Sunday Salon, March 9

Crocuses, our first signs of spring.

Weather...we call it sunbreaks. In other words, raining with a few minutes of sunshine here and there. Yesterday it absolutely poured. It was the type of weather that gives the Pacific Northwest a bad name, deservedly so. We've had over 5 inches of rain in the first eight days of March.

Yesterday...we attended the Lenten Prayer concert at Seattle University. Our daughter is a senior this year. Every concert this year brings us closer to the last one. I remember feeling this way her senior year in high school attending all her last concerts. It is a very bittersweet feeling. We want our daughter to launch but yet we have a hard time letting go of these precious times. Can anyone relate?

Musical selection of the week: This was one of the favorite songs that Carly's choir sang last night, though this is not her choir. As in past weeks, cue the music and have a listen as you read the rest of this blog post. Enjoy. (Look I found a YouTube of this song, Ave Virgo Glorisa by Richard Dering (1580-1630)
with the music! Sing along!)

Spring: It has rained so much lately it hard to pay attention to other signs of Spring. I was shocked the other day to see crocuses (see above) while walking the dog. Then today I noticed that the street trees (flowering plums) are ready to burst forth with flowers any day.

Ash Wednesday service this past Wednesday was the beginning of Lent or the six weeks leading up to Easter. This year I am attempting to be more mindful of God in my life everyday. Our church hosts a very short church service following a simple soup supper. The service concludes with our pastor placing a small cross on our foreheads from the ashes of the palms from last year's Palm Sunday. This is a time of fasting and prayers.

52,400 Steps...as I said last week, I purchased a FitBit high tech pedometer last week. Every single day I attempted to reach the goal of 10,000 steps. I didn't make it one single day. For the week I made 52,400 steps which makes my average daily steps at around 7300. I am obviously more sedentary then I want to admit because those 7300 steps reflect me really trying to add exercise and steps to my life. My goal for this week is to average 8000 steps/day.

Health tip of the week: get more sleep! Everywhere I turn I am getting messages similar to this one that I found on WebMD. Now I have another new goal: to turn off the TV by 9:00 so that I am in bed by 9:30. This will be tough for me as I am truly a night owl.

      It was in the Stanford study, however, that the more provocative meaning of the [relationship to sleep and these hormones] leptin-ghrelin effect came to light. In this research -- a joint project between Stanford and the University of Wisconsin -- about 1,000 volunteers reported the number of hours they slept each night. Doctors then measured their levels of ghrelin and leptin, as well as charted their weight.
      The result: Those who slept less than eight hours a night not only had lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, but they also had a higher level of body fat. What's more, that level of body fat seemed to correlate with their sleep patterns. Specifically, those who slept the fewest hours per night weighed the most. -WebMD

Books read this week: None. I am in the middle of three books and didn't make much progress on any of them. I was too busy trying to figure out how to walk 10,000 steps to do anything else. Ha!

Currently reading:

• Wonder by R.J. Palaceo
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen...look for my first 50 page check-in on my read-a-long later today.
• Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian