Me on Monday

My knees. My aching knees.

Here's the story:

So. You know I was at the beach last week. You know that we were staying at my friend, Connie's beautiful condo. You know that it was destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018. Well, what you don't know is that they are still having problems with the elevator.

You know I'm a counter--of all kinds of things. I'm actually a bit obsessed about the numbers: steps on my Fitbit, books I read, movies I go to, hours I spend doing any number of assorted things, scrapbook layouts I complete, purses and shoes I have, scarves and many other clothing items I've reported on. Even things like salad dressings in the pantry. Yeah, obsessive. 

It only seems natural to me that I would count the number of stairs at the beach. The elevator was down for the entire week. I kept track of the number of times I trekked up and down from the 3rd floor. On the first day, it was 9 trips--up & down--unloading the car with luggage and groceries. After that, I averaged 3 trips a day--with a couple being 4 or 5 and several being just two trips. 

You might think, "Barb, why bother, you have your Fitbit." Yeah, well that would have been counting for me, but I forgot my Fitbit. So, I had to keep track of it myself---and I wanted to. I wanted to know how my steps there were. 

For each floor, there are two sets of steps. You know, you go up one flight, turn and go up the next one to reach the floor. There were 8 stairs on each flight for a total of 16 for each floor--times 3 floors =48. Plus I had to count the time I missed the 3rd floor and traveled up to the 4th floor and back down again. 

The number of steps adds up for sure. I ended up going up and down 30 times over the course of the week. That works out to 1,456 steps! Do the math yourself--30x48=1,440. Then I added the extra 16 for my mistake. 

So my knees hurt. I've had a problem with my right knee for years. I think it was all that genuflecting as a kid. I've always had these floating bones in my right knee. Somewhere along the line, I have them in my left knee now too. 

I also sleep with my knee bent which I'm sure doesn't help. After all the stairs this week, I'm definitely noticing when I turn over in bed. Still, aching knees won't keep me from doing what I want. I looked at climbing all those stairs as good for me--exercise for my heart. Always good. 

My aching knees are not going to keep me from playing pickle ball today that's for sure. I'm loving that. Does my heart good too!