I'm doing the "hundred".

A couple of years ago, I traded a small freezer to my friend Jeremy for his weight bench. I worked out diligently for a while, and then the bench became a nice place to stack boxes and junk. Until a few weeks ago, I've let that be my excuse for not working out, and put off doing anything until we could clean that back room up and I could finally get back to the weight bench.

Then a few weeks ago, I decided this excuse was just foolishness. I don't need a weight bench to get into better shape, so I started thinking about exercises I can do without paying a gym subscription or devoting half a room to some piece of equipment. I found a bunch of other folks doing the Hundred Push up challenge, so I figured that was a good place to start.

Basically, you see how many push ups you can do in a row (no breaks!), and use that base number to judge your current level of fitness. (I did 13.) Then you do a 6 week program that should get you to 100 push ups. I think the program is actually a little too aggressive, and my goal is not to get to 100 consecutive push ups in 6 weeks. I just want to be able to do 100 total push ups in one sitting, with a few breaks in the middle.

After three weeks, I'm up to 75.

I also took the small dumbbells from the weight bench and added in bicep curls, and stomach crunches. I'm planning on finding a place in the back yard to install a pull up bar as well.

This seems like a good start, and I've definitely noticed the results already!

The best part is when I was doing the push ups in the living room, and Fox comes running in right in the middle of one and lays down underneath me and laughs at me.

So - lesson learned. You don't need an expensive gym membership or fancy equipment to get in shape. I wouldn't call this a full body workout by any means - there's a lot missing from this type of program. But, it's helping me to get back into shape, and that's what I needed.

Potty humor

Fox is potty training. This is a good thing, but if you read Michelle's post, (or ever tried to potty train a toddler) you'll know there is always some drama that comes with it.

Here's my story.

Saturday was "Daddy time" with Fox. Michelle was at Carey's shower, so I got to spend all morning just running around the house, playing trucks and trains, and wrestling. It was so much fun.

Just before lunch, I go to change his diaper, and he tells me he wants to pee...on the "big potty". So, we bypass his little toddler potty, and I put his step stool in front of the big potty, and help him stand there, facing the toilet. He toots, then giggles and says "excuse me". This is perfectly normal. He doesn't pee, so I put him in his diaper and we go eat lunch at the table. As I'm sitting there watching him eat, I look down at my bare feet, and notice something very odd...there's brown stuff on my...oh dear. This is bad. There is poop on my toe.

POOP.

ON MY TOE.

As I'm saying "gross!" and trying to hobble over to the paper towels, Fox laughs and says "I pooped on Daddy's toe!". Then, he sees some more poop on the floor and exclaims "I pooped on the floor!".

As I backtrack, and try and figure out what happened, I realized...Fox didn't just toot when we were in the bathroom...he pooped. On my toe. I looked, and there it was...a tidy little pile of poop on the step stool. (Pun certainly NOT intended.)

Luckily, the poop was limited to the step stool, my foot, and the spot on the floor in the kitchen.

At church the next day, Fox proudly told anyone who would listen that he pooped on Daddy's toe. Michelle finds that hilarious. Of course she would, it wasn't her toe.

A Franciscan Prayer

Craig Groeschel spoke at the 2008 Willow Creek Leadership Conference, which I attended last week. God did a lot of work there, in me and in others. There is too much to process at the moment, but Craig shared a Franciscan Prayer that kind of sums up a lot of it:


May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.