Moving ahead after busy weekend

Today, I got started on the next installment of Heart Health, The Tribune-Democrat's American Heart Month Project.
Got a lift from other members of Bethany United Methodist Church, who on Sunday complimented me on yesterday's stories. Those focused on emergency response and how improved technology is saving lives.
The stories I'm working on for Sunday's paper will look at the latest in heart surgery available locally. I met with Dr. Rajsekhar Devineni, who co-founded Memorial Medical Center's heart surgery program 20 years ago.
More about that later. I'm still easing out of the busy, but relaxing weekend. This one did not produce even a minor setback this time, despite our active social calendar.
In my last posting, I was cautioning myself about the party food I would meet at the Friday One party. Planning ahead, we just had a small, healthy snack and no supper before meeting friends for a quick, healthy dark beer before the party.
Well, the party food is unpredictable at best, based on the equally unpredictable assortment of personalities who show up. This installment was a little sparse on real food and heavy on raw veggies, candy, chips and dip. I tried to concentrate on the vegetables, but admit a nibbled on some homemade candy. Since I'm neither a chipper, nor a dipper, that end of the table was not even a serious temptation.
The veggies could have been a problem if I included the dressing. Fortunately, I decided years ago I don't particularly like or need dressing. I've even been known to ask the waitress if they could just pour a little tomato juice on the salad for a dressing. I'm sure there was plenty of fat in bowls of creamy herb-speckled sauce on each of the veggie trays.
Even though we were, as usual, about the last ones heading home door Friday night, Saturday started a little early, with me driving Becky to work at 10 a.m. I knew we would probably be dancing later, but decided to take 45 minutes to remove some blown-on snow from the driveway. It felt aerobic by the time I was done.
The “My Funny Valentine” dinner show Saturday night by (un)apologetic productions proved to be a great stress-reliever. In other words, it was very funny, if a little bawdy maybe. We ended the evening dancing to some karaoke singers after the show.
The nest morning, my Sunday school kids were trying to give me a good workout. But in the end, I didn't have to chase them around the room, just give them my “now I'm serious” and “don't make me go find your parents” looks until they settled down for the lesson. But Becky getting up and making homemade blueberry muffins for her adult class meant I had to limit my breakfast to a couple of small muffins.
After killing off some leftover whole-grain pasta for lunch, our romantic Valentine weekend wrapped up with a long drive through the back roads of Somerset County. A dear friend of ours, the late Rev. Peter Foreman often talked about his experience pastoring Casselman and Confluence United Methodist churches and how he found his outdoor sanctum atop Mount Davis. I had never been to Casselman or Mount Davis and decided it was time.
My plans to get a little exercise climbing from the parking lot to the mountain summit were dashed when I found the road to the summit parking area closed for the winter and the snow really so deep that any walking became a serious workout. We made a snowman on a picnic table bench instead.
We drove back to Johnstown flanked by a beautiful sunset, kicking ourselves for leaving all three cameras at home.