Life Down Under

My beloved mount, I bid thee farewell....

The season in which I enjoyed the luxury of going up the mount 2-3 times a week has come to a definite end. Granted, at the time, I never would have considered going up the mount to be a luxury....it was more of a (sometimes) enjoyable chore. But it's funny how rosy life looks in hindsight. (Hmm. Let's pause for a moment to allow that statement to sink in. Next time I am tempted to complain about how hard life is now, it may do good to remember that in a few years ~ or months~ from now, I may look back on this season and realize just how easy and glorious it was 'way back then').

Anyways, back to my original point. With gas nearing the $2/litre mark, spending at least $10 round trip to go to the mount, multiplied by a few times a week, is not exactly fitting in the budget any longer (for my American readers who may be a bit rusty on your english-metric conversions, there are approx. 4 litres in a gallon. Now do the math......). For about a week, I was wondering if my well-established exercise routine had also come to a grinding halt. It was at that point that I made a surprising discovery. I actually really missed working out. I felt lazy and sluggish without it. I may even go so far as to say that my psyche and self-esteem were affected slightly. So, I decided that something was better than nothing, and it would do me well to go for a 30-minute jog around our neighborhood a few times a week. It's certainly not half as good of a workout as ascending the mount (and not even near as mentally appealing as the mount), but it still keeps me in the routine of excercise. And, as long as we're on the topic of appreciating what we actually do have instead of moaning about what we don't, I really couldn't ask for a better neighborhood to run in. It's beautiful, safe, has tons of cute houses, and even a hill or two to remind me of the mount.