Day 10 - When life happens or climbing Everest

We woke up this morning to discover our son was running a fever and it was clear he wouldn't be able to attend school today. After a brief debate, my wife and I agreed to split the day with him. I would take the day shift and take him the Doctor. She would take the late afternoon shift, relieve me of my duty so I could then go into work. And there I found myself, barefoot as usual, in the kitchen. My routine broken!

For a nanosecond I thought my PCP day was over. The trap door in my mind had swung open and there I found myself, barefoot as usual, hovering over a void. My routine broken! "What do I do?" I thought. Then in that very same nanosecond, it occurred to me. I do what I normally do now. Make my PCP breakfast and go about my day. It seems so simple, but this is when we are most vulnerable, when life happens and we suddenly think, well, I can't do this now or that. I must do something different. I must fall into old habits. I must be impulsive. NO. Let every step be a step forward.

The next second I found myself, barefoot as usual, making my two eggs, heating my brown rice, and weighing my portion of carrots for breakfast. I washed it all down with a tall glass of milk and it tasted so mindful.

After I got home from the gym I lightly sauteed spinach, made my brown rice, and cooked Buffalo, onions, and garlic for my PCP dinner. After finishing I went to put my plate in the sink and there I was, standing over a heaping pile of leftover Buffalo. Spoon in hand, I looked into its meaty goodness, and had one thought. "Eat more. Dip your spoon in and shovel more in your mouth. Come on, it's protein". And as I stood there gazing into the bison abyss, I suddenly yelled, "PCP!! PCP!! PCP!!". My eyes darted over to my wife sitting on the couch who looked alarmed. "What?", she said, "Don't eat the leftovers. Don't eat the leftovers", I replied. "I'm not eating them", she answered with a bewildered look on her face. "No, me, I'm not eating them". "Why would you?" she asked. "Because it's there". My Everest. Leftovers. Normally, I would mindlessly drifted over the stove and began to shovel anything left over in my mouth. Not because I was hungry, but because it was there. I put down my spoon and walked away. "PCP!! PCP!! PCP!!", is the battle cry for today.

Exercise Notes: I figured out how to do the incline pull ups at the gym. While very hard, I did the full sets. I could not do the maximum reps for my push ups or sit ups today. By the third sets I was struggling but did manage to do the minimum reps for the last two sets of each. By my third set of sit ups I felt like I was going to throw up. I stumbled out of the gym with a smile on my face.