Fresh from the garden. And the gym.

Seven spears of asparagus made it from the garden into our quiche for dinner, along with a couple of Egyptian onions. I'm anxious to plant some red and regular onions, but the earth is still too heavy and wet to work in. The quiche was delicious – whole wheat crust, fresh shrooms (from the market, I haven't gotten into growing my own. Yet.), Swiss cheese and cream from the cow down the road.

The gym was really crowded yesterday morning. I was following a couple of women around part of the circuit and ended up doing way more sets and reps than I usually do because they were chit-chatting more than they were working out. Oh, well, I think I'm the one who will end up benefitting from the workout.

The free-weight area also was busy. I'm very self-conscious back there. It's tucked around a corner from the main part of the gym, and I'm usually by myself. Yesterday there were three guys and another woman all working with weights and pulleys and stability balls. I managed to do 50 crunches on the ball – first time I've gotten that many done.

I have an incisional hernia from gallbladder surgery more than 20 years ago. Crunches usually make it hurt like HELL, but maybe the work I've been doing has been making that area stronger.

For cardio, instead of the treadmill I chose to ride an exercise bike, after reading Jen's post yesterday morning. I was a puddle of sweat when I got done. My perception of exercise bikes is that since you're sitting down, you're not working as hard. Of course it all depends on the amount of resistance you choose to use, and I decided to make it challenging enough to bust my theory into pieces. It wasn't the same as a spinning class, but it was much harder than the treadmill. And, I hope much more effective.

Thanks, as always, for your comments. Diandra, we made our pins with pin backs and small squares of wood, to which we decoupaged the printed designs. No machine necessary, just a willingness to get your hands sticky! It really was pretty fun.

My ginger-haired friend hit the nail on the head when she reminded me to accept others' good opinions. When I was newly sober, there was one person who really, really, REALLY didn't like me. The other 99 people in the room thought I was just fine, thankyouverymuch, but you know who I worked on, don't you? I bent over backwards trying to justify my existence to the one percent who wanted me to go away. I thought I was so done with that. Progress, not perfection.

Darn it.

Have a great St. Patrick's Day, and if you drink, have a green beer (or a Bailey's Irish Cream!) for me. Mmmm.