Cool Bloggers Walking Club – Life Off Headset

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club 2026: Week two- Orange

Thanks again to Elisabeth for this community movement activity! Last week’s colour was red. This week, I noticed ORANGE. Orange does not occur as naturally in nature as red, at least not in Spring. Yet, if I took the effort to notice, I found some orange in surprising places.

Monday 4/6: Hike with the kids at Blockhouse Point Trail. These leaves are orange-ish:

I found there was a fine line between brown and orange…

And this Cadbury Mini Egg:

Because sometimes you bribe, um… reward, your kids for hiking with chocolate.

And a view of the Potomac – not orange, but still beautiful:

Tuesday 4/7: Ran around the track at the middle school after dropping the kids in the morning. There were orange pylons:

Do you call them pylons? I find most people in my area call them safety cones.

And the orange chest of a Robin:

Also- Kwanza cherry blossoms are in full bloom:

Wednesday 4/8: 10 minute walk in park while the 14 year old is at her morning piano lessons. Spotted these orange poop bags:

I think that orange bag is actually one of those bags the Washington Post comes in; the neighbors stock this poop bag stand. Funny story – we were at this park one time when the middle child was 3 or so. He was getting pretty close to being toilet trained, so I didn’t bring a diaper bag with me. Well, he ended up having an enormous poop at the playground. I didn’t have anything on me, so i pulled a couple poop bags from this box, took off his pants and underwear, and wrapped a plastic bag around him and put the dirty clothes in another bag. It was probably one of my most AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! moments of young motherhood.

Thursday 4/9: Walk to the Co-op on my lunch break to pick up some groceries for dinner. Saw so many flashes orange on my way.

These cute decorative banner:

This house’s fence is decorated with many fun DC-centric banners.

Safety visibility flags, for people to wave as they cross the street.

Rainbow crosswalk – same crosswalk as last week, just moved down one stripe:

Random sign:

Not at all sure what it means, but it seems pretty on point for the crunchy area of town I work in.

Evening- went contra- dancing with the family and mu skirt was orange:

Friday 4/10: Walked the kids to school and took the long way back to the car, through the woods. Saw various utility company markings, spray painted in orange.

Saturday 4/11: I didn’t get a walk in this day because I went from Service to work to B’not Mitzvah party: But I did do 15 minutes of yoga and 10 minutes with the dumbells.

Sunday 4/12:
Neighborhood walk with the 14 year old. We walked the path she takes to school and she gave us her inner monologue commentary all the way there. It was such a nice walk for the time we got to spend together and also for the insights into her thoughts. She’s walked this path almost every school day for the past three years and I’m kind of sad it’s coming to an end.

Saw this bush with oramge flowers:

These orange plyons:

And this vintage car. I actually have seen this car several times, so I made sure to circle back here to look for it for CBWC orange week.

Then after dinner, I took an evening walk with the 6 and 9 year olds while the Husband took the 14 year old to swimming. It was getting dark so not a lot of orange spotting, but the warm glow of this street lamp was orange to me:

That’s week two! Next week’s post will be all about YELLOW!

Do you have any favorite orange things?

Cool Bloggers Walking Club April 2026 – Week One

Elisabeth is once again organizing Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. Yay for intentional movement! You don’t have to be a blogger, or, I would argue, “cool” to participate. (I certainly don’t think I’m “cool”)

I always like starting things on a Monday, so my version of walking club is Monday to Sunday and not strictly per the day of the month.

Last Fall, for CBWC, I chose something to look for on my walks each week- Hallowe’en Decorations, flowers, foliage…

This time around, I’m choosing a colour to look for every week. To make it easy, I thought I’d go in rainbow order, so the first week was RED! Which is, also, incidentally, my favorite colour.

So RED things I saw on last week’s walks:

Monday 3/30: We went down to the National Mall to see cherry blossoms. It was a few days past peak bloom, but there were still lots of blooms to be seen. (I have a feeling that there will still be lots of blooms to be seen all month, so there might be lots of blossom pictures even if they aren’t strictly in the colour of the month.) Red things we saw:

Red Line Train.

Red kite stuck in the tree. The National Kite Festival was the weekend prior, and you can always see the aftermath of the Festival in the lost kites festooning the trees.

Red (white and blue) Flag (next to the Washington Monument):

It’s not red, but I had to include a shot of cherry blossoms since that is why we were down at the Mall in the first place:

Tuesday 3/31: Went on a bike/run with the 6 year old and 9 year old. A bike/run is when they ride their bikes and I run. They bike faster than I run, but they are good about stopping and waiting for me to catch up. We stopped at the playground where there was this red lady bug:

And on the way home, red folliage:

Wednesday 4/1: Walked though Costco for an hour. (Does that count?) Then in the afternoon, went for a walk to the park with the kids. Saw this red azaelea bush, buds still furled tight:

Thursday 4/2: Went on another bike/run with the kids. This time, I noticed that the 9 year old’s bike has red accents and he is wearing red shoes:

Also this redbud tree, which technically isn’t red, but it has “red” in its name:

And the red stems on these blossoms:

Friday 4/3: Went skating with the kids. (Even the 14 year old came!) I noticed the red markings on the ice:

Saturday 4/4: Went on a bike ride with the Husband and the 6 year old and 9 year old. My bike is red!

Sunday 4/5: Easter Sunday. Went on a walk after dinner. Noticed a red umbrella sitting next to our red door:

Red Tulips in a neighbor’s front yard:

The sunset wasn’t strictly red, but it was beautiful:

And that’s week one. Next week’s colour will be ORANGE!

What are your favorite red things?

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club- week 5 + 3 takeaways

Rounding out Cool Blogger’s Walking Club – thanks again to Elisabeth for organizing this community effort.

I’ve been picking something to notice on my walks – past weeks, I’ve notice Hallowe’en decorations, and flowers. This week I picked fall foliage. End of October is peak fall foliage time here in Maryland. There seemed, though, to be a variety of foliage from some trees still being mostly green, to brilliant oranges, yellows, and reds, to some trees already all bare.

Monday 10/27:
-15 min yoga
-Walk kids to school from the parking lot on the path. Take a loop through the woods on the way back to the car. Took this picture:

It’s a picture of a leaf on my windshield, but I love how it looks like i was able to capture a leaf mid fall.

Tuesday 10/28:
-15 mins yoga
-Walk kids to school from the parking lot on the path. Take a loop through the woods on the way back to the car.
-Walk at lunch time. Saw some beautiful mottled leaves.

Wednesday 10/29:
-Ten minute yoga
-Walk at park during the 13 year old’s piano lesson. Saw this beautiful orange tree:

-Walk kids to school from the parking lot on the path. Take a loop through the woods on the way back to the car.

Thursday 10/30:
-10 min yoga
-Walk kids to school from the parking lot on the path. Take a loop through the woods on the way back to the car. It was a soggy day, making the colour of the leaves really pop.

-Walk in the neighborhood around work on my dinner break.

Friday 10/31:
-Yoga 20 mins
-Walked to pick up kids from the school bus. The late afternoon light through the trees was stunning, setting the leaves ablaze:

-Hallowe’en! Trick or treating for two hours.

Takeways from CBWC Fall 2025:

Walking, getting out, moving – I can choose to do those things. I don’t have to get out for miles and miles, but when I have a free space of time, a ten minute walk rejuvenates me more than if I had spent those ten minutes scrolling. I need to especially remember this when I get really swamped and can’t find the time to go for a run and start feeling sluggish. I can make the choice to move.
On the subject of choice- I feel so grateful that I have a variety of options on how I commute and travel. I can drive, take the Metro, or bike. So days when my schedule is a little more flexible, I can choose to take metro or bike instead of driving. It is a bit of a luxury, I realize, because not everyone has all those options. If my car breaks down I can still get to work. If I miss the bus, I can still get in my car.
I had a lot of fun choosing something to notice every week. Being on the look out for Halloween decorations really made the lead up to Halloween fun. Looking for flowers when the world was starting to go dormant brought little flashes of colour to a grey world. And I’m glad I took time to look for leaves because often fall is a very busy time for me at work, and I don’t get to go leaf peaking. I sometimes get to winter and realize I’ve missed the wonderful colours of fall, so I’m glad I took time to find the pops of fall that I could see this week.

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club – week 4: Flowers!

Thanks again to Elisabeth for rallying us walkers together!

I’ve been choosing something to notice on my walks. Last week was Hallowe’en decorations. This week, I decided to look for flowers on my walk. Not an easy thing because we are definitely in the part of fall where things begin to go dormant, but there were still some fall flowers to be seen in the yards I passed on my neighborhood walks:

Monday 10/20:
-Took the metro to work and then home. (24 minutes for the round trip, punctuated by a metro ride in the middle.)
-30 minute walk around the neighborhood on my lunch break, looking for flowers.

Tuesday 10/21:
-My step count notes a walk between 10am-11am. I’m not quite sure what this was…
-30 minute walk on my lunch break, looking for flowers.

Wednesday 10/22:
-Walked kids to school from the parking lot by the trail and then spent another thirty minutes walking the trail, taking the long way loop back to the car. Did not see any flowers. Makes sense since I was tromping through the woodsy part of the trail.
-30 minute walk on my lunch break. Saw this flower:

Still counts as a flower sighting, right?

