Patio Party: gracious living

Day of Gracious Living (Repeat..and Repeat again)

In an unprecedented move, DCPS has just closed for tomorrow as well--that will make three snow days in a row.

I'm starting to wonder what the long term effects of this will be:

A. We will be going to school until the 4th of July--(we had no snow days built into our school calendar this year---it is said that the snow days will be tacked on to the end of the year--but how many days can you tack on once kids have graduated and summer school is set to begin?)

B. We will lose spring break days--oh I hope not...but I can see how a trim there and a trim there could happen.

C. We give up our testing days (this is my favorite option, but I think the least likely to happen).

Yesterday I was starting to feel so cooped up that Mark and I hatched a plan. We would go to a gym today and try it on a trial basis. We spent a significant amount of time last night researching which gym we would go to that had trial passes. Our choices were:

1. Bally's
2. Washington Sports Club
3. LA Fitness
4. Gold's Gym
5. Results

We woke up this morning and headed out to assess the situation. Our gym choice wasn't just about who offered what for free, but rather where we could park if we went there.

We drove to get coffee and exercise the dog. My favorite line came from Mark this morning who said that if our dog didn't get in a good run that he thought Soba would turn ferrel and eat us. That about sums up how our dog was feeling. It was imperative that we run him.

After some driving around, sliding around, and very cautious driving we ended up at the R Street Dog Park. Soba ran after the frisbee like a mad dog, or maybe I should say the ferrel dog he had become. :)

In our driving around we assessed the parking situations for the various gyms we named. Our top gym choice was the Washington Sports Club but because it's on Connecticut Avenue and only one lane of traffic went each way on Connecticut, parking in the MOUNDS of snow was not an option.

In the end we chose the Results on U Street near Dupont/Adams Morgan.

We drove home, dropped the dog off, changed and printed our passes and were off.

I was so excited to work out and impatient with the slow driving conditions that Mark turned to me at one point and mentioned that he thought I was going to turn ferrel and eat HIM! I simmered down after that--clearly I had annoyed him.

The gym was heavenly!!!!!

Cardio equipment everywhere! Relatively few people! Clean areas! TVs attached to the equipment or large flat screens everywhere! Oh the joy!

After 35 minutes on the elliptical Mark and I went exploring and found this other cool machine called the Arc Trainer.

The ones in the gym were bright yellow--yet another attraction for me.

I did another 20 minutes on it---I thought it was an interesting cross between an elliptical trainer and a bike and running---after looking it up when I got home I realize it's another elliptical but it had a different feel than the PreCore machines I usually use.

I loved it because while I worked out I could look out the wall of windows and watch the people walk around on the street below---people watching entertainment!

While we went in just to get exercise, we walked out big fans of Result.

We were uber excited to come home and read our email and find out that our coupons were really good for three visits in one week---and since tomorrow is yet another snow day...maybe we'll be heading back to Results!

A Day of Gracious Living

When Mark and I went to Kalamazoo College there was always one day in the spring that was much anticipated. It usually came toward the end of the quarter, week 7 or 8, when everyone just needed a break from the work and the looming finals week.

It was called the Day of Gracious Living.

It started with the Chapel bells ringing at 8 am. It meant that there was no classes for the day. Organizers tried to have it on a beautiful spring day. It was a day to just be thankful for the day and enjoy life. The Quad was littered with blankets, students basking in the sun or playing a round (or many rounds) of frisbee golf. Some of us headed to South Haven and the beach (even if it was too cold to swim) or to the Indiana Dunes.

Today, we had a day of Gracious Living.

Granted, it's not very balmy out, but for the first time in a long time we got a snow day! By "we" I mean DCPS. This wasn't the case until 8:30 last night....the federal government had closed, along with 350+ other locations in the Metro Area (including all other area school districts), but DCPS was only operating on a 2 hour delay.

We found this quite incredible since much of the city hasn't been unearthed yet. The public buses weren't running as of last night (and I don't think they're running yet today). The subway is still not running above ground. The public buses and the subway are two of the main ways a lot of students get to school.

So we were incredibly relieved when we saw that school was canceled today. And because I did all my prep work this weekend in anticipation of going to school today I really feel like I've had a day of gracious living.

Mark and I slept in and around 10:30 chose to go for a walk to see how the rest of the neighborhood was looking.

We armed Soba with his paw protection that Jon gave us at Christmas. It works so well!

Then we headed out to see what was out there!

From the end of our driveway it looked like a mixed bag. To the left we had a shoveled path to Evarts.

At the end of the driveway was patch of thick ice from where yesterday's melted and shoveled snow had pooled and refroze over night.

And to the right, toward Douglas, was nothing but snow with some footprints from other who had braved the snow before us.

We chose to head toward Douglas.

This is North Capitol---if you look in the center of the picture, near the horizon you can see the US Capitol. It's a beautiful and clear day here.

About 3 blocks into our walk Soba refused to move and took turns lifting his paws and looking at us pathetically. Mark picked him and cleaned out the snow that had collected between his toes. He carried him for the rest o the block and then put him down...all better!