Habit

This morning, on NPR, someone was talking about how it was "freezing" in Washington as some military unit prepared for the inauguration, and all I could think was that "freezing" would feel plenty lovely around here. It's minus 7F now, according to the weather reading, though the campus reading shows minus 2F. That's minus 19C (thanks to the campus website for giving both).

At any rate, being a weather whuss, I find minus 2 plenty too cold to go out and play. Yes, I dug out from the snowfall, but that's necessary.

And yet, I find myself thinking that maybe it's not REALLY too cold to go out and try a little skiing today? Maybe?

It's becoming sort of a habit. And I'm very much a creature of habit.

But instead, I've got an appointment to give blood shortly, and I don't think skiing after giving blood would work really well, since I like to take it easy for the evening after giving blood. (Also, there are no calories in the cookies after blood donation. Important fact. The more you know, and all that!)

I went to give blood last week, but they turned me down for low iron. FAIL! (Life as website.) My iron was .1 below the blood donation level, perfectly within the healthy level range for women, but not in the blood donation range. And I realized, after apologizing for wasting their time, that I'd been forgetting to take my daily multivitamin (I take one for women, with extra iron), and the one time before that I was turned down for low iron, a couple years ago, I'd been taking a not extra iron multivitamin. So then I knew that the difference was the extra iron. It's weird to say, but I really felt ashamed that my iron was too low.

I usually take my multivitamin after breakfast, as I'm finishing up and about to head out the door to work, but on break, I lost track and haven't been taking it. I've been more careful about that this week, so the iron level should be fine.

Being a creature of habit is important to me; it gets me out on my bike, and after a while, my body misses being out on my bike, so I feel the need. And trying to get a sense of needing to be out skiing or whatever in winter is important.

On the other hand, I think a day or two of not skiing might help the soreness a bit. During biking season, I basically have semi-sore legs all the time, until it rains for a couple days, and then they feel all fresh and good for a ride or two. But when it's sunny and nice out, it's hard to take a day off from riding because just being out feels so darned good, and because you know the next week could be nothing but drenching rains. Lately, I've been trying to get out and practice skiing because I know it could get too cold to be fun, and school's starting soon, and all.

I went to the campus rental place yesterday and checked out the ski kit for another week. At the least, I've found it really good exercise. If only I can get comfortable enough at it to relax and make it a habit.