Hey, good morning, everyone! First, the good news: I got my SECOND Pfizer vaccine yesterday! Yay, I’m (almost) street-legal, baby! I mean, yeah, my arm is kinda sore, but that’s something I can live with, I guess.

Actually, it isn’t any more sore than my arms have been getting from working out at my NEW GYM!! Yep, as I mentioned last week, I have joined yet ANOTHER gym! This time it’s a chain called Fitness 19, which I confess I avoided for a while because I assumed it was just a cheap knockoff of my (then) beloved 24 Hour Fitness. And I mean, yeah, it kinda is, but in a GOOD way, like a knock UP instead of a knock OFF!

Yeah, that didn’t come out quite the way I meant it! What I meant was in many ways it’s actually BETTER! For one thing, the price is right — it’s about $30 a month for a full “all clubs” type membership. If you want to just go to one club it’s even less, but I decided, being the kinda gal who loves road trips, I need an excuse to travel from time to time – though since gas prices are skyrocketing, I have to scale back the distances a tad!

So I took the full membership and have found three locations I really enjoy. And I resurrected an old workout method I invented a long time ago, but can’t for the life of me relocate in this verkakte blog, so I’m going to repeat it here, for copyright reasons! I call it my “Five and Done!” method of strength training. Basically, when you go to the gym, you just pick five machines at random, loosely related to whatever group of muscles or type of exercises you’re trying to focus on today, and do 2 sets of 8 reps on each of them (or 3 sets of 10 or 2 sets of 10 or, you know, whatever you decide).

*(and if you recognize this bus driver, you’re gonna have this earworm all day!)*

If for some reason you can’t find five different machines to use, either because the gym is super crowded or it just doesn’t have a lot of choices, you can use one of them more than once — just not twice in a row. Or use free weights (dumbbells) instead of a machine, as one of your “five.”

What I like about my (now copyrighted, at least via blog!) method is when I’m at the gym, I’m not just wandering around aimlessly trying to decide what to do, fighting off the would-be trainers that hang out by the Smith machines in the back trying to find new customers.

Nope, I’ve got a plan! And if I do it right, not rushing through the exercises, focusing on proper form, etc., my “Five and Done!” lasts a little less than half an hour, after which I can do whatever I want — try out another machine or workout I haven’t done before, sit on one of the exercise bikes and go as slowly as possible while watching one of the many fine programs available on HGTV or ESPN, or even just go home! It’s all up to you!

What else? Oh yeah, I should probably mention my weight at some point! Well, here you go:

203.2

Pretty much the same, but that’s okily-dokily. Oh, and the laundry advice referenced in the post title? Well, I started taking fish oil capsules for my constantly sore joints (which is actually a good idea).

And it seems to help, but trust me — if you’re taking three capsules a day, and you carry them around in your pocket so you won’t forget to take them before the end of the day, and you forget, and your skirt/jeans/whatever go into the laundry … well, let’s just hope you enjoy the smell of fish, ’cause you’ll be enjoying it for a while!