Days Two and Three of Retirement

After Saturday's dumbbell fest, Sunday was slow to get moving.  We ended up spending the day with Rick's 93 year old mother doing her wash.  The good part is her room is on Floor 3 and the wash is on Floor 1 with some lovely steps in between.  Since other folks were using the washer/dryer, we had to check back every 10 minutes or so to see when they were finished using the machines.  We got about 30 minutes worth of running up and down the steps and then came home and walked for about and hour and fifteen minutes.  The day ended up with almost two hours of walking and stairs. 

Monday was another dumbbell workout similar to Saturday, a core workout, and then I stepped it up to heavier-weight squats and step-ups with 15 pound dumbbells in each hand.  I'm still a lightweight compared to most (30 lb squat), but I gotta build slowly.   Then hubby and I walked again for about an hour.  Total workout time today was two hours.

Then my friend Donna called - yeh!  She filled me in on the 15 inches of snow in Michaux State Forest and the stranded Trainwreck they helped get out.  Trainwreck is from Ohio and he rents a cabin in Michaux every year around Halloween to ride bike. This year, everyone bailed on him for the ride on Saturday (those wimps... don't they have skis??) so he hung with Donna/Brett for Saturday night.  Crazy weekend!  Lots of broken tree branches everywhere.  It was like a war zone. 

And I almost got my clothes ready to wear to work this week and thought about what to take to lunch.  It's gonna take a little time to get out of that work-week routine!   Tomorrow is a trip to Vanity Fair Outlets in Reading.  Mother dear wants to go.

I'm Retired!

From work that is, but not from working out.  I knew for months I was retiring from my desk job yesterday, but not until after I officially left and started my post working-world retirement exercise routine, did it finally sink in.  Sooo..... I think I'll start this Chilibloggin thang back up to keep me honest:  keep me on track for working out and getting back in shape again.  Heck, I have time now!  There are NO excuses any more.  Moby's Play is 63 minutes, and that's a perfect timeframe for a weight workout, not to mention Moby's incredibly inspiring music.   This was a GOOD weight workout  -- not this hurry-up-I-got-other-things-to-do routine that plagued me for years (and kept me from relaxing).  Here's what it was like:

Core to warm up:
50 seated lean-back side-to-sides with a weighted ball (don't know the technical name)
50 bent-leg side-to-sides on back with weighted ball (don't know the technical name)

Dumbells!  All exercises were with 8 pound dumbbells (Planning to build the weight -- just did very light weight to get me back in the swing of things again):
3 sets x 15 or 20 reps each exercise
Side bends
Shoulder presses
Bicep curls
Standing pull-ups
Squats
Lunges
Dead lifts

On the fitness ball:
Chest flys (I think that's what they are called)
Chest press
Side-to-side with weighted ball

Sitting on the floor:
tricep extensions (10 lb. weighted ball)
stretching

I'm back baby!  Flabby menopausal belly, GO AWAY!  teehee.