Day 64 - Smell, remember, hope

What does this pile of cards have to do with my workout this morning? Another PCP-er (can't remember who!) said they turned over a card from a set. It saved them counting. I tried this today expecting it would be just helpful in the sense of counting. How wrong I was! It turned out to give me a huge dollop of motivation! In February I spent a wonderful long weekend in Hirosaki, Aomori with Tori and Kyle Sharpe (pictured in the middle). They were a truly inspiring couple in so many ways. They welcomed me and Trine (Teutonic beauty on right) into their home through the amazing social networking system for travellers, Couchsurfing. 

They could have just put us up, as per the terms of the agreement, but they went so much further, driving us to Mount Iwaki for snowboarding, arranging lessons, lending me their snow suit, cooking French toast, showing us round Hirosaki's snow festival, taking us to local haunts for yakisoba. They are hardcore snowboarders (Kyle is a teacher) as well as being into all manner of other sports like football, inline skating, wrestling (Tori was a trainer in the US). Both of them are in terrific shape, and they introduced me to eating eggs everyday (they could be PCP-ers). Looking at the cards of Amori reminded me of them and the great time I'd had and how I admired their gutsy grab-life-by-the-throat attitude. And hoped that one day, I'd have musculature like Tori's! The lady is a champ and one of my inspirations. 

Kyle impressed me by saying 'Lots of people say they're into something, but they just do it once every two weeks. When we say 'we're into boarding' we go like two or three times a week'. 

PCP-ing every day entitles me to say honestly 'I'm into