I managed to get out of bed, but it was still dark out. I really don't like getting up before the sun. I'm trying to do better so I can do my SAVERS work, but early rising is not natural for me. Miracle Morning gives some ideas of how to stay out of bed when those sheets and comforters are begging you to slip back underneath their warmth. Yesterday, or more like last night we had freezing rain. No one said anything about it lasting into today, but it did.
I left for work at 7:00 am, and it was still gray and dreary. If you live near the Rockies, at least on the eastern side of them, dreary is not how you would normally describe the sky. Dreary happens in places like Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio - places further north and near large bodies of water. That was how it was today.
I'm not sure if I've actually said it, but I am grateful for my roommate who has made sure I have a working garage door. Funny, all it took was some WD40. I think WD40 and duct tape can fix a whole lot of things!
So, I opened the garage, got in my car and at 7:00 am like a whole lot of other people in this city, I backed out of my driveway and headed off to work. I got to the eastern corner of our street without a hitch. When I got out onto Buckley, the traffic seemed okay. That was until I was almost at the next major intersection. I could see flashing lights ahead, so I made a right turn into a neighborhood, got through that area and headed onto another major road. I only got about a mile before that one started backing up.
I turned on the radio.
In retrospect I should have turned the radio on much sooner. There was an 18 car chain reaction accident between the two major streets I had avoided. Cars were having difficulty managing the layer of ice and light freezing rain that had fallen earlier. People on the road I was on were driving carefully and slowly but they were moving.
As I headed on to Parker Rd, I learned that the 18 car accident was just north of where I was. Since I was traveling south the accident had happened behind me. So glad I know some of the back streets in these neighborhoods. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work.
The day stayed pretty gray. We were teased by a little sunlight in the early afternoon. Just enough to give us hope that the drive home would be better.
It was, but not because of the sunshine. The ice was gone. De-icing trucks had made the rounds a couple times, and the brief sunlight had managed to melt what the trucks hadn't.
It's supposed to be 60 tomorrow. That's what life in the winter is like here. Wait ten minutes and it's sure to change to something else.
I stepped out of my comfort zone, lived a little dangerously on the ice. Then I stopped at the grocery store and purchased some items for dinner. Another tiny step in Dangerous Living.
I tried a new recipe tonight.
Overall, I'm better off than I was a year ago.
I'm writing three pages every day, sometimes more. Sometimes it's drivel, but it is still sitting down at the keyboard and getting something down and that is so much forward progress I can barely stand it. No, seriously, I'm not being sarcastic!
Where I once was having severe intestinal issues three - five times a week, the incidents have dropped to a couple times a month, and some months not at all. My broken tailbone healed a little faster than anticipated and that's a huge improvement from over a year ago. In a couple weeks it will be the "anniversary" of when I started having issues with my left foot. I've gotten through winter with a cast and now I'm in a boot and I have an answer to the foot situation.
Again, improvement over the past. I'm upping my workout routine from twice a week to three times a week. That will also yield great future results. The thing is, a year ago I had zero muscle strength. I've gone from wanting to give up to stubbornly finding a way to move my body.
Yes, I am better off right now that I where I was at a year ago.
All I know is that I'm still trying to look at the bright, half-full side of life and today was one day closer to the weekend. The weather is supposed to be the best it's been all week and I think I may actually be taking the train downtown and experiencing that on a beautiful non-crowded day.