The Sidewalk Cafe

I decided to do today’s exercise when I woke up.  Rolled outta bed, put on the workout clothes and got on the bike.  The Penguins of Madagascar were my entertainment for the ride.  5.1 miles & 139.9 calories burned.  Once that I was done I made a yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns and stripples (veggie bacon).  mmmm  To make my day even more exciting I also cleaned both bathrooms and steam cleaned the 2 bedroom carpets today.  I didn’t even bother checking to see if I have a temp today, don’t have time to deal with one if I do.  I’m now folding the first load of laundry and the last load is in the dryer.  Season Premiere of Royal Pains is tonight.  Oh how I missed this show.  It entertains me so.

I believe I’ve recruited a new victim for the challenges.  My friend, Shauna is interested in starting.  Don’t know if she will blog yet.  Will keep you updated on that front.

Tomorrow starts the work week.  Should be interesting with no voice.  I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of emails and tech work instead of talking to reps and customers.  LOL  At least for a day or so.  Well, bed seems to be calling to me.  Time to finish the laundry and pass out.

Today was the physical therapy exercises.  I didn’t want to do them, I really didn’t.  I woke up today with no voice and an even more vicious cough.  Sometime during the day I took my temp, 100 degrees.  Now I’d say that probably would have been a good excuse not to do them, but I don’t want to start out with excuses.  I’ve worked to hard to motivate myself to not make excuses.  So at 11:42pm I finished day 2′s physical challenge.

I didn’t make it to my parents house or steam clean the carpet, but I did accomplish one important thing today.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the energy for the carpet.   It really needs it.  Tomorrow I need to pick up my book too.  Gotta make sure the emotional challenge doesn’t get forgotten.  I’m watching the remake of Annie before I go to bed.  It’s one of my favorite movies and it always cheers me up.  Kinda hard to sing along with a scratchy voice though.  Tee hee hee

Today’s post is a short one, but it’s one of accomplishment.

Day 1′s physical challenge is complete.  21 minutes on the bike.  5.1 miles, 137.6 calories and 1 sore ass later it’s done.  I need to find some kind of gel seat for the bike.  My butt and other stuff is screaming at me right now.  I may have waited until 9:50pm to do the challenge, but technically it was still day one.  I watched Glee while riding it so that was a good a distraction.  I’m quite sure I will be hurting for the next couple weeks.  After all, what else do I expect after doing my best to do nothing for the past year.  I’m glad I didn’t miss the first day though.  I think having it out there that I’m doing this kind of makes me want to do it more.  It gives me something to prevent myself from being a liar or procrastinator.

Today was more of a mellow day.  Got up.  Helped my brother start a website.  Played video games with the 10 year old neighbor boy who locked himself out of the house and in general just chilled.  Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to my parents house and I need to steam clean the carpets and do laundry.  I still have some more computer work to do to get my laptop in fully working condition, but it’s almost there.

I think I’m going to work on a new design for the bedroom.  The rest of the house is looking good, but I’ve been letting the space around me slack.  My room doesn’t feel relaxing and that bothers me.  Maybe it’s a reason I don’t sleep well, and maybe it’s not.  Either way it’s a decision I made last night when I was sitting in bed.

I think for now it’s time for a shower and maybe some sleep.

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.  Well my name is Stefanie and I’m lazy.  Oh sure, I have energetic spurts where I do a lot and get a lot done, but in general I’m a really lazy person.  I always have an excuse for what I should be doing.  My back or hip is hurting.  I’ll do it later.  I’m tired, I haven’t slept in days.  You know, the usual stuff.  I think the biggest one is I”ll do it later, then later just never comes.  Life is just so much easier and peaceful that way.

My biggest procrastination is exercise.  I’m 100+ pounds overweight and I’ve been too lazy to truly do anything about it.  What does that mean?  My body is constantly in pain.  If’ it’s not the hip bursitis, it’s the muscle spasms and the pain in my back.  Losing weight can only help me.  I just turned 28 but I feel like I have the body of a 60 year old.  I’m tired of being out of breath just by walking.  I’m tired of moaning and grunting when I stand up.  I’m tired of unbuttoning the pants when I sit down because they’re just a little too tight.  I’m tired of constantly pulling at my shirt because I think it fits just a little to tight around my stomach.  And most of all I’m tired of the constant pain.

Originally I was going to do the same challenge as Yael at The Anti-Comfort Zone.  Instead I’ve decided to do my own challenge.  My challenge for June is a bit more physical.  In order to get myself in a healthier habit I will be doing 3 days of cardio and 5 days of my physical therapy exercises.  Now since I’m not in the best shape and I don’t want my asthma to start flaring up, I will start out slower on the cardio.  20 minutes minimum on the stationary bike.  It’s an exercise I can do rain or shine and it can be done in front of the TV.  After a couple weeks I will increase the time.  After a few weeks I will increase the intensity.  The physical therapy exercises are just muscle strengthening exercises so those won’t be altered any.

Now, I do think I will still do the same emotional challenge as Yael.  One book a week.  This week I will be reading “Under Her Skin” by Susan Mallery.  She’s become one of my favorite authors and I really enjoy her books.  She writes romance novels, but instead of being just smut there’s an actual story to it.  I find it quite enjoyable.  Like Yael, at least an hour of the reading will be done out doors (weather permitting).  Unlike Yael, I don’t have pool to read by.  Instead I will be reading on my back porch.  This will of course mean turning off the TV and reading instead.  That’s ok, I really enjoy reading and I watch WAY too many reruns on TV.  Just because I’ve seen something 3 times doesn’t mean I need to see it a 4th time.

I did get a lot accomplished today.  I might have woken up at 11am, but I managed to fit a lot in.  After taking care of the animals I decided to go birthday shopping at Target.  I found a new TV stand that I LOVE.  It was on sale so I couldn’t say no.  I also found a couple new things for the house.  I’ve slowly been working on making it more homey and less cluttered.  After walking a mile in Target (literally, I used a pedometer) I went to Ross.  Found a new pot (yay no more rusted pots) and a new glass baking dish.  Ross is beyond affordable for what they sell.  The pot that was $30 at another store was only $7 at Ross.  What a steal!!

After bringing home my finds I put together the new TV stand and decided to use the old one as the new coffee table.  It’s a bit small, but until I can afford a good living room set it will work.  While moving furniture around I also vacuumed and fixed the rug which I’ve been meaning to do for DAYS.  After all that I got another brainstorming idea and ended up at Michael’s.  There I bought the makings for a new vase design.  After coming home using a vase, river rocks and the new reeds, bamboo and bush stuff I made a new design.  I quite like the way it turned out.

Then I made dinner.  That’s right people.  I MADE dinner.  Those of you who know me know that that’s a big thing for me.  I hate to cook.  It was only spaghetti, but I did add browned veggie meat (mmm Morningstar), steamed some white corn and had a salad.  All in all I’d say that’s healthier then take out!!

Only thing I have planned for the rest of the night is to clean the kitchen and make my bed.  Tomorrow starts a new day and a new change for the better.