House Busyness

[typos corrected]

I extended my planned "week off" from weight lifting to a second week because I was busy every day doing house pilates.
Or it sure felt like it.
I am helping Jef n Jen get moved into their new house.

Bending, twisting, standing, squatting, stepping up on the chair, stepping down from the chair, keeping arms above your head for extended periods, climbing up the ladder, balancing on tiptoe on the ladder, climbing down the ladder - you get the idea.
And there was a little weight lifting thrown in when we moved the washer and dryer, and the antique dresser (very solid real wood), and other smaller things.
Oh, and the mattress.
Most mattresses are big, thick, heavy, floppy things.
They are like trying to move a dead elephant around.
Anyway, I have been busy.
And even though I have only been working half days, I still get tired.
Nap-takin' tired.

But I am enjoying helping my kids.
A new house is a wonderful blessing and theirs is especially so, in my mind, because it is big enough to accommodate all 7 of them.
And then some.
And being around my grandbabies is amusing and fun.
My new favorite is Rachael.
She is three, she told me.
Besides being cute, she talks.
And she has this little doll voice that I could listen to all day long.
Autumn is trying to talk along with the rest of her older siblings but she (to my ear) only manages a presentation of unknown tongues.
Keeping her binky in her mouth while talking does not help.

Yesterday, Monday, I resumed my weight workouts.
It was arm and leg day.
I lifted 75,500+ pounds.
Not bad for the first day back at it.
I am going to try a three-day-per-week system for a few weeks and see how I respond.
The four-per-week plan was productive and I feel like I gained some weight from it, but it was very tiring.
So I am going to dial the load back a notch and see if I can sustain it longer.

This new plan is actually just a modification of an older plan that I developed several years ago.
I call it an "inner-outer" plan.
Legs and arms one workout, chest, back and shoulders the other.
Two alternating workouts.
While I work the same body areas on each alternating workout, I do different exercises for those areas, so I don't get stale.
And, if you are paying attention, you will see that with this 3-per-week plan, I will work arms and legs twice one week and only once the following week, and conversely, I will work chest and back once one week, and twice the following week.
We shall see how I respond to this scrambled pattern.
Stay tuned.

Looking forward to 1-20-2012....

In God we trust.
.