I’m middle-aged. I’m overweight. My muscle tone is weaker than it was a decade or more ago. I have a baby. My left knee still hurts from pregnancy. Hmm. I’ve got a bit of a problem.<\/p>\n
In 2006 I joined Fitness 19; paid $200 to join and a $12 monthly fee after that. I used the facility sporadically in 2006, even less in 2007. But the monthly fee was so low, it didn’t feel like a huge waste of money. Previously I’d been a member of Curves, which at $40 a month grew too high a price for the limited access (they close part of the day and early in the evening), the limited kind of workout, and the intrusive, over-friendly staff who insisted on “engaging” women during a workout when they might just want to, you know, work out<\/em>.<\/p>\n Well, tonight I attempted to go to Fitness 19 to work out for the first time since my late pregnancy. It’s located in a strip mall with a puny parking lot, but usually by 7:00 p.m. the place would clear out. However, tonight there were no spaces. People were illegally parked in fire lanes. And there were new signs in certain spaces that said No Fitness 19 Parking<\/em>. I groaned with frustration. What the hell to do? I turned around and went home. Ooo, I was grumpy.<\/p>\n I was mad. Mad at the parking lot size. Mad at the stupid parking restrictions. Mad that people hadn’t gone home sooner. Irrational, I know. Mostly I felt mad about the limitations on my time. The only opportunity I have to go out alone is after 7 p.m. weekdays and on weekends. However, to be functional, I usually try to go to sleep at 9:30 p.m. daily. This doesn’t leave much time for eating dinner, cleaning up, working out, showering, socializing, or “me” time.<\/p>\n One of the biggest changes for me in becoming a mother has been accepting the loss of “me” time. Mothering calls for much more of me than I imagined. I don’t begrudge this; it’s simply quite an adjustment.<\/p>\n I’m trying to figure out how to care for my physical well-being. Someone suggested the YMCA. Membership is $100 to join and $52 a month, with reduced fees for classes, and reasonable baby sitting services. But at $52 a month, I’d need to be sure I really went; it’s a lot more money, and we’re carefully managing our expenses. The other option is to go out for walks in the evenings in the neighborhood (knee permitting).<\/p>\n But now, since I’m supposed to be getting sleep, I’ll close here. Maybe I’ll wake up refreshed with a solution. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m middle-aged. I’m overweight. My muscle tone is weaker than it was a decade or more ago. I have a baby. My left knee still hurts from pregnancy. Hmm. I’ve got a bit of a problem. In 2006 I joined Fitness 19; paid $200 to join and a $12 monthly fee after that. I used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,16,27,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","category-nature","category-recreation","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4541,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions\/4541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}