A + B = C

Walking in the sun + sitting in the sun + working outside in the sun = a bit too much sun on the forehead and nose. While it may appear Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is visiting early, it's just me.

Walking in the sun + a bad knee that makes me walk weird + a good night's sleep = an Achilles tendon that won't work. I woke up with a sharp pain that wouldn't let me move my foot up or down. Putting on my shoes? Excruciating. My hope was that it would calm down, but no go. So hubby said no go on the walking for the day.

Which is where the sitting in the sun came from. Sitting in the sun + squawking seagulls = hawks chasing after them. It also equaled pictures for me (and you).

There's an App for That

After a long plateau with the weight loss I knew I had to do something different. These last few weeks I've been using a new app to track my food intake. My Fitness Pal lets me put in my meals, water, exercise, and notes. It calculates all the important things, but for me the protein, calorie, and sodium count are the most important. I've been obsessive about making sure every calorie is counted. It's paying off. According to this morning's scale I'm down 66 pounds.

Now I'm obsessed with another app that I have linked to the fitness pal one. Map my Walk is a GPS that when turned on, tracks where you are walking, the distance, the time, and calories burned. It's exciting to see right away what I've accomplished. And it's pretty darn accurate. As I made my three laps around the paved park path I can see where I walked off the path to sit at a picnic bench to catch my breath (which happened several times this morning since hubby went with me - he's a fast walker and I had a hard time keeping up). I can see where I cut through the grass instead of going through the parking lot to make the loop. I can see where I stopped for a rest before heading to the car, where I paused the GPS and forgot to turn it back on. I can also see that I don't know how to walk a straight line. An entire 1.16 miles of it today.

And I can see where I went swimming. Not really, but the GPS thinks so.

(Lisa, did you get your walk in?)

Just a Walk in the Park

Who is lucky enough to have lung capacity for a walk in the park? Enough lung capacity to make it 3/4 of a mile with only one sit-down-and-catch-my-breath-break? Me.

Who is lucky enough to live by a river and see this on her walk in the park in the early morning before work? Me.

And to those who commented yesterday? Thank you. It's good to know I'm not forgotten!

Choosing Joy

Something just occurred to me on the drive to work today. It is so very much easier to choose to live a life of joy when you are feeling better.

In my case that means my non-working lung isn't always interrupting my daily activity like it did just a few short months ago. It's pretty darn amazing how much different life is when you can breath. Oxygen is so important!

Recently I've done some simple things I didn't think I'd ever get to do again. Work in the rose garden. Go grocery shopping (by myself - with no scooter). Get up in the morning and shower and get dressed and eat breakfast and pack a lunch and go to work - all in a row with no breaks to stop and catch my breath. Load boxes in the car (gotta work on those 100 things).

And walk. In the store. At school. In the park. Just last weekend when kiddo was over the three of us went down to the park by the river here in Marsing. We made one loop around the paved path and I wanted to do more. So under the bridge we went, past the first boat dock and all the way to the second boat dock. For most folks it would seem all that walking might be just a short little jaunt. But for me with one operating lung, rheumatoid arthritis, and a knee needing replaced it was a big little jaunt. I was walking a pretty brisk-for-me pace so there were lots of catch-my-breath breaks. But I have to say I pushed myself, was proud of myself, and it felt good to do something I thought I'd never get to do again. (Now I just need to make it a habit.)

Even took the camera down, hoping to catch some pictures of ducks. The best picture came as I was backing out of the driveway before we even left the house. I think we're gonna have babies around again.

How can I not be joyous?