Only a few more sets until my cruise.....

Whenever my daughter comes home for a school break, our house fills with activity and people. It generally takes about fifteen minutes from arrival to the front door of our home, before our door starts to swing back and forth and our kitchen fills. Friday was no different, and by dinner time, we had a group of seven teenagers sitting around the room busily chattering away, candy wrappers from the candy bowl, strewn across the counter, chips out and drinks in hand. I was happily making a pot of spaghetti and meatballs, listening to the conversations around me getting caught up on everything that had transpired since Christmas break.  It was a great start to our vacation.

Saturday morning rolled around and their were still a few bodies left over from night before along with a small mess for them to clean when they woke up. I was going for my last work-out of the week, they could take care of the clean up.  The morning, however didn't progress quite as planned, and our car died at the bottom of the hill of our street requiring a tow to the repairman. Once we made the arrangements, we decided to stick to our path and headed out again to the gym, only to arrive and realize we had left our scan tags at home. Since none of the attendants arrive before 11:00 AM on  a Saturday, we were stuck turning around and heading back to the house, In my previous life, I would have never made it to the gym once the car died much less after driving to the gym and having to turn back around to go home. The fitness day would have ended quickly, but this was my new life and it was day four of my work-out for the week, so we turned around and headed right back. 

I hopped on the elliptical and started singing in my head, "Cruise time is almost here. Last work-out before I get to play!" This was a surprisingly not a great motivator. It was as if this work-out was taking the longest any work-out had ever taken, because I had christened it as another block to check before I got to head out for my fun. Every minute seemed to take ten, and every time I looked at my progress on the elliptical screen, it moved at a snail's pace. I was huffing along at this frustrating pace when in walked one of Chelsey's friends from the night before with his Dad. I smiled an awkward smile and thought to myself, it's one thing to hang out amongst them at the kitchen counter while cooking and another thing to be huffing and puffing along in front of them in the gym. Uggh, I thought I was getting over my self-conscious streak! Despite the momentary awkwardness, I kept up my pace and even found myself sub-consciously increasing it. I was no longer focused on the length of time it was taking to finish up my routine, I was thinking about the fact that it was almost time to move over to the weight section for the rest of the work-out, and that was right where Chelsey's friend and his father were working out. Bummer!

I finished up my cardio, hopped off and cleaned the machine while momentarily entertaining the thought of cutting short the work-out for the day. After all, I was technically on my vacation, so the rules were my own to make this week, but my inner voice cried out  "Your a baby!!! Who cares who sees you straining over 5 and 10 pound weights! Get to it. Finish your routine." It was about that moment that the new and slightly more confident me kicked in. It was really pretty silly to feel self-conscious in this situation. I was working out, not in the middle of some embarrassing act. I actually should actually feel a little proud of myself. So I picked up my first set of weights and started thinking to myself, "Only a few more sets, until my cruise!"