Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Sunny days are here. Mostly.

I haven't been around much lately because life has been GOOD. And busy. In a GOOD way. What a wonderful change from two and three Marches (edit: Um, April, Naomi. APRIL)ago. Except:

Ways in which swimmers typically hurt themselves:

1. Rotator cuff problems
2. Other repetitive strain-related injuries

Ways in which I have hurt myself swimming:

1. Chipping my teeth on the side of the pool. Twice. As a seasoned swimmer.
2. Smashing my heel or heels into the wall on a turn. Twice. At least. As a seasoned swimmer.

Idiot. I sometimes wonder how I survived four years of soccer. Or, you know, thirty years of feeding myself with a fork.

The weather here has been (mostly) amazing the last couple of weeks. I have acquired a sunburn and a very faint tan. The sunburn just appeared one afternoon for no apparent reason, this circle right in the middle of my upper back and shoulder. I'm pretty sure it was aliens.

We go to the playground a lot. I've made a few friends. It's odd because last spring and summer, there was hardly anyone there, ever. Now it's just crawling with kids all the time, and so far most of them have been the un-obnoxious sort. I love it! I have yet to run into a mom or nanny who isn't nice and interesting.

Here's the part where I get annoying. Annoying-er, maybe. My friend is running a half-marathon this summer for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and she's SO CLOSE to raising the required amount.

Don't feel that you have to donate or anything; I'm putting it here because I figured it couldn't hurt, right? I know her personally, and I've only donated $5.

Anyway, I'm putting the link here; you can do whatever you want with it:

Fundraising Page

In the fitness department (feel free to skip this; I mostly keep track for myself), I am, overall, about down to where I was size-wise pre-Grace, though I weigh about ten pounds more. I have more in the stomach than I did then (hard to avoid after what pregnancy does to one's skin), but my legs and arms look way better than they have in years, even when I was spending entire waitressing shifts lugging around heavy stacks of plates. It's such a great feeling. The increased strength, I mean. Not the stacks of plates.

In the last month I have finally started to SEE a difference when I look in the mirror. Sure, I've noticed that I've gone down a couple of clothing sizes, but almost nothing had come off my stomach or arms until very recently, which I think is how the eye gauges size. Especially one's own hypercritical eye.

I can do 13 real pushups now. I could do more when I was younger, but I also weighed a lot less. I don't think I broke 105 lbs before my sophomore year of high school. I'm going to try to figure how to work my way up to pull-ups, too. That's another thing I was never able to do even when I was in great shape; if I can do it now, weighing so much more than I did as a freshman in high school, that'll mean I'm really getting somewhere.

4 comments:

  1. You chipped your tooth - twice!- swimming?! You poor thing. Good job for keeping up with the exercise! I've had such a string of colds/flu/cracked rib to keep up with exercising lately, and that just makes me feel like eating constantly. Ugh. But good job! I know how hard it is to make exercise a consistent thing (especially when working around the schedules of multiple little ones.) And now you have lots of new friends...bla-bla-bla...whatever. We're just nobody's out here... :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I KNOW! It takes a special person to do these things. But how did you crack your rib? Are you okay? And by the way I DO miss you guys; I'm just really lousy at keeping in touch with old friends. :(

      Delete
  2. I love your blog. You make me giggle!!!!

    xxx

    Love from Lisa-Marie (Hollanda) xxx

    ReplyDelete