cardboard

No run yesterday. I was strangely wiped and had a lot to do especially in the kitchen because a new fridge was being delivered and there were umpteen boxes in the way and I thought that the movers would pick up the empty boxes at 8:30ish so I was rushing, but they didn't arrive until 4:00 or so after I phoned the company several times, but it all worked out and, apart from book boxes and about a dozen other random clothes/shoes/things boxes which probably don't have much or any packing paper in them, all of the boxes and paper are gone. The last two days have been a gigantic run-on sentence like that. Most of the rooms still are a mess; I worked mainly on the kitchen but that's functional and almost everything has a place now.

And then, since it was Valentine's Day and our anniversary, we had a nice dinner at home--grilled steaks. Very tasty. My husband bought chocolates and I dug out a bottle of cranberry liqueur and now I'm laughing at the trouble I've had sleeping--I've even taken Tylenol PM (with "sleep aid" a couple of nights to little effect--and the one night I stay up until midnight sipping liqueur, eating bonbons, and reading a real book (been a while, they're still all packed up except for the one I grabbed at random and it's been the most gripping tale of Arctic exploration and tragedy), I manage to drop into the deepest and most satisfying slumber without any problems. I guess having all of our stuff back was the ticket. I mourn the loss of my previous nomadic minimalist existence, but I welcome improved sleep.

I think having the sounds dampened in this house helped too. Sound travels strangely in here and we've been intentionally and inadvertently pranking each other, and the dog, because sometimes we sound like we're upstairs and we're not, or vice versa--there's also a small servant staircase going up from the kitchen which adds to the fun--but meanwhile, the house makes old house noises and sometimes it sounds like someone is walking on the front porch when there's nobody, or it sounds like a door is being opened--well, most of the time, I didn't even attribute a sound to anything or think much beyond "?" The furnace clicks pretty noisily when it turns on, and all the wood is cracking as it shrinks and expands, and there are a few other noises that I haven't figured out yet. Fortunately, this is a tight, well-maintained house, unlike the last one, and its ecosystem is more barren. There is nothing digging in the roof or attic walls, there are no bats in the basement (the foundation was that porous!), there are no apparent mice. EDIT: there are woodpeckers. Anyway, now that we've put a few rugs down and have our furniture in, the sounds are muffled except for the bells. There was an old grandfather clock by the front door. I think those clocks are creepy and I don't like having the hour chimed anyway, so there was no question of asking the landlord to leave it here. The clock was taken away but I kept hearing the bells. Turns out that it's the Anglican church behind us and the grandfather clock wasn't even running according to my husband. Oh, well!

Anyway, I wasn't sure if I'd run this morning; one of the repairmen is returning sometime this morning and I stayed up late, etc, etc, but at six thirty this morning I woke up to the sound of my name. It sounded like my husband's voice, but he was fast asleep. I realized that it was the tail end of a forgotten dream, but I was up, so I grabbed the very reluctant dog and jogged around for about 3.3 miles. I tried to ease into the run slowly this time. The hills are beating me up anyway, but it doesn't help that I tend to push on hills to get them over with, which works ok at home when it's usually a couple of bridges at most, but not here where it's hill after hill and I don't know how many are ahead of me. I started at what seemed like a ridiculously easy effort--the hills still caught up with me eventually, but I had at least 15 minutes of a mostly easy run. I tried running down another different street (we started late, so I went South-North) and I really liked this one. Very few dogs barked on this route: mainly a dog in an auto shop, and a dog being walked.

Speaking of hills, there is one especially tall one which I have seen a few times but haven't attempted. Probably if I hit it umpteen times, all the other hills will shrink, but I have to lift morale a bit before that attempt. (and concoct another excuse or two). Meanwhile, I unpacked my dumbbells and so forth and though other stuff is still in the way, there was enough room to do some squats and pushups. I felt pretty feeble.

Procrastination! I'm sitting on a carpet with several empty knapsacks, a couple of boxes of army stuff, a duvet, and a pile of random objects including an Xbox, a maglite, a bunch of letters, umpteen power cords, and there are about twenty boxes of books against the wall, and this is just one room of several....so I will get an additional workout today. Starting NOW.