Notes from the Fox Den

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Fox Den!

I have recently started taking steps to become a healthier, slimmer me. With lupus and fibromyalgia exercise can be difficult, but because of those conditions it is also very important to me that I get some of the weight off my joints.

My journey down the road to healthy has been a very interesting one this past week, to say the least. If you are needing a few laughs and would like to learn a few trivial things, keep on reading as you will be in for a treat.

I started off Sunday morning (July 29) with a plan that involved bike riding, walking and some circuit training. So I filled up my camel back with water, and loaded my bike onto my brand new bike rack and headed to the park.

Let me preface this with the fact that putting together the bike rack and installing it was a workout in itself and I was already huffing, puffing and sweating. I wasn’t even sure if I would have the energy to go on a ride after that and was thoroughly glad I was home alone and no one was there to laugh at the pitiful shape I was in.

Anyway, I got to the park and started on my ride. It was actually quite enjoyable and although I could feel the burn in my legs I was having a good time. Unfortunately, about half a mile into my ride, my tire went flat so I had to head back home. I still felt accomplished though, because half a mile is better than zero miles.

Monday morning I bounded out of bed ready to hit the pavement for a 30 minute walk to start off my day. Again, I actually enjoyed this and I have started to look forward to this walk each day. We live in a nice neighborhood and I have actually met a few more area residents on my morning treks.

To help monitor my miles, heart rate and progress I downloaded an app for my phone.

Well, I am not sure how accurate this app is at tracking my total distance when I look at the satellite image it captures as I walk.

According to these images (see inset) I like to go on grand adventures through the woods and across people’s yards. A friend and I were joking that maybe I should start doing a narrative on my morning walks based off the images instead of the boring fact that I stick to the roads.

Going off this image, we decided that after starting at point 1, I had a relatively leisurely walk to point 2. At this point a chihuahua wearing a pink fairy costumes didn’t like the way I looked at her and she chased me through the woods until I was able to lose her at point 3. From there I decided to go all out American Ninja by scaling a few fences ultimately ending up at point 4 where I ran into an angry swarm of African killer bees. This swarm chased me to point 5 where I was able to shake them off by taking a deep dive in a backyard pool.

The unplanned dip in the pool revived me, giving me the energy needed for a full scale parkour run diagonally across two blocks to point 6.

I was able to take a few calming breaths and enjoy nature up to point 8, after making a directional change at point 7, but that is where it went downhill as a group of pine cone tossing squirrels ganged up on me and wouldn’t let me pass so I once again had to bust out the ninja skills and cut through some woods and backyards to escape.

This maneuver landed me at point 9, which was very close to the swarm of African bees so I had to scale a house and jump from roof top to roof top to get to point 10 and back home.

Alas, none of this really happened, as I stuck to the road.

On a side note, if you have a honey allergy as I do, avoid the grilled chicken at McDonald’s...I learned he hard way on Tuesday that honey is used in their seasoning. Thank goodness for coworkers with Benedryl! Trying to eat a little healthier literally tried to kill me (not really, just broke out in hives).

I hope you all enjoyed my grand adventure story and that I was able to provide you with a few laughs.

Have a great week everyone!