Areas of Unrest

27 November 2005 - Work, Walks, Wool

Work continues to be pretty insane. I did get some good visibility with the high muckety mucks this week, which is good, but stressful. When you get work-related calls at home at 10:15 at night, that's a bit beyond the call of duty. By the way, I also went in for part of the day on Friday, mostly because I want to use my time off for other things. I did get through clearing out some old email, but I'm not nearly as far along the path to organizational nirvana as I'd hoped to be.

Things warmed up enough on Thanksgiving day that I was able to get out for a walk. I did the year round Volkmarch in Vienna - just a few miles from home. Much of the walk was along a stretch of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, which is always enjoyable. Since I'm a compulsive reader of historical signs, I even learned that it was in what's now downtown Vienna that the first tactical use of the railroad was made in the Civil War. Essentially, a South Carolina brigade ambushed a Union train there in 1861. At any rate, one of the things I'm thankful for is living somewhere with so many nice trails to walk.

Friday was too bloody cold to be outside more than necessary, so I was concerned about the weekend. Fortunately, it warmed up quite a bit, so I did the Old Town Alexandria Volksmarch today. The hike up to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial is a bit of an effort (lots of steps), but the view is worth it. And Old Town is always pleasant to wander around. More to the point, I've now filled up the Civil War walk book, which is one of the reasons I've been so dedicated about walking the past several weeks.

Even though it didn't last, the cold weather did get me somewhat reenergized about knitting. I've been working on this one bloody sweater forever, mostly because following a graphed design takes just enough concentration that I can't do it while doing most other things. I could listen to storytelling tapes or to music, I suppose. I've just got to buckle down and work on it, since I want to get it done by the end of the year.

And then I can work on my 3786 other projects ...