Go figure

Funny how usually I make excuses about exercising, but since I've been having an asthma flare up, I've actually wanted to go to the gym.

Whew!

Our apartment complex built a fitness centre/new laundry and it opened last week. With the trip, this was my first chance to check it out. I got up really early. I started small with my workout -- 6 minutes on the bike, followed by 12 minutes on the treadmill. Now I'm sweaty and feel good about myself. It's just for residents, and has a key fob security system. I am much more likely to exercise with this available, where I can shower at home before work, than I ever did at a gym. There are also towels and a water station. And though I usually do laundry at my friends' house, it's nice to finally have one that isn't down a narrow staircase in the basement.

You know, it's harder than you might think to wrap a toe in a Band-Aid

Listening to: 'I'm Not that Girl' from Wicked

Especially if you have stubby, unagile toes like I do. They don't like to separate.

In other personal medical news, assuming you care, I'm out of the wrist brace except for lifting. Dr Favetto saw me this time, and he said that a lot of the trouble with the elbow tendon actually stems from my shoulders and posture. He wants me to go to physical therapy and get back into yoga. I was virtually prescribed to go to the gym, since most people don't exercise well at home. He thinks that will help with the various joint pain and the fibromyalgia that I rarely think about but which is always in the background (I don't do acute pain well, but as far as chronic pain goes, I'm a trooper).

I checked and if I go to the downtown gym (not as close to me as Palumbo, but close to work) on Mondays or Wednesdays, I could take an 'urban yoga' class. (The downtown gym also provides towels and all sorts of amenities). :) And of course I do have my Rodney Yee morning yoga tape, which I'm pretty decent at doing once I get into the groove of getting up earlier. I'll have to move some book boxes out of the living room, but I need to do that anyway.

The only trouble with yoga class or physical therapy is that I'm working 34 hours at the store this coming week, for a total of 54 hours. Mostly it's at 3 pm, a half hour after I get off at the hospital, going to 10 pm or so. I may take off a couple of days at the hospital for some other appointments and work the physical therapy in then; I'm not sure yet. We'll see how I do. I've been abysmal at going to the gym and I really don't have one to go with for motivation.

PS I think my keyboard is not sensitive enough or something; it keeps skipping over letters when I push the keys. It's not very old. Oh, well. I just have to remember to go back and read over what I write.

I'm really not trying to be depressing

In fact I've twittered several small, happy things from my mundane life. So what's going on with me? Today was a good day, full of productive work and then I got some medicine, voted, got my new library card (with the keychain card, too), went to the gym (and got a new card for that, too, since it's changed from Gold's Gym to Urban Active), came home, and I've had a relaxing time, taking a nap, blogging, etc.

Tomorrow should be even better. We have a birthday breakfast at work where the directors serve and the administrator cooks omelets. It's something they do every six months or so, so even though I had a birthday in April, I go to this one. I'll need to get up early, as it finishes at 9 am and I'm usually at work at 10. Then there's a plenary session on Web 2.0 provided by webcast from MLA for those of us not in Chicago at the annual meeting. I have decided that I'm celebrating getting paid on Wednesday and Thursday with pizza (I have a coupon all ready, so it won't be very expensive) for lunch tomorrow. Then Thursday I'm going to pay my bills and get some gas and groceries.

Well, that's what's going on in my life, which is significantly better than last week. Hoping you're having a decent day/week, too.

So this week I lost five pounds

making it a -15 for the last couple of months. My secret? Peanut butter. Lots of peanut butter sandwiches, because since I've been paying a $100 a month dental bill for a few months it's been pretty tight moneywise. But I'll be finished with that in March, at least. This week has been peanut butter sandwiches, small cheesy baked potatoes, macaroni and cheese, a little tuna, and one splurge thanks to a friend of Vietnamese food from Pho BC in Regency Centre off of Nicholasville Road. The last was really good. I had fried tofu in tomato sauce over white rice, two vegetarian egg rolls with tofu inside, and I split an order of tofu fried rice. It was surprisingly mild but they had chili sauce you could put on it to spice it up. Hmmm...nummy.

So, nutritionally speaking it's probably not great--no real fruits or vegetables--but I hope to rectify that in a week and a half. Still, I can't say I'm disappointed in the weight loss at all. At some point last fall I was at my all-time greatest weight--291. Now I'm 275 and losing. Yay. Now if I could just get to the gym...

This is so me

I try to go to the gym, but I can't find the time. Thanks YKWIA for finding these.

