Update

So since my last post, I have been eating better, exercising more, working harder and ignoring this blog.  I also went to Cloverdale for a few days, so my brother and I could work on the storage units.  We have a couple, a large one my brother had and a smaller one he rented when Mom moved into assisted living.  Both units had stuff from Mom's house in them and we needed to go through everything and consolidate.  Now that both of our parents are gone, I arranged to take a couple of days off work and fly to Sonoma County.  I got there Thursday morning and after driving to my brother's, we had lunch and then started in on the units.  My poor brother had caught a bad cold the day before I arrived.  I kept telling him not to push it but he worked very hard even though he was really under the weather.  We hauled a queen size box spring and mattress along with some other trash to the dump and returned back to the storage facility.  We then loaded up the back of the truck and hauled it down to the Salvation Army.  Here's what you have to understand about Cloverdale.  It's a very small town and if the traffic light is with you, you can go from one end of town to the other in about a minute and a half.  But it takes at least 15 - 20 minutes to get anywhere else.  And since the back of the truck was loaded, we stayed off the highway and took the back road, so it took even longer.  I entertained myself by videoing the drive, off and on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4YbsPxq1b0 .  It's kinda blurry, as one would expect from a video shot out the window of a moving truck.  But it's really beautiful up there and I don't mind the drive to the dump in such a place. Anyway, over the course of three days, we took one truckload to the dump and seven or eight truckloads to the Salvation Army.  We moved the bed, furniture, a refrigerator, boxes and boxes of stuff.  I hadn't realized that even the haphazard amount of exercising I was doing before I went would make such a huge difference in what I was able to accomplish.  I lifted heavy items, worked hard for several hours each day and even though I was tired and sore, I didn't feel lethargic and exhausted like I used to.

Something else that kinda hit me sideways was the level of emotion that was attached to dealing with our parents stuff.  I didn't cry or anything, it was more of a melancholy feeling but it lasted for days even after I returned home.  It was another reminder that that whole generation in our family is really gone.  My family tends to live a long time: Gramma was 103 when she passed, Grampa was 90.  My uncle was 93, my aunt 88.  Mom was 85, Dad was a relatively young 74.  So all those people who were there my entire life, it seems they went so quickly and there's an odd empty space where they were.  Add to that, the worry over my brother doing too much, plus his stress over a relationship with a member of the family that's very rocky right now, it was overall a tough weekend.  I knew I was right to worry about him, he had a bad case of pneumonia the week after I left.  He's doing better now, but it was a rough one.

When I came back, my intention was to start back up working out right away, I was so pleased with how much stronger I felt while cleaning out the storage units.  But it was several days before I actually did anything.  I would go to work, come home, sit down "just for a minute" and wake up a couple hours later.  I was more tired than I knew.  Before I went to Sonoma, I decided that it was time to commit to working out harder, so I ordered the Insanity workout.  I needed something that was tough, that was different and that, if I did it for the 60 days, I would be in much better shape than I am now.  I started that this week.  The first day was the actual fitness test, which was tough enough.  There are things that I can't do right now, so I modify and do what I can.  For example, at my weight, I can't jump in the air.  As a matter of fact, it had been so long since I'd jumped, I couldn't remember how.  So I braced my hands on the counter and gave a little jump, more of a hop really.  And that's what I'm doing.  The folks on the video are jumping in the air, I'm hopping.  My goal at the end of 60 days is to be able to do at least full perfect form repetition of each of the exercises on the fitness test.  I really want to be able to do more, but I will be happy if I can do it at all.  Anyway, Insanity is promoted as the toughest workout on dvd.  I don't know if it is but omg, it's hard.  I can't wait for tomorrow to do it again.