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Quality Time, Movement and Nature




My walk this morning was absolutely beautiful. The temperature was 54°. The sky was blue and clear with no clouds and it was nice and sunny.


I was walking with my little dog, Jake, a miniature schnauzer that we found wandering the street almost two years ago. I usually walk him every day unless the weather is bad, cold or rainy. The past two days we’ve had really bad storms (including a tornado that touched down in the adjacent town just yesterday) so I haven’t been able to walk Jake and we both really enjoyed today’s walk after being confined indoors.


Our normal route takes about 35-40 minutes to complete, depending on just how many roses (or other flowers, plants or "stuff") Jake stops to smell, along with handling his normal doggie business, and is exactly a mile long in distance. After I finish with him, I take him home then go back and complete walk two miles on my own.


As we turned onto the second street on our route I saw a family (or what I presumed to be a "family") walking. There was a woman and a man and a girl that looked to be about 10 years old. As they were walking I noticed the girl had a volleyball and she would toss it up or serve it or pass it to the man (presumably her father). I could hear him offering advice and helpful suggestions on how to improve on whatever thing she was doing with the volleyball at the moment.


This group of people really held my attention (I promise I wasn't stalking or eavesdropping!) and made me think about the fact that: 1) this is sometimes a rare sight (an entire family unit walking together, kids included), and 2) how efficient they were at