Fall Chores

Yesterday, after taking my dogs to the park where they played with dog friends, I had every intention of going to the gym. I usually have an hour to kill between returning from the park and heading out, so I decide to collect the mostly ripe milkweed pods from my yard and then cut back the hollow stalks. 

While doing this, I noticed that part of a small woodpile had fallen, probably due to the recent high winds, or the feral cats sunning themselves atop the pile and scampering off. Which means I need to fix that. Which means pulling half of it apart to stabilize the stacks. But first, I should make room inside the house so that I have adequately dry wood when I want to use my wood stove.

There's still an armful of super dry aged wood in the rack inside so I need to set that aside so I can burn that first. It doesn't do any good to have it under a pile of "new" wood. Which also means sorting the pile of newspapers accumulated over the summer. Because newspapers make good kindling. Okay, now I'm ready to fill my wheelbarrow and bring a load into the house. We've had frost warnings the past two days, never mind that temps will hit the high 70s by week's end.

After taking care of that, I can start stacking the firewood again. I'm so hot and sweaty that I have to remove all the layers I wore when I took the dogs to the park (it was 42F). When I'm done, I'm too tired to go to the gym. Plus, I need to find some canned pumpkin, and because I'm curious about a recipe for homemade pumpkin latte, a jar of pumpkin butter. 

The latter is ridiculously hard to find, but today I found it at the 3rd store I searched. Yeah, I've got some OCD issues... The canned pumpkin is for my oatmeal because I keep reading that it's a great nutritional source of fiber, beta-carotene, vitamin B6... I also dug up some recipes for pumpkin butter that even I could make if I wanted to spend time and effort. Not sure about that yet. 

It's 11:30 when I get to the gym but there are very few members present even though it's mid-week. But it's also sunny and mild outside, so people who like to run are on the bike trails snaking through the woods instead of trodding the treadmills. Cardio feels decent and I'm not disappointed in the "mileage" considering how sporadically I've been exercising. Even pull-ups are okay. Not great, but not bad either. Anything over a dozen is really good as far as I'm concerned. 

There's people in the Aerobics Room but everyone is doing their own thing. So nice when it's not crowded and no one's being an idiot! I stick to the new Dead Bug routine which totals 80 reps, and I keep the 90-second Wall Squat, even though I'm silently screaming at myself for the last 20 seconds, telling myself only 15 seconds to go, only 10 more, only 5 more. Whew! In the gym proper, the Stretch Cage is free and I get my second set of pull-ups. Done! 

Not sure if I'll hit the gym tomorrow, but if I do, I'll entertain the idea of working either triceps or maybe delts. I guess I'll see how I feel... And it'll be fine as long as I go to the gym on Friday.

25 October 2023 11:35-12:57
Wednesday Bright & Brisk

Precor elliptical #1
Program 3
Time: 30+5 (5678)
Distance: 2.86
Cal: 319
Avg Hr: 148, 195-91

HGPU 17

20 Hip Bridges
Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
DeadBugs 20/20/20/20 alt/ss = 80
20 Hip Bridges
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga
Wall Squats 90s

HGPU 15