“Every day’s a holiday with you…” I think Dick Van Dyke sang that in the movie, Mary Poppins. Every day is a reason to celebrate! This week– today, tomorrow and Thursday hold lots of celebration. Of course we all know Thursday is Earth Day (and VFT). Tomorrow is Kyle’s 23rd birthday. Today is 420. Either you already know that and you celebrate it, or you don’t and no explanation is necessary.
This coming Friday would be my brother’s birthday, but Mother Nature took him back to the earth 3 years ago. She took my mom back 11 years ago tomorrow. I hope both of their souls are happy and at peace, together again with my dad, too. I honor ALL of them always, but especially this week.
So every day I can find reason to celebrate or honor something or someone. Last night was a celebration because I completed a very busy day of work and DON’T have work again until tonight. I guess I interchange celebration with gratitude. When I am grateful, I “celebrate” life. I am grateful pretty much all the time.
I am also celebrating the fact that my aching back (it’s been bothering me for about a month) is finally feeling a little better. Heat. I forgot how effective a couple of Aleve and the heating pad can be! Using the heat the last 2 nights before bed has really made a difference, so I thought I would share. I have to say I have also changed up my workouts to allow my back some rest. That doesn’t mean I am working out less or less effectively. I cut back on running and jumping, but in place, I did some extra walking, Pilates on the reformer, Yumana Body Rolling and some extra stretching before bed. The change is apparently good for my body and also forces me to get in some workouts I long for, but don’t always squeeze into my week.
I mention this because all too often someone is on a workout roll when an injury strikes. There first instinct is to REST. Resting an injury is usually the smartest thing to do, but does that mean we should rest the entire body? Not unless the whole body is the problem, as when you are sick with a fever or flu, or just need a mental and physical break from your daily workouts. If you hurt your leg, however, there are always things you can do for your upper body and core. You can even get cardio work in by rowing, doing push-ups and those ever challenging pull-ups. Sitting you can do upper body with weights. Hurt your arm? There is NO reason you can’t get on a treadmill, or an elliptical, or walk…do lunges, squats and leg machines. It seems to me the people that keep their bodies in the best shape are the ones that think outside of the box and work around any and all injuries. Personally, doing challenging upper body work, as well as core work, saved my body and more importantly my sanity after I tore my hamstring in September. The body rolling, yoga and specific stretching I did (very cautiously) actually made my injured leg more flexible than the other! Sure, a day or two of complete rest after a crisis to the body is a smart move and one I highly recommend. It seems we heal while we rest and sleep, but too much resting will just make the rest of your body rusty and out of shape, which will, amongst many other things, lead to depression and frustration. Once again, BALANCE becomes paramount.
Well, enough babbling on my part. Time to go out and bond with Mother Nature. Blaze and I will bring extra bags to clean up the streets this morning. It’s nice to see some sunshine after several days of rain. Looking forward to Biggest Loser tonight. Apparently whoever eats the most calories gets the ONLY vote in elimination tonight. As sick as that sounds, there is a part of me that hopes that Sam can earn that vote–I just don’t want to see him go home!!!! I would guess Michael could eat them all under the table! We’ll see.
Happy everything!