Friday, June 20, 2014

Friday (6/20/2014)

Update:

On Thursday, I got to the office and spent the morning and early afternoon working on my message, emails and typing some notes from a meeting.  Mid-afternoon I left to go the Home Medical Supply Store to pick up my seat cushion for my wheelchair.  It was sort of funny as I waited in line, sitting in my wheelchair, a woman rushed in unaware that I had been waiting 10 minutes and jumped up to the counter when the sales person was free.  I figured if she was in that big of rush, she could go first.  I eventually got my cushion and it feels good! 

I did my weigh-in for the Biggest Loser and I had lost 4.8 pounds in the last week!  Those daily bike rides along with my exercise workouts really paid off!  So far I have lost over 19 pounds.  I have plenty more pounds to lose but it feels good to have made so much progress so far.  I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing.

After my work out on Wednesday night, I decided that I would not do any of my floor exercises or free-weights on Thursday.  I have been pushing it hard every single night and all my muscles were sore at the start of Wednesday night’s workout.  I figured that I really needed to give the muscles a rest for one night. 

Despite the forecast, I did manage to put another 5 miles on my bicycle on Thursday.  I decided that after dinner I was just going to sit and watch TV.  It hasn’t even been on since last weekend.  Going to bed early was also on my schedule—but I often plan to do that but never quite get everything done to actually do it.  I believe that tonight is the night!

One anecdote from Thursday morning:  I have had one sore spot on the back of my right heel for a couple of weeks now.  Although I always crank the laces as tight as I can get them, the sore has probably been caused by the shoe rubbing up and down as I am walking.    So my physiatrist recommended three things to try.  Add a poly sock-liner, add a second sock, put a Band-Aid over the spot before putting on the socks.  I’ve been doing all three and the redness and sore have healed.  But as I examined my foot (have to do it each morning) it seemed that the bump on the back of my heel is larger than it has been.  I wasn’t certain exactly what I was seeing; but as I sat in the wheelchair with my stump up on the calf pad right in front of me, I thought to myself: “I’ll just compare the way this looks to the heel on my left foot.”  Oophs!!  Ain’t goin’ to happen!   I laughed at myself for a good long time.  Although in my defense, I did have a left foot for over 55 years, so it was natural habit to assume I still had it even seven months after the amputation, I guess.  Sometimes change is hard to wrap our minds around.

Thought for the Day:

It amazes me as I look back on my life some of the mistakes that I have made.  Most were inconsequential; however some were real doozies.  Some mistakes I have repeated over and over while many I have learned from so that I don’t repeat them.  It is pretty amazing to me how creative we can become in making almost the same mistake repetitively. We figure that we are close to being right so we just move a little left or right and try again.  It reminds me of people ice fishing.  They drill a hole through the ice and don’t get any bites.  So they drill another hole just a foot away.  If they still don’t catch fish, another hole gets drilled, often very close to the last hole.  While I know that a few inches can make a difference in whether you catch fish—the idea that I am talking about is that once we get an idea in our head; sometimes it is hard to move away from it and start with a fresh, creative approach.

One of my favorite sayings attributed to Mark Twain (along with a host of others) is this: 



Obviously we need to change what we are doing, our attitudes, or our thinking if those things don’t really work for us. Change doesn’t happen without a conscious effort.  So when things don’t turn out the way we’ve hoped, we need to stop, ponder, and plan for a different outcome; not just try to do the same thing over and over.

 “Mistakes can often be our best teachers.  If we are willing to admit them and learn from them, we gain in knowledge and wisdom.  We can do so if every time we take time to reflect on them by asking:

What went wrong?
When did it go wrong?
Where did it go wrong?
Why did it go wrong?
How did I contribute to making it go wrong?
What can I learn from this experience?
How will I apply what I’ve learned in the future?”
                [John Maxwell, Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn].


So today when you make a mistake, take time to ask yourself those helpful questions so that you can begin again more intelligently.

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