Walking in a not-so-wintery wonderland

Despite my oft-proclaimed aversion to physical exertion, I walked all the way into downtown this morning. It took me an hour and 25 minutes. Did I mention that we live at the northern end of the north-easternmost suburb of our town? Fortunately, it's downhill for the first 30 minutes since the suburb lies along a steep valley.

Lovely husband (L.H.) can make the same trip in about 30 minutes on his bike (which he does every day), so I was actually kind of proud that it only took me 3 times as long. Not too bad, considering he's got 10 inches in height and 70 pounds of muscle more than I do.

The reason for this trek was to look into plane tickets to Texas at xmas. The woman at STA was very helpful and friendly, but she couldn't get us any cheaper fares for the dates we wanted than we had already found on Travelocity. So I bring this info home to L.H., and we decide to try Travelocity again. And the prices had gone up $20 each since yesterday. Sigh. It wasn't a deal-breaker, though, and we now have tickets, with about $7 to spare in our savings. Well, that's what it was there for.

As much as I'd like to jabber away about my walk, and writing, and my plants, I'm going to postpone that until tomorrow (isn't that the best cliff-hanger you've heard? Tune in tomorrow!). L.H. and darling daughter (D.D.) are off at an after-school activity, and I need to have dinner on the table when they get home so I can then rush off to the first parent meeting of the school year. L.H. went to all of them last year, so he says I should take a turn. Fair's fair, I suppose.

Weather-bitching level: 0.5
It's been a lovely day, but chilly. D.D. actually wanted her scarf on the way to school this morning, and L.H. suggested we turn on the heater tonight. This from the man who has to be drugged, bound, and threatened before he'll consider putting a coat on, even if it's snowing outside. Considering that it took most of the day for the thermostat to register 20C (68F), I personally think it's time.

We have a fantastic tile oven, but no wood, and no car for hauling wood, so we're going to have to get creative on this one. Our landlord insists that we only use cured 3-year-old wood. Psh! Our friends down the street were using the leftover lumber from a house that was torn down so they could build their new house on the site. 3-year-old wood. Ha!