Working harder

Last Wednesday I went to a fitness class that my neighbor teaches.  Here is the class description:

Tabata + Toning - wear sneakers

Tabata your way into a bikini! This is a 1 hour class mixing 6 round tabatas with body toning intervals. Tabats offer a challenging exercise for 20 seconds with 10 second toning periods between rounds. This method allows you to push yourself on the 20 second intervals, because it is ONLY 20 seconds! Tabatas are proven fat burners! You can expect a good sweat, arm toning & tushy tightening! 

 

The thing they DON'T say is that the "challenging exercises" are things like lunge jumps mixed with one-arm push ups.  And the "toning periods" that sound like they are going to be your rest time are things like squats as you squeeze a body ball above your head.  And there are NO transition periods between exercises.  My neighbor said afterwards she was impressed with how I did for my first class.  I said, "Well, I didn't die.  And I thought I might!"  I was seriously impaired for a couple of days after doing that.  But then I wondered if it probably meant I hadn't been working hard enough in my workouts.

And my Relief Society lesson this month is from Elder Bednar's talk, "That They Might Bear Up their Burdens With Ease."  It is all about how we shouldn't expect our burdens to disappear or even that they will be lightened (they weren't for Alma and his people), but that we can expect greater strength to do what we need to do if we lean on the Lord.  Again, I was reminded that maybe what I needed was to be working harder.

So I'm trying to do a little more.  My workouts are a little more serious now.  I'm praying for opportunities to serve again.  And I'm trying to be better about cleaning my house while the gremlins are growing.  It's September, after all.  It seems like it is time to get back to business.

Of course, having these two nearing age two goes with me working harder just perfectly:

This is how I found Evie one day this week when she was being too quiet.

One of these kids was happy to have a picture taken.

Millie came over for a play date.  This is what we did with her... (She liked it.)

Best of all, working harder just makes naps feel that much better.