Day 9 and Karate

Today was Day 9 of the P90X experiment. It's hard, and I have to modify several of the exercises ... and I hurt ... but I love it! I love the way I feel after a good workout. I love the extra strength and energy I feel.

Did I mention that I LOVE it? =D

Last night, after a break of nearly 2 1/2 years, I went to Karate. I'd been wanting to go back for a year, but last summer I injured my back and the dojo was having challenges with a location. We met at a local park and did Karate outside for 2 hours. I'm stiff today, but I also realized how much I've missed it.

Reflections on Memorial Day

I wrote a post about Memorial on my writing blog. You can find it here.

Fitness

I've been meaning to get into a more aggressive exercise program for a while. I struggle with a few issues, such as my back, ongoing tendonitis in my elbows and my left ankle, and I've always had issues with my knees. But I hate being weak, and old age keeps trying to make me weak.

Well, I won't go quietly into the night. *grins evilly*

I started P90X Lean this week.



All I can say is wow. I hurt in places I didn't know I had muscles. But already I'm feeling the extra strength I've been wanting.

Now if I could just find some hand exercises that won't also irritate the ongoing tendonitis in my right wrist.

Have I mentioned that it sucks getting old?

Laughter

Need a laugh? Try BYU's Divine Comedy:

Mother's Day

Robert brought little Davey over again, so we got to see the little guy twice in a month. That's exciting. Paul and Kelsey came, too, and Kelsey says she's starting to feel better. That's really good news. Morning sickness can be such a bear.

Ed got me a bike for Mother's Day. I'm excited because I'd like to drive up Provo Canyon and ride down the Provo River Trail. He's hoping we can go together, but he's not sure his knees are up to it. He's got both kinds of arthritis and Fibromyalgia, and it may not be something he can do easily. Some of his challenge is hurting so much. He needs to exercise (mildly and regularly rather than hard intermittently as he does with his handyman projects) more to feel better, but he hurts so much already it's hard to convince him to give it a try. I'm hoping he'll be out of excuses once he retires the end of July. He's counting the days.

I attended a wonderful writing conference last weekend and came away with tons of things to think about while I'm writing. There's so much to learn. Even though I'm a voracious reader, there are elements to writing that I never considered in that capacity. I compare it to an experience I had when I was choir director. They called a young woman who was an amazing pianist ... but she'd never accompanied anyone before. She'd only ever looked at the music in it entirety. I'd need her to play just the alto part (for example), and she had no idea what it was. Even when I explained, it was difficult for her to pick out just that line in the music.

It's the same thing with writing. We may know we like a particular book or don't like another, but besides the plot we may not be able to explain why we like or don't like them.

*sigh*

So much to learn and to try and implement.

Easter 2011

Paul & Kelsey and Robert, Michelle, & David came over for Easter. We were planning on Easter dinner, but this is a holiday where Paul and Kelsey have to make multiple visits, so everyone came over for brunch. Rob and Michelle stayed for dinner, too.

Did I mention that we're going to be grandparents again? Paul and Kelsey are expecting sometime in December.

We got some fun pictures of Davey, who's walking now.

Davey with his Easter Bunny

Eating breakfast with Papa

Davey loves the Rock Band drums.

Eating a snack.

Davey knows where his nose is.

We sure miss all the rest of the family.

Consequences

I guess I had so much fun in Ireland that now it's time to pay the piper. I caught a cold there that started as just a sore throat. After a few days (and gargling with hot salt water) it dropped into my chest. I thought I'd lucked out by not getting anything in my head.

Um. No.

Just in time for the flight home--and an incredibly long day--this nasty cold moved up into my sinuses. And my ears.We were delayed in Dublin just a bit because 2 passengers hadn't made past security, and they were pulling their luggage from the plane. That was comforting.

The flight from Dublin to JFK was nearly 7 hours long, and then we had a 7 hour layover, which ended up being a bit longer than that. Both Arlene and I had printed out our boarding passes, but it only gave us the pass for the first leg. As a result we had to go out of security, get boarding passes for the second leg, and go through security again. Which was the 3rd time, since we had to go through both Irish and U.S. security in Dublin.

As our plane was preparing to leave JFK, there was a little excitement, which delayed us further.

When I texted Paul (and some of my other kids about it), Paul's response was:

"That's why I don't fly."

And he doesn't. He'd love to go to Hawaii to visit Erin, but he'll only go on a cruise. He and his wife Kelsey would love to visit Ireland. But it would involve and long, overland trip and then a cruise.

The bottom line is that we were about 40 minutes late getting into SLC, arriving about 12:10 a.m. Now add on to that the 7 hours we'd gotten back with the time difference, and I'd been awake 27 hours. That's not a good combination with the cold. I had to call in sick, and I've been dragging ever since. This is the first cold I've had in a long time that's messing with my ears. I have to keep asking people to repeat themselves, and I'm frequently dizzy.

And I have responsibilities at a work related conference next week. Ugh.