Winter Wanderings

Did you make a New Year resolution?

I confess I’m not very good at keeping resolutions. I severely lack in stick-to-itiveness with long-term goals. Achieving a short-term goal, I reason within myself, and practicing it over and over again just might become a long-term habit.

Well, that’s my theory anyway, and the premise for my decision about creating monthly goals in five areas of my life: Spiritual, Exercise, Ministry, Healthy Eating, and Personal Habits.

I’ve decided to share one of my exercise goals for January with you, my gardening friends at Six on Saturday. For most of my year, I count gardening as my main form of exercise. Since there isn’t a whole lot to do in my Wisconsin garden, I created this exercise goal for the winter month of January, and will revisit it in February to see if it needs tweaking. Here it is:

Baby steps toward jogging again by spring: Time spent outdoors DAILY, even if it’s just a walk around the block or a trek to fill the birdfeeders. On warmer days, try to make a loop around the park.

Cindie’s exercise goal for January 2021

I’m only nine days in on this goal, but am happy to say that I’ve been able to stick to it so far. I’ve taken a few photos of my daily treks and will share these in lieu of too many shots of my snow-covered garden.

The entrance to a lovely park with paved walkways (mostly free of snow and ice) is within a few steps of my front-door. The park is truly a “happy place” for me. There is so much to see and enjoy if I walk there with my eyes and heart open.

God bless the person who decided we all needed a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree to enjoy. I loved spying this red ornament someone had placed in a young pine tree.

My hubby and I like to create birdhouses (he builds and I paint). We added a second birdhouse to our little avian neighborhood, which you can see in the photo on the right (the other birdhouse is its backdoor neighbor). The volunteer tree we cut down is trying its darndest to keep growing–which creates a leafy cover for the birds, which I know makes them happy.

A tree stump in my front yard boasts this interesting snow-dusted fungi.

A garden neighboring the park entrance has a few of these bushes. I’m not an expert at identifying trees and bushes, but this one is easy.

It’s a burning bush (Euonymus alatus), easily identified by its unique, deeply furrowed branches. It boasts stunning red foliage in the fall, reminding many of the biblical account of Moses and the burning bush. Alas, this beautiful bush is also on our state’s list of invasive and restricted plants. We had several planted in our backyard at one time, but none of them have survived. We planted some lilacs in their place.

As I look forward to the heavenly aroma of those lilacs of mine blooming in Spring, I will try to keep you posted on my winter wanderings.