Mobility and working out

 What can simple exercises do for you? 

My simple exercises at home don't need more than a chair, a wall, a floor, and sometimes even a couch. I can sit on the kitchen chair and do leg raises. If I want, it can be one leg at a time or both. I can use the chairs or go free standing to do squats. 

The hardest part of exercising is sticking to it. It sure is easier to just go for a nice long walk.

Right now I am doing chair sit ups, one legged balance exercises, and a variety of other exercises to keep up with my Mobility and balance. I'm having fun trying to do a work out at home. Other times I just say: Heck with it all and go for a hike.

I'm not at the gym this winter because of the weather and the colds, flu, and Covid that is traveling around our community. I can't bring home any illnesses to the other half. 

I could just hang out and nap most of winter away.

But I need feed for the critters. Those 75 lb. bags take some technique to heft up and into a feed barrel. Thankfully, I've been taught a great way to do it without harming myself [thank you coaches!]

Last Friday, I moved washing machine and dryer to clean under and around them. I also took apart the vent and gave it a good once over. Hubby asked if I needed help and I did ask him to hand me a few things after I'd climbed over the washer and was in behind the dryer.

I didn't want to pull everything totally out, but made enough room so I could get in behind the washer without disconnecting the water.
I took a milk crate and tied twine to it. I used the milk crate to get up and over the dryer. Then I pulled the crate over with the twine when I was done and used it to get back out. Clever me! Rich's comment?

"I married a monkey."

Maybe this is unusual for a person of my vintage and maybe not.

The month of January is almost over and I am trying to see what I have as far as hiking and walking for distance. Right now I am using the free app which adds everything up for me. I don't count steps, they are deceiving. Ok. Let me qualify that statement. Steps are great and necessary to help us keep track of moving which is essential to keeping our abilities to MOVE.

My steps include inclines of 150 to 300 feet. If I hike for a mile or less, it can be in very steep terrain, so each step could be much harder than a person walking on a sidewalk or on a flat easy surface. 

Does that make sense?

So far in January? What are the miles I've actually accounted for?

25 miles on the Map My Walk app -- and I didn't account for walking to the mailbox through the woods or the times I went out and checked fences. I'll see what January 31st brings.

I'm hoping to actually GET off the farm this weekend and go to Duck Egg or perhaps KVR and tromp around for some different scenery.

The Fog is still here. I'm beginning to think that Stephen King made up this weather for this week.

How is it going with you?

Aging

There is something about aging that is great and wonderful and also so interesting and sad at the same time.

Of course none of us young folk ever thought that we would age. Surely we would never become like our Great Grandparents, Grandparents, or evenlike our own parents.

Oh what a surprise! My father would have been 103 if he were still around. My mom? How did she become someone frail and in her later 80's? 

My husband had warned me when we first met that he had severe health issues from his days in the Army and overseas. But we became soulmates and that cannot be changed by anything!

We forgot that aging would creep up on us too. I used to roll my eyes a lot when others would complain about their health or how many scans they did, or the meds they were on. Rich and I would wonder would we make that the topic of our everyday discussions?

We don't. 

Then Covid-19 arrived and I could no longer visit his mom twice weekly in the nursing home. It dawned on me that Big Berthie was lonely for family, even if she had forgotten about where she used to live and had lost memories she used to have...she never forgot about her son or daughter. 
She would recall that her daughter would call, but not recall why her daughter didn't visit.

She would talk to Rich nearly daily but not recall that he too, was a very ill person and had trouble getting out and about.

Some days I'd visit her in the home and she'd be asleep in bed. I'd sit in her room and read a book or return when I knew the staff would get her up for a meal.

I used to think that going into a nursing home to visit would be too dreary, too nasty, and maybe I'd catch something from all those folks I'd see in wheelchairs and laying in beds. Or simply by being there amongst all those folks too frail to live on their own that I'd catch Sadness and be Sad.

What I did find was the reverse. I found that visiting at meal time was actually quite enjoyable. There was laughter and jokes along with insane conversations that only could occur in minds that didn't connect to the Wifi. Or to put for others to understand, they had a bad sector in their hard drives [or brains]. Rebooting was not the solution. We just went with the flow.

Covid-19 has changed the very fabric of our social equation. Isolation for those who have health issues is more severe than ever. 

There is a strong divide between those that feel that Covid is nothing and those who feel that Covid is a threat to their very being.

My husband says he'd rather die of a heart attack than Covid. He never wants to see the inside of a hospital again. His experience on the Covid floor last year when he did not have Covid was insane.

He can remember that. The Bubble Heads and Space People in the middle of the night. The drugs and the nightmares.

So we set rules down. I get food and supplies. He stays home. He has always been a bit of a loner, but at an auction or other event like that... he used to be so sociable and outgoing. 

He does love company even though he says he doesn't. He doesn't want company because he doesn't want his past friends to hear him talk with Aphasia or see him struggle to breath. 

Seeing his daughter or grands or even his adopted 'kids' from Missouri make him smile and grin for days.

And so the other day... I was monkeying around with stuff in the kitchen and happened to have my camera near me. I turned and so this.

I leave you with this....