Yesterday Was A Day of Accomplishment (With Lots of Work Remaining)

Yesterday's PT session went really well, then I went home and schlepped boxes from the staging area into Minion, then after packing more boxes of books, from Sharon's room into Minion. Finally, with a full car of books, I drove over to Half-Price Books and let them deal with it. It probably took close to 45 minutes (they had several people in front of me) but I walked out of there with three decent boxes to reuse, $40 in my pocket, and twelve boxes of books left behind. I immediately went back up to Sharon's room and started the next pack. As of this morning there already is one box of books in my staging area and Sharon's room looks like a total disaster. 

The back of "Minion" was totally stuffed with boxes of books - some
of which were from my childhood (note the tattered "Tales of
Mother Goose" on the top of a stack at the right center). I'm
relieved to be getting my books back in order, but there's still a LOT
of work to do before Sharon arrives at the end of August. 

My PT guy, Joseph, now has added an 8-oz weight to my "windshield washer" exercise. This exercise has me on my side, raising and lowering my arm pivoting from my elbow in two runs of 50 reps. Adding the small weight (a can of tomato paste currently awaiting it's place in my gym bag) will definitely make a difference in this exercise. He also added a second exercise on the 55 cm ball. Now I'm not only doing the "A", but I'm also adding the "W". I'm keeping my abdominal routine, but raising my legs to work out those lower abs a bit more, and graduating to the green stretch cord from the orange. I'm also shifting my appointments to every three weeks instead of every two. He said the basic problems are on their way to resolution, but to keep them from reoccurring, it's time to work on muscle mass, thus the new direction. 

I'm now using the 55 cm ball for two different routines, the "W"
and the "A". The key is to do the exercises correctly, avoiding
exercising the wrong muscle area. I'm always pretty
aware of how I'm moving my body in the floor exercises. 

I'm also allowed to finally get back into the pool - breast stroke only for only 10-15 minutes of time. The challenge for me will be how to still incorporate my floor exercises while adding the water back into my routine. I ordered three sets of tie-on sweat pants and a dark shirt that I can put on over a wet swimsuit to continue to work out without having to do a major change of clothes. Whether that will work or not is anyone's guess. They arrive in a few days, so I'll stick with fast walking and my floor routine until then. 

I'm finally cleared to get back into the swimming pool. Of course, my
usual pool will be closed for repair and re-tiling for a MONTH starting
on Monday, so I'll either have to swim outdoors or drive out to
White Bear Lake's YMCA - the closest indoor pool. 

So basically, yesterday was a REALLY BUSY day, and I still had the chance to catch up with Aearwen and her life - one of the highlights of my weeks. All in all, I'm pleased with what I managed to do yesterday, and DH brought the framework of the soldering bench home last night. He'll take a closer look at it tomorrow and start to figure out where it will go and how the top should be revised. Better him than me - LOL. 

Have an excellent Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow.