*****News Flash!*****

I have actually hired a personal trainer at my gym! I am obviously in need of a lot of direction. When a machine has a knob that is supposed to turn right, I am certainly going to try for left. I am truly a problem for the immediate exercise world. I hope the trainer has a peaceful weekend. His Monday may be very frustrating. I am not normally so negative, but I have vast amounts of experience with me and this subject matter!

I WILL TRY MY VERY BEST! REALLY!!! 

 The following is a reblog of my initial experience joining the gym…for those of you who are new to my site…a little background on my exercise procrastination! I know that I am sort of…well…not that good at gyms! However, I still think the gym is surprisingly fun!

***click on view original post for the rest of the story***

Monday would have been the perfect day for me to visit the gym. The perfect day to pay the registration fee again. The perfect day to begin my very exciting retirement on a positive note. I had so many ideas on how to spend the first Monday of my summer that I couldn’t decide what to do first. So I went shopping. Shopping in the middle of the day (when I am normally teaching school) is a total thrill. I needed to buy nothing at all. Well…except shoes. I always need shoes.

Of course, I needed to reward myself with shoes. After teaching elementary school for 18 years, I quite typically wondered if I should buy 18 pair of shoes. That would be so fun! How many stores would I need to browse through? A fancy shopping area is just seven or eight minutes away. Hey! I could really do some credit card damage there. Maybe buying 18 pairs of shoes is not a mature choice. Only mature people with self-control retire. Right?

Wrong! I have determined that I am no more mature this week than last week. I didn’t want to be mature anyway. Maturity implies totally white hair and I am just not ready for that business. Maybe I think that self-control means not letting my hair turn totally white. And maybe self-control means doing a little shopping at Wal-Mart. I like their huge array of plastic dishes for leftovers. Of course, it is difficult to have leftovers when you don’t cook all that much. We have to go to have Mexican food on Wednesday for the super enchilada special. We have to go to a home-cooking place for the chicken spaghetti special on Thursday and so on. Since I don’t need leftover dishes, I left Wal-Mart and went to Central Market. I proceeded to look at the expensive olives for 25 minutes.

The olives just threw me totally off schedule and that is why I did not go to the gym on Monday. It makes perfect sense to me. Plus, I bought one of those Texas chocolate cakes “like grandmother made”. They were on sale and I wanted/needed to save money and evidently not save calories. I could not face that front desk gym lady after having a slightly small piece of Texas chocolate cake.

On Tuesday, I actually made the trek to the local (not too close, not too far) Recreation Center. I don’t think anyone could tell that I had already had another piece of Texas chocolate cake. I was brave and told the truth about my over two year absence. I can’t help it that I stepped off the basketball court at school…a drop-off of perhaps four inches…and promptly broke a tiny bone in my foot. Five doctors later, I was able to get a diagnosis. I kept saying that something was broken. That tiny bone kept me from the gym for over two years. I thought that I heard the nice lady at the desk say “That’s ok, honey”…I suppose she had heard enough excuses.

Excuses or not…I went for the equipment orientation today. I have never been given so many verbal instructions in my life. Maybe I am not an auditory learner. I can’t remember anything at all except where the locker room is located. Plus, I need to buy a lock. The machines seem very complicated and fancy. What happened to simple exercise bikes? Some of these machines even have the internet on a display. I don’t think that I can read my email while exercising. I might break a really big bone if I fell off of a machine like that.

I am going to take my chances on falling off and I am going to the gym. No joke. The people were very friendly and they seemed to be having fun. Since I am all about fun, I think that I will fit in just fine. I will let you know.