My 30 Day Shred, day 22

Yesterday was a Shred fail. I took the day off due to yet another injury. Some of you might remember a few months back when I sprained my knee doing sprints at the track (yeah, my husband has some awesome ideas)? Well this time I'm pretty sure I pulled something during a post workout stretch. The pain had been tolerable, but after carrying a kicking and screaming 40 pound toddler up the stairs mid tantrum, my right ankle (and the muscle right behind it) got an attitude and decided it was done with compromise. Jumping was absolutely out of the question by this point, and if you've ever shredded, then you understand how you can't really do the workout without thrusting your entire body up off of the ground and into the air at least 100 times. So I took the day off. So what.

I made up for it today.

Oh boy did I make up for it today.

For my 22nd workout, I kicked it up to level 3. And just like when I started level 1, and level 2, I felt defeated. I really struggled to keep up. Level 3 is full of all sorts of crazy jumping moves (that's what I get for not jumping yesterday). Something like, do a lunge, and then jump, and then land in a lunge. Stuff like that. Also, when doing level 3, you have to do everything with your hand weights. Jumping jacks... with your hand weights. Punches... with your hand weights. I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but some insane force of nature came out of nowhere and lifted my arms against their will. By the end of the routine I thought I was dead. I looked down at my chest and saw that I was still breathing, so I just layed there for a few seconds until my voice found its way back to my mouth. Reaching for my glass of water made me question how thirsty I really was. My arm was wobbling and my fingers were dripping sweat. Oh, and did I mention I made my husband do it with me? He obviously loves me.

After about half an hour of recovery, we headed outside to do some yard work. I say "some", but it turned into 7 hours of hard labor. The plan was to mow the lawn, and pull some weeds. Well, I mowed the lawn alright. Our front yard, my neighbors front yard (her husband is deployed), our side yard, and our neighbors side yard. Not only that, but to get the mower, I had to walk down to the self help store (kind of like a library full of stuff for housing maintenance), and push the gas powered beast all the way back. It might not have been so bad, had it not been 90 degrees outside. While I mowed, hubby pulled weeds and removed unwanted aloe-wannabe plants that should have never been planted in the first place. Eventually the kids had to go inside, and someone had to go in with them. I wish I could say that was me, but I was too motivated to give up on the projects that I had started. In place of the freshly discarded weeds, I put down 2 layers of weed guard, and covered the entire space in mulch (hubby came out to help towards the end). Now our house and our neighbors house match, which is kind of important (actually, really silly) since we're connected in an awesome duplex kind of way. How did mowing the yard and laying down mulch take 7 hours, you ask? I have 2 kids, and it was a billion degrees out, that's how. The most relaxing part of the day though, was when I watered the lawn. Rather than setting up the sprinkler, I stayed outside and watered it by hand like my Dad used to do. Not like, watering can by hand, but by holding a hose, by hand. The mist felt excellent on my sun burnt skin (Christopher is never allowed to apply sunblock on my back ever again), and the silence let me clear my head and prepare myself for the end of the 4 day weekend.

And as for the amazing picture seen above? I'm rockin' my husbands socks (don't wanna get bitten by bugs!) and dollar store sunglasses (my real ones broke yesterday). I work with what I've got, haha.