(85) Dog Gone Near Perfect or Hooray for Sun!

Sun glorious Sun! It's nearly perfect out today. Sunshine and a small breeze, with temperatures in the 70's. Finally. After work I bought a new pair of shoes. This is something I have been contemplating for a few months. These are no ordinary shoes. These shoes are structurally different from other tennis shoes and have a deeper soul so that they rock when you walk in them. I have tried them on a few times and they feel great when I am just standing in them but its hard to tell how they will feel when I am walking in them. When i talk to other people who have purchased them they get great reviews, for comfort and for standing long periods of time. I am a pounder. I pound my heels hard when I walk and so the idea of a shoe that propels my stance forward is appealing. I also like the fact that there is a lot of deep cushioning in the arch.This really feels good in my high arches. So as soon as I got home, and ate lunch, I took Beeks for a walk in my new shoes. They made me feel taller, and I liked how they rolled when i walked. They seemed to be good support for my ankles. They are promoted to improve your calves and rear while walking but I didn't notice any pulling or exercising of those muscles. I did notice that my toes felt different and I know that I need to use them for a number of times before the jury is in, but certainly I could tell that my heels didn't pound the ground when i walked so this is a good improvement. Too bad they were so expensive.

I am so excited... Tomorrow starts the community garage sales here in town. I love going to these sales. Having a large number of sales at one time is so fun. Here is how it works in this town although other towns do it much differently. First the local town newspaper publishes the addresses and the short content of the sales along with a map of town. We get this information the day before the three day sales begin. When I get the map and info, I organize the path I want to take based upon the individual garage sale days and times. So for tomorrow, Thursday, I wrote down all of the sales that will be open in the AM, then I wrote down all of the sales that open in the late afternoon. Here they like to start on Thursday late afternoon, I suppose so that people can get off work or pick their children up from school first. The largest number of sales seem to be on Friday, with the fewest on Saturday. The trick is to plot the days, times, and locations so that I won't spend so much time driving all around town back and forth for sales that won't open until later or on a different day. This year I have convinced a friend to go with me. We are meeting for breakfast early and planning our day. I think I will only be going on Thursday since I will be working on Friday and then by Saturday most all of the good stuff has been picked over. One year I took my oldest son with me and we had a blast. He said he really got to know the area since he was "my map guy". Last year I had my mom come and we did all three days of sales. We were exhausted every night but did that stop us from going the next day? NOooooooo! We had so much fun and found lots of incredible treasures. Notice I haven't mentioned how much Brad likes to go with me? The whole thing makes him crazy and it is a good thing that the majority of the three days are during his work hours. Turns our this year two homeowner associations in Champaign are having their community garage sales on Saturday. Won't Brad be excited when he hears what we are going to be doing? Just kidding Brad!

From the Family...
Our oldest son left today for China. He is going with his master's degree advisor and a group of undergraduates for two months. Ash has gone to China about 5 times and he really knows his way around the massive country. He is doing his master's research on dinosaurs that he identified and categorized in one of their museums. He will remain in China for a while after the group returns to continue his research. Makes a mother proud. When I get his blog information I will pass it on. He is always an interesting read.
Tomorrow is a very special day in our family. It's Nana's Birthday. I will be sending her lots of birthday wishes tomorrow. I will also be wishing that she could be with us while we cruise the community sales.