Mountain Retreat, Getting Back in Shape, "The Bulldog" Nickname, Cello Update

Last Thursday, I got up and to the office extra early, because I was leaving shortly after 4 to head to the Mountain Retreat for a weekend of family and fun. An hour into the day, I had made more progress than I ever anticipated and, better yet, I had energy. This continued until about 3pm. I did not have extra coffee or caffeine, but something worked. After bouncing ideas around last weekend, I decided to see if I could manage to get into the office a little early or at least around the time of my early morning meetings. No single day this week went as I envisioned, but I got in early or on time and overall I was pretty productive. Most days, I was in bed at the same time or a bit later and I felt much better in the morning. So my goal for this upcoming week is to keep getting up early and see if I can get into the office just a little early. I will be leaving by 5:15 pm most days, though, even if I only arrive on time or a few minutes late.

Post-work, I ran one day, mowed the lawn, and worked on my flower bed, which is now my summer project. I also did some weeding and moved a giant rock about 10 feet in two separate trips. My neighbors likely think I have lost my mind, but that's ok. Below are some flowers from various bushes and the white flowers, which we transplanted just under a year ago, are spreading!

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Yep, I have even more flower blooms and the flower bed in the back is moving right along. Of course...the grass is trying to retake the turned over soil. Ah well - the rain is making this process easier in some respects.

A post shared by Runningwithallergies (@runningwithallergies) on Jun 29, 2019 at 6:08pm PDT

Today I did 30 minutes (10 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the armless elliptical). I have not used my indoor gym for awhile and it was nice to get back to it. If the weather stays warm, I may use it more and/or try to get up extra early to run pre-early work arrival time. Checkback next week to see how this is working!

In Cleveland, my family nickname of, 'The Bulldog," was announced. Yes, I am determined - some say stubborn is more a appropriate word. I have decided that I prefer the nickname to stubborn! As we rehearsed, I kept trying to find a way to disprove it, but I cannot. So now you know.

On a fun note, I dropped the cello off and it does indeed need a bit of work and likely four new strings. It took me three tries to get the cello into my car and oh adjusting to the size will take awhile. I am excited though and - if it possible - I might be more excited than I was about taking up the violin or piano. Music is such a big part of me and, while I made the right decisions about choir and so forth, I miss it. If the cello ends up helping me deal with health issues, I am all for it.

I am still back-and-forth with running. I love it, but I still feel lousy afterwards at times. So I am taking it on a day-by-day basis. I signed-up for a mile run on June 15th. If I feel good, I will do it but I am glad that I can delay my decision a bit longer.

Happy Saturday!