E is for Exercise/Expectations/Enjoy Life/Education

 

E is for Exercise/Expectations/Enjoy life/Education

E is for Exercise

Yesterday, I talked about discipline and I mentioned that I am fairly disciplined about my exercise. Prior to our October trip to Ireland, I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes every morning and I rode the stationary recumbent bike for 30 minutes every day after work. I’ve gone through spurts of regular exercising over the years but an injury or trip would always throw me off. Way back at the beginning of the pandemic, I started exercising every day and I decided to see how many days I could go without missing a day. I must admit that I was a tad obsessed. Right before we left for our trip in October, I had well over 500 days in a row where I had exercised every day and closed all three rings on my watch each day. I actually had to psyche myself up before we left because I knew that a long ride on an airplane was going to mess up my winning streak. Yes, I said winning because in some form or fashion I was competing with myself. I also had a friend who was doing the same thing and he and I compared notes several times along the way. While on our trip, I did something to my back and when we came home, I couldn’t walk on the treadmill (or outside). It hurt too much. I have “hung upside down” every day since we got back and have tried hard to make the pain go away. Let me tell you what happened though. I went from exercising an hour every day to just 30 minutes a day and I gained 12 pounds. So I’m working to build up my walking time again. I started at 8 minutes at 2.4 miles an hour. Yes, I know that is a very slow pace. I’m up to 16 minutes at 2.4 miles per hour. Right now, I get up at 5:00 and I do a few household chores like a load of laundry or empty the dishwasher. Actually, FIRST I drink a Diet Pepsi and then I do a chore or two. Then I head out to the garage and walk on the treadmill. After that I head upstairs and ride the bike for 30 minutes. I’ve been watching what I eat, and I’ve lost 4.6 of the 12 pounds. What does this have to do with being 63? First, I guess I have a little more time at 63 (I don’t think that is really true!). Second, at 63 . . .it is easy to gain weight. Even though I've gained a few pounds, I’ve kept off over 60 pounds so I’m much healthier at 63 than at 53.

We bought this treadmill 20 years
ago and it has been worth every
penny. We bought a "club" grade
treadmill. I wish it had an
odometer like a car so we
could see how many miles we've
walked.

E is for Expectations

All of my life, I’ve struggled with expectations. When I was about 23, the guy I was dating (not Mark) told me that I should never put expectations on anyone except Jesus Christ. I have remembered that advice, but I still have to work on myself. I often EXPECT others to act in a certain way and when they don’t, I’m disappointed. I say to myself “don’t put expectations on that person” and sometimes I’m able to stop my thought processes. You would think that over the last 40 years, I would have conquered this. Do you struggle with putting expectations on others? If so, what are your tips?

E is for Enjoy life

While we are both still healthy, we are trying to make sure that we are enjoying life. We have two big trips planned. We will head to Italy/Germany/Austria in June and then we will head back to Israel in February 2024. We’ve been checking out info on some other trips, too. Mark has a big trip planned in August. He and his twin brother are headed to Alaska for an amazing fishing trip.

We are involved with three different supper clubs. One is our longtime group of friends and there are five couples total. We’ve been with three of those couples since 2004 and we’ve been friends with the other couple for a long time, too. We are involved in our rotating “out to eat” supper club in our Sunday School class. If you want to participate, you sign up and one of our members arranges us in groups of 8-10. We stay together for 4-6 months and then rotate. Each couple (or single – we have single folks, too) is host for one month and that simply means that you pick the restaurant, try to find a date that works for everyone (not always possible), make the reservation, and notify everyone. We’ve enjoyed meeting lots of new folks. Since I’m one of the main teachers, we usually end up with some of the newer folks in our class. The third supper club is in our neighborhood, and it rotates every month. At the beginning of the year, you choose 3 months (1, 2, 3 choice) of months you would prefer to host, and you tell how many people you can comfortably host. We have a neighborhood coordinator, and she assigns the host and then assigns a few folks (both couples and singles) for each group. We meet on the 2^nd weekend of the month, and we chose a Sunday night group. The hostess/host provide the main dish, coffee, tea, water, and everyone else signs up for different categories – appetizer, salad, dessert, etc. If you want to drink alcoholic beverages, you bring your own. We’ve met so many nice neighbors!

We enjoy hanging out with our kids and grandkids as often as we can.

Where do you find enjoyment? Are you in a supper club? Do you travel?

We are missing one couple but these
are our people. We love these people
as if they were our siblings.

E is for Education

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that at 63 . . .I’m a college student again. I didn’t complete my degree way back when, so I’ve begun to work toward it now. Education is never wasted no matter your age. As a matter of fact, even though I can’t memorize like I used to, I am probably a much better student at 63 than I was back then. I care about learning. I’m going to be honest – I DETEST not being as educated as all of the people with whom we associate! Also, at 63 I’m eating up what we’ve been studying in Sociology. I’m not sure my idealistic 20-year-old self could have absorbed all I’m learning. I have an amazing professor and the class has been all online. I have a phone meeting on Friday with my advisor to see if I can take a class this summer even though I’m going to be out of the country for two weeks. If she thinks I can, we also have to decide what I’m going to take next. I’m just going to take one class at a time for now. I’m still working 40 hours a week and teaching Sunday school and facilitating on Tuesday nights and I just don’t think I could manage more than one class. What does education mean to you? Do you have a degree? Or more than 1? Did you get your degree when you were young?

 

studying - conflict theory,
structural functionalism, symbolic
interactionism