Lesson 209: Stuck in Colder Weather

Happy weekend, Readers!

We got a break in the weather here at The Lamp Post.  I'll tell you about what us northerners do when we get a break from the snow and cold.

It's almost too warm this morning to wear my new hat as I head outside to workout.  No, it's not a pink Elmer Fudd hat.  It's a Stormy Kromer cap and it's awesome.  Here's there little advertising blurb from the company:

The hats are made in Michigan.  The hat factory is attached to the retail store and they offer tours to customers.  Eloise just added the Stormy Kromer Hat Factory in Ironwood, Michigan to The List of Places I Need to Visit.

The weather usually makes the front page news in Erie a few times each season.  

Erie had a nice amount of snow last week,

but the January thaw came this week and it's melting away.

It will be back, without a doubt, Sam.

You'll be able to make another snowman.

I promise.

In honor of the 51 degree temperature I'm about to go out into this morning, I picked myself up a six pack of this last night.

It's no Rolling Rock, but it was good!  The cap is on its way to your collection soon, Mikey.

One of my resolutions this year was to continue my workouts outdoors despite the weather.  This fall I learned all about the benefits of outdoor exercise through the Resolution Program with Dr. Krauza.  It's hard to go back to the treadmill after spending three days a week in all kinds of weather with Doc and Sean.  So that is what we are doing this weekend.  Getting outside a bit and letting our bodies breathe.

Natalie listened.

She loves to be outside.  This is Natalie enjoying the hot tub last week.

She's had that toy boat since she's been a baby.  I can't ever see her giving it up.

These two buffoons I call my dogs will enjoy a break in the weather.

The black lab is Josie, named after Joe Paterno.  The yellow lab is Sadie. She's a stray who has had five different homes in our area before setting up a permanent settlement on the Lamp Post compound.  Grandma and Grandpa next door now hold the vet records, so we can call her "ours."  She's a free spirit of a dog and really belongs to everyone.  Legend has it that Sadie showed up a the home of one of our neighbors several years ago, dirty and looking for a meal.  She was about a year or two old at the time and had a black number 8 spray painted on her side.  That is going to show up in one of my books someday.  It's just too good of a mystery not to wonder about.

Ellen and Sam will help me take them for a run this weekend.

Don't say we don't care about New Jersey here at the Lamp Post.  I bought a t-shirt to help with the rebuilding of its shoreline.  Fix up your boardwalk, New Jersey because I want a second crack at a vacation there.  The last time I visited the state, I was trapped in a large beach crowd with an autistic child, a painfully shy elementary schooler,  a 30 pound 18 month old who refused to walk, and a hubby in a leg cast.  It was far from a relaxing trip.  Since then I've deemed New Jersey the dumbest state in the nation because of the bad vacation and the fact that Snooki lives there.

Beach vacations are a long way off for Eloise though.  Meanwhile I'm going to be stuck colder weather here at the Lamp Post.

Rather than complain about something I can't change like the weather; I'll focus on what I can change-- my thinking.  I will remind myself that I enjoy the change of seasons.  The winter sure does make for some pretty skies.

You can't truly enjoy the warmth of a nice day until you've been through a season's worth of cold ones.

Enjoy some of my winter pictures set to the tune Colder Weather by the Zac Brown Band.  The lesson for today is don't get stuck in colder weather, as my burly favorite Zac sings.  Get unstuck.  The best way to do that is to change your thinking and you and only you have the power to do that.

Eloise