~ ANNE! ~

I went climbing today! (sorry Remkes, too slow - but I still want to do the day-long lesson with you at the U of A).

I am totally dead and my arms are killing me, but so proud of myself. It was HARD, man. I have no muscle left in my arms at all after a long, gymless winter. I managed to haul myself almost to the top a couple of times, though... next time I will manage it, I swear.

It helped that I went with a couple of speech pathologists, who are both selected and trained to be extremely encouraging and convincing to people who are trying to do things (like pronounce sounds properly, for example, or haul themselves up a large wall with wimpy little atrophied arms). So they stood at the bottom and yelled, "Try one more time! You can do it!" and it suddenly occurred to me that hey, I probably can. Pushed myself to the point of exhaustion, anyway, which I haven't done in recent memory. It felt good.

And then went and ate a massive lunch complete with sticky toffee pudding. (Sticky toffee pud! In Edmonton!) If I keep this up it will be much harder to haul myself up that wall in very short order.

Yay for a stress-busting Saturday, though. I feel much better.