Granddaughter congratulations

Congratulations to granddaughter ABC who is turning four years old! She is a few weeks away from completing nursery school and will be entering Reception, the UK equivalent of US kindergarten, in September. She is reveling in the return to full-time in-person school, loves the parks and the garden, is learning to read, has a vivid imagination, inherited her parents’ musicality, and loves being a big sister, at least most of the time.

Congratulations also to granddaughter JG, who at not quite ten months old, is walking on her own. Watching the videos of her toddling reminds me of her mother, my firstborn E, who also stuck her tongue out when she was first walking on her own. I’m not sure if it is a sign of concentration or if it somehow helps with balance, but it certainly seems to be an inherited inclination. Also, adorable.

When we visited London in December 2019, we had planned to return in the spring, perhaps for Easter, and then for ABC’s third birthday, and in late summer for the birth of the new baby. E and her family planned to come visit us in the US for Christmas.

Due to the pandemic, none of that happened.

So, here we are, all fully vaccinated in upstate New York, but still not cleared for travel to the UK, missing another birthday. We’ve missed the entirety of JG’s babe-in-arms phase as she is now officially a toddler. And we still don’t know when we will be able to travel to the UK. They have been planning another easing of restrictions in mid-June, but now the even more virulent strain from India is spreading in the UK, so…

We don’t know about travel in person.

We do know that our love reaches them, even if our arms cannot.

SoCS: Fitbit

In Slovenia, we did a lot of walking.

Really a lot of walking. Way more than I usually do.

My Fitbit tells me that I walked 94929 steps during our trip. This is more steps than I usually take in a month – give or take. Life has been busy enough these last years that most of my steps are the daily life type, not fitness type.

B’s totals put mine to shame, though. He often walked while I was in rehearsal. Our first two days he walked over 25,000 steps!

When I went to view my Fitbit stats to add up the Slovenia trip steps, I realized that the last entry for steps was 166 on Tuesday and none at all since. Oops! I don’t walk a lot but I know it was more than that! 😉

I have been using an old Fitbit Flex that I inherited from E when she got a new one. I think it may finally have given up the ghost. Fortunately, B’s job has a program for employees and spouse to get fitness trackers, so I think we will order a new one for me.

I don’t want a fancy one with tons of stats and heartbeat monitors and such. I prefer a simple one. I may get a cloth band for it that I can wear on my ankle, instead of my wrist. I can’t wear the rubber bands that come with Fitbits, so I have been using cloth bands from an Etsy shop. For my ankle, though, I will probably try a new shop that makes them with a Velcro closure instead of knots.

While I want to keep it simple, the new Fitbit will probably have the time on it. It would seem logical to wear it instead of a watch, but there is one problem. I love my watch! It is a solar-powered Citizen with a gold and silver bracelet-style band. Well, gold and silver colored, rather than actual gold and silver. I love not having to change batteries or charge it and I like that it just tells me the time.

Are you detecting a theme here?

I guess I am just simple-minded.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to begin the post with a preposition, which I did, with bonus points for ending with a preposition, which I did not. I was joking with her on her prompt post that my English teachers taught me never to end a sentence with a preposition, but she said that she is an editor and it is okay now. Still my stream-of-consciousness mind forgot about the ending with a preposition. I think my grammar school training is still in play…

At any rate, if you want to join in the fun, you can find out more here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-24-19/

SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/

on the move

Earlier this week, daughter E and granddaughter ABC left for an almost three month stay with son-in-law L and his parents in London.

The trip itself was not without drama. A four-hour layover in Detroit stretched to twelve. Fortunately, the waiting passengers bonded in support of those traveling with young children and ABC gained a number of honorary aunties and uncles.

After having ABC with us for nine months, other than her prior three week visit to London, it was difficult to say good-bye, especially for great-grandparents Nana and Paco. As if to give us all a gift before she left, ABC showed off her new mobility skills, doing a bit of crawling and some of her first unassisted steps when we were visiting with Nana and Paco.

For the past couple of months, ABC has wanted to be on her feet, often only holding on to one of our fingers. She was impatient with being down on the floor, so we thought she might never crawl, but she decided to both crawl and walk at the same time!

Walking at nine months is on the early side developmentally, especially given that ABC was born almost a month early, but ABC is strong and determined!

Fortunately, L had prepared with gates and other babyproofing measures.

L has been visiting with E and ABC nearly every day via video chat. Now, we will need to do that (though it won’t be daily), bolstered by photos and video clips that E posts. We will miss E and L’s birthdays and ABC’s first Easter and first birthday, all of which will be a preview of living on opposite sides of the Atlantic when E’s visa situation works out and she and dual-citizen ABC move to London permanently.

For now, we just need to get through the next eleven weeks.

Revenge of the Fitbit – part two

Recently, I wrote about having to stop wearing my Fitbit because I broke out in a rash from the band.

I have been wearing my new (hot pink) stretchy wristband for a few days now and just discovered that I can still feel the Fitbit vibrate when I meet my step goal.

…which also means that this is the first time I have met my step goal this week.

So, yay, me! Making progress!

My arm is still healing from the rash. I am such a delicate flower!

Fitbit system upgrade

Last month, my Fitbit Flex got a software upgrade so that it automatically switches into sleep mode. This is handy because previously B and I had to tap our Fitbits in a certain way to get them to swap over to sleep mode at night and then do it again in the morning to get it back to normal mode. It was easy to forget, which defeated the purpose of tracking sleep and steps in the first place.

As things are getting back to some semblance of routine with B back at work after holiday vacation time, I am trying to be more diligent about getting my steps in. My best practice is to walk while I talk to my mom (nearly) every morning. Most days I get at least halfway to my goal before we hang up. If we are especially talkative, I may get to my goal of 5,000 steps! (Yes, I know 10,000 is recommended, but it is better for me to have a lower goal and overachieve than to set a high goal that I seldom reach.)

After T goes back to school, I may fire up our Wii Fit and try to add some other exercise to my day. I haven’t used it for a long time, so I’ll have to put up with a bit of Wii whining. Those of you who have used Wii Fit know what I mean…
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January and, for once, actually feels like it could be called jotting. (I do tend to run-on!) Join the fun! Visit here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/08/just-jot-it-january-8th-honorable/ to learn more.

 

A (Fitbit) walk to the farmers’ market

I wrote recently about my newly acquired Fitbit. I have decided to stick with my low, but attainable, goal; I’d rather make my goal and overachieve than always be struggling to make a high goal and feeling badly when I couldn’t do it most days.

I am getting most of my daily steps in by walking while I telephone my mother in the morning and by taking a walk in the evening with B.

Today, my morning call was short and my evening walk may not happen because I have a poetry meeting, so I decided to walk to the farmers’ market this morning. I wanted to buy some apricots and lettuce. I grabbed a cloth bag and a little purse with just my essentials, as my pocketbook is too heavy to lug around on walks.

As often happens at the farmers’ market, I bought more than I intended to. There weren’t any apricots, but there were lovely prune plums and some early apples, which I knew that T, who will be home for the coming week between her internship and new semester, would enjoy. And I didn’t want to run short of carrots and maybe a fresh tomato would be a good addition to the salad I am planning for dinner tonight. Oh, and look at that lovely selection of summer squashes, picked nice and small the way I like them!

The next thing I knew, I had a hefty amount in my bag to carry home. About halfway there, my Fitbit vibrated to let me know I had reached 5,000 steps. I had to shift my bag from arm to arm as I walked, relying more on my left side as my right arm has been weakened by some orthopedic problems.

When I got home, I weighed my bag and found it was eight pounds.

I want brownie points for the extra calories I burned carrying it home!

(And I will resist the urge to indulge in any actual brownies.)

Fitbit – getting started

When I was visiting my daughter E in Honolulu, her workplace started a new fitness program and gave them all new Fitbits. E already had a Fitbit Flex, which she offered to me and I gratefully accepted.

I waited to set it up until I had gotten through the jet lag and backlog of stuff I needed to deal with, so I’ve only been using it for a week and a half. Given that I haven’t been diligent about exercise for months and months, I decided to start with a modest step count, 5,000/day, only half of the default value of 10,000 steps.

In order to make my goal, I went back to walking while I talked with my mother on the phone every weekday morning. Coupled with evening walks with B and running errands, I have been making my step count, including one especially active day when I made it to 10,649!

Today has the potential to be the first day I don’t make my 5,000 step goal. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my thigh, genuflecting at church this morning. I went for a short walk with B, trying to stretch it out, but it just seemed to hurt more, so I came home and iced it.

I’ll have to see what becomes of my goal today and this week. I don’t want to make my leg heal more slowly by pushing too much.

Leave it to me to have a liturgical injury…

Evening update:  I did manage to get 5,000 steps in, albeit more slowly and over a greater time span. I’ll have to see how sore my leg is tomorrow to ascertain if I can make my goal or need to declare a rest day.