Splake Spolt: December in Montana, then moving on . . .

One of the more important aspects of maintaining an obscure, happy life is to have "wellness bulwarks." By this, we mean multiple layers of good habits, such as good sleep, healthy diet and multiple forms of physical activity. From time to time, major life transitions will transiently compromise one of these, but having the others to fall back on keeps us from getting over stressed (or alerts us that we are at risk). For the past year, these habits have been especially important-- as we have since May moved from our Minneapolis loft to temporary digs in Lowertown St. Paul, then to a new home in Florida, quickly on to Montana then finally back to New Zealand.

But back to bulwarks--one of which is physical activity. Because we had to abandon our well established gym routine, we relied primarily upon "snuggling 'round", whether it be through new local neighborhoods and parks in spring and summer, up hills on trips or through the skyways in winter. And so the graphic below represents this year's "bulwark" of steps, one stretching 1750 miles, almost enough to get us from Minneapolis to Mexico City, and more than enough altitude to get us there! The flights climbed would have been Denali at least twice.

Happily, we have jettisoned this bulwark, as we are skiing, snow shoeing and skating our butts off here in MT, and have lots of excellent physical activities to resume when we arrive back home in Welly next month.

But it is Christmas, and so little indulgences such as eggnog and Christmas cookies need not be turned away, but instead downsized--like our Xmas tree.

What has not been downsized is our joy in exploring the world around us. Montana has felt like home this winter, and so we'd like to share and remember the things we have experienced this magical month.