NRHEG Star Eagle

137 Years Serving the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva Area
Newspaper of Record for NRHEG School District
Newspaper of Record for Waseca County, MN
PO Box 248 • New Richland, MN 56072

507-463-8112
email: steagle@hickorytech.net
Published every Thursday
Yearly Subscription: Waseca, Steele, and Freeborn counties: $52
Minnesota $57 • Out of state $64

When the weather was warming up and some rain was falling from the sky, my thoughts turned to mowing the lawn. I know, I jinxed things by allowing that to enter my mind, and sure enough, another snow storm hit.

I don’t actually mind shoveling snow or mowing the lawn or raking leaves that much. Okay, the eight inches of heavy snow the other week were a real pain, but a typical inch or two isn’t that bad on my driveway.

It takes me about half an hour to mow my lawn, so that’s not too difficult either. Raking leaves is a little more of a pain, especially since most of the leaves don’t come from my one little tree. It’s a tradeoff to have the nice shade on our patio from the neighbors though!

These tasks have become easier since I started my new habit a couple of years ago. I decided to turn on my iPod and enjoy some good music while attending to these homeowner’s chores. In addition to getting some good exercise, I can enjoy some good music as well.

What do I listen to while working? It’s quite an eclectic mix actually.

I wrote in a previous column about my former obsession with watching Glee. Thus, there is an awful lot of music from that show on my iPod. I love how the cast was able to take older songs and give them some new life. In some cases, I prefer the new version to the old. A good example is some music from Journey, such as “Faithfully.”

The cast has also done some good work with Queen, though nobody can touch that group’s original songs. Queen has to be my favorite band; something about their music is inspirational. Sometimes when I’m writing, if I hit writer’s block, I’ll switch over to some “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “We Are the Champions” to get my gears going again.

I’m sure my neighbors love to hear me belt out “Bicycle Race” when I feel so moved. It helps me take my mind off the monotony of the shoveling/raking/mowing, but I sometimes catch myself getting a little loud. Oops…

And why not listen to music while doing these things? After all, music has been a part of exercise programs for a long time. 

Even now, one way I work out during the winter is to turn on the Wii and dance along to the latest version of Just Dance. I find myself breathing too hard to sing much though; plus, I have a difficult time keeping up with the dance moves without trying to sing some of the words to the more modern hip-hoppity, jip-joppity music on there.

I don’t mind some of the recent music. I’ve got some Bruno Mars and Ke$ha on my iPod, but I’m also enjoying the most recent albums (can we still call them that?) from Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen, the best work those folks have put out in a long time. It’s just proof that some of the older groups are still the best.

Speaking of older groups, I even have some good old polka music on there! I am from New Ulm, after all…

The next time the snow falls (and we all know it’s inevitable), pop in your iPod and find at least some measure of enjoyment as you look ahead to lawn mowing season and the eventual turn to leaf raking and right back to shoveling again. But it’s easier to do these things with a little shuffle on your iPod and in your step!

Word of the Week: This week’s word is occuplanids, which means the little plastic clips found on bread bags in supermarkets, as in, “His study of the different varieties of occuplanids led him on a tour of all the area bakery shelves.” Check out www.horg.com for more information! Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

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