Great May

May this year is really great.

One way that it is special is the weather. For some reason, it has been a cold and crappy year so far. There has been more snow than I can remember, followed by incessant rain and by low temperatures.

Aprils are supposed to be great; full of sunshine and early flowers. That didn't happen this time around. The rain and cold continued into the start of May.

There has been precipitation every day so far this month, and although warmer on average than April, I don't think the temperature has cracked 13 degrees. Luckily, it is only May 3^rd. There is a lot of month left to go.

Today isn't going to buck the trend, but tomorrow is supposed to be different. A high of 19 is predicted and a generally warm period to follow after that, if not quite as spectacular.

It is also a month of goal reaching for me personally.

After our annual trip to big-restaurant-meal Arizona, my weight was up in the neighbourhood of 185 pounds. My ideal is in the 173-175 range. As a result, I've been nibbling away at it to get back to where I like to be.

Today, my morning weigh-in had me at 173.7, which is the first day in about a month where my mass was within my chosen range.

I will also be hitting a Jiu-Jitsu goal very shortly. In order to qualify for a little stripe promotion, we have to wait 8 months, and to also have attended 100 classes of specific types. My 8 months won't be up until the very end of July, and normally that's more-or-less exactly when a student manages to tally up their 100 classes.

This time around my attendance card will be filled early. The most likely date will be in about 2 weeks. This happened because of two weeks of intensive training down in Los Angeles, and continuing to train steadily for a month in Arizona, and by adding an extra class to my normal schedule by training once per week in Vancouver.

This is cool in two ways. Firstly; the stupid tally will be done, and won't cause any delays. Secondly; as I will continue training full-speed-ahead, I'll likely end up about 50% above the minimum requirement by the time I'm actually up for promotion.

It is also a good month, in that we will be having visitors. Some years nobody from out-of-town comes to our little village by the sea at all. We make visits to our family in Victoria quite a bit, and to friends in other places. This is likely why they don't feel the need to make the ferry voyage to reach our isolated stretch of coastline.

This month my sister Kathy, her husband Al, and their cat, will be coming over for a visit. That's right; they have a travelling cat.

Overall, May is rounding up to be a very nice month.