The writing on ISY is going. I’m still reworking previous chapters — and adding a fair amount to the wordcount because if my finished style is spare, my first draft style is damned near telegraphic. I’ll get the words; I’ll get the HAWKSPAR words today, too.
I feel remarkably good. My big birthday present (read “birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and probably Mother’s Day”) was a weight machine. This was an investment in not letting health issues become health problems.
We spent a couple of days taking our time and building the machine — NOT for the fainthearted. You’d better have a good tool set that includes both standard and metric socket wrenches, box wrenches, rubber mallet, a number of screwdriver types and sizes … and you still end up putting part of the thing together with Allen wrenches. I loathe those things. And the machine comes with two sizes of them.
But we survived assembly. I’ve now been working out on it for closing on a week. It’s beautiful. I’m doing a moderate split routine, abs Monday through Saturday, and alternating days for upper and lower body. I’ve mentioned before that weightlifting was the only form of intentional exercise I ever found that I actually liked — that hasn’t changed. The bodyweight exercises I was doing before were very good — but the fun factor wore out quickly, as it became clear that the only way to progress was to do more reps, when more reps added more time. I’ll keep up with the hindu squats and bridging for flexibility and aerobic value, but being able to increase weights while decreasing reps, build up reps again, then repeat the cycle, has a lot going for it.
And the wonderful design of this particular machine eliminates the one part of the workout that drove me buggy with every other machine I worked with — swapping weights and cables. I did an intense (exercise-swap-between-sets, no stopping) 30-minute workout this morning, and I’m still buzzed. It’s the kind of feel-good that goes with you all day.
Anyway, back to work.