Thursday 10/23:
My day off work.
-apparently I took 2700 steps at Target in the morning. Does that count for CBWC??? I mean I spent a hour wandering around – it’s a lot of exercise looking for what you need and not finding it.
-mowed the grass (20 minutes). I’m counting this because it does involve walking and being outdoors.
-the evening we did family photos and essentially spent an hour and a half walking around downtown.

Dahlias in our garden that I saw while mowing.

Friday 10/24:
-Walk kids to school from the parking lot by the trail today, and then spent another thirty minutes walking the trail, taking the long way loop back to the car in the parking lot. This time I did manage to see some flowers:

Saturday 10/25:
-Walk with the 6 year old to pick up breakfast sandwiches while the 13 year old was in her voice lessons.
-30 minute walk on my dinner break. I walked to the co-op to pick up some shampoo. But they were out of the shampoo I wanted, so I bought peanut butter, pita, and some olives instead.

Sunday 10/26:
-I worked most of the day, but managed to squeeze in a walk to coffee, which turnes out to be twice as long as I intended because the first coffee place was closed so I walked to another one. (20 mins)

Are there flowers blooming where you are?

Cool Bloggers Walking Club October 2025- week 3

Thanks again to Elisabeth for organizing Cool Blogger’s Walking Club.

We’re over half way through October! I started back working full time this week, so I did not have as much time for running or biking, but I did get walks in when I could. A lot of walks this week were trying to just incorporate walking into every day life.

I’ve decided that each week for the remainder of CBWC, I’m going to pick one element to look for on my walks. (H/t to Rob Walker’s book The Art of Noticing – this is one of the exercises he recommends to flex noticing muscles.)

This week, I decided to look for Hallowe’en decorations on my walks. We don’t decorate for Hallowe’en – our street is very quiet on Hallowe’en; we’re in a weird location that doesn’t get much traffic and we trick or treat with our friends in another neighborhood. Also – I’ve just never really been into seasonal decorating – the thought of putting something up just to have to take it down seems like a lot of work. We do put up lights at Christmas, and I do like the cozy look of that, but the rest of the holidays don’t really make me want to decorate. The children might change my mind some day, but for now, I prefer enjoying other people’s Hallowe’en displays.

Here are some of my favorites that I saw this week:

I saw so many delightful decorations that I made a picture collage.

I enjoy the irony of the Orkin truck in the background,

Now onto what I actually did:

Monday 10/13
15 minutes yoga.
Walked to lunch and back (10 minutes each way.)

Tuesday 10/14:
15 minute yoga
30 minute walk on lunch break

Wednesday 10/15:
10 minute yoga
Walk kids to school along trail from parking lot. I had to park in a farther than usual because there was construction along the parkway that parallels the path. (20 minutes)

Thursday 10/16:
15 minute yoga
20 minute walk at lunch break

Friday 10/17:
20 minutes yoga
2 mile run/bike/ scooter with the 8 year old and 6 year old. (This took an hour because twice we serendipitously met friends along the way and stopped to chat.)
Walk to Metro/ to Work. And then walk to metro/ to home. (24 mins)

Saturday 10/18:
20 minute walk while waiting for the the 13 year old who was at her voice lesson.
45 minute tap dance lesson – parent child class with the 6 year old.
15 minute evening yoga.

Sunday 10/19:
15 minute yoga.
60 minutes ice skating
20 minute walk on trail next to the ice arena – I hadn’t dressed warmly enough to skate for the whole time the kids were in lessons, so I went on a beautiful fall walk.
20 minute walk with Husband mid afternoon.

And I’ll leave you with more Hallowe’en decorations:

This neighborhood really leaned into the skeleton scenes.

I don’t even know what these skeletons are up to…

This house always has the best skeleton scenes.

What are your feelings about decorating for Hallowe’en? Do you prefer Hallowe’en decorations to be festive or macabre? Or maybe it’s both when Hallowe’en is concerned???

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club October 2025- Week 2

Thanks again to Elisabeth for organizing!

Not a lot of strictly walking this week, but there was movement….

Monday 10/6-
-20 minutes yoga
-Walk kids from parking lot on the trail to school, then ran six times around the middle school track and then to my car. I’m trying a new running plan on my Runkeeper app. Pretty sure it’s AI generated.

Tuesday 10/7:
-20 minute Yoga
-bike to meet a friend for lunch (15 minutes each way). I’d never biked to that part of town before. It was a lot more uphill than I had expected. But then the downhills were exhilarating.
-Walked from home to pick up kids from bus stop. Let them play by the creek before walking home.

really, I let them play at the creek so I can read my book for twenty minutes uninterrupted.

Wednesday 10/8:
-20 min yoga
– Bike to run errands (15 mins either way). There are no pictures of me biking because it is hard to take pictures while riding a bike.
-Walk to pick up the kids from the bus stop, 15 minutes at the park, then walk home.

Thursday 10/9 –
-20 min yoga
-30 minute run after dropping the kids at the school bus. It was chilly, but got it done. The leaves are starting to change colour and I love it. It seems the world is supersaturated with colour this week.

Trees along the trail. The leaves are starting to turn here!

-Walk to metro to go to work, then the reverse. I debated as to whether to count this or not because it’s really a short walk on either end. Moreso since I discovered that if I cut through two parking lots to get to work, it takes me just five minutes to walk from the Metro to my office. Home to the metro is about 7 minutes (more, if the traffic light is being slow). So all told, the commute to work is 12 minutes of walking, broken up by a 5 minute metro ride. So I guess that’s 24 minutes of walking total when I commute via metro. So I’m counting it.

Friday 10/10
-10 minute yoga
-30 minute run/bike/scooter with the two little kids in the morning before school. The kids pointed out the very visible moon to me on the way home:

-Walk with friend along trail- we walked from the bus stop to breakfast and then back. (15 minutes each way)

-Walk them metro to work and back home again after work. The sky and clouds were amazing as I was leaving my office:

Saturday 10/11:
-45 minute tap dance class with the 6 year old.

Sunday 10/12:
-15 minute yoga in the morning
-45 minutes ice skating. Went to public skate with the kids. The rink was having an open house for various skating activities, and I tried to convince them to try speedskating, but they were uninterested.
-20 minute yoga in the evening. I did two yoga sessions today because I missed yesterday.

That’s week two! Hope everyone is having good bouts of meaningful movement.

How is your commute? What colours are you seeing on your walks?

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club – Week 1

Thanks to Elisabeth for organizing another round of the Cool Blogger’s Walking Club this October! I started walking club early because doesn’t everything start on Monday? Besides which, the weather here has been perfect for kicking off CBWC!

Monday 9/29:
-2o minute yoga video
– walked kids to school (I park on the trail next to the school and walk them up, which takes anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes depending on who I run into on the way. Some days many parents coincide on the trial at the same time and we stop to chat. Monday it became quite a lengthy stand and sigh session since so many folks work for the federal government and were affected by the shutdown.)
-1.3 mile run after school drop off. I ran five laps around the middle school track next to the elementary school, and then back to my car.

On the way to school. Sometimes they are at each other’s throats. And sometimes they are like this.

Tuesday 9/30:
-20 minute yoga video
-walked to metro station/ then at the other end from the metro station to work (15 mins)
-biked home from work (5 miles – 35 mins). Actually I biked to pick up the kids from the bus stop and then we walked home from there.

Wednesday 10/1:
-20 minute yoga video
-walked kids to school from the parking lot on the trail, then went with the youngest kid to the nearby park to kill some time before her doctor’s appointment.

Walking with the 6 year old. She found leaves, which she declared were perfect.

-biked to work (25 mins)
-biked to bus stop (30 mins), picked up the kids, then walked home (10 mins)
-30 minute evening walk with Husband after dinner, while the kids cleaned the kitchen.

Thursday 10/2:
-15 minute yoga
-Walk to park with the kids to meet up with some friends for a playdate. The sun is blazing hot still, but there is a fall crisp in the air.

Friday 10/3:
-15 minutes yoga
-30 minute run/bike with kids. We’ve started going for a bike ride (the 8 year old)/scooter (the 6 year old)/run (me) on Friday mornings at 7/7:30am, before school starts. The kids get up at 6:30am and don’t go to school until 9:00am, and there is a lot of restless energy some days, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and get my run in early while letting the kids expend some energy. I like that I get my run out of the way; they like that they get to bike/scooter and have some outside time before school starts.

-Biked to lunch with friends (15 mins)
-Biked to bus stop (15 mins) then walked home with 13 year old (10 mins)

Saturday 10/4:
– 10 mins yoga
-walked to metro station from 13 year old’s voice lesson, (metro to shopping area), walked to Michael’s to buy some stuff for Hallowe’en, then walked back to metro station, (metro back one stop), walked to tap class (which is in the same building as the voice lesson) – about 30 mins walking total.
-Hike at Yankeur Nature Preserve in Shepherdstown, WV. The loop is bout 1 mile, but we took an hour to do it with time to rest, snack, and look at the Potomac River

-Contradance in Shepherdstown, WV. We didn’t stay for the whole dance, but danced for about 2.5 hours.

Sunday 10/5:
-10 mins yoga
– skating- 45 mins public skate while the kids were in lessons.

And that was week one! I guess only about half of that was strictly walking, but I feel like everything I did was all in the spirit of the exercise. (pun!)

Are you participating in Cool Blogger’s Walking Club too?