Days 76 - 78: Farm Girl

I had no computer this weekend to do my blog, so here is my condensed version.

Spent 3 hours cleaning the house on Friday morning. No, we weren't showing the house. Charlie was working from home, and if I let him see me sit on the couch, eating Bon-Bons and watching my soaps, he's send me back to work, for sure!!

After the first 45 minutes, I had sweat dripping down my back, so I know I got a fairly good workout on Friday. There's a trick to burning more calories while doing housework... things like, if there are a pair of shoes that need to be put away, take one at a time, speedwalking back and forth. It works, I tell ya!!

That afternoon, the two Charlie's & I headed up with my BFF (Julie) to her parent's farm in Lake City. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive north from where we live...just south of the Florida/Georgia border. As much as we enjoy going to the farm, I know that it's never an easy trip for Julie. Her mom (in her early-to-mid 60s) has Alzheimer's. If you've never seen it first hand, it's hard to comprehend. All I know is that my BFF is stronger than 20 men.

On Saturday, after a few rounds of target practice with Charlie's new .22 Rifle, we DID manage to walk the perimeter of the yard 4 times for a total of approximately one mile. We guesstimated that one lap was comparable to one lap around a 1/4 mile track. Although it was still the last few days of Winter, it was a sweat fest for sure!!

Shortly after, we suited up and soaked in some Vitamin D, played a few games of online poker and X-Box video hunting, scarfed down some St. Patty's Day Corned Beef & Cabbage, then crashed around midnight.

Sunday was a lazy morning, getting packed up, cleaning all of our messes and waiting for her Dad to return from his hunting trip, and finally shipped off on our 2.5 hour trek back home. While I didn't go to the gym Sunday as I had planned, I did hammer out some Kitchen Counter Push-Ups and then some Sitcom Sit-Ups before cooking dinner for my two sisters and my sister's friend Sunday evening. Topped off the night with a Dance Central competition on the X-Box Kinect. Structured or not, burnin' calories is burnin' calories.

It was a completely non-productive weekend, and I loved every single minute of it.

Day 8 - Rubbing Off

Today was a milestone. A very BIG milestone. For those of you unfamiliar with my Lil C, he's a gamer, 7. A digital warlord. He has an iPod Touch, an iPad, a 3DS, a PS3, an iMac and an X-Box Kinect. His next goal is to create his own Game App for iPod/iPad. In a nutshell, you can say that he just "doesn't do" outside.

Being the lil' gamer that he is, getting him outside generally requires luring him with something digital. Today was not general. Today, Lil Charlie asked me, "Have you already done your 20?" No joke. HE asked ME. I was breathless, but wanted to maintain my composure, so I asked him with a straight face...expressionless, "You want to go with me, don't you?" knowing that any weakness in composure, or overuse of emotions would have lead to him retracting immediately. His look was priceless. At first it was his "stone cold testing your weaknesses" look, then he cracked. I wasted no time and immediately said, "Go get your shoes...meet me in the garage." If I would have had a camera, Lil C and his expression would be my picture instead of this horse that almost ate my camera today out at Lange Farm.

Well, clearly, Lil C DID want to go with me, and it occurred to me that my actions were actually making a difference. It was spreading like an infectious disease. My digital dude actually chose to go outside...into the wild blue yonder... I wasn't making his go with me. This was huge. This was REALLY huge. He wanted to ride his bike this time and asked me bring our 80lb dog, Zoe with us. It's not always an easy task, and picking up her poop with a plastic bag grosses me out to no end!!! ....but Zoe Dog does this cute dance every time I sit down to put my running shoes on. I call it her Happy Dance...then she pokes me in the face with her wet nose as I bend over to tie my shoes.... I just can't tell her "no."

Other than that HUGE milestone... I ate fairly well today, with the exception of the 3 P-Nut M&Ms that I snagged....oh, and the piece of cake that Sierra brought home tonight...caramel and pecans...UGH! Cake will be the death of me. I hearby declare that birthday cake be replaced with Birthday Broccoli....with cheese. YUM!!!