Mini-Boot Camp

Where I work, we've started a fitness program for the associates who are interested. So far, we have over 270 participants! To kick the whole thing off, a local trainer volunteered to set up her "Survival of the Fittest" boot camp at work. Up until the day of the boot camp, my stomach would start churning every time I thought about it. I couldn't connect the dots between "Boot Camp" . . . and . . . "Me!" I'm 60 years old, and 55 of those years have been spent sitting on the couch or laying in bed! You can understand my angst!

While driving to my death, I did an awful lot of praying. Seriously. Praying I wouldn't make a fool of myself in front of my co-workers. Praying the ambulance wouldn't have to be called. Praying I'd be able to walk upright when it was all over. Praying I'd have the nerve to stop praying and actually get out of the car!


Approximately 60-65 associates showed up. We were given a colored star to hang around our neck. This was to identify our team members. I was given a yellow star and in my fragile frame of mind, it reminded me of the yellow identifying stars the Jews had to wear just prior to the Holocaust. I started praying again. All I wanted to do was go home!

During the next two hours we jumped, skipped, hopped, crawled under ropes, ran thru tires (just like the football players!), did traveling push-ups, (push-ups on the move), dribbled basketballs thru cones, ran with 8 pound water jugs in each hand, pushed a wheelbarrow loaded with bags of cement around the parking lot, threw medicine balls in the air while doing squats, did bunny hops (that's where you jump over traffic cones, then reach down and touch the ground (and stand back up again!) about a billion times. We also boxed which I really enjoyed because I got to hit something. I heard our trainer tell another trainer (the one wearing the fatigues from head to toe) "Wow! She really packs a punch!

We also did triceps exercises that actually blow your triceps out the back of your arms, along with thrust jump outs, mountain climbers, floor jumping jacks (I thought this one would be like laying down making snow angels), more mountain climbers, ladder drills, abdominal elbow and knee rocks, and lots more. I can't tell you what these exercises are now, but I'm proud to say I did about 95% of them! I stopped when I temporarily lost my vision!

It wasn't fun, and it was unbelievably difficult, and now I have a much larger special place in my heart for our soldiers. Imagine doing that all day for 8 weeks.

I was home by 11am and was TOTALLY exhausted. I spent most of the day in my favorite spot.....the couch, watching the basketball tournament. Sometimes I slept. I took two hot jacuzzi's and got in the spa outside during the rest of the day. It felt so good, and I had the ridiculous notion I wouldn't be all that sore the next day.

Early Sunday morning I hopped out of bed and as soon as my feet hit the floor I started screaming like a little girl! Kendall Brown Jessup, said something a long time ago about how she loves "second day soreness." What is wrong with her?? My entire body felt as if it had come in contact with several steamrollers. Every time I took a step I either screamed or grunted. I'm sure Rocky got really tired of hearing all that!

I stumbled into church walking like Frankenstein. If I happened to drop something, I had to just stand there, looking at it longingly, and wait until someone wolunteered to pick it up for me. I tried to tell my Sunday School class about my boot camp experience, but all they wanted to talk about was the dance they attended the night before. I didn't understand, because my story was WAY better.

By Monday I could take a deep breath without screaming, and Tuesday a bit more of the soreness was just a horrible, distant memory. An interest survey was sent around the office to offer the boot camp two more times in the next twelve weeks for a small fee. You can't imagine how many people actually signed up! I'm holding out for the time being. The Director of Human Resources told me, as the occupational nurse, I should sign up and set the example. My lower lip started quivering!

Tomorrow I start workouts with Boot Camp Woman. Can you believe I'm actually going to pay good money to be treated like that?? What is wrong with me?! So wish me luck on my journey! That's what they call it .... a journey. Positive people!! To me it was like a journey to H E double toothpicks. Had I blogged this last week, I'm sure I would have left out the double toothpicks part!

Patti's Affinity for Taxis

Well....it's been a while, huh? Blog-worthy events rarely happen to us, as you already know if you're one of our 3 faithful followers. I heard on the news tonight about a woman and her blog a1bout how difficult it is to be a military wife and not having your husband around for such long periods of time. She has over 19,000 followers! Can you believe that? Maybe we should visit her blog and then blog about that!

So Patti and I were in church a couple of weeks ago and started sharing childhood stories and teenage memories. She mentioned when she was in pre-Primary, she won the Best Dressed Cowgirl! Yee Hah! Somehow Daddy was supposed to take her to the rodeo with the tickets she won, and Patti remembered Daddy getting real mad about having to do that!  Daddy was easily annoyed!

I remember when Mother bought Patti and I matching dresses for "Go Western Day." Mine was turquoise and Patti's was bright pink. They both had tons of tacky, silver ric-rac all over them and the blouse was sort of a peasant style, with a scoop neck and lots of elastic! They had huge full skirts requiring blow-up hoop skirt petticoats to make them look especially bouncy and lovely (and ridiculous)!!. To top it off, we had white cowgirl hats, white boots and silver concho belts. Belts have never been a good look for me! We must have looked like the biggest losers, and we never won any prizes. No one even spoke to us, and it even might be the reason I got beat up once at school! It seemed those dresses lasted for YEARS, and they kind of did, because when we grew out of them, Pattis' was looming in the closet for me!

Back to the story as it relates to the title of this post!  Another memory from Patti was in pre-school when she was on the merry-go-round and got sick (like she always did whenever she moved. See one our older posts, "The Bear That Went to Cloudcroft!") She had to go home, and instead of coming to get her, Mother sent a taxi to bring her home.....which reminded her of the time when she attended Austin High School and she didn't have a ride home after the football game, so she called Mother who sent another taxi! "Why couldn't she just pick me up herself?" Patti whiiiiined!


In Mother's defense, she worked the night shift for over 25 years in Labor and Delivery at Southwestern General Hospital, and she slept during the day when we were at school. There were lots of other issues we won't get into now, but I guess it was just easier for her to send a taxi rather than getting up and dressed to run all over town after Patti!

I think the same thing happened when Patti graduated from high school. Our brother had joined the Marines so he wasn't available to attend. I couldn't go unless Mother went, because I was too young to drive. So no one saw Patti graduate. After it was all over, she must have called Mother again to pick her up, and soon after, roaring down the street, came another taxi!! I asked her if she had to climb into the taxi with her cap and gown on, in front of her friends!! Imagine! Poor Patti.

But to Mother's defense, Rocky reminded me of another taxi incident. We went to the Miner football game one Saturday night when the games were actually worth the price of the tickets. It was really crowded all around us, and suddenly Robyn got sick and started throwing up in the stands. Well, that cleared everyone out immediately, and suddenly we had great seats!! But back to the story. Robyn continued to feel pretty bad, and Patti, apparently hardened by her own sad taxi experiences, and following family tradition, called a cab to take Robyn home! Patti had more important things to do....like watch the football game! On the ride home, Robyn threw up again in the cab which really displeased the cab driver!!

I guess now I should say "Poor Robyn!"