Moonset over the solar farm.

Moonset over the solar farm.

I’ve had a draft post that was originally called my “fall workout plan,” and then called my “late fall workout plan,” but that I never posted because while I was sick I couldn’t work out at all, beyond walking the dog. I will post it. Perhaps not until it makes more sense to post a “winter workout plan.”

In the meantime though, I am, finally, back to doing workouts, and thought I might talk about what I’m doing, because my workout plan is to do workouts very similar to what I’ve been doing over the past week or so.
Ashley and Moose Tracks tussling in the dog park.
Moose Tracks is still a puppy, and kinda bitey, but Ashley did very well at simultaneously tolerating his behavior and teaching him how to do better. #dogsofmastodon

My whole adult life I’ve suffered from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Years ago I got a light-therapy light, and found that I used it quite reflexively: It would pretty much stay off all summer and early fall, then one day in mid-October or so I’d turn it on without even thinking about it. Only later would I realize, “Oh, yeah. I needed that.”
This year I didn’t have the urge to turn the light on until yesterday, which is several weeks later than typical in recent years.
This morning, while out walking the dog, I realized why it was so much later: I’m out walking the dog close to sunrise nearly ever day.
And, as everyone knows (if they think about it), the best light-therapy light is the sun.

Highly recommended: Get outdoors while the sun is still low in the sky. Get yourself some light, along with some vitamin N (nature), and some outdorphins.,\
Ashley lay down on the floor in the bedroom, so I sat down on the floor next to her. She started woofing at me, so I woofed back at her.
She seemed non-plussed. #dogsofmastodon

Google offered several filters to make this sky more dramatic or colorful, but I decided that I liked it best with no filter. Dawn sky over the prairie next to Winfield Village.

Back at the end of September I came down with West Nile Fever, which made me pretty sick for a long time. The only time in my life before I was that sick for that long was when I had Mononucleosis when I was a freshman in college. That time I was sick for most of the term, and it took several weeks of the Christmas vacation to fully recover.
With West Nile it took about three weeks to recover from the acute phase of the illness. That is, I had a fever constantly for three weeks. Then it took another three weeks to get my energy levels back. For that period I could walk the dog, fix breakfast, and then do one thing, after which I needed to go back to bed and take a nap.

As of a couple of days ago, I think I’m back to full health. I’ve been doing workouts—not as frequently as I’d like, but often enough that I’ve been able to start pushing the weights up again, although not up to what I doing before I was sick. I’ve been for a couple of runs, both of which were harder and slower than I’d like, but were okay—I didn’t feel like I was sick, just like I hadn’t been running enough the past few weeks.
On Sunday I got a Covid booster, so I felt slightly less energetic Monday, but that has already passed.
After too many weeks, I finally feel back to normal!
Dum mi atendas la aliajn membrojn de la grupo, mi trinkas bieron “U of IPA.”

Just because I felt like it, I made a thermosy french press of coffee, so Jackie and I could have 4th coffee this morning.

If I live to eleventy-one (like Bilbo), Jackie and I will have been married 78 years. #jimmycarter #rosalynncarter
