NOT giving up!

I placed my FIFTH marble into my awesome mushroom jar this afternoon. A minor milestone, perhaps... but an important one for me. Today was the day my joints conspired to try to make me give in and not exercise. And rather than take the same route I've done for years and listen... I exercised anyway. I was all fired up because I've exercised four days in a row dozens of times. The fifth day is one of my biggest hurdles & I was ready for it today. Woke up, hopped right into my exercise outfit... and the kids needed help with school 'til lunchtime. But even that didn't stop me. Right after lunch, I pulled out the Balance Board and started up the Wii fully ready to do my 30-minutes of exercise. Halfway through my FIRST round of Rhythm Parade, (I've been doing three) my shoulder started hurting. A LOT. I fought through to the end of the set, but just barely. I DID manage one heck of an awesome score though! See?!? Seriously - ONE step away from perfect?!? I was on FIRE! Unfortunately there was no way I was going to be able to do a second, let alone all three sets of marching because my shoulder was THROBBING now! No problem, I told myself... so long as I can do both sets of Jackknives it'll still be awesome. WRONG AGAIN! Yep, the last 10 of my Jackknives caused my hips to start clicking & aching. *sigh* There was NO way I could do 30 more, when I barely got through the first 30! This is the point where I would usually walk away. Because... well... I HURT! But my companion Arthur Ritis is here for life, and tomorrow won't make me feel any better. I KNOW this, and today I decided I've had enough. Maybe I can't do what I'd planned, but I CAN still exercise! So today, rather than giving up and grabbing my hot-packs, I ran through the exercises and decided to give Rhythm Boxing a try. I haven't done that in awhile because the marching seems to be so much more effective, but I figured "Why NOT?!?" and started it up. One expert & one regular level later, I'd completed 21 minutes of boxing and STILL wrapped up with my five favorite yoga stretches. That's 41 minutes of exercise... on a day when I would have otherwise given up! I am NOT giving up... I AM going to make my goal this time! Mr. Ritis is just gonna have to deal with it, because it's time to fight back.

One Day at a Time

Two years ago today, I was sitting in the emergency-room for the second time in two days with a shingles infection that had gotten into my eye. After four MONTHS of multiple (LITERALLY hourly) eyedrops to keep my eye dilated, fight the infection AND fight temporary glaucoma this finally cleared up. Sort-of. To this day, I am completely nightblind. I also have a permanent "hole" in my vision that has ruined my depth-perception. One year ago today, I realized that because of my restricted exercise regime during all of this, I had gained back all 30 of the pounds I had lost. I felt horrible, looked even worse, and... did absolutely nothing about it. And over the past year those extra 30 pounds gained four more friends to bring me to a new highest-weight-ever. While I cannot change my vision, I CAN change my weight. This weekend I jumped on my scale, to find that 8 of those pounds have disappeared. I don't know why, and I DON'T really care. They're gone, and I'm ready to fight to keep them from coming back. So yesterday was the start of a new phase of "me." Yesterday I started exercising with my daughter... again. And since visual-aids really help me to stay on task, I'm using a visual reminder to help keep me on task. I saw THIS POST on Pinterest and immediately fell in love with the idea of filling a jar with marbles as visual inspiration. And while I do plan on copying the original blogger's idea of using one pebble for every pound lost - I wanted a short-term goal to begin with. So my version looks like this:My absolutely adorable mushroom jar will hold one marble for every day I exercise.  I'm keeping it on my desk right next to the computer, so I am sure to see it on a regular basis. The two little marbles already in the jar are for yesterday & today. There are thirty-three on the tray. But I am determined to get them moved to the jar. And hopefully by that time, I can start a NEW jar with a few extra marbles in the bottom! Slowly but surely I'll get there - one day at a time.