Yikes!

I can't believe I haven't posted since Tuesday of last week! I was sure I had posted just a day or two ago. However, just ask El Esposo, one of my most common things is to say "I distinctly remember [insert action here]" and then discover that I have, in fact, NOT done it. I can't blame menopause, stress, or a busy life. I have been "distincly remembering" things I didn't do since I was a child. My only excuse is that I have an active and very real fantasy life, I guess!

So, what has been happening? What was in the posts that I thought I did? Who knows, my fake memory doesn't go that far! But here is today's news!

Saturday's MG class was really fun. It was anatomy and physiology of plants, which I think is very cool and haven't really visited in a scientific way since college Bio days. Cool factoid of the class: Plants in the shade aren't "reaching" for the light. Shade has lots of far red light (from the far right side of the color light wave spectrum) and that size of light waves stimulate a plant to grow tall. So, I guess it is true that they are reaching, but not because they want more light, just because that is what the far red light waves present in shade trigger them to do. Cooooooooool!

Yesterday I finally started getting those plants into the ground. Well, most of them, that is. Still left to plant are a couple of sages, the two California lilac ground covers, the three bunch grasses, and the weedy yellow plant whose name I don't remember. I am now hoping the promised rain materializes so they can get watered and get established.

My walking routine last week failed to materialize. I will blame the rain and also use the excuse that I am complying with my Seattle friend's request not to train too hard! She is walking again after her knee surgery. Yay! Without knee pain last I heard. Yay! Three miles at a time. Maybe more by now. We won't be the fastest, best trained walkers at Big Sur this year, but we will be there!!

This week, though, I am getting serious about that routine thing I talked about! Read this NPR article!

"Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health evaluated the health of more than 13,000 women who had reached the age of 70. They found that women who regularly walked at a moderate pace had much higher odds of staving off disease and aging successfully than their counterparts who didn't exert themselves beyond leisurely, easy walking."

What do they mean by more likely? Walkers were 90% more likely to "age successfully" than non-walkers. That is huge! My walking is almost doubling my chance to get old gracefully!! And if I walk faster than a stroll (which I usually do) I can increase this even higher!

What do they mean by age successfully? Live longer without such things as heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, Parkinson's disease, and pulmonary disease and with good brain function, strength and fitness for everyday tasks, and independence well into old age.

More evidence... more motivation. I turn 48 soon. I can't pretend what I do now doesn't count against me or for me the way I did in my 30s!