Time Crunch and Crunches

David and I were reflecting on the fact that a year ago at this time--the week before Easter--his grandma Peggy was feeling good and came up to stay with us. She and Zuzu did an Easter egg hunt at Home Depot and played with baby chicks in our backyard.

One of the things his grandma was known for (besides her housekeeping) was her insistence that we "get our money's worth" out of whatever it might be. She would guilt me into taking three trips to the Chinese buffet--gotta get your money's worth! She once returned a toaster oven (immaculately clean and in mint condition) that stopped working eighteen months after purchase. The store no longer carried the model, but they still let her exchange it for another one.

Perhaps it is this influence that has me registered for twelve fitness classes over the next month.

I bought a Groupon back in January for twenty classes. It was SUCH a great deal--but the kicker is that I only had 90 days to take all 20 classes. And now, of course, nearly sixty days have gone by and I'm not even halfway through my Groupon and I want to get my money's worth!

The good news is that I might be able to see my triceps again by the end of April.

The bad news is that I'm signed up for a core fusion yoga class at 6:15 AM tomorrow morning.

(I'm not a morning person.)

Making time for exercise is such a pain in the butt, and I like to use mom-guilt to justify not doing it. I already spend so many hours at work, how can I leave my precious snowflakes for another hour in the evening?

Then I remember that they have another parent, and he never expresses a feeling of guilt when a personal hobby takes time away from the kids. (He'll say he misses us when he has class on Monday nights, but he doesn't feel guilty about it.)

And there's the fact that I'm happier and have more energy when I work out, so, yeah. They can handle me taking a few exercise classes over the next four weeks.

Cramming all these in is also making me try a variety of classes--plenty of barre, but also circuit training, yoga at a park, boot camp at another park, and some high intensity interval training thing that sounds terrible and may include doing burpees, which is a problem because I have a personal pledge to never, ever, do a burpee.