Working out

I started going to the community fitness center one month ago and I am trying to get in the habit of exercising regularly. It's very difficult to acquire this new habit, and I continue to try. Indeed, it has only been a month, but I'm discouraged because I haven't lost any weight at all.

I am expecting too much too soon. I'm not 25 anymore and the pounds are stubborn.  I also haven't changed my eating habits yet. I didn't want to take on too many changes all at once.

I feel a little stronger, and I feel more comfortable being at the gym. I sleep better on the nights after I've worked out. My workout consists of a whole body set of strength training set along with 15 minutes of aerobic activity. It takes me about 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete everything.

The wonders of the iPod. I collected some music in a workout playlist....but found out today it's too short. Well, back to iTunes....

To help track my workouts, I found an app called Gym Buddy. So far it seems to work pretty well for building and recording workouts. I still need to play with to get all the details about the exercises set up just right - I'm not sure how to record a timed exercise, like holding a plank position for so-many seconds. Or, how to record "weight" on a push up - it's my own body weight, reduced a bit because I can only do push ups on my knees.

Back to the music...
Naturally, I Google'd to find suggestions for work out music. Most of the lists I found are all compose of angry screaming rap music. I need lists for geezers - like an upbeat 70s workout mix (Abba!), or an 80s pop mix (Peter Gabriel, Michael Jackson). Even a contemporary mix that isn't rap music would be nice. I can appreciate rap at some level, but it just doesn't do it for me any more than 1950's rock-n-roll, or Elvis, or heavy metal.

The young people seem to enjoy investing their time in curating their song libraries, but I just don't want to spend my time that way. I just want it to *be* there, not work for it. Heck, I even still listen to the radio.

And not XM radio.

Once I come up with a few enjoyable lists, I'll share.

Charity Quilt

Charity Quilt
Originally uploaded by ava99riley00

Look, I have been working on a quilting project!

Tough

It has been a tough time two weeks. We had a major blizzard on Tuesday (and I went to work every day this week, thanks a lot). It caused the guild to cancel the Charity quilt-a-thon day, and I was disappointed because its' my favorite meeting all year. I had done a lot of work preparing for it.

My computer hard drive died over the weekend. I'm back online, $200 and three days later.  The music for my next concert is kicking my ass (it's very hard).  I screwed up a meeting at church (I thought it started at 5:30...no, it was 5:00).

On the good side, I experimented with spray quilt basting for a charity quilt and it worked well.   I quilted it on my machine with good results.

I still haven't finished Ann's quilt. It's all done except the label and I used my dead computer as an excuse. I like to make my labels as a word document that I trace onto muslin. Then I embellish the label and applique it down; that's how it became an excuse.

Once I get the label done, I am free to work on new projects. I am looking forward to that!  I have several ideas for what to do and I can't wait to get started!