He is risen!

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.

If you want to listen to a fascinating discussion about the Shroud of Turin, watch the first video at this link.

A blessed Day of Resurrection to you all.

Four degrees, 150 feet in elevation

Since our return from Italy, Don, Older Daughter, and I – and Mr. Darcy – have been engaged in walking for exercise. We could all stand to lose a few pounds (including Mr. Darcy), and since we're walking the dog morning and evening anyway, we chose the morning routine for "power walking."

To do this, we use the road that runs along the edge of our lower property.

This road slopes down, so it's the uphill climb that we've been turning into our daily power walk. Don calculated it out. We walk this section (down and up) three times. The length of each section is about 850 feet. Multiply that by six (up and down three times) for a total of about a mile. The slope is nearly four degrees.  The change in elevation is 50 feet. For the three circuits, that's a rise of 150 feet.

Since this is Mr. Darcy's morning walk to encourage him to do his "business," what we do is walk downhill at the dog's pace, letting him sniff and explore. I have the leash at this stage.

When we hit the bottom, we turn around and power walk up the hill.

Don takes the leash at this stage and keeps Darcy at a heel so he doesn't get distracted by interesting smells.

When we get to the top of the hill, we turn around and let Darcy sniff and explore on the way down until we hit the bottom of the hill. Rinse and repeat. By the time we complete all three circuits, we're shedding our outerwear.

It's working. We're tackling three circuits without a problem and will probably add a fourth next week. Coupled with some light weightlifting and watching what we eat, we're all losing pounds.

Ah, the joys of getting older.