Of Exercise, Heat, and Melting Butter

I've been adding five minutes a week to my daily exercises - and would have been up to 55 minutes, as of yesterday. (June 7, 2011) Since I did 60 minutes on Sunday - without meaning to - I decided to skip to the full hour this week, since that was the goal.

I did 1:09 yesterday, in two installments: a tribute to determination, fortitude, an air conditioner and strategically placed fans. Mostly the air conditioner, I think.

There's a heat advisory on for my part of the world, until tomorrow night. It's actually not all that bad - the thermometer got below 80, Fahrenheit, last night: and inside the butter didn't melt completely. Thanks, again, to an air conditioner. Window unit. Rated to keep one medium-size room comfortable.

A system of fans gives us the equivalent of inadequate 'central air' on the first floor - which is enormously better than what either my wife or I grew up with.

Maundering on About Exercise - Also Air Conditioning

I had a sore neck last week - which was good news, in a way.

I changed the way I eat and exercise last month - May 17. It involves adding five minutes a day to time I spend on a number of Wii Fit 2 exercises each week, until I'm up to an hour a day. I hit the 25-minute mark yesterday.

The first week was not encouraging. Between a determinedly sensible set of meals each day, plus exercise, I was feeling awful. I don't think pollen in the air, or spending hours outside one afternoon helped. I'd cracked that "if this is what being healthy feels like: you can have it." I kept going, and I'm feeling not-awful now. Which is an improvement.

Last week, I started doing an exercise that works my arms and shoulders. Over-doing would be more accurate. I had a slightly stiff neck by the time I went to sleep that day, and by morning it ached and was really, sincerely, emphatically stiff.

So I started turning my head left as far as I could comfortably, turning a bit more after that, holding, and repeating with looking rightwards. Stretching muscles 101 stuff.

That stiff neck was really good news: I knew that I'd started using muscles that hadn't been attended to in a long time. I also realized that being able to do something a quarter-century ago didn't mean I could jump right back and do it again now.

There. That's quite enough of some dude who's pushing 60 writing about the state of his neck.

My wife, son, and #3 daughter set up the window air conditioner - just behind my desk chair. This is now the coolest, driest, and almost the breeziest spot in the house. #3 daughter set up a line of box fans from here to the other end of the ground floor, in an effort to get some of the 'cool' down there.

It's almost 100 Fahrenheit outside - also windy. Summer is definitely here.