Month: July 2017

After my ‘rest day’ on Saturday (rest day that included a 3 mile run) I took an actual rest day on Sunday.  As Sunday progressed into Monday, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of depression.  I said to Bradley that he needs to remind me to get physical when I complain of the blues and I haven’t worked out because on Monday evening I went to cycle and weights boot camp and felt instantly better.  Working out is such a great release of depression and anxiety for me.  Sheesh.  The endorphins start flowing and my brain seems to click in and I smile.  Working out is my favorite, I’m telling you.  Keeps me solid and happy in more ways than one.

On Tuesday I had my meeting with Jessica, the personal trainer who is also my body pump instructor.  We started out with a lot of chit chat about my history.  Essentially is was a patient intake sheet, past injuries, health history etc.  We did a BMI anaylsis which put me at 37.1 body fat.  Not digging that but I’m also ok since I know I’m working at it.  After that, we hit the floor.  I was all excited to get on the equipment and do some big moves…  but instead we did just a few simple things.  She was focused on my injuries and places I need to strengthen, so that’s where we worked.  She had me practice a big one legged step, up and down off a platform.  Then we did a row on the row machine, I practiced squats and she showed me how to do a push-up on a bar.  That’s it.  After the session she let me know she was interested in continuing to train, but the cost is prohibitive for me at this point.  But boy, she knew what she was doing becasue it was like a slow release of muscles complaining all the rest of the day.  I came home and almost went for a run, I felt so fine, but the gradual release meant that two hours post training session my butt was suddenly like HELLO!  Then about two hours after that my armpits were like WE ARE HERE, TOO!  Then right before bedtime my ribs said DONT FORGET ABOUT US!  Who knew you could make your ribs sore??  Where there’s a muscle group there’s a way, I suppose. 😂

Today I woke up feeling better than yesterday so Gigi and I headed out to do a long run of seven to eight miles.  We planned on taking our longest 4-5 mile route then adding a three mile trail loop from St. Ed’s to it, too.  There was construction right before the park, though, which threw Gigi for a loop then literally threw her on the ground when she tripped over a rock and hit her knee on a sprinkler.  There was blood, tears, and a long walk home.  We were all sad since we didn’t get our long run, but then we remembered that we still hit over three miles.  There’s no shame in that.  Besides, my butt started singing like REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID YESTERDAY!  Yeah, my booty was telling me to stop, anyhow, so it was for the best.

I’m glad to be still hitting the workouts like a gym rat.  TONIGHT IS NEIL DIAMOND WITH MY MOM!  I’m pretty excited.  

Remember my ambitious exercise plan that I made last weekend?  I actually did it all!  I know it’s not that big of a deal to work out that many days in a row, but I think it’s my general practice to work out so many days in a row and then feel like I earned a break.  So I take a day or two off and then hit it again when I’m feeling a little more healed, or I halfway work out for a day in between days off to make myself feel better.  I had planned on pilates Friday, but by Thursday I was starting to feel pretty tired.  On Friday morning I woke up and cried.  I didn’t want to go at all, and had Janice not been there, I would have skipped.  By the time the class was over, followed by a thirty minute balance and stretching. Class, my body felt loose and open.  That was the exact effect I was going for!  After spending the week lifting, it was lovely to open up my body again and stretch out all the tightness.  When I got home, I felt glorious!  I was so proud to have comlpeted the work.  And not just complete it, but to know I brought my a game to every class.  That I squeezed the muscle groups I was supposed to squeeze with every rep, felt the burn and left it on the gym floor.  It was a great week and I feel accomplished.  Silly, I know, but I went hard!  For me, at least.😉

I feel like this song:

