Well, the economy didn’t give my health club membership back, but our budget managed to scrape it out for me. About a week and a half ago we went and toured one of the local health & fitness centers near us and signed up. I’d narrowed down the likely candidates via the internet and this one was top of my list for places I wanted to go. Since they were having a no-enrollment fee special and the kids seemed to like the childcare area, we signed on. I’m going three times a week, plus once over the weekend with Brian and he’s planning on doing a couple evenings a week – taking the kids with him so I can get some studio time without interruption. I’d probably consider going more often, but I have physical therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help correct a problem with my left knee and strengthen my back to prolong the amount of time until one of my discs eventually collapses. So I’m going easy on myself by only doing this three or four times per week…
Of course now we’re not allowed to eat out at restaraunts. Well… except in dire celebratory circumstances anyway. We added up the total cost for the membership, including childcare, and compared it to the yearly budget. Since we’ve just passed the one-year anniversary of living in this house, we have an idea of where our money is going. Not that we eat out a lot – actually we hardly eat out at ALL if you compare us to the national average – but the yearly budget for that will mostly pay for the membership. We are also figuring that after a few months the budget line for the medical co-pays will ALSO be going down, due to our much-improved healthier bodies! And so… Ta Da! Health club!
But really… the kids LOVE the play area there and I love that I can drop them off and have some uninterrupted “personal time” for as much as three hours!!! Granted, I have to work out in order to have it, but c’mon… there’s a pool, steam room, sauna, and they even have workout classes that come included with the membership… with the kids begging to go, what more could I ask? AND they seem to try and honor my “no TV” request while my kids are there… I mean, hot damn!
This week, however, has been a bit of a bust on workout time. I got halfway through my Monday workout and got a call from Jareth’s school. He wasn’t feeling well, so I packed it up and went to get him. By the time I got him home and tucked into bed he had a fever of 102.2 degrees. Thus, he was sick for two days, and I rescheduled around him and kept Kayla home from school as a good mommy ought. By Wednesday, however, it was Brian staying home to take care of ME. Oh, how I love it when we play hot potato with the winter illnesses.
While I managed to keep my Physical Therapy appointments this week, I didn’t make it back to the gym until today, and I am still recovering so I wasn’t able to do quite as much as I have been. The counter here is that I am on an anti-inflammatory med for my knee and back – which has the added benefit of reducing how much I HURT after each workout. I remember totally overdoing it the last time, and I KNOW I did the first time out with this membership too. But I have not been suffering anywhere near as much. Which… only means I’m pushing a little harder. I could care less about being the beach babe by summer – I want to look good for the High School reunions coming – Brian’s is this year and mine is next. I want to have it “goin’ on” by then… I’m just sayin’
Meanwhile, back at the ranch studio… I am finally ordering some larger equipment for my studio. My mom left some money for me and I had to wait a while to have access to it (and didn’t actually know what company had it for a while). With the economy being so down, I thought it was high time to a) pull some of it out before it loses any more value!!! and b) use some of it to buy some proper equipment for my studio! I’ve actually got one order coming via freight. Mostly because it seems I ordered all the heaviest items from one company. The smaller order I placed with another company arrived today and the kids were fascinated as I opened up boxes with metal-forming tools. I’m going to go do some more rearranging and measuring after I finish typing this…
Maybe I’ll post pictures if I ever get it cleaned up enough. We’ll see. I’ve got a new camera coming too, so I’m holding out for that. Ooooh. And I finally went and got myself a proper tax ID number. I’m a real, honest-to-IRS “sole proprietor” now.
Whoah. I’ve got goosebumps just thinking about it.