Life before Christmas

As much as I try to keep our lives normal meaning without typical Christmas season craziness, we end up rushing, doing more instead of relaxing and enjoying the season. 

What that means is that I have less time for blogging, though I am trying to read and comment.

I am proud of myself for keeping up with my running and backpacking training. We are planning on doing John Muir Trail, which is 220mi trail in the Sierras. So ever so often I put my 40lb pack on and walk our hilly neighborhood. I am hoping that on the real trail  my pack will not go over 30lb. This time of year the neighborhood is very pretty with many houses festively glowing in the dark. I will confess right away that our house did not make the cut because we are just way, too lazy environmentally conscious so we settled for a simple link of lights.

And then there is running. A spell of very cold and sometimes wet mornings made me realize that if I want to build up my mileage I will need some foot protection. I opted for huaraches, as simple shoe as one could get. I ordered a kit from invisible shoe website. Basically it is just a thin, 4mm Vibram sole and straps. The shoe takes minutes to make or one can order it custom made. I decided to be adventurous and made my own. Honestly I did not expect to like them. I was afraid that I would never learn to tie them right or that the straps would be rubbing my foot or that I would feel as if I were running in flip-flops. Nothing like that. I ran 5miles in them and did not have to re-tie them even once. They did very well on asphalt and a muddy trail. Downhill portion of the trail was a challenge but I have never had shoes that would keep me from sliding down muddy slopes so I did not expect huaraches to perform better either.

As soon as I made my huaraches the weather got warmer so I won't be using them at least till it gets cold again. I like running sans shoes more but I am glad to have something that is very lightweight so I can carry it with me if in case my feet start complaining too much.

Another excuse for not posting much (beside Christmas and shoe making) is that my phone finally died and that happened, of course, before my contract expired. My son's phone was up for an upgrade and he generously offered his turn so I could get I new phone. He did that for me without me asking him. Wow. Teenagers have souls after all. :) So I got myself an iphone and joined a club of smart phone owners. Now I can be like all those people checking their e-mails at the dinner table, posting to facebook (I will need to get the account there) and doing all those things that used to annoy me so much. Notice, I already said 'used to annoy me'. Now I can be annoying also. I understand that I can even blog from that thing so no more excuses that I did not post because I got stuck in traffic. Is blogging while stuck in a traffic jam considered texting while driving? 

But for now I am just wasting time playing with this cool toy wondering how I ever managed to live without it. I am wondering how much time this phone will help me save as soon as I stop wasting it on playing with it. So instead of putting more decorations on our house I am downloading podcasts, synchronizing calendars and getting tons of apps I won't be using. 

But right now my cat is purring my ear off so I need to go and pet her. 

You all have a great day and don't get Christmas craziness get to you, relax enjoy, have some eggnog and  go for a walk to see Christmas decorations. 

Dear blogger: I have a Christmas wish: Could you fix formatting bugs so pictures stay where I put them and text does not jump all over the page and previews show what the post will really look like once published?