hump day hmm

Dusting off ye olde treadmill

by mayberry on May 28, 2008

Blogging has influenced my thinking and decisions and changed my point of view in more ways than I can recount. Last year after the Virginia Tech tragedy, for example, Suebob suggested an excellent, thoughtful, helpful response: giving to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I immediately clicked through and made a donation. I’ve gained a much deeper appreciation of what it’s like to face homelessness, depression, a health insurance system that doesn’t help parents help children.

More frivolously, I’ve made purchases based on recommendations from other bloggers and tried dozens of new products for myself. And lately, I’ve been actually sticking with an exercise plan, and I have a blogger friend to thank for that too.

Last fall, Amy from Binkytown wrote about starting a running regimen (and in fact she, in turn, was influenced by another blogger!). What stuck with me was this: “You don’t think you have 20 minutes? You do.”

That’s sound reasoning and it’s totally true. And it’s no slam to Amy to say that it’s not original. I’ve heard the advice before, but I didn’t really hear it until she said it. It still took 6 months for me to actually act on it. But now, I’m looking for that 20 minutes every day, and I’m finding it. First thing in the morning, right after bedtime, by bike on the way to or from the kids’ schools, even squeezed into the middle of my working hours if that’s what it takes. It’s there and I just have to use it. (My secret weapon, by the way, is Exercise TV on Demand.)

So thanks, Binkytown, for kicking my butt into gear via the Internetz. And thanks, Julie P., for another Hump Day Hmm (which I also seem to be making a habit. Two in a row!).

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A stroll on the other stride

by mayberry on May 21, 2008

Now that the weather is (kinda, sorta) springlike, the park across the street from my house is busy once again with walkers and strollers. There is a teensy, tiny, ancient, Asian couple that does at least three laps every day, like clockwork. There are the requisite dog walkers. There is a woman who pushes a child in a wheelchair, fast. I know she’s doing it to get a workout but sometimes it looks as if she is trying to run away from what must be a stressful daily grind. Or, I think to myself, maybe the child loves the feeling of flying, and his mom pushes him as fast as she can to grant him that pleasure, that freedom.

Of course there are the other mommies too. There must be a new moms’ stroller-cise class meeting nearby because the Snap-N-Gos and the huge travel systems come in big clumps at mid-morning. In waves of two and three and four the women pass my window, pushing and chatting and willing those postpartum pounds to drop off.

When Jo was a newborn I’d drive to Hoboken (just down the river from where I lived, but more gentrified) to stroll with the mamas there twice a week. I loved having something to do, someone to talk to, store windows to peek in on my way back to the car. The other moms were friendly and we were all in that same new-mom boat, figuring everything out.

I always felt just outside the circle, though. I didn’t live in their neighborhood and I didn’t frequent their other haunts, share their pediatricians or breastfeeding groups. I wouldn’t run into them on the street on days we didn’t stroll together. And unlike almost all of them, I’d be going back to work soon. Once I did, I only rarely had the chance to see any of these new friends again, and by the time I left the area two years later, I’d lost touch with them all.

Seeing the moms walk by my window again now makes me wistful for those days, even though I’m happy with where I am and what I’m doing. I like working, I like having children big enough to walk and talk and feed themselves, I have good friends (online and off).

Thinking about what used to be or what might have been or what still could be doesn’t mean I’m regretting the way things are. It just means I might like to walk a different route once in a while, to see what it’s like.

…and this has been my first Hump Day Hmm. Taken terribly literally, but I think Julie will forgive me.

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