Week 10: The Accidental Power Lifter...What?

So this was one straaaange week. Last weekend was taken up with preparations for Sandy, which was destined to be the storm of the century. Sadly, in places in NJ and NY, it was. Here in northern Virginia we fared pretty well. My neighbor lost a tree, and plenty of folks lost power. We did not. It was a very dreary few days and we did not leave the house--kind of like the beginning of the Cat in the Hat, but the Cat did not show up (thankfully!) I actually was grateful for the inevitable change of subject that Sandy brought. I can totally relate to this little girl who says she is tired of "Bronco Bama" and Mitt Romney. Me too, girl--I hear ya!

As of last Saturday evening it was pretty clear that a cold was prevailing upon certain members of the family and as I sit here writing, one full week later, we are still in various stages of snottiness, coughing and general crud-management. We spent Sandy parked in front of the Weather Channel under blankets with boxes of Kleenex and medicine cup-cocktails.

We managed to tackle some schoolwork, though, in all our time indoors. Between blowing our noses we continued working on scripture memorization for AWANA, read more of the biography of Eric Liddell, covered history reading on the roaring 20's and the Jazz age, completed week 5 of Writing with Skill (with almost no help from Mom!), took a grammar, spelling and math test and passed all with good scores. Molly and I read Marven of the Great North Woods which was a story about a Jewish boy who was sent away to avoid the flu pandemic which followed WWI.

My favorite discussion this week was in science. We began covering the lesson on nutrition and the glycemic index (GI) of foods was introduced. The kids were very engaged in the reading, and we pulled out a book I have on healthy eating and began to look at various foods and talk about what GI is, but also what glycemic load is, and why a white potato is not as good a choice as another food, for instance a carrot. We picked out foods that we typically eat and looked up their GI, after trying to guess whether it would be a "high" or a "low" food. All-in-all, it was a very fun discussion.

Wednesday evening the kids enjoyed passing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. We do not observe Halloween ourselves, but the kids love passing out the candy.

By Thursday I was climbing the walls and starting to feel a little better, so I decided to step out and brave the gym. It would be my first workout as a member of the CrossFit box I have joined. After the warm-up, we were told to grab a barbell, and the coach proceeded to give a detailed description of how to do a "clean and jerk" lift. What!? I'm still laughing to myself! I have done little to no lifting of any kind of weights, and here I am lifting more weight than I ever have over my little head and then dropping them with a shocking racket onto the floor mats. Hooah! I think I laughed all the way home. What have I signed up for? Wait for it...my good-eating journey is well underway. Now begins my fitness journey, which I'm sure will be a much steeper climb, but I have a goal, and mean to see it through.