I am a list maker. Being self employed allows great flexibility and also a lot of non- productive time if I don’t make a to-do list or schedule.

I schedule fabric shopping time, fabric cutting time, sewing time, blogging time, picture editing time, posting new items time along with personal and family time.

Personal time includes exercising. The hardest part for me about exercising, is getting dressed. Not physically putting on of the shorts, shirt and shoes, but the knowing that when I have made the commitment to attempt a physical activity, once I am dressed, there is no going back.

Odd?  Yes.

I have run 4 half-marathons and have signed up and paid for the 5th half marathon scheduled for this Fall.  I try to run one half marathon a year.   Avid runners probably think this is silly because once you are conditioned to the point of completing a run, you should probably stay at that physical level and run races more often.

Nope, not me.

So that means a lot of training.  A lot of getting dressed.

In the past my training would only include running. Run and run and run. As I get older, I find the need to do other things in addition to running. I love to walk, I love to bike and I love to take a class at our local YMCA called R.I.P.P.E.D.  (Resistance, Intervals, Power, Plyometrics, Endurance, Diet) or as I like to refer to it, a combined hour of jumping around, lifting weights, kicking and sweating. J.A.L.W.K.A.S. 😉 I don’t really call it that but how fun if the acronyms would have worked out and made a word.

Like anything, the first time you take a R.I.P.P.E.D. class it is pretty intimidating. I have zero kickboxing skills. The jabs, undercuts and punching combinations are comical when I am doing them. My technique is laughable, but it gets easier once you learn the lingo. Not that I look any less comical.

Each segment is put to music and the instructor is giving you the routine plus options if you would like a lower or higher intensity.

Here is one of the instructors. Gillian. She is the one on the left. My friend Alyssa is on the right and up until her 30+ week of pregnancy, she was in class every Thursday. Bless her cutest ever baby bump.

Gillian, not to be confused with Jillian from Biggest Loser, is amazing.  Think about this.  She is calling out the routine and giving encouragement the entire hour. Even during sit ups while her legs are fully extended into the air and she is touching her toes she is talking.  Yet, she is encouraging you about the great job you are doing even though you are only doing every other sit up barely getting your shoulder blades off the mat with flopped frog legs.  And she genuinely means it.  She loves what she does and it shows.

So schedule some personal time, find yourself a Gillian and get back to me if you find that getting dressed is the hardest part.

And by the way that cutest baby bump now looks like this along with his proud big brother.  Love these kids!