Thursday's miscellaneous

 

What do you mean I have to get off your lap?

What?  Just because of the clock and an appointment?  You're joking, right?

Nope, sorry, Prisoner, but I'll be working out with the trainer soon, and I have so many things to do:  cook breakfast, toss a load of laundry in, make sure the gym bag is ready...

Speaking of a load of laundry, that would be a

Non-scale victory, or depending on level of fancy - a giggle point!

What turns a load of laundry into a giggle point?  The realization that in the past two weeks, I had accumulated a full load of "Megan wear" to wash!

Family members will recognize the term "Megan wear", perhaps, but for the Spark refugees among you, I don't think I've ever referenced Megan wear in my blogs.  Megan is my niece, the elder daughter of sister #1.  She grew up working in retail fashion, but also was a very active young woman.  But she had trouble finding fitness wear that fit her body.

So she used her connections and learned work skills to design fitness wear that would fit her and her cheerleading / fitness instructor friends.  Fit and support.  Anyway, it was a huge giggle point for me, when I finally shrank down to the point where I would fit into her line of active wear!  Her clothing line was marketed on line, and I started buying from her.  

All of her line was made from moisture wicking high-tech fabric.  It was sturdy (supporting the girls well, ladies).  And it lasts for-ever, or so it seems.  I mean, I'm still wearing the items I first bought... what, eleven years ago?  

As time wore on, I started drifting to buy from other vendors.  And of course I got a lot of "tech" shirts and shorts and such from the events I participated in from 2011 to 2017.  I had some of them made into a memory quilt, but tech fabrics don't do well as quilts, just saying.  So at this point, half my closet is full of these beauties.  But in my mind, they are all "Megan wear", at least when it comes to doing laundry.  There are rules to protect that fabric and preserve its properties.

The year leading up to retirement, the start of retirement, then leading up to and after my brother's passing, and during the pandemic, the pounds started and then continued to creep back on, like a series of rising steppes.  The tech gear was still there in the closet, but it didn't fit as well.  I felt that I looked like a stuffed sausage when I would put it on for a progress photo.

Progress photos, this one June 2021

I started wearing them again as Summer came on this year.  I was working out more.  I started jogging intervals, when I had dropped a few of those pounds, and I wanted that sweat-wicking property.  I started wearing them to the gym, for my workouts with the trainer.  I sweat a lot there, too. 

Prior to about June this year, I was wearing some very generous sized stuff I'd bought on line, not this tech fabric, when I went to strength train.  It didn't really hide the fat rolls, but at least the skin wasn't showing!

Today's giggle point was that I had filled a load between the trainer workouts and the interval training run/walks, in less than two weeks.  Four shirts, three tech shorts or capris, two headbands, and six (count 'em, six) sports bras.  All Summer gear... and my brain starts to chuckle... just wait to you see how fast I can fill up a load during Winter running season!

Today, I'm decked out in gear I "borrowed" from Kevin's closet, the week after he passed, to Run Cobbs Hill with his running buddies, in his memory, July, 2019.  I had to go look... I was about ten pounds heavier then than I am this morning.

I'm the one in the neon shirt... I can see those ten pounds!

I promised a selfie when the new eyewear arrived.

Two weeks later, the new glasses are in, as promised.  So selfies.

The weird thing about selfies taken by the computer's camera is that I have to tilt either my head or the screen to get rid of the glare off the lenses!

I always seem to look to myself as though I'm "making faces". What I'm really trying to do is avoid the big blue screen reflections!

The point was to show off the new frames... and that they don't appear crooked on my face, like the old ones did!  Or maybe they are the same level of crooked, and I'm just typically critical of how I look at pictures of myself!  I'm the only one who does that, right?

The Pep Talk

Enough! Let's get out there and LIVE, best can do, the remainder of this one and only Thursday, September 2, 2021 we'll ever get!  Let's face the challenges set before us, and remember to nurture ourselves, body, mind and spirit!  Because life is good, and we are worth living it, each and every one of us.  

Spark on!  ✨💖😍