My Favorite Time of Year, My Former Life, and Busted!
This is my favorite time of year. I love the freshness of spring as perennials push up from hiding underground and trees begin to leaf out and come to life. Birds chatter like no other time of year as their songs break the morning quiet. I try as best I can to live in this moment and take it all in; savoring it. Tammy's favorite color is the green of budding trees. I look forward to hearing her comment at some point each spring about the beauty of the color.
Tammy and I spent a good part of last weekend shopping for flowers for our gardens and getting them in the ground. It's nice to have the work mostly done because it's a rather big job—my aching muscles and rough raw hands are reminders. We still have some flower pots to fill before we're done—preferably filled with something less tasty than begonias for the many deer that see them as a bowlful of greens to feast on.
Steve and I have been getting out golfing once each week now that the courses are all up and running. As part of my physical therapy to help improve my bone health in my hips and lower back, I'm carrying my clubs rather than pushing them on a cart. This idea was a suggestion from my chiropractor. I could sense the next day after first carrying them that I had stressed the bones I was hoping to. I was feeling a little sore but in a good way. I didn't notice any lingering soreness the following week after again carrying my clubs. My bag and clubs weigh 23 pounds (10.5 kg). It appears the Sun Mountain golf cart I purchased last year is going to be sitting idle for the foreseeable future. I was bringing it along with me to the course in case I wanted to use it after 9 holes but I see no reason to keep doing that.
Switching gears.
A draft summary of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling was leaked to the media a couple weeks ago that outlines the court's intention to roll back abortion rights and leave it up to individual states to determine the legality of abortions. Twenty-two states are chomping-at-the-bit to enact new laws to severely restrict abortions, with some states even eliminating exceptions for rape and incest.
I see the abortion issue through different eyes than I once did. There are so many considerations that I never stopped to ponder before when I was so certain that it was wrong and that there was nothing else to discuss about it. For women of means, they'll still be able to travel to states where they can have the procedure done. For too many though, that won't be an option. Will states banning abortion be there to help provide for unplanned newborns when their mothers may be unable to? What about childcare for working mothers who are on the brink of poverty or are already in it? 1 in 3 children in Mississippi lives in poverty. That's an abysmal statistic, yet it's Mississippi that is leading the charge to ban abortions.
Imagine if it was men who gave birth and had to interrupt their careers to care for newborns. This wouldn't even be an issue.
Our 5:30 Tuesday night gravel rides out of Northfield have been growing in popularity lately with turnouts the last two weeks of 30+ riders. That's a good size group! The 5:30 group doesn't have quite the intensity of the 6:00 group that I typically ride with but I felt it was a good compromise if I wanted to continue to ride with other cyclists (given my recent osteoporosis diagnosis and my concerns about crashing). There are risks no matter the speed when you're riding in a group but I can afford to go into sketchy corners or downhills at a more controlled speed and have no problem catching back on with the group should I need to slow out of caution. That's what I tell myself, anyway. I took a pass on tonight's ride due to a forecast calling for rain and opted for a solo ride earlier today.
That's all I've got.
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