Morning stretches.

Follow these 8 simple stretches before starting your workday:

• Bend forward. Sitting on the edge of your chair with your feet flat on the floor, lean forward until your chest rests over your knees. Let your arms hang loosely, fingertips on the floor.
• Act like a flamingo. While standing, hold on to the back of your chair and grasp your right ankle with your left hand. Keep your hips facing straight ahead and pull your ankle up toward your buttocks as far as you can. Hold, then repeat with the other leg.
• Stand in the corner. Stand 24 inches or less from the corner of a room and place your forearms flat on each wall at shoulder height. Place your feet together, lean forward and touch your nose to the corner, like a push-up.
• Cross your arms. Bring your left arm, elbow bent, across your chest, parallel to the floor. Use your right hand to pull your left arm further across your body. Repeat with your other arm.
• Stretch your neck. Reach your right over your head and gently grasp the left side of your head. Gently pull your head away from your left shoulder with your hand. Repeat with other side of your head.
• Scratch your back. Reach down the middle of your back with you left hand, pointing your elbow toward the ceiling. Gently push your elbow down with your right hand for a deeper stretch. Repeat with your other arm.
• Shrug, roll and move your shoulders. Lift your shoulders up to your ears by squeezing your shoulder blades together, pause for 10 seconds, then release. Put your hands on your waist and slowly circle your shoulders forward 10 times. Repeat this movement backwards as well. Finally, extend both arms sideways at shoulder height and rotate your arms 10 times in small circles. Then repeat, circling backwards.
• Do the twist. Sitting in your chair, cross your right knee over the left knee. Place your left hand on the outside of your right thigh and your right hand on your right armrest or on your desk. While sitting up straight, press your left hand into your right thigh and gently twist to the right. Look over your shoulder and hold. Repeat in the other direction.

These stretches will go along way in preventing current flare-ups and any future problems. Do them on a regular basis and do it until it becomes habit. In daily practice, patients always tell me that it works, but they tend to let the ball drop. Consistency is the key!

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    Good Morning everyone.  Trying to decide if I want to go to water aerobics and risk feeling lousy the rest of the day.  It is rainy here so the pool will be completely closed up.   I hate the thought of coughing and being wheezy all day, but today is my doctors appointment and it might help for her to see how I get after the pool.  They did think it may be my lungs.

                                             

    I brought my plants in last night and will tonight also.  They say we might get rain mixed with snow!  Wow.  What happened to the beautiful weekend?  You can never tell with the weather.   One of my customers lives in SpearFish, South Dakota and they just had 2 feet of snow and no power for 14 hours.  That is only a few hours from here.  My husband just walked in and said it looks like there may be snow mixed with the rain outside.  WAAAAH.  No bike ride today.

    I bought some bananas.  The best banana to me is slightly green and the ends and firm.  They pass through that stage very quickly so I usually don't buy them and I hate a mushy banana.  My husband likes them soft but rarely eats them.  I hope the potassium level is as good in the greener one.

   We had fajitas last night which were tasty and I am making more chicken tonight on a bed of black beans, corn and salsa.  I like the heat.  Breakfast will be the usual but with a banana.  For lunch I will probably just have a slim fast since everything tastes terrible after swimming anyway if I go.  I also have some dishes I have to pack that I sold during the night. 

     These dishes are so pretty.  I love Noritake china and this is a lovely pattern.  I know they will be happy with them.  My auction ends today so people will start bidding if they are going to soon.  Tomorrow I am fishing so I will spend tonight packing.  My husband is getting pretty good at it but I can pack 4 items to his one so he isn't much help.  He tries though.  He has always been slow and methodical, great in some things but drives you nuts in other things.  I am used to it after 32 years though.

   Well that is my boring agenda for the day.  I will get weighed at the doctors today so will see what the damage is.  There new scale is usually the same as mine.  I haven't been to see here since 12 pounds ago so she will be thrilled even if I am not as happy.  Hopefully since my ankles are skinny again the weight is off plus some.