Weekly Mileage #252 and the Snowshoe Trip That Wasn’t

We had about 3″ of snow by 5pm Sunday and got a bit more before it stopped that evening. That meant that on Monday we had ice covered snow, but the trees got off easy, and we didn’t lose power.

I snowshoed out to the mailboxes. That road was clear, but ours was super crunchy. Jeremy took the Subaru out and broke the trail again. Plowing could have been helpful in this case, but with the layer of ice under the snow, it wouldn’t have been super effective. We really should have plowed after that first snowstorm. We’re just so used to it melting off almost immediately. Oops.

Tuesday we did online music lessons since our teacher’s dirt road neighborhood was super icy and it was safer to stay home. The boys had fun sledding and such. They got a lot of speed because of the ice.

I stayed inside and paid bills, business sales tax, etc. Lots of fun. I also checked Sunshine’s Scout camping nights. Turns out she was missing several nights, so she’s only one short of the number needed to be eligible for OA, and she’s either got enough for her camping merit badge or is one short, we just need to hear back about that from her Scoutmaster.

Karate was canceled because of the bad roads. I finally sat down and spent some time working on Pinterest pins.

Wednesday I ran some errands, had my accountability call, and worked some more on my Pinterest pins. I’m slowly getting my marketing direction in place as I make the pins, which is part of why it’s taken so long to do them in the first place.

We had planned to do a makeup karate class since we missed out on Tuesday’s class, but it was canceled again on Wednesday.

Thursday I ran some errands, including going to the post office to pick up new snowshoes for Sunshine (she outgrew her last pair). They were supposed to be delivered Wednesday, but weren’t because our gravel road is a snowy, slushy, icy mess, and I didn’t anticipate the mailman being able to deliver Thursday, either. It was a cold and rainy day, which didn’t improve the state of the snow.

Afterwards I worked some more on Pinterest stuff. It’s slow going, but I feel like once I get these initial static pins done, I’ll be in a much better position to do my story pins and promoted pins (ads), and then from there start doing Facebook ads. Building a foundation here….

Thursday was supposed to be the last day of Jeremy’s reserve contract. He’d been working to extend his contract (he only needs 6 or 7 months more to be eligible for medical retirement), but virtual drills had slowed things down. That morning I woke up and it finally occurred to me why our health insurance for January had been lower than usual (which I’d noticed when paying the bills, but didn’t know the reason for). It was only for part of the month, which meant we we’d be losing our coverage. Jeremy got on the phone with his recruiter, who promised to have the signed contract to him by the end of the day. This will allow Sunshine and I to get new IDs (hers expired almost two years ago, amid the pandemic and while I was able to replace mine in December, it was only good till Jan 20th) as well as keep our insurance in place. Which is good, since River has an orthodontist appointment next week and I have a doctor appointment in less than two weeks. Sunshine has an orthodontist appointment next week as well, but her braces are paid off, so insurance coverage, or lack thereof, isn’t an issue. Also, if the paperwork hadn’t been signed that day, he would have had to re-enlist because there would have been a break in service. We dodged a bullet there.

That evening we did some indexing during YW and we had what might be my last presidency meeting (!!).

Friday Sunshine and I attempted to do a 2 mile snowshoe hike for her snow sports merit badge. I knew our local trails park would be too icy, so we drove up to Shenandoah NP in hopes of better conditions. Skyline Drive was closed, but there’s a few parking spots near the park entrance for those hopping on the AT, which was our plan. We went about .15 miles before turning around. The trail was just too icy and we weren’t going to be able to demonstrate the skills needed for the merit badge. We drove down the other side of the mountain to check another park I’d scouted on the off chance it would be useable, but the ice layer on the snow there was so thick that I could walk on the snow (probably 8″ deep) without breaking through, and I’m not a lightweight person. So we went home and we’ll try again next time we or the mountains near us get snow. Now that Sunshine has her larger snowshoes, we can go any time. Too bad we didn’t have them earlier this week- Tuesday would have been a good day to do the hike.

During karate that evening we had a killer warmup. We alternated 30 seconds of planks with 30 seconds of bicycle kicks, 30 more seconds of planks, then 30 seconds of flutter kicks, then another round including something else (I don’t remember what, right off). We reviewed our grabs and started testing, but ran out of time before everyone had a chance to do it.

Saturday I was up early to take Sunshine to a Merit Badge University, where she’s working on two of her Eagle-required merit badges. I had thought about taking Max for a run afterwards, but ended up going back to bed. It was cold (11*) and I was super tired, despite getting close to 7 hours of sleep that night. The little bit of snowshoeing I did on top of the karate class shouldn’t have made me that tired, but maybe it did. It’s super frustrating getting tired so easily, but I have a doctor appointment soon, so hopefully we’ll be able to get to the bottom of it soon.

Despite being tired, I managed to installed two LED ceiling light panels in the basement. I’d found them at Costco, on sale, and it looked like we should be able to install them over our existing <dim> can lights. Jeremy ended up having to help; two hands just weren’t enough when it came to connecting the wires- the wires in our ceiling are short and a pain to work with. Once we figured out the first one though, the second one went super quick. The difference in lighting is amazing. They’re dimmable, and the dimmest setting is brighter than the old can lights at full. Too bright to keep on while watching a movie, but so much better for working. I don’t even need the three different lamps I’ve been using for supplemental lighting. Jeremy went to Costco on the way to pick up Sunshine and bought two more light panels to replace the other two can lights.

Church on Sunday was rather sparse in attendance as more and more people get sick. Afterwards I went to ward council, which may be my last one? The bishop has said I’ll be released soon, but didn’t give an exact date, just that it would be the end of January or beginning of February.