Today I woke up feeling satisfied about enjoyin my rest day.  I had big ideas of doing nothing, but something was gnawing at me.  I didn’t want to go on my long run tomorrow without waking up my muscles today with a short run.  It was supposed to be hot, so off we went, bright and early, for a nice three miles.  Bradley just got a Microsoft exercise band to he’s new to data tracking and all that goodness.  Today’s run was his innagural run with the band so we were super excited about tracking data.  My eleven minute mile has my heart at an anaerobic 165 beats per minute.  Bradley, on the other hand, was at 140, cruising along aerobically.  I found it really interesting that we were so different and how I get to run much slower for the kind of workout that I want.  👍😆

I want to add weight onto my bar like nobody’s business.  The instructors always say to find your weight, what feels good, what pushes back just a little…  So I try to, but of course I assume I’m always going to take the easy route so I want to add weight.  Then more weight.  I want o make sure I get my maximum workout and don’t look like a wimp!  It’s not too heavy!  Grin and bear it!  Or groan and bear it.  Grrrrrr!  Except I’m trying to be smart.  In the same way that I’m trying to think about food as fuel in a much more cause/effect kind of concrete way, I’m also trying to be smart about lifting.  When I started running, I had nothing to lose.  I was not my full 340 when I started running, but I was about 270.  I literally said that I could live without my knees if I smashed them to dust, but my heart would benefit from their sacrifice.  I can’t live without a heart, but knees?  Yeah.  That’s a pretty dark and desperate place to be.  Now is different, though.  Now I know the glory of a deliciously long run, the joy of a fun Zumba class, the beauty of hiking to alpine lakes, the confessions of my daughter as we run.  I enjoy the endorphins and the lovely side effect of my fitness based health changes- weight loss has been nice and a more typical body style that, while not necessary to leading a full, happy life, is admittedly kind of fun to take shopping.

Wow.  That was a lot of wordiness to get to the point that I talked to my instructor about adding weight to my bar today.  I’ve gone from the smallest weights on my bar possible to 3x that amount now in just about two weeks.  Today I wanted to add more weight, but unlike days of yore, I want to be stronger, healthier and undamaged WITH functional knees, elbows, shoulders, back and everything else.  I’m straight up greedy, now.  First she suggested just adding weight to one or two routines per step up.  Shifting all of my weights or many routines in one go could really damage me.  She suggested keeping a lot of my weight right where I’m at while I work on my form and then suggested that I set up my free personal trainer session with her!  I was being a bit lazy about setting that up, so it felt really good to take advantage of that, with an instructor that I really respect and like a lot.    Prior to today, I didn’t think I got to choose who I work with.  The free training session went from feeling like a sales pitch to a legitimate opportunity.  So, next Tuesday, I’ll be hanging with Jessica.  🙂

After I got home, I gardened a bit before Bradley and I headed out to a walk to finish out our steps for the day.  My daughter ended up hosting a sleepover, Jude was knee deep in building the Starship Enterprise and we found ourselves in the evermore common and unnerving position of having privacy and time away from our kids without having prearranged it.  We manufactured a cute little date night on the back patio, but we both commented on how true it is what we’ve heard: parents go from not having any privacy or time to themselves to having way more of it than they ever realized they even wanted.  I’m glad we still have many salad days ahead of us, but I have to admit that times in Lj House are a’changing.

I have to confess: lately when I spend an hour writing and publishing a post it gets deleted by WordPress!  I’m not sure what’s up, so I’m going to play catchup today with a picture post so I can keep track of what I have going on:

7/10 took me to a new gym at Ballinger and a new class. Spinning ain’t my thing- in that it intimidates me- so I made sure to nestle in between two wonderful ladies, Drea and Macky. I’m adding this class to my short list of MUST ATTEND EVERY WEEK. While there I noticed they offer a couple of 5:45 AM classes every week. I’m thinking of going to the spin boot camp class and a 5:45 AM class when the school year starts. Maybe if I preplan a couple of non negotiable gym workouts into my week it will be easier to meet my fitness needs during the school year. 

