My family and I went for a walk yesterday to try to blow off a little steam after getting a distressing letter from my mortgage company. They have this little thing that they like; it’s called getting paid. Since the layoff last year, my finances have been REALLY tight and I haven’t been able to pay my car or mortgage on a consistent basis even when blowing off the credit card companies. So basically, they want me to come up with over $7200 by the end of the month or they will start foreclosure proceedings. I’ve been trying to work on a payment arrangement with them, but they’re really hard to work with and have lost many faxes that I’ve sent at their request. Exercise is supposed to help you deal with stress, so I guess it was good that we were going to go walk anyway.
My kids wanted to ride their bikes, so I had to do a quick fix on Chloe’s training wheels and tighten the seat on Evan’s bike. They haven’t been able to ride for a few weeks because I kept forgetting to fix (thanks again to my procrastination gene). We headed out around 6:30, so I expected it to be really frickin hot, but since the sun was behind the enormous houses in the neighborhood (ones that dwarf my small house in comparison), it wasn’t bad at all considering that it usually feels like you’re stuck under Satan’s hot, sweaty balls most evenings here in Texas.
My legs were frickin killing me from the run the night before. Did you know that you have muscles that run along your shin bone? I hadn’t really noticed until yesterday when I was walking and it felt like I had team of trained monkeys ripping apart my shin with little grappling hooks.
Laurie, my wife, kept getting pissed at me because I was walking too fast for her. I’m about 6’2”, so I’m about a foot taller than her. I can’t help that my stride is longer than hers, so I had to keep slowing down to keep pace with her. Chloe’s bitching that her legs hurt and that it’s hard to pedal. Evan keeps stopping to wait for us. Whew…this really IS a great way to relieve stress!
We finally realize that the tires on Chloe’s bike are pretty much flat, so I end up carrying her bike for the last part of our walk. I guess I can consider that extra exercise.
I’ll probably head out again this evening if the weather holds up. The forecast calls for rain, but it’s easier to believe that Robert Blake didn’t whack his wife than it is to believe a weatherman in Dallas. My legs are still killing me, but if I take a day off of the exercise, I’m more likely to not keep at it. That’s the only way that I’ve been able to stick to the healthy eating habit is by being obnoxiously militant about it. I figure I need to do the same with the exercise regime.