'Gym Membership' by Graham (somegreybloke)


I also like these as well'
'RE: Jesus Loves You' by Graham (somegreybloke)


'Choosing my religion' by Graham (somegreybloke)

I am spending a rare evening home

or at least from 9 pm on. My main excitement today was making my rent with pennies to spare. (It would have been a dollar and some pennies, but then I remembered the gas station prints out two money orders for anything over $500. Which mine was, unfortunately. My normal rent is $480 a month, but I had late fees on top of that. Which is sad, because I really expected to be fine this month, but forgot the stupid gym membership that comes out at the beginning of the month, so while nothing bounced, I was a small amount short for my rent, which then turned into almost being short with the late fees. Gah.

Speaking of the gym, the plan is to go back starting tomorrow. I'd like to shoot for 5 days a week, an hour at a time at first, in the hopes of doing 3 days a week. It'll have to vary with my store and Swampa schedule, though. My podiatrist told me at the end of December that I could go back but focus on bicycling before working up to treadmills, since my foot is still healing. And after all, I'm paying for it and it's costing money, so I should reap the benefits. Plus, there's a pool and a sauna. :) It's not Gold's Gym anymore, though. Basically the franchisee came to an agreement with Gold's and is now operating under the name Urban Active. Same facilities, same contract, same money coming out of my account, different name. (And yes, I checked to see if I could get out of the contract--that runs till next year--due to the change. No dice.) But I need to go anyway. So between jobs tomorrow my goal is to go do some bicycling and maybe a little weight lifting and pool action.

I think I'm going to go do some things with my off time. Bye.

I really screwed myself over

I tried to cancel my gym membership today at Gold's Gym. I don't go and it's money I could be using more efficiently. I don't normally have time (ironically I do now because I have a broken foot and haven't been working at the gas station, but of course I can't work out much either since I have a broken foot, not to mention it's hard to pay for since I'm not working both jobs.)

Anyway, I couldn't cancel. I thought I'd signed a contract for a year ending in July. I in fact signed a contract for three years (36 months in small print). The only way out is if I move 25 miles or more from a gym. Argh! But I have only myself to blame; I didn't look at the contract closely enough and was just really stupid. And the dues are going up $5 a month in October, according to a sign at the front desk. Bummer.

So I thought, well, maybe I can get the one-time allowable three-month medical stay due to my foot (you have to have a doctor sign it). But you still get charged; they just tack the extra months on at the end.

Needless to say, it was a fruitless endeavour. I was already annoyed that 1) you couldn't just cancel over the phone, but had to come down, sign paperwork, and then it would go through in about 30 days. I was also annoyed that the medical leave form was not on the website (and I checked both the corporate and the one for this particular franchise) like I was told. Again, I had to come down in person.

Moral of the story: read everything you sign. In the meantime, I guess I will be heading back to the gym once I'm able. I do need to lose weight, work on toning up, and I'm paying for it already.

It's amazing what a couple of hours makes

I went in to work a couple of hours later than normal because I had to be at an appointment and so I stayed till 4:30 or a little after, actually. The traffic was bumper to bumper, much different from my 2:30 sprint down Richmond Road is normally.

I'm home for just a little while between jobs, eating some Morningstar Farms' buffalo wings (did you know they were a division of Kellogg's?) They're pretty good.

Tonight is the truck at the gas station, and I'm only working two hours. My schedule changed so I'm working tomorrow, a little longer than originally scheduled for Saturday (9 hours instead of 6) and then I'm working Tuesday. But, since I'm very nearly broke (but my rent's paid, and on time--I was afraid our cheques wouldn't get here by Wednesday, but they did), I can't complain, and I'm just concerned about gas and food--and I have somewhat of a food stash put away, plus our chairman emeritus brought in some apples from his home, and I got a bag of them. Next week is the big cheque that bills come out of. This is the first time in awhile I've been so low, because there were some non-mothly expenditures last month. This month should be better. I did go ahead and cancel the newspaper--I didn't really have time to read it. I get those through the 15th. I'm also working on cancelling the gym, but with that you have to sign something in person and then it cancels 30 days from then, rather than immediately, so I'll have to pay for October (those wiley people at Gold's Gym). I haven't gone in a very long time, so there's no use paying--I don't have the time for that either. I do have an exercise bike and for that matter probably access to a treadmill, which is the main stuff I did at the gym anyway. Besides, I lifted 500+ journals today (not at the same time, although I did push the cart full of them). Between that sort of thing and medical texts, I get a little bit of a workout. :)

Tomorrow is jeans day at work. Must remember. Must remember. Also I have to remember to get up early because they're turning our building's water off at 9 am (my normal wake time) to switch out a water heater.

That's how my day's going. Hope yours is well.