My right upper arm

is sore today...I did get outside yesterday and I raked my yard for 4 hrs. It whooped my butt! The sad thing is I only got about 1/4 of my yard done..I did get the back yard and part of the side yard done and it looks so "pruty". I'm surprised that it's my arm is sore and not my legs...there was a lot of bending over and squats going on as I picked up all the piles of leaves and pinestraw..I put the pinestraw around my trees in the front yard which saves me monies (and who isn't all about saving monies these days) because I don't have to go and buy pinestraw. It's not as clean as the pinestraw that you buy but hey it works. I used to spend lots of time on my yard when Lar was alive but in the past 8 years I have really let it go. 

I'm thinking with the cost of gas that I might buy this reel mower.
Home Depot has them for $139. It would be good exercise for me and I couldn't use the excuse that I don't have money for gas this week.
This one has a catcher which I like.  There are cheaper ones but I like this one. I remember when my daughter was little I lived in an apartment building where I maintained the yard for money off my rent and I only had a reel mower then (of course this was over 20 years ago) and the yard was on a hill. It was work but I did it and the yard looked good.
The only thing that concerns me is that I have a lot of pine cones and those stupid little Sweetgum balls in my yard and I'm not sure that the blades won't be stuck on them all the time. I guess this will give me the incentive to make sure I finish with the raking of the yard.

I feel like I had a pretty good weekend. I've got 3 hikes lined up for Feb 28, Mar 6 & Mar 20th with my AOC group. Not sure if I'm going to end up doing all 3 but for sure I'm going to do the one on the 28th, it is on a Monday and if there is time we will visit an old cemetery (which I love doing..I know weird). I'm trying to talk some of my Thus friends on doing the one on the 6th because it's close. So far no takers on this one..They'll walk at a park with me but no hiking..

I've got my lunch and my gym bag packed for the day. I've gotten my daily read of Jack Sh*t and am ready to go to work.

More later!