Blue Jeans and Cotton Tees

I have my 2 Chicago nephews here for the week. Along with their play clothes, boots and school books, they packed their Wii.

At first I wasn’t all that interested, I just figured it would keep everybody entertained for a few minutes and then would cause more than a few fights over whose turn it was.

(I was right about the fighting part.)

But the Wii took on a whole new dimension when I discovered that they had brought Wii Fit.

I watched with interest as the kids set up my 12 year old son. The Wii figured his height, age and even weighed him – then figured his BMI. The next part scared me spitless – they showed a chart on the screen starting with normal at the bottom and heading upwards to overweight and right into obese. It had a line indicating where he was (thankfully it was normal!)

I gulped and slid down on the couch trying to figure out a way to use the Wii without having it tell the room my BMI and show my chart!

I could just imagine the smoke billowing out as the Wii screams in pain “Get that fat lady off- she’s too heavy – overweight – tilt- tilt!’

No, my experimenting had to done alone, and with a secret identity.

I let my son play with it for a few minutes and then sent him (and the rest of the crew) off to do school. When I was sure I was alone, I climbed up on the Wii balance board and pressed the button, thinking I would pretend to be my 12 y/o son.

Ha! You can’t fool a Wii! It immediately said, “You weigh considerably more than before, are you sure you want to continue?”

Of course I want to continue!

Well, then again, maybe I don’t. By the time I had been hit in the head multiple times by flying soccer cleats and pandas, drowned in the river, and fallen to my death from the high wire, I began to rethink this entire Wii experience.

Maybe I needed to move beyond the children’s favorites and discover the other side of the Wii. The kinder, gentler side. Yoga.

How hard can be it be – really? You just stand in these positions.

Or not.

Trust me, it’s a whole lot harder than it looks. It actually hurts. My “tree” position looked like a tornado had come through.

But my one saving grace was the basic step. Up down, up down, step left, step, step. Hey- this is easy! I started to get into it and jazz up my steps with a few claps.

The children gathered around me in awe… wow- the old gal can really move! She dominates on the steps!

Finally! I had discovered something that I could do better than the children. Thanks to years of cheerleading, this mom can still keep beat and move her feet!

Maybe this Wii thing ain’t so bad after all…

I really don’t like to sweat.

Exercise was never my favorite thing to do. It still isn’t.

But I have now reached an age where exercise is a needed thing.

I have in the past done video work-outs. They were very effective for awhile. But eventually I would get bored and have to force myself to do them.

I also discovered that my muscles need variety. They soon get accustomed to the same exercises and don’t need to work as hard.

I love taking a walk, but in the dead of an Iowa winter, that isn’t always possible.

So we started collected exercise equipment.  I am amazed at what you can find at garage sales!

A Schwinn aerodyne, a weight bench, and even a Nordic Track stair stepper for $1.

After we moved, all of these equipment slowly started to congregate into our unfinished basement.

I looked around the other day and said, “By golly, I have my very own workout room!”

We added a CD player, an old TV set with a DVD player and several tapes.

Everyday, I have a choice of exercise equipment and can choose what I want to watch while I work out.

Now if I can just motivate myself to actually use them…