Trying to Move More, Against my Body's Better Judgement

Walking is my form of exercise. I have walked a lot in the past, but walking now - isn't as easy as it used to be. At least, when doing it for exercise and going for a little speed and distance. My knees have put in a formal objection, so I have shortened my distance temporarily and started doing exercises for my knees to strengthen them. It's working, too, which is nice. At least I've got that going for me.

But with this working from home thing, there needs to be more activity. NOT an athlete as a kid, younger adult, and certainly NOT an athlete now. Hmmm.. what to do?

I ordered a standing desk converter thing. It goes on top of my own desk, my monitors will sit on it and when I want to work standing up - it rises up, supposedly smoothly. We will see about that. My main concern is that it will raise my monitors about 4 inches when I am sitting, and right now my monitors are as low as they can go. Other than that - I am looking forward to it. 

I've tried to think of what I will need, a surge protector with a long cord so it is long enough to reach whether the desk is up or down. Some cord protector sleeves to try to bundle them a bit so they aren't all over the place, and I'm hoping will make the cords less attractive to Cruz, the only cat here that has a life goal of becoming a crispy kitty! I am determined to make him fail at that.

Not going to stop walking by any means. I am enjoying it, especially the listening to music part. Much better than listening to audio books which is what I used to do. But especially since there are days when it is close to a hundred degrees (summer in Chicago, what??) when I feel like I don't go as far or as fast as I'd like, and because I'm not sure what winter will be like - this is one more strike against bad health or maybe declining health that comes with aging. NO! I am not that old. And I'm not even sick! But I intend to stay as healthy as I can be until I DO get ready to meet my maker. Not anywhere near that yet. Preventative medicine is the best medicine.

Now, to make my body stop objecting to what I am trying to do .. that is a work in progress, but I will win!

I am SO ready for this!

For Christmas this year, one of the gifts from my BF was to help me make my bead room into a real craft room. Putting up shelving, getting the proper containers for supplies, and moving everything around so it all makes sense is what I am hoping for.

Playing musical furniture the other night started the process. A previous tenant left the desk we moved into the bead room - in the house. It is ugly, pink, heavy and it is huge. It had to be taken apart to be moved and even the pieces weighed a ton. Put back together in the bead room it takes up a third of the room. Did I mention it is huge? Of course the bead room is fairly small, maybe that’s part of it.

Still, I am so excited about it, I cannot tell you. I am not the most organized person in the world, but I don’t like the chaos of disorganization around me. It makes me cranky. So to take this room that started out as a small bedroom with a tiny table in it and accumulate the amount of beading supplies I have in it, it got to the point where I did not even want to go in there.

Now, I am going to have a room where I can keep my beads and tools, my fabric and sewing machine, my craft books and magazines. Funny, because I never understood why anyone would want a craft room of any kind. I didn’t do anything “crafty” until I reached 40. Then it was as if someone turned on a switch and inside my head I heard; “what are you going to do when you’re old and have no hobbies??” Okay, that isn’t exactly what I heard, but all of a sudden the urge was there. And now the room is too.

I am looking forward to having designated areas for my mailing supplies, my jewelry boxes and my mannequin head, as well as finished unsold jewelry. Of course I don’t *cough cough* have much of that.

Most of all I am looking forward to having a bead room that is a pleasure to walk into because I am not stepping over boxes and bags and where the kleptomaniac cat (that would be Norah) won’t have access to my beads.

I am hoping this change will make me a calmer and more productive beader! Or maybe I should say – make me a beader again – because I haven’t been doing much. For me, organization will breed creativity! Go me!