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Have you ever had evil thoughts enter your brain?  Sure you have.  Who hasn’t?  Well maybe Mother Theresa never did.  Nevertheless, every once in a while these evil thoughts about what I could do slither into my mind.  And it’s not pretty.

Let me give you an example. My daughter is my personal trainer and while she has helped me gain much strength and balance over the past year, it comes with some heavy lifting (literally).  There are moments when I find myself negotiating much like my grandchildren do with whether to do a third set of a series of exercises or when I am to increase the repetitions.  Begging is more apropos. Things like “Do I really have to?”  “I don’t want to!”  Or my often used statement is “Are you trying to kill me?”  I use this especially when she has me get on the mat (on the floor, folks) and do 10 reps of one exercise, then get up and do another set standing only to return to the floor mat and do a repeat of the first.  That’s when I try to reason with her.  “This makes no sense.  Why not let me do all three sets of this one exercise and then get up”.  To which she replies that she wants me to be able to get up and down off the floor with my grandchildren.  Harrumph!  Using the grandchildren as an excuse to get me to endure this punishment is this side of blackmail and just not fair!

I think this is retribution for me setting limits, rules and boundaries throughout her childhood.  It’s payback in my old age.  I remember making her stay up on one occasion when she came home exhausted from a date at 5:00 am!  I was exhausted from waiting up for her and thinking she was drawn and quartered in a ditch alongside the road.

Also, I firmly believe she must spend hours dreaming of tortuous exercise programs for me. And what is it about personal trainers and counting?  They can’t.  I think there must be a certification that teaches them how to count 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5.5…you get the idea. Then to make matters worse, they engage you in conversation which at my age means I lose count because I can no longer multi-task, and then when you tell them, they pick a low number and have you do half as much again!

My mother used to say that there were times when she understood why animals in nature will sometimes eat their young.  I totally get it.

So when a certain exercise is getting difficult and she is assisting in my stance that puts her precariously near the weights, I find my mind wandering into evil country – “Well, if I can’t make her stop torturing me; I’ll just knock her out.

Take the Overhead Tricep Extension.  This exercise lends itself perfectly to “accidentally on purpose” knocking my personal trainer out.  Then there is the kettle ball exercise where I could just swing with a bit more force…Oops!

I don’t want to permanently hurt her, merely just put me out of my misery for a bit.  But, dang it!  That motherly instinct to protect her comes out and I can’t go through with it.  Then I think perhaps what would be better would be for the weight to just slip and knock ME out.

Yes, that’s better.  A two-for-one.  My muscles would stop screaming at me and I could possibly get a good nap out of it!  The headache might or might not be worth it.  I haven’t decided.

Alas, I realize both the horror and the humor in this and usually burst out laughing and share my thoughts with her.  It’s a good thing my daughter doesn’t take it personally and has her mother’s sick sense of humor. She joins me in laughter it gives me a few extra seconds before the torture begins again.

Now if I could teach her to count right – 1,2,3,4,14,15.

Do you have a New Year’s resolution?  What events conjure up evil thoughts and do they help you laugh or get through the situation or make you feel guilty?

Thank you very much for reading my post.  If you have found it encouraging please consider liking, commenting or sharing using social media.  Feel free to comment here or even re-blog – may these words take flight!

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Blessings for Health & Wellness.