My Hard Core Day

     So I spent a day trying to live in the spirit of the woman who blew her nose in her shirt in order to stay focused on her workout.  (See the previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)  It started around 7am when hubby and I discussed our plans for the day.  He had the day off because of MLK Day.  It was a carefully crafted plan, choreographed like the New York City Ballet.  I workout at our local YMCA, which offers babysitting but follows the public school schedule.  So if school is closed, there's no babysitting.  We planned how we could each put in a workout and balance the kids, plus grocery shopping.  Healthy food doesn't just grow on trees, you know. 
     I went to the Y at 8:30, and left by 10:45 to go grocery shopping.  (By the way, they had babysitting after all.  I'm always so close to being on top of things, but just not quite right.)  I headed to BJs for some items, then Stop & Shop for other items that we don't need a full gross of.  I got home at 1:30, believe it or not.  For some reason time stands still when I'm at Stop & Shop.  I was looking for some relatively healthy chocolate and cookies---yes, I'm modifying my behavior, but I'm not giving up on chocolate entirely!  It is very time consuming when you actually read food labels and compare, but sooooo worth it when you find a good product.
    I got home, starving by then, and chowed some lunch before hubby ran out to the gym.  He had to run to the mall to buy new running pants and didn't get home until about 5pm.  I still hadn't showered, mind you, and the kids were starting to get wild....their sign of hunger.  I fed them a snack of mini bagels and headed to the shower.  Along the way to the shower, I stumbled upon things that needed to be cleaned or put away, etc.  By the time I got out of the shower the kids were winding up again.  I always say that 6am and 6pm are the witching hours at our house.  For some reason the boys get insanely wild and even the baby gets fussy.  I blame it on hunger, because all calms down once they get food in their bellies.
     So, I got out of the shower and got dressed and I needed to do my physical therapy exercises which are helping me fix my urinary incontinence problem.  (Hey, after three kids, who wouldn't pee a little when they cough or sneeze?)  I have some simple exercises that take about 10 - 15 minutes and so far they've been very effective, but I never have time to do them.  Correction:  I never make the time for myself to do them.  By then I heard the baby screaming and the boys running and jumping--to the point where the whole house was shaking--and of course they were hooting and hollering too...a truly wild rumpus had kicked in full force.  And hubby was yelling at them, but it did't seem to be helping at the moment.  I knew that I needed to go downstairs and provide some backup to hubby and impose some order on the chaos.  But I really want to stop peeing my pants too.  It's my Hard Core day, so I ignored all the ruckus downstairs and I did my physical therapy exercises.  For me.  Me.
     We ended up eating at 8pm, which is actually the boys' bedtime.  They were fried, I was fried, but I was hard core and I got my things done.  It wasn't pretty, BUT I achieved my goals for the day.  I burned the calories I needed to (2900), kept my calorie consumption within my limit (1900), and did my physical therapy routine twice.  It all comes down to a shift in focus.  My focus wass on me today.  Not that I'm neglected anybody else.  Really, the boys were having fun being nutso while I took care of myself.  The baby would've been fussy anyway.  A late dinner every now and then isn't going to kill us.

                             Tell me about something hard core you've done recently.

Footnote:  I hope I didn't offend anyone with TMI about the incontinence stuff.  I included it because it was integral to the story but, more importantly, if any of you reading this have the same problem I want to encourage you to talk to your doctor about it because it really can be fixed.  My OB/GYN offered me surgery or physical therapy, so I opted for therapy.  The therapist said that shes' seen way more severe problems than mine respond well to therapy.  It's a few really simple leg lift type of exercises and they work like magic!