Gettin' it while the gettin' is good.

Because we all know what's around the corner. 🥶🌨

Greetings, Friends & Neighbors!

CAVEAT TO MY LOYAL FLORIDA READERS: In that you might experience fewer light-deprived winter days than everyone else who lives north of that big peanut statue on I-75 (exit 82 Alden, Georgia), you have my permission to skip this post and turn your attention back to ESPN’s College GameDay...

Just back at the keyboard after logging my paltry 12,000 steps—while making a last-ditch effort to top off my sunshine tank before the Tennessee Valley gets draped in the dark, foreboding skies of winter.

If I could permanently remove January, February and March from the calendar, I would!

The news is I’m working as hard as this 69-year-old body will allow to prep for next year’s cycling adventure, which some of you have read about.

But when the frigid wind starts to howl under the dark, foreboding skies, I’ll have no choice but to occasionally work out at the YMCA. Indoors—under fluorescent lights, sharing sweat and germs with total strangers, in front of ten TV’s tuned into a conflicted and chaotic world, with far too many sponsored reminders that Zepbound® is the only way I’ll ever reach my weight loss goal.

Says the outdoors, nature-loving, sunshine junkie.

Ugh.

This weekend, though, in addition to plentiful rays from above, Colby is also lighting me up.

I’m dog-sitting for friends, the Martins, who are proud owners of this magnificent member of the canine world.

Colby is a brilliant, sweet, low-maintenance, and habitually obedient Labrador retriever—and very capable leader of a flock of living room sheep (the fuzzy, squeaky toy variety).

I’m pretty sure she can tell time. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that she can also drive a ski boat, solve basic algebra equations or read my mind (sort of creepy to think that my whole life might be contained behind those glowing amber eyes).

Beyond Colby, it also occurs to me that I’m basking in another kind of light at the moment—the light of vocational anticipation/excitement. To wit: next year, I’m hoping to launch a new “third-act” career, encapsulated on the card below:

More on that later. 😙

That’s all the news that’s fit to post for now. Here’s hoping you, too, are soaking up lots of mind-body-and-soul healing light today! (and that your future’s so bright you have to wear shades?).

Thanks, as always, for your loyal readership and support!

Peace & Love,

Mark