Elianna and I went to the Y after school. She did a speed workout on the track while I walked. The whole thing took about 20 minutes which I timed. After that she went with me while I tested out a few machines. I just wanted to see which ones I liked. I’ve kind of had this craving to exercise more or to do something different to work out my legs.

My attempt at 30 minute walks did not stay constant, but my overall steps average is up 1,000 steps than it was from the last year. Each year it’s consistently gone up 1,000ish steps. John Blase had in his Instagram stories some quote from another person saying how people use words like grit, fortitude, strength and the like to speak about workouts. It went on saying that if the hardest thing in your life right now is a workout, then another word in your list had better be gratitude.

I think what the person meant was that workouts aren’t really that hard compared to many other difficult things that people endure in life. And if you aren’t going through something terribly awful right now that you should truly be thankful, not in a shaming way, just in general. But that’s not what made me “heart” the post as soon as I read it because that’s not the first thing that came to my mind.

What I originally thought the post was saying was that if you have the physical ability to work out at all then you should be grateful. Like if you can stand on two feet or push your body to exertion, this is something that is a gift and ought to not be taken for granted. I was reading Marilyn’s caring bridge site this evening and her father wrote a post about the blessing of normalcy. At the moment they were home, she was feeling better, and he was grateful for the normal things of life.

I liked the rowing machine the best. Earlier in the day I visited Hoyleton friends in Litchfield. We met for lunch as it’d been two years since the last time. When I saw them (today) my nerves had that feeling of too-much-ness, too much excitement and too much joy and it’d only been a few seconds. It’s hard to explain and it’s too much to.