Today has been painfully great. This morning, after walking six Sansone fast miles, I decided to check my e-mail. I had over thirty! Six were spams, and the rest were from friends. Rick sent me one, telling me that he and Leisa are coming up from Port Aransas, September 26th, to visit us for two days! My friend, Sue S., wrote to tell me that she is officially leaving Austin, before the end of the month, and she will be moving to her new mini-ranch, in Harper. She wanted to give me her new soon to be address. Cindy wrote to tell me that she is totally enchanted with New Mexico, and she can't wait for Tone and me to come visit her. Linda F., from Brownsville, wrote me about a birddog, that she has rescued and will be bringing up to us soon. Then Mari, one of the most famous NoMads, wrote to tell me that she has scratched off another one of her 'things to do,' from her bucket list.
Mari wrote:
"Some of you may know that I was out of town this weekend, doing one thing from my Bucket List – attending the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock .
One of the sets of entertainers at the wonderful Saturday night the evening concert was the Gillette Brothers. In all of my life to that point, I had never seen anyone actually play the bones! In case you haven’t either and are curious about this very ancient instrument, I thought I’d share a link I found..."
I finished reading Mari's note, and then I immediately checked it out, and could not believe how cool it was! Here's the link to it:
The Gillette Brothers!
After reading and responding to all of my e-mails, as I was leaving Yahoo, a news article about how Michelle Obama stays in such great shape, caught my eye, so I clicked to read the article. Her personal trainer, for over twelve years, said that she does Hammer Curls and Tricep Push Downs, and he gave instructions on how to do them! "Tony!" I half-hollered. "Please come in here! You've got to see this!"
Three minutes later, T. was sitting at my laptop reading the exercise instructions, while I was in the closet with Hazel, looking for my blue five pound hand weights, and my lavender stretch band! When I returned to the kitchen with equipment in hand, I said, "Tony, let's do the exercises! We can use my five pound weights!"
"I don't know, Nance," Tony said. "I'll do them with you, but I think five pound weights might be too much for you."
"Tone, I use three pound weights everyday, for over an hour! I can do five pounds." T. and I did the Hammer Curls first. We took turns and each did three sets of ten count reps! "It says we need a tree or a pole to do the Tricep Push Downs. I'll go first. You be the tree." I put my lavender stretch band around Tony's upper back, and did ten, hard reps. Then I pretended to be a tree, and Tony laughed at me, as he kept pulling me to him, each time that he did a rep—he did ten and I got a little extra walking in. Then it was my turn.
On Tony's last set of reps, on number eight, Aaron appeared at the front door, and I am sure that he was shocked, seeing Tony pulling me towards him, using a lavender band! Fortunately, Aaron didn't ask what we were doing, and we didn't tell him. After he had talked to Tone, he left the trailer and went back to work.
"That was fun Tony! I know we burned a lot of calories doing them! Let's do them every day?"
"No," Tony said. "Three times a week is plenty. I promise that your arms are going to be so sore in the morning, that you are probably going to have to ask me to lift your smoothie up to your mouth, or use a straw to drink it. You're looking good, Nance, why do you want to add these to your daily exercise routine?"
"Muffin top," I said. "I can't get rid of my muffin top. In fact, my muffin top actually looks more like a loaf of bread than a muffin."
I made chicken fajitas for lunch, and we took them over to the Lodge, to share with Kinky, Will and Frank. Everyone loved my fajitas, and they ate all of the food! During lunch, I told them about the women from the funny farm coming out on Saturday and how I had put my foot in my mouth. They all laughed, and Kinky thought it was really funny, and he suggested that I blog about it. "I already have, Kink," I said. Then I changed the subject. "My arms are really starting to ache." Then I told everyone about Tony and me doing the Hammer Curls and Tricep Push Downs.
"I told you so," Tone teased. Then we all started talking about exercise and eating healthier. Then Will abruptly gets up and leaves the Lodge! Twenty seconds later Will was back in the kitchen.
"Here Nance," Will said, holding a blue elastic rope with handles attached to it. "This is for you, if you promise that you will use it." I told him that I would. Then Will showed me how to use it!
After lunch, we went outside to the Friedman Family Bone Orchard to admire it. "Kinky," I said. "Your Morning Glorys are absolutely beautiful!"
"They're Republican Morning Glorys," Kinky said. "Our friend, U.S. Representative Lamar Smith, gave them to me. And, I agree, they are beautiful." Here is a picture that Tony took of Kinky showing off his Republican Morning Glorys! I love it!
This afternoon, because my arms were so sore, I asked Tony to please carry out our new exercise equipment, and take it into Outer Space for me, so I could take a picture of it.
Y'all have a great evening!
