I often make really stupid decisions.
The latest stupid decision was to start a new eating plan and a new exercise plan at the same time. They sort of go hand in hand, especially if you’re trying to drop the extra pounds that have stacked on since the pandemic started.
We started the exercise program and discovered that we are far, far more unfit than we thought we were. We sit for 10+ hours a day, usually staring at a screen. And our eating has been just awful, lately.
We (all three of us in my household) were starting the two new programs on one of the two days in the month when we do grocery shopping–also not a coincidence, as we needed to stock up.
But grocery shopping days are fraught with stress all on their own. It’s the only time we get out of the house, and all three of us have high-risk profiles for COVID-19 and its variants. Plus, dealing with a half-month of groceries for three is not a ten minute affair, especially if you’re cleaning/sterilizing everything as it comes in the door.
What I failed to notice was that our city was also starting their new garbage program at the same time we were switching over to our new programs. It’s a comprehensive program of separating out classes of garbage, recycling, and food, and packaging them up correctly for the city to collect, in city-issued giant garbage bins on wheels.
It’s a far better program than the previous one, when we dumped black plastic garbage bags on the verge each week.
But.
On the first day of the program, we had to go shopping, work out, figure out a new way to eat, plus we couldn’t put anything in the old garbage bin in the kitchen. We instead had to consult the chart then, usually, flatten or rinse and dry, or separate out food scraps. The chore we had been completing without thought for years was suddenly a thing we had to think about and step through charts and instructions to figure out.
All this while we were comatose with exhaustion, hungry, trying to prepare food in a way that is completely unfamiliar to us, and dealing with all the packaging that came back from the grocery store with us.
Oy vey!
I’m writing this post the day after Day 1, and I’m feeling a lot better, but my body is aching and stiff from the workout. It’s a rest day (thank the stars!) but tomorrow we’re back into the torture workout again.
So I’m feeling as though I’ve been taking Danny’s boot camp training!
Waxing War, book 4 of the Iron Hammer series, was released this morning.
_______________________________
Danny and her allies brace themselves for war.
The bellicose Slavers are hellbent on war. While the Slavers fight each other, Danny and the Carinad worlds work to find a way out of a seemingly inevitable conflict they are ill-equipped to face.
When a Terran falls into their hands who knows the Slavers’ plans for invading the Carinad worlds, Danny thinks she may have found the key she needs to delay war, if not halt it forever…
Waxing War is the fourth book in the Iron Hammer space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper. The Iron Hammer series is a spin off from the acclaimed Imperial Hammer series, and features many of the characters and situations from that series.
The Iron Hammer series:
1.0: Galactic Thunder
2.0: Stellar Storm
3.0: Planetary Parlay
4.0: Waxing War
5.0: Ruled Out
6.0: Stranger Stars
7.0: Federal Force
8.0: Redline Rebels
Space Opera Science Fiction Novel
Don’t forget, if you pre-order the book direct from me (on the SRP site), then you get your copy a week earlier than everyone else.
Enjoy!
