Waiting for the end (of Daylight Savings Time)

Situating a house in a dip between two mountains makes listening to the radio almost impossible. Our alarm clock gets two stations - one is NPR (Vermont's version, not the local station that transmits from two towns away) and the music on the other one instantly starts my head pounding. While I like NPR, I don't like to start my day with bad news, so I use the "nature sounds" option on the clock for my alarm. 

At this time of year, when the simulated birds start chirping and I open my eyes to the pitch blackness outside my window, I curse the extension of daylight savings time. Any real birds out there would still be curled up in a tree, heads tucked under their wings. Already an early riser, this week I've been up extra  early to allow time for the Insanity workouts in addition to my normal morning routine. I want some light.

I'm only on Day 3 of the program, but I've already noticed increased energy during the day. I've also been enjoying uninterrupted sleep until about 4:30 am, when I find myself wide awake and ready to get up - if I could see anything.

There are no streetlights here to light up the wee hours. There is very little traffic. When I lay awake in the middle of the night, as happens often, it is my mind's fault. It seems that the time between midnight and dawn is self-examination time, time to review failures, things I let slide, bank balances and all the other things that trigger stress. 

Now it seems that the cure for my nightly contemplations is Insanity. I've always suspected as much.

I'd still like my hour back.

* * * * * *

I almost made it through day 2's workout, leaving out only the last set. There's quite a bit of jumping and my calves are very sore, which I discovered in downward facing dog when I tried to reach my heels down. Since it's my day off from teaching we could put our workout off until 7:00 am, after I post this. Wish me luck.

A Breath of Fresh Air

The alarm went off at 6:30 am and I opened my eyes to discover......it was light out! I love standard time. I wish daylight savings time would go away forever, but I'm just happy it's over for a few months. Since it was Sunday, I didn't have to hop out of bed and I got to watch the sunlight stream in the window for awhile before I finally got up for my run.

I ran 4 miles this morning under blue skies.



At noon, I persuaded my daughter to get out of bed (she was at the midnight showing of Zombieland at the Strand Theater for Halloween) and got everyone into their hiking boots. We hiked the Blue Hill Trail in the Pharaoh Wilderness for a couple of hours. It was a perfect day for hiking. Bright light spilled down through the trees. The air had a nip to it, but it wasn't cold. Everything looked brilliant!


We found a newt on a rock by a stream and some cool fungus. I kept my youngest amused looking for all the colors in the rainbow. He's been carrying around my husband's old camera and he took pictures of the colored things we found.

Here's a red leaf...



and some orange fungus...


and a blue trail marker.


















He lost interest after blue, but stayed out of trouble anyway.

My daughter hikes much faster than the rest of us, then she has to wait for the rest of us to catch up. I'm trying to convince her to try trail running.

Days like today remind me of why we came to live in the Adirondacks. Days like today also tire me out, especially because it's 9:30 pm, but my body remembers that last night it was 10:30. It also remembers that my daughter needed a ride home at 1:45 am, and this body didn't sleep until noon. Fresh air kept me going all day. Hopefully it will help me sleep all night.