Just a chair…

How many of us are vowing to start exercising after our wonderfully, over-the-top, calorie loaded, Thanksgiving Day?  Are we checking out Black Friday exercise equipment offerings today?  Or maybe looking into getting a gym membership for a Christmas present. 
When I was a little girl my Grandma would sometimes stay with us.  Grandma was getting older and a little thick around the waist.  My ever health conscious mom was doing everything she could to keep her from gaining any more weight.  We’d line up chairs across the living room floor, one for each of us, and turn on the old green tube television to exercise with Jack LaLanne. 

Here was this muscular guy with what sounded like an accent to me, in a jump suit and ballet slippers, urging us to get up off the couch and MOVE!  We’d stand behind our chair and kick our legs.  Then hold on while doing deep knee bends.  Then we’d sit on the chair and pull our legs in, kick out, lift and hold… The funniest was the face contortions to firm up the face muscles.  No face lifts for this generation.    
He’d say things like “Anything in life is possible if you make  it happen” and “The food you eat today is walking and talking tomorrow”.  Apparently he was onto something about how to live, since he lived to the ripe old age of 96.
Last weekend, when grandson Dakota was with us, I fixed all of the wrong things – bagels, fried foods, lots of potatoes, and *horrors* bought ice cream.  Central Dairy Muddy Waters ice cream.  For those of you who are not from this area do not know what you are missing.  Central Dairy Ice Cream is the best ever!  Anyway, I told Dakota that Grandpa and I needed to get back into the habit of going to the gym.  He couldn’t believe his grandparents have a gym membership at all… which got me to thinking about how my parents and grandparents exercised, which got me to thinking about Jack Lalanne and our fun afternoons in the living room.  It’s strange how the mind works – or at least how my mind works.  Now if I could just get my body moving in as many different directions and as quickly as my mind.
No, I haven’t gone back to the gym (yet), and the kitchen chairs are still where the belong, pushed in under the kitchen table.  But you just never know when motivation will hit. 

In the meantime, I think I’ll join Dakota and Whiskey on the floor, relaxing in front of the wood stove.  Move over guys, I’m coming in.