This recent snow from the "bomb cyclone" or whatever cute name we're supposed to call it calls to mind the trip McCrae and I made to Bullhead Mountain a few weeks ago. It had snowed a few days before we drove up to a small town outside Boone to stay at a mountain cabin owned by McCrae's uncle and aunt, and in the morning when we pulled on our warmest hats and coats the drifts lay deep in the mountain shadows.
Surprise! Ha, I know I just posted goals for 2018, but an important aspect of long-term goals is breaking them down into short-term goals, so I apologize in advance for the back-to-back goals posts. Just remember - these redundant posts just come once a year, so you don't have to put up with this redundancy again until 2019! (Which will be here before we know it, ha!) But before we jump right into the monthly goals, my reader survey is up! It's the first time I've ever done a reader survey, so I'm pretty excited to hear feedback from you all. You can fill it out using the link https://goo.gl/forms/l0dSSHW8PY7N4ec53 or fill it out directly on the blog post. Thanks in advance!
Happy New Year! This is the third year now I've set new year's resolutions on the blog, and while it's a little silly it's nice to have something publicly posted to hold me accountable and to see how my goals have changed over the years. So first let's look at how I did for 2017 and then we'll dive into goals for 2018!
So apparently it's kinda a thing to do a round-up post at the end of the year with your most popular posts. I don't know if it's humble-bragging or if it's to check the pulse of the blog and go, "wait a second...you all liked THESE posts?! Dang it, I'm in the wrong niche" or what, but it sounds fun so let's do this! Except I'm picky, so I'm going to first give you MY top favorite posts of 2017, and then we'll poll the audience and see how we do. Kinda like "The Newlyweds Game" but as blogger vs. audience! Who's ready for some round-ups?!
I was going through the backlog of hikes I planned on posting on the blog, and I was shocked to discover that I did this Durant Nature Preserve hike in September! I am seriously that behind on posts, and I'm also amazed at how quickly this fall has disappeared.I met my dad early one morning in September for a Sunday stroll in Durant Nature Preserve in north Raleigh. I'd seen signs for it off Capital Boulevard every time I went to to the WRAL soccer park complex, and finally curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check it out.
Well, I have officially blown my running streak. The goal was to run a mile every day from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, but something about the Holiday Mile did me in. The concept is simple: 1 mile, 4 cookies, 4 glasses of milk. You start the race by gobbling down a glass of milk and a cookie, and then you run a quarter mile. Stop, eat a cook and drink a glass of milk, run a quarter mile, repeat until the mile is done. The holiday mile will either make you or break you...and it definitely broke me!
Okay, so that was a more accurate description of my hike this weekend rather than my run, but it's pretty close. This weekend McCrae and I escaped to his aunt and uncle's mountain cabin outside Sparta, NC. We had an...adventurous...time getting up to the cabin via the Blue Ridge Parkway (which was closed) and private roads (which were gated and locked) and icy vertical drives (which apparently popped one of our tires), but we made it and we spent 4 days in the cabin together and didn't want to kill each other (#romancegoals) Of course, mountain cabin vacation or not I had a running streak to maintain! So I did an out-and-back down the private gravel road to the cabin.
Poor Ryder. My poor fluffy-butt-pupperkins has the hard job of being a model when I want to play with the camera and do silly things. Like put plaid reindeer antlers on the dog and drape him in holiday lights. People always say I have a photogenic dog but it's because I bribe him with lots and lots of treats. Treats and running and hiking and snuggles. Wait, no, he doesn't like snuggles, even though I keep telling him you can't spell "SMOTHER" without "MOTHER." He said he still doesn't believe me, but he'll smile for the camera if I give him more Greenies.
