Always in Motion

Above are some photos from sites near Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, where I grew up. I’m just back from the December more-spiritual-time-of-year pilgrimage.

The first photo is of Kent Falls State Park.  The other two are of the West Cornwall covered bridge, which was probably built around the mid-1800s. 

The West Cornwall covered bridge is a one-lane bridge. Cars wait on one side of the bridge until the other side’s traffic has passed through.  The bridge stands over the Housatonic River.

I thought the population of Cornwall — which includes Cornwall, Cornwall Bridge, West Cornwall, North Cornwall and Cornwall Hollow — had “mushroomed” from nine hundred to one thousand people. But I learned from my mother on this trip that the population is “over 1,400.”

There is only one red flashing light in Cornwall, just as when I grew up there. There still is no need for a red-green-yellow traffic light.

On the way back to the Washington, D.C. suburbs, I stopped at a Wal*Mart in New Milford, Connecticut. I sneezed in the toothpaste aisle and some benevolent stranger two aisles away shouted out “Bless you.” It snapped into my head at that moment that some of my friendly ways that seem out of place in the city must come from where I grew up.

In places like Cornwall, when your car breaks down at the side of the road, you know that the people in every passing vehicle will stop to help you and make sure that you’re all right. The flip side of that coin is that when there’s some new car or person in your driveway, EVERYONE will be gossiping about it the next day at the post office.

This is the culture of these people.

Last Wednesday my friend Bruce and I went to a very interesting seminar on blogging at First Class, Inc. in Washington, D.C.

The speaker, Stephanie Vance, shared a plethora of very up-to-date information with us.

I had no idea that there are people working fulltime as bloggers in the comfort of their homes! If you’re a good writer you can bid on gigs to write blogs for other people.

Stephanie was very generous with all sorts of tips on how to interweave blogs with other web marketing techniques. No matter WHAT business you’re in, there are many web marketing methods you can use to attract clients.

I was surprised to hear that you can even reach out to potential customers by blogging without a website. 

Stephanie’s blogs are Advocacy Associates and Plugging In.

Also Stephanie’s blessed with a great sense of humor. Her jokes are part of the reason I’m going to her new social networking seminar.  It’ll be a lively discussion. 

I really recommend Stephanie’s one-night talk.  It’s called “Make $100 a Day Using Your Blog and Free Internet Tools,” Class No. 213. 

Friday at the gym I met someone new to me named Paula through our mutual friend Kyung.

Paula has just come back from her FIFTEENTH cruise.  This one was across the Atlantic.

Paula knows a lot of the cruise ships’ names and some of their statistics.  She said that on one cruise ship they have a library with nine thousand books.  Some of the ships have ten restaurants.  One of them has nine hundred chefs!!  How can that be?!?!?

Here’s an entire culture I know nothing about.

I told Paula she should run a website about her cruises.  She laughed but I was serious.

Friday I talked to a nice friend named Bess at the gym.

She’s going to her daughter’s in California for Christmas.

Bess turned ninety on June 28. She swims for an hour three times a week at our gym. We love her; she’s an inspiration to us.

Bess was a social worker before she retired..

She comes into the club in her ankle-length white monogrammed robe, her hair in an elegant white turban and matching white slippers. When I see Bess, she reminds me of refined 1940s-era Hollywood movie stars in my mother’s scrapbook photos.

Everyone else seems to do an hour on the elliptical every other day. The only way I seem to lose weight is doing two hours every day. What’s up with that? I think I’m now doing the equivalent of cross-country skiing nine-plus miles a day.

Can I keep it up? I go to the gym twice a day! My blood pressure and resting heart rate are EXCELLENT. I feel great. And I get reading done on the elliptical too.

I was kind of bummed when I looked at two basal metabolic rate calculators online and found out that to maintain my current weight — which I don’t want to do; I want to lose weight — I can only eat about 1,400 puny calories a day. That doesn’t leave much room for pizza and ice cream. I even subtracted 20 years and I could only get away with 100 calories more a day. What’s that — a banana?

By doing the extra exercise I’m burning 1,300 EXTRA calories a day. Well the good news is that I don’t worry about what I eat now but I just watch it, and I slowly lose weight.

I think I can do this.