It’s May – yeah! “April showers bring May flowers” and, hopefully, a lot of old “normal” for all of us.
Did you know that phrase, according to George Latimer Apperson’s “Dictionary of Proverbs,” can be traced back to an 1886 saying “March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers”?
But if you do a little more sleuthing, some say the phrase originated in the United Kingdom or Ireland where the month of April, as we know, lends itself to rainy, cool weather which pushes back the arrival of the many spring flowers we so look forward to seeing.
Then, even more digging reveals that a poet named Thomas Tusser in the 1500s wrote “Sweet April showers do spring May flowers,” about looking on the bright side of things at life in general. And haven’t we all earned that bright side of life now?!
Life in general this past year brought us the “COVID 19,” a take-off of the “Freshman 15,” synonymous with a person’s first year of college weight gain. Well, it seems to be true if you read WebMD, which polled 1,000 people, and their very unscientific results showed people who ended up working from home were way too close to the cupboards and all those tasty snacks inside.
Those same people, in order to comply with restrictions, stopped going to the gym, ordered takeout at an unprecedented rate but also used their kitchens for its intended purpose: making/cooking three meals a day as compared to the on-the-go lifestyle of a quick or nothing breakfast and lunch.
Many have taken their gym memberships for granted as a way of keeping the weight off, but if we went back to the “olden days” of expending energy, we could come up with a list of things in our everyday lives that helped us keep moving more, such as……….
We don’t get up to answer the phone in the kitchen because everyone has their cell phones locked to the palm of their hands.
How about when we go out to pick up that pizza, we push the button to the garage door instead of manually raising and lowering it. And if you want to change the channel on the boob tube? Just keep that remote handy so you don’t have to get out of your Barcalounger (for you young people, that’s a brand of a really comfy recliner).
Need ice in that tall glass of lemonade? Just slip the glass under the spout of the ice maker on your fridge door. You don’t even have to push the lever; that sensor does all the work. No more getting the ice cube tray out, cracking the tray, and then having to refill it with water and then taking it back to the freezer.
A bicycle ride? Those eBikes will set you back $1200+, but you won’t break a sweat.
Does that lawn need mowing? Just hop on your John Deere and it’s done!
And one more for good measure: Raking up your leaves or sweeping the grass off your driveway just got easier with the Dewalt DCBL722P1 20V MAX XR Lithium-Ion Brushless Handheld Cordless Blower Kit because Santa Claus came through this past Christmas. I am so looking forward to using it any day now!
Are you one of the COVID 19 gainers? I’m proud to say I lost weight this past year. So, what direction will you take?
