Insanity Makes Me Crazy Happy

Good morning to you all!  Happy Wednesday!  Happy May 1st!  Happy Birthday to my nephew, James! (I love you a lot, a lot).

This morning, as I struggled to follow two bladder-filled dogs down the stairs, I was reminded of my newest habit.  With every step, my hamstrings yelped, my ass cheeks screamed (who knew there was muscle under them?) and my calf muscles tightened up.  Yet, with every step, my smile grew bigger.

And I was reminded of one of my brother's favorite jokes:  "No pain, no pain."

Of course with that thought, I laughed.  Why wouldn't I laugh and be merry after eight solid hours of sleep for the thirteenth day in a row?  Why wouldn't I laugh and be merry with the thought that work awaits and I am no longer stressed and looking like a zombie every morning?  And looky here, I have enough energy to both sip my coffee and write a little diddy.

It seems that the Insanity workout, despite being insane and painful, provides a great deal of gains. 

I don't know if you've ever seen the infomercials for the workout, but I remember many mornings sitting in my chair, sipping my coffee while watching, and thinking, "That looks hard."

Then in one crazy moment, I decided that it looked hard enough to try.  So I got the discs from a friend, and started to move.

The first day, after about 6 minutes of warm-up, I had to rest, get back up, rest, get back up.  Both Paige and Tony watched me struggle through the entire 45 minutes, all the while giggling and saying, "Mommy, you don't look like the people doing the exercises.  They haven't fallen over eighteen times, and tripped into the wall."

The response I wanted to give, as the sweat poured down my face and into my eyes, and as my lungs screamed for mercy was, "Shut it, you little mongrels.  They are getting paid to do this, they are trained and have been doing this workout for months, they are no more perfect than me!"  But instead I said, "Ugh," and dropped to the floor in the final two minutes of stretches.

Now, nearly two weeks later, I laugh - - - ha, ha, ha! - - - and though I am still dropping to the floor with exhaustion, I am doing it with a sense of satisfaction.

I think I might have a set of abs somewhere near my stomach because I swear I can feel them, and I can see a slight change in the way my shirts fall over the mini muffin top I've baked for the past couple of years.

The odd thing is, I didn't start the workout so I could lose weight.  I started it so I could lose stress, gain sleep and find my mojo again with writing.

It seems to have worked.
I'm feeling pretty good now. 
Insanely good.