Lucky

Some weeks I am well aware of just how lucky a woman I am.  This was one of them.  It started off with good medical news for me and my husband’s successful surgery, and things inspiring further gratitude kept on coming.

so thoughtful, right?

One thing I felt grateful for was receiving a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift from my Blogger Valentine Swap partner,  “The Fat Mom.” She sent me a thoughtful assortment of mani/pedi things, a thoughtful note, plus a really cute water bottle (I can never have too many of those)!  I absolutely loved it and was so glad to get the chance to meet someone new.

The second thing I was grateful for this week was my Gym Buddy.  This is going so well—we ended up motivating each other to go to the gym at 8:00 one night, something that would have been hard without the social support.  We both can tell we’re getting stronger doing Rachel Cosgrove’s weight lifting program, and have been meeting 2 to 3 times a week.

We started Phase Two of the program today, and it was a total butt-kicker.  One of the exercises in Phase Two is holding the Dreaded Plank Position.  It’s still totally awful, but I can definitely hold it longer that I could back in the day.  Like I told my favorite blogger Ellen awhile back, Rachel Cosgrove points out in her book that the plank strengthens the pelvic floor muscles, which can reduce Old Lady Incontinence problems.  As someone hoping to be an old lady in the future, the idea of peeing myself is a less than welcome prospect and one that has given me newfound respect for the plank.

We looked completely ridiculous trying to do assisted chin-ups.  Rachel Cosgrove shows the proper way to do them here:

Like she recommends, we used a band looped around the bar because we’re not strong enough to do them without it.  The problem for us was all the chin-up bar was too high to reach comfortably, and it took both of us (plus a trainer we drafted)  several minutes to maneuver us onto the bar and get our knees onto band.  This was an awkward game of Twister and involved lots dangling, grunting, and elastic bands popping off dangerously close to our faces.  Once we got some extra height by standing on a bosu ball, the whole contraption worked much better.  Even with the elastic band under (both of) our knees, we were both still too weak to do a chin-up without the other person pushing up with all their strength too.  The Sunday Afternoon gym-goers got quite a show from us today, but at least we had each other.  It was almost fun to look ridiculous since I had company in the effort.

The third thing that reminded me how lucky I am this week was something I reflected upon while writing a stack of thank-you notes this week: receiving the world’s most amazing graduation gift.  For my Ph.D. graduation, my family and friends each hand-embroidered a square for a quilt representing the different stages of my life: there are squares from my childhood hobbies like dancing and gymnastics, from each of the schools I went to, from the various places I’ve lived, trips I’ve taken, and accomplishments I’ve made.  There are 25 squares all together, made by nearly 20 people.  Here’s part of my quilt here:

so amazing!

How many people have such a loving set of family of friends who are so generous with their time that they’re willing to hand-craft a visible reminder to me of being loved?  It makes me feel amazing and unique every day when I look at it.

I am a lucky girl indeed.  What happened to you last week that made you feel lucky?

I’ll leave you with my favorite square, the one stitched by my mom: