Pushing Forward

It was negative 7 degrees outside here when I got up today, and had warmed all the way up (ha) to a whopping negative 4 by the time the kids needed to go out to catch the school bus.  Bloody hell.  Or the opposite, as the case may be, unless hell really is starting to freeze over.  This is the coldest winter we've had in the whole ten years we've lived in this house!  Our driveway is close to 100 yards long and there is no shelter from cold or howling winds at the end of it, where the kids have to wait for their bus.  My general rule is that I will bring them down to the end of the driveway in the car to wait for the bus (or drive down to pick them up off it) if it is raining hard or below twenty degrees outside, since I don't want to stand outside in a downpour or frigid weather either!  We live on a major county highway, so there is no way, at least at this stage of the game, that I would allow the three of them to be at the bus stop alone.  Even accepting that the odds of someone grabbing one of them off the driveway are low, people drive by our house at 60+ miles an hour and one skid on ice or kid goofing around and getting bumped into the road (read: my perpetually-wrestling boys) would be a disaster.

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been run over by a truck: the dreaded second-day sore muscles after Tuesday night's exertions.  Quads and triceps in particular from all the jumps and pushups; guess we know which muscles need some work.  Himself lifts weights regularly, so last night I asked him to recommend some triceps exercises.  I started laughing right out loud when he started with ones involving barbells (I ask you, would YOU voluntarily try an exercise colloquially known as a "brain-buster??"), but we have a full set of hand weights here as well and he did recommend some employing those instead.

I did go to class this morning.  After Tuesday's experience, I will admit that it took some guts to walk in there, especially knowing that there would be some rehashing of the test going on.  I'd also be lying if I said that the possibility of there being more related girl-drama if I stayed away till next week didn't influence the decision as well!  (And God knows, we need no more of that than we already have going on.)  That said, class went much better than I expected and I had a very useful talk with the instructor afterward.  Since clearly I have a lot of work to do before my next test, and it will be in a completely different format to boot, I asked her what to expect and what I needed to do to prepare for it just to get my head aiming in a productive direction.  She made some very helpful suggestions regarding timing, cardio and pushups: I will have my work cut out for me, no doubt, but at least I have goals in mind now.  And I an NOTHING if not one who sets goals and then aims for them, or (put another way) somebody who figures out the rules of the game as early as possible.

So, all in all, and weather notwithstanding, not as bad a morning as I'd anticipated.  I'll take it.