Dear Reader:

I just got off the treadmill and must have really been going after it tonight because I am wiped out!  As I was "treading" to my favorite youtube music on the iPad, I realized that I really need to get myself a workout playlist that is going to really energize me and put it on my iPod to take with me during my travels post-Christmas.   So you, dear reader, need to give me suggestions!    Seriously, I want something other than "classical" music which I will attend to too much.   I love indie rock, alternative, jazz (but most of that will be too low-key).  Just anything that's good.  I also love listening to things that other people love that I've never heard of.   Feminist manifestos are awesome, but not required.   High energy.   You get what I am saying.  So load me up, dear reader.  Load me up with suggestions!

Today was the winter solstice.   Shortest day of the year.  Lots and lots of darkness and dormancy at this time of year.  I may have mentioned before that I'm not super fond of winter.   I get almost euphoric and giddy in spring, am in love with autumn, and moderately enjoy the summer.  But winter, as with a lot of people, just kind of gets me down, even when the weather is temperate.  I read a wonderful essay by Parker Palmer on the seasons once (and looked it up again today).   Here's a quote which is pertinent to my journey:

"Our inward winters take many forms – failure, betrayal, depression, death. But every one of them, in my experience, yields to the same advice: “The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them.” Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them – protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance – we can learn what they have to teach us. Then, we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all."

There is some beauty in the quietness of this season (I mean, aside from the holiday hysteria) which I enjoyed today.   I spent the morning cleaning my house (a very, very satisfying activity) and the afternoon walking and playing with my kids in the cemetery on the hill overlooking the campus where I work.   It was gray and cloudy and looked like rain, but the rain never came.  The trees were bare and dark against the sky.  My kids and I played hide and seek (a cemetery is an EXCELLENT place to do this) for about an hour and then they had fun rolling down the hill while I sat on the ground and just listened to the quiet hum of the construction equipment on campus and the distant buzz of the interstate, alongside the birds and the wind.   I felt sad, but very peaceful.  Seemed fitting for the winter solstice.   Here's a Mary Oliver quote with a woodcut that I thought was also appropriate for the season:

And, here's a lovely, lovely Christmas poem that I had not read before today:

Christmas Light by May Sarton

When everyone had gone

I sat in the library


With the small silent tree,


She and I alone.


How softly she shone!



And for the first time then


For the first time this year,


I felt reborn again,


I knew love's presence near.



Love distant, love detached


And strangely without weight,


Was with me in the night


When everyone had gone


And the garland of pure light


Stayed on, stayed on.

***************

I love the line "Love distant, love detached/And strangely without weight"    Obviously, I'm in a poetic mood today, aren't I?

I think today was successful on the food and exercise fronts.  Here are the stats:

Calories consumed:  1426 (Remember that I'm trying to keep it under 1500 at least three times this week).
Calories burned:  267 (this doesn't include my walking and running around the cemetery hill).

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner (those are leftover chicken quesadillas):

Snacks:  handful of nuts, frozen strawberry/chocolate dippers, handful of Life cereal.

Also, I just read an article in my new "Tricycle" Buddhist Review journal that described a new book by Daniel Goleman (the "Emotional Intelligence" guy) called "Focus" about, among other things, the benefits of mindfulness.   This looks very good!

You know that I'm on break when I can't stop talking about all the things that I am reading.   Seriously, I do plan to read ALL. THE. THINGS.  I'm starting a new novel tonight.   Yay!  

I will admit, though, that when I have time on my hands, I start really, really wanting to do what this creepy little Elf on the Shelf is doing:

Except that I'd put those Nestle Toll House "Turtle Pecan" chocolate chip cookies on there.  You know what I am talking about.  The wine looks good, though.  Maybe it's my favorite Pinot Noir?  And, the Elf is actually wearing yoga pants, so this really could be me.   But, it's not.  And, that, dear reader, is a victory.  

Well, it's time for me to read!   I hope you are all curled up by your respective fires and enjoying the solstice tonight.   Many thanks to all of you who are supporting me!   Remember that I am not going to post these blog entries on FB because of my FB fast starting tomorrow.   So, bookmark the page.  And, give me your workout playlist selections.    I will check them out, I promise!

Thanks for reading!