Life is Healthy

Started out I was simply going to vacuum the mudroom. That’s all. A little warm-up before my workout. Four hours later, the hallway carpet was now the mudroom carpet, and my glutes were screaming at me (but in a good way).

I’ve been saying for years that “some day” I’d take up the carpet in the small hallway that links the front of our house with my office and downstairs bathroom and put it in the mudroom, and when I couldn’t bring myself to look at, let alone vacuum, the ugly brown and black speckled mudroom carpet one more time yesterday, I knew “some day” had arrived.

I grabbed a big box for the scraps, a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and a hammer. (I should have grabbed gloves, too) and went to work.

Ripping up carpet is like unwrapping a gift. You never know what you’re what you’re going to get. Yesterday I was hoping against hope I’d discover a nice wood floor, not the kind of flooring we discovered when we ripped up the carpet in the original part of the house in 2006:
The hallway I uncovered yesterday is part of the “new” part of the house that was added in the 1940s. I ripped and tugged until I’d lifted out whole the 60- by 53-inch piece of berber. I peeked underneath and hello! 1940s speckled fiberboard!
I love antiques. God knows I do. But flooring like that should have been outlawed. Bad enough it’s speckled ugly, it’s cardboard ugly. And there was no getting that stuff up without professional help.

So I cleaned it up, painted it white, and laid down a braided rug until I decide what to do next.
Meanwhile, back in the mudroom, I removed the ugly brown and black carpet, wiped down the shelving, cleaned the dust off the ironing board (it doesn’t get used much), and relegated the dog toys to the outdoor storage bin. Larry and I cut the old hallway carpet to fit and we laid it down.
When I get a bee in my bonnet like that – when I just can’t stand how something looks or works or I just need a change – there’s no stopping me from starting. Before I lost weight this last time though, I plunged head first into a project not always knowing how or why, and I often lost interest and didn’t follow through. When in 2005 my “some day” came to lose weight (after soooo many “some days” over the years), that same strong desire for change was there, but this time I had a plan and the desire to not stop, even if it meant, to use my carpet story analogy, cutting up my hands or being disappointed in what was underneath.

It’s interesting how that shift in attitude about weight loss caused a shift in my attitude about most other projects I’ve undertaken in the last five years. I still get that overwhelming urge for change – I don’t think that will ever go away or be tempered – but I tend not to jump in without a plan or at least without first committing to seeing it all the way through.

Who knew losing a few pounds would do so much more than change one’s appearance?

As promised, it’s time for another giveaway from my box of weight-loss/weight-maintenance tools. This time, it’s the Leslie Sansone’s “Walk & Firm with Interval Training” DVD. (She’s the lady from the Walk Away The Pounds fame…some of my favorite workout DVDs ever.) I’m also throwing in one of my own Thera-Bands because I ripped in half the pink one that originally came with the DVD. Didn’t mean to. Just got too strong, I guess!

Anyway, you know the only stipulation I have is if you win this DVD, you either give it away when you’re done or keep it if you can’t part with it and donate an item to your local food shelf.

To throw your name in the hat, leave a comment or send me an email at lynnbering@verizon.net. And if you care to, tell me what’s changed in your life that isn’t weight related as you lose weight. I’ll draw a winner on Thursday, May 27.

Congrats to reader Garen (aka Quinta da Quilter) who won the Peter Walsh book in last week’s giveaway.

To those of you who haven’t won one of my giveaways yet, don’t be afraid to keep throwing your name in! I love hearing from you!