hello calves... remember me?

So, I'm OFFICIALLY starting to workout again today. (Let's see how many times I repeat that phrase this year...)

But seriously, it's time. I miss my abs. I miss seeing my cheekbones. I miss the sore feeling I get after a workout... like I've accomplished something. And I miss all my cute clothes that I can't fit into anymore!! (sigh.)

So, here we go again. As a new member of 24-hour fitness, today I'm heading to the gym to get reacquainted with the place. I've never been to this one before, so I need to find my way around a bit. Figure out where everything is located, and find my groove in it all. I don't plan on staying TOO long tonight... just a quick workout so that I don't totally hurt myself the first time around.

So, I'm excited. And nervous.

I got a bit of exercise over the weekend. Feeling inspired, I took my dog for a 2 mile walk around the block on Saturday morning; one whole mile being UPHILL. I felt good. And music makes everything better, too... I was using the Pandora app on my iPhone for a bit of a boost. Worked like a charm.

I felt wonderful during that walk... I spent the first quarter mile fighting with the dog (which is typical), since he likes to stop and sniff everything in sight before bursting ahead of me, then stopping to sniff, etc. You get the idea... Luckily, going uphill wears him out quite quickly, and he and I found our pace. We passed several other dogs/walkers, and it felt kinda cool to be "one of them."  My dog is much better behaved when he's tired, and remembers his manners... it was nice to just have him sit on the grass to the side of our path and wait for the other people/pets to pass, then give him the "okay" signal so we could continue our walk. I felt in sync with my dog, and it's a heady feeling. In any case, we wrapped up our walk (with the dog getting just a bit more hyper again in the last quarter-mile, as he realized we were almost home). But it was a great walk overall, and I felt stronger for it.

Later that day, my husband and I decided to go to Disneyland. We had been planning on only staying for a few hours; just long enough to renew our passes and see some of the holiday decorations that were disappearing in another day. But for whatever reason, the parks were EMPTY, and we couldn't pass that up. Tony called his sister to inform her about the quietness and next thing you know, we were joined by his sis, bro-in-law and their 3 kiddos. So we stayed for a few more hours, leaving right before the fireworks were set to begin (so that we would avoid the crowd that always exits right after the show). And I realized that we did a LOT of walking while we were there (about 7 hours). So much so that yesterday (Sunday), both my husband and I were totally wiped out and did as little as possible.

So, it should be interesting to see what the workout TODAY is like. I'll let you know how it goes...