The Exercise Life

It is seriously way past time to announce the challenge for the month. Our challenge to ourselves this month is to exercise 30 minutes a day. Have I already missed? yes. It's super discouraging to not be 100% successful, as we learned from last month, but it's also not good to look at the challenges that way either. I mean, challenging ourselves not to consume plastic in November was super hard, and we made a couple of mistakes, and I felt incredible about the outcome. Why in the heck would I be discouraged that we averaged having sex 6 out 7 days of the week or exercise 4/8 days so far. I really do want to do much more exercising for the rest of the month and get closer to the goal, but the challenge can be exhilerating and great no matter what.

I love The Simple Life by Janet Luhrs. She suggests never ever to spend money on using a gym, but rather to use the "Earth gym." I love the concept so much! Exercise is so very inspiring to me when I think about ways to use the earth gym. One night, I called my neighbor, and we walked together and talked about super important things going on in her life. It was such a great way to exercise at no cost to me and connect with a friend. One day this week, the kids and I drove to downtown Statham, parked, and walked all over town. We went to the little Statham library and gathered some free magazines for a couple of people I had in mind, checked out books on CD and a movie, and then went to Subway and bought a bag of sun chips for the kids to share as their treat. I let Isaac lead the way a couple of times, I took us through a little alley way b/w a couple of buildings and houses to the sidewalks of the main road, and then we got back in the van and drove home. It was so great to be out in space, without the boundaries of walls, moving our legs back and forth and back and forth, thinking about how grateful I am to walk and watch my healthy kids walk. I need more time for using my earth gym soon. This has been an insanely busy week b/c I committed to working at a nursing home in Elberton in addition to my usual work and half a day at treatment with my mom and a couple of church meetings. I had two 14 hours away from the house days starting from early morning, and there was NO way that I was going to exercise when I got home. Nearly impossible, it seems.

So, this weekend and next week will be much simpler, and I am going to try to really look forward to spending time moving my body and improving my health and my body.