Maybe it started with watching American Gladiators and the Biggest Loser or maybe it started with the cabin fever we've got and the need to get outside. It could even have started with watching Jeremy start to beef up from his 3-hour-a-day workouts that he does to prepare for dive school. Whatever the reason(s), I have had the desire to get off my lazy bum and start exercising. I have done some occasional pilates at home but nothing that really gets the heart rate up and I've been told lately (the source shall remain nameless, J.) that I've been getting soft. Not that I'm fat or anything--I actually weigh less now than when I got married--but I think I've lost a lot of muscle mass. So now that Jeremy's boat went underway without him, he is only job right now is to work out with the divers down at the Norfolk Navy Base to be prepared for dive school on March 11. That means he's home all afternoon and evening and therefore, I get an opportunity to go to the gym! So I've been several times this week and I am sore! On Friday, however, Jeremy and I decided to do a 3 mile run around a local golf course. So we bundled up the kids, put them in the double jogging stroller and headed down the path. (Mind you a 3 mile jog while pushing a stroller is a cake walk for Jeremy.) And so I'm panting along, because I've spent the winter hibernating instead of exercising, and just barely jogging when Jeremy starts in with the cadences. For those of you unfamiliar with the military, cadences are those songs that they sing while marching or exercising. He starts singing them and expecting me to sing along and chime in with a "three, four" after he says "one, two." He repeats it several times saying, "I can't hear you!" and really expects me to say it eventhough I'm barely getting my breaths in as it is. After a few of these I just shush him. He continues to sing his cadences and now the words have changed a little to "when my grandma was ninety-two, she could PT better than you!" How kind. I also have to add that we were not the only ones on the trail so many people were witness to my embarrassment. He also runs about 50 feet ahead of me and then stops and does some squats or push-ups waiting for me to catch-up. In addition to all of this, he gets so excited while he's out running and exercising that he likes everyone to know. He shouts "hello!" to everyone he passes, including the golfers and says things like, "that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Exercise!" as a jogger passes us in the other direction. I guess I'm beyond being embarrassed anymore. It's now kind of entertaining and helps me keep my mind off of how tired my legs are and how hard it is to breathe. At least I finished the entire 3 miles without stopping!
Jeremy and I did some landscaping work back in August and tore out an ugly, lopsided hedge and replaced it with 3 small azalea bushes. I was kind of worried for awhil because we planted in the middle of a long drought and I had to water them every day to keep them from dying. Then, during the winter, some of the leaves started to turn red and then brown and I got a little worried that my azaleas were dying from the cold. Every day Jeremy would come home and tell me to water my plants because "they're dying!" Most of the time I didn't water them and look how they turned out! They're just starting to bloom and they have lots of new buds on them for more flowers!
They are the hybrid variety of azaleas known as "bloom 'n again azaleas" which means that they've been bred so that they are covered in flowers in the spring and once again in the fall as well as a few blooms throughout the summer. The normal variety of azaleas only bloom once in the spring. I'm a little sad that this will probably be the first and only time I'll get to see them bloom since we'll be moving in a few months.
