Day 29 Live and Learn(ed)?

Today, I was the only one at workout. While it was a touch disheartening that there were a number of cancellations, it was truly a blessing in disguise.

You see, I set a goal, albeit a small one, to do a chin-up/pull-up by the first of July.  So today, we did a lot of one-on-one work especially targeting the muscles that will help me reach that goal. There were curls and hammers and I guess a reverse curl. I did a bunch of those. I also used pull down bands that were doubled to make me work harder and did a bunch of those as well.

Interestingly, the thing that looked the hardest, using rings to pull myself up from a seated position, seemed the easiest. From there we moved to a bosu ball, and from the bosu to sitting almost on the floor.  My arms are a bit tired now, but I was able to pull myself to standing using the rings from a seated position about two inches off the floor.

SUCCESS!!!

We're taking something difficult and making it easier. Very interesting how your mind begins to believe you can do certain things when you break the main goal into smaller bits.  It's the whole eating an elephant thing.


I'm using my bread maker right now.  Banana-walnut. Don't really know why it took me so long to use those ripe bananas. Maybe I had a secret fear of using the machine which is totally dumb as it isn't at all difficult. Maybe a misperception of time equates to fear?

The starter finally arrived for my yogurt maker and I've finally the time to make my first batch. I've got a sneaking suspicion that the yogurt maker is as simple as the bread maker.

Time will tell, but I'm rather excited about the possibilities.

I think the lesson here for me and anyone else is to remember to break things down into smaller doable components.  The only real step to the bread maker was to mash the bananas and add some sugar (which I used less than called for because the bananas were very ripe). The rest was tossing the remaining ingredients into the machine. DUH! It doesn't get much more simple. 

Last night's garlic shrimp - easy peasy. Put some garlic, butter and parsley into my mixer and blend in short bursts, layer the shrimp in a cookie sheet. Spoon the butter mixture over the shrimp and bake at 350 until the shrimp are translucent. Took maybe 20 minutes. None was leftover.

I have a feeling this life lesson is going to be one I continue to repeat until it is rock solid in my head like muscle memory. That knowledge is going to really help me on my year of Dangerous Living.