New Gym, New Motivation...

   I  haven't worked out in about 9 months and it has clearly MORE than started to show on my already overweight body....which has made me pretty self-conscious as of late.  Plus, I have been avoiding going to the doctor like the plague, because I know I have gained weight since the last time I saw her and I don't want her to yell at me.  So, recently I decided it's really time for a change and I need to get back into working out....the problem is, I am horrible at motivating myself to do it at home, and I really, really, really don't want to go back to my old gym.
  Now don't get me wrong, when I started at my old gym two years ago, I loved it.  I was pretty much doing mostly cardio on my own to begin with,  but I was soon convinced that by signing up and paying for personal training I would get better results.  So I did, and even that at the beginning was fine, but soon I found my trainer forgetting to make routines for me or even forgetting he was meeting with me. More than that....I wasn't losing weight even though, according to my trainer, I was "killing it"!  Then he convinced me to pay even more money to meet with the gym's nutritionist once a month.  I did  that too, and to be honest, it was very informative.  The only problem was I had no real accountability and struggled to stay on plan....and eventually gave up.
  At that point, I was starting to get frustrated and annoyed and decided it was time to switch trainers.  There was another trainer at the gym whom I liked and I thought we would work well together...and we did, for a long while.  But I still wasn't losing weight....in fact I was gaining weight.  Working hard and seeing no results made my commitment level waiver, and my lack of commitment rubbed off on my new trainer.  Soon I was only coming to the gym to go the training sessions, since I had paid for them, and half the time my trainer would just talk about life with me, her other clients, and her colleagues. Yeah, she still trained me and she usually remembered when we were meeting and she only forgot to make new routines for me a handful of times... but by then I was so unmotivated and over the gym that I just stopped giving any real effort, and both she and I knew it.  I was burned out, frustrated, and feeling like I was wasting all sorts of money without getting anywhere....so eventually, I just stopped going.  That was in April.
  Since then I have dreaded going back to the gym.  In fact, I am currently still paying membership fees and have like 15 unused training sessions at that old gym,  just cause I have no desire to walk in there ever again.  So when I started noticing the number on the scale going even higher, and that not only was my belly starting to hang over my jeans, but I was getting winded walking upstairs.... I started seriously thinking about going back to the gym, but just not my old one.
  Then one day I was on facebook and a picture of an old friend popped up.  Somehow seeing her picture reminded me of the one time I went a took a class with her at her gym.  That gym is legitimately 3 minutes from my current job and about 10 minutes from home.  So I decided to reach out to them.  Now to be honest, when I reached out I really wasn't sure they would allow me to join.  From what I had vaguely remembered, the workouts were hard and I am clearly not in shape.  But I reached out anyway and it turns out, they didn't care how out of shape I am.
  I am now currently 7 days into my free 10 day trial with them and I got to say, I was pretty much sold after day two.  I love the atmosphere in the gym, and for a girl who always shied away from classes, I have found in a group setting my competitive nature sturs up and I end up pushing myself harder than I would working out on my own.  And although there has been at least 1 moment in every class when I've literally felt like "maybe I can't do this"...the classes are only 35 minutes so I always make it through.
  So...I think I found myself a new gym!  Now I just need to officially join....and FINALLY cancel that old gym membership!

Morning Interupted....a lesson in kindness

  One of my worst traits is that I often think the worst of people and jump to the worst conclusions about situations before I even give people or things a chance to explain themselves.  And sometimes...due to this pessimistic nature of mine... I do, say, or think things that ultimately prove that I am nothing more than a complete ASS.  This morning was one of those moments.

  My morning started off great. I woke up at my normal time, sat in my normal chair, drinking my normal cup of cream only coffee...when all of a sudden I was called out of my nice normal routine by my father who needed help with his car.  You see, my father and I park in the same driveway and for some reason, his car battery decided to die sometime between the time when we switched the placement of our cars last night and when he went to leave this morning.  And to be honest, my dad was really just trying to be considerate of me by asking me to help him move his car into the road so that I wouldn't have any trouble getting out of the driveway when it was time for me to leave for work...but at the moment I didn't see it that way. 

  So here I was in my pajamas and messy hair, outside in the freezing rain sitting in my father's car turning the wheel for him, while he pushed the car out into the road and then over to the curve...all the while grumpy as could be.  Then, to make matters worse, once my father pushed the car out of the driveway, it rolled to a stop right in the middle of the road and we couldn't get it to budge again.  My father kept yelling at me to "Turn the Wheel", while I kept yelling back "I am!  You need to push!", but no mater how much shade we threw at each other the car just sat there blocking the entire road.

  About this time, I started thinking how making my 75-year-old father push a car by himself with me in it wasn't all that fair, especially since he's been feeling pretty sick the past few days,  and so I decided we should switch places so he could rest.  So, with my grumpy attitude, I jumped out of the car while my father jumped in and I started pushing.  And I pushed and I pushed and I pushed, only to have the car move a grand total of one inch before stopping again!

  At this point, I was tired, and wet, and annoyed that my nice relaxing morning routine was being ruined, when one of our neighbors pulled out of their driveway and started driving right towards us.  I hate to admit that I immediately screamed out loud "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!", thinking "hello, you can see me struggling to push this car from your driveway.  Why would you drive your car right towards me knowing I'm not going to be able to move it fast enough for you to get by!  What is wrong with you?!".  

  Of course, the question should have been, what is wrong with me because my neighbor wasn't driving towards me to try and pass by and carry on his way.  No, he was driving over towards us so that he could help me push the car.  My neighbour...who I basically just told off without even knowing his intention... got out of his car and with one quick push moved the car to the side of the road as joyful as could be.  Then he stopped to see if we needed any more help before carrying on with his day!  

  It was in that moment I realised just how much of an ASS I was.  Here I assumed the worst of this guy, yet here he went out of his way to help us out...and he did it all with a smile on his face!  I immediately felt remorse and like I owed this man something.  He had reminded me that not all people are bad and that the world still can be a kind place...and now it is my duty to pass that on. So the next time I find myself in a situation where I can help some other grumpy little damsel in distress, I'm gonna think of this man and do my best to be the kind of neighbor he was today!  And maybe this little act of kindness will get passed on again, and together it will help make this world a better place.

The Hazards of Cough Medicine...

  Every year, when the fall starts rolling in, I get a cough.  Unfortunately, said cough usually lasts until February or mid-March, and it's absolutely annoying.  Not only that, but My cough likes to play this little game with me where it gets my hopes up by almost disappearing and then comes right back with a vengeance.  For the past week, I have been in the blissful state of believing that my cough was finally going away.  For the first time in weeks, I could make it through reading an entire picture book to my class without on cough interrupting it...and it was glorious.  Then my dad got sick, and before I knew it...my cough started coming back. Last night my cough got so bad that I just could not sleep and was reduced to drugging myself with Delysum around 2am in the morning.  Of course, what I didn't know at the time was that in some rare cases Delysum can cause nightmares.  And who would have thought I would be one of those rare cases!

   I ended up having this horrible dream where these drug dealers set up these checkpoints all around my neighborhood where they tried to convince people to stop by saying they needed help.  Then when people stopped they overdosed them by throwing some powdery drug all over them, and then stole all their cash.  In my dream, I saw this happen to the car in front of me and determined that I would not be duped when I drove by the checkpoint.  Of course, I wasn't expecting a second checkpoint, nor was I expecting the guys behind this to be so aggressive.  While I tried to drive past the second checkpoint, one of the guys there started yanking down my driver's side window and hung from it while I started driving away.  Then somehow...cause you know, dreams....he was able to grab some filmy paper from his friend and tried to wipe it on my face through the window.  I was quick on my feet though and threw it back at him, which caused the guy to start foaming from the mouth and convulsing.  He fell from my car window and one of his friends ran to help him, but dropped a whole bag of the powdery drug all over him, causing them both to begin seizing and foaming at the mouth even more.  This gave me time to get away, or so I thought.

  Instead, the rest of the guys in the group jumped into their car and started chasing me, and contrary to what I always think I will do if I am ever being followed, I led them straight to my house!  Once I got home, I ran inside and locked all the doors and windows.  I even push one of our couches in front of one of the doors because I was afraid it wasn't secure enough.  Then I called for my parents to run upstairs and hide because I could hear the men running around the house trying to find a way in and I knew it was only a matter of time before they were successful.  

  For some reason, my father hid in the bathtub....which, why would anyone actually do that, but whatever!  The bad guys ended up entering the house through the cellar door and somehow knew to immediately go to the upstairs bathroom to find my father.  I saw them enter the bathroom and so I tried to stop them by banging one over the head with a metal rod on the floor... cause you know, we all keep random rods on the floor!  My attempt to attack the attackers failed miserably though, and they captured me, forcing me to watch while they started torturing my father by using scissors to cut small portions of skin off his toes.  

  Next thing I knew I was startling myself awake screaming "NO!" out loud!  It took me a good 15 minutes to calm myself down afterward and realize this was all, in fact, just a dream and I had nothing to worry about.  Moral of the story....read the fine print and find out the possible side effects of the medication before you take it, or risk having some crazy ass dreams that will keep you up half the night!