7/11 was one of those weird days.  Like, we just couldn’t get it together and figure anything out.  I ended up being kind of depressed until the rally that nihght.  I made a few signs to share my message with the school board as they made their way into meeting.  See, our union and district came to the bargaining table and when the union made a request, the district just said no without offering up other options.  The reps and teachers were all baffled by this response as we teach our students to never say no without coming up with an alternative.  Just saying no is unacceptable.  I was pleased when one of the board members asked Bradley specifically about his sign, and he told them that he sees inequity in class size, teacher support and special education services as markedly different in the two districts that he works closely with, and in his observation, one is not even close to equal with the other.  He also shared a bit of my story of imbalance in my classroom of 29 second graders, nine with special education needs, nine enrolled in our English language learners program and skeletal support.  I was so proud of him.  Afterwards we walked around, held hands and felt all romantic before we hit the Trader Joe’s.  😉



7/12 was finally birthday celebration day for Bradley!  He chooses a random summer day to celebrate as he hates his December birthday.  It’s between Christmas and the New Year and has always felt forgettable to him, so we wait and celebrate in the sunshine!  We had a huge breakfast then headed to the zoo.  Bradley acted like it was his last time with littles, as suddenly they’re seeming so old, so we did it all.  We rode the carousel, ate ice cream and popcorn, picnicked and, of course, saw everything.  Afterwards we had grilled vegetables and a Legend of Zelda marathon.  We are LOVING the new game.  There’s so much to do and our kids are astute enough gamers now that they can beat the bad guys.  This was definitely a day of seeing how big our kids are all of the sudden.

I met Drea for Body Pump class on 7/13, Thursday morning.  The instructor was new to me and whoa.  I got one of the best workouts for Body Pump!  Ballinger has it going on!  This is another class I’m excited to return to.  I was so sore I didn’t work out on Friday!  LOL!  I love that.  It will only get better.  

On this day I felt so fat.  Like, irritatingly so.  I try not to focus on appearance, but I can’t help but see my stomach jutting out.  I kinda decided I am going to diet some of the unhealthy fat off.  It will be hard in summer, but oh my gosh.  I’m hating the way my shirts fit me this summer compared to last.  My oh my.

On 7/14, Friday, I skipped working out because of my jelly arms, legs, back, fingers, toes, arches, neck…  did I miss anything???  Yeah.  Sore.  So I did a little craft therapy.  I love behaving like an artist.  Like, I love creating, I love making and I had the best time making that altoid tin diorama for Drea that night!  The party was nice.  It was lovely to put the Facebook profile with the people, if that makes sense.  The picture of the ladies was taken at the party, and I was alarmed at how beautiful we all are.  No one has a half closed eye or partial word coming out of her mouth, but more than that, we look happy.  Happiness is beauty.  It’s one of my favorite pictures ever.  Those are some brilliant, compassionate, gorgeous women I get to share a school with.❤️

Guinevere and I hit the road on Saturday with good intentions but gassed out before we could make our goal of six miles.  We were about to turn to add the final two and she suddenly turned and pleaded with me to go home.  I was hot, tired and had residual jelly legs.  I was more than happy to stop.  After that we headed to Michales and spent the remainder of the afternoon crafting to our heart’s content.  I made bracelets, she made flower crowns.  Both of us were so happy.


Today we were legend!  Well, not really.  But we did get our miles done in decent time.  To commemorate our first big push, we got medals! I bought them ages ago on clearance for exactly this purpose.  When we were about to hit five miles today, I told Gigi that we could be done, but if we hit six we’d get the pi medal.  She wanted the pi.  She got the pi!  Lol!  We have a few more medals to earn for our ninth mile- which is a bff pbj linking medal, for the eleventh mile we get a Dr. Who medal, and there may be more in store for us.  Who knows what else might happen?  After the excitement of medals, Gigi and I settled back into Makersville. I experimented with dioramas in jars while she made a show flower crown.  A great day AGAIN!

In addition to being a workout addict this summer, I’m also dedicating myself to staying busy through crafting.  I don’t even know what it is about a glue gun, paper, glitter, sticks, ribbon and fabric but when I’m with ‘them’ I think my mind just slows down, I focus in one place and just breathe.  I have figured out that making stuff makes me calm, so I do.  I just make.  My daughter runs a booklovers Instagram feed with two of her best friends, and it suddenly occurred to me that I can make to my heart’s content as therapy but what should I do with all of the products?  She and I put our heads together and decided to open up an etsy shop to sell the stuff we are making.  We realized that almost anything can be marketed with a literature connection, so I’m a busy bee over here making bracelets, mobiles, wall hangings and more.  It’s been really fun to dream things up from the pages of our favorite books!  We are pretty excited.   After I open the shop I will be sure to post a link.  

The dark side of my busy hands?  Crafting necessitates visits to the craft stores where I find ALL of the things I need to complete today’s craft, something to work on for tomorrow, something to fix a broken thing and there’s always something to set aside for the future.  And paper.  Man.  Can I buy paper.  Sheesh!  Today I bought some stuff to decorate with, some binding for some pennant flags and a whole new Project Life starter kit because I’m always looking for new ways to document my life.  Man.  Another hundred bucks like WHOOSH!  LOL!  In my defense, everything was on clearance or sale EXCEPT the bias tape.   Of course.  The other stuff are all things that I’ve been keeping an eye out for and showed up as a good deal today.

I conquered my fear of pilates today with my first ever pilates class.  It was one of those classes where you feel like you’re not really doing anything and then all of a sudden you realize you’re dripping sweat and your heart rate is chilling in fat burning zone!  LOL!  I met up with a few more of my girlfriends, Janice, Jessica and Julie, and I have to say that having friends there makes it so much better.  When you suck at folding yourself into a flat origami crane, it’s so helpful to get to turn to your friend next to you and just laugh!

*I noticed the craft store needed a little reorganization…  

long run tomorrow…  whatever that means!

Today was hot from the second we woke up.  It was one of those days where you rolled over and were already sweaty, before you even got to kick off your covers.  It lacked that freshness that morning is supposed to offer up, so instead of bounding out of bed and embracing the bare moments of coolness, we laid in, picked up our iPads and decided to go for a hike in the shade a bit later instead of a blistery hot run on the pavement at all.  Now I remember why the long run is so difficult to achieve in the summer.

Anyhow, we left and realized our Discover Pass had expired so we parked in the neighborhood across the street from the park and walked in, instead.  I’m always game to tack an extra half mile or two onto a a walk or hike, so it was cool with me!  LOL!  I had a really nice time running and walking alongside my girl.  I’ve come to really value the conversations and doors that open up when we sweat together.  

Anyhow, this is how we got busy today.  I’m considering my first ever pilates class tomorrow.  Am I crazy?!?!?!  

After Monday’s Body Pump class, I wasn’t too sure how ready I was going to be for a swift return.  I spent the last couple of days stretching out my armpits and arms in every doorway I came across.  Yesterday on my run my upper body felt sore with every step!  My legs and feet were just fine and those are the parts that got worked!  My shoulders, however, were another story!  Ha!  But today came, nonetheless, and I found myself in Lynnwood at the gym, again, lined up behind a weight set ready to go.  I swore to myself, though, that if the instructor started going after the triceps again that I was out of there.  Sure enough, 2/3 of the way through the class she started talking about tank top season and the triceps!  Of course I just dove in and did the workout, I didn’t walk out.  😉 Again, the class was fabulous.  Last time I did it, I didn’t go beyond the five pounders, but today I pushed just a little because the small ones felt too small.  It was definitely heartening to feel a little growth so soon after restarting the classes.

It’s super satisfying to step back into daily working out.  I’m pleasantly surprised at what an esteem boost it is.  ❤️

A little snap of last night.  We laid low, stayed close to home and had a super chill, super fun night together.