My Journey With Health And Fitness – Sometimes We Need To Go The Extra Mile

Today was my day to get my Christmas baking done. I was out by 7am to do grocery shopping (for the event Christmas Eve) and by 8:30am I was working on the first batch of cookies. Now, I have completed giant ginger cookies, short bread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and Christmas bark (the last 2 are low sugar items). While it was a lot of work now I can just do some tidying tomorrow and not be freaking out about time running out.

Late yesterday afternoon I did my walk with Keeva. I was actually dreading it a bit for a couple of reason, first the bitter cold and secondly I was afraid of what the walkways would look like. The street where Keeva lives had been scraped but because of all the snow from the plows there was little accessible on street parking meaning I had to park at the mall which is about a block away. As I walked to Keeva’s building I realized I was right about the walkways, they were not in great shape. To be clear, the requirement is that they be ‘cleared’ but there is a pretty murky definition of what that looks like. In this area absolutely they had been scraped and shoveled but not enough salt or deicer had been put down leaving areas that were very icy and slippery. Not good when there are lots of seniors and people with mobility issues that live in the area. Even worse, I picked up my brother at a little strip mall and while they had cleared some of the parking lot (not well) the sidewalk out front where there are bus stops had been left untouched. I trailed behind an elderly gentleman struggling to use his walker in that parking lot and thought come on people, we can do better than this.

Here is the difference around our home. My husband went out Tuesday morning and used the snowblower to clear all of the sidewalks in our neighbourhood. This would amount to a good 1/2 block of clearing. He then laid down a heavy layer of salt and special melting salt. This was all done by 8am before people started walking on it even though the local bylaw says you have until 10am to do it. The result? Well, there is zero ice and snow in our driveway, walkway or on the sidewalk. This is a pretty good accomplishment given that we had more than a foot of snow overnight. Yes, that much work may be going the extra mile but it is so worth it to keep everyone in our neighbourhood safe and we know that it was appreciated.

It is too bad that not everyone is willing to put in this much effort. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that there are people who are physically not able to clear their sidewalks (there are some in our neighbourhood) which is why my husband does so much work at it. What I don’t understand is condo complexes or businesses who don’t bother to properly clear walkways or to do them at all. It is not just a requirement by law, it is a responsibility and the right thing to do. So, do the right thing, keep access to walkways clear for everyone and if you know of someone who needs help doing this, do it for them. Going the extra mile needs to be the norm, not the exception.

On a lighter note, walking Keeva yesterday was hysterical. I expected her to do her doggy snow angels (which she did) but the funny part was her literally sticking her entire face into the snow and then looking at me with such delight. This was not a one time thing, she did it numerous times during our walk. It almost made up for the freezing temperature.

Finally, I will not be posting on Saturday due to the holidays so I wish all of you the very best of the season.