you see the hawk.