exercise

used to be one of my favourite sayings was "I row" only because people never believed me, in the first place, or doubted my ability in the second place.
I remember directly being laughed at when I announced my intentions of trying out for the rowing team.
some people just know me far too well.
but I am also my mother's daughter in many respects, and if you tell that woman "you can't", well, you'd better back off baby cause she'll be kicking the dust off her heals faster than you can dial the phone to gossip to the neighbours.

well, as the story goes, I made the team AND we won W.O.S.S.A. for our school, thank you very much.  I think our victory was due, in part, to the fact that most mornings we found ourselves competing for space in axford's gravel pit with voden's senior boy's team and they thought we were irritating little pipsqueaks who ought to be shown a lesson or two.  it was either sink or swim.  I think their invitations to "eat our wake" only served to fuel us on to greatness.  it was unexpected, though.  I must admit that.  so unexpected, in fact, that our own coach failed to enter our team into O.F.F.S.A. because he never in a million years thought we would get that far.  serious dang.

so, after an exercise absence of about 20 years, I decided I had really better start back at fitness.  I bought zumba for the wii.  then I got sick again and felt it was in my best interest to wait it out a bit.  last night I decided enough was enough and I was going to finally make something of myself.  I baited neal, suggesting we try to work out together, which generally translates into me sitting on the loveseat watching him workout while I make suggestions for improvement or try desperately to hide my laughter behind my bony hands.

last night was no exception.

we borrowed a new game from friends and set out all energized.  I made neal go first.  (of course).  you had to do a series of "test" exercises so your current fitness level could be analyzed.  jumping jacks were up.  I think he hit around 30 when he started to fade a bit and claimed his calves were killing him.  I couldn't do it anymore.  I made a sound.  that's when he knew I was laughing at him, from the safety of my seat of love.  he started to laugh, which made jumping jacks look even stupider and utterly impossible to stifle any more snorts.
reality, however, was coming to bite me in the behind.
it was my turn.  I made exactly 25 jumping jacks and 4 girl pushups before I started making up numbers to add to the profile.
then I weighed in.

let's just say that the current level of sedentary activity combined with my new again habit of drinking homo has helped me gain approximately 3 pounds in 13 days.  un.stinking.believable.  it was a great idea when dad casually mentioned he had started drinking the milk again, recently, and found that it was helping him out.  I mentioned it to neal and he thought, sure, what can it hurt?  let's buy some for the boys.
it honestly didn't occur to me that,by having only one kind of milk in the fridge, I was inevitably going to "benefit" too.

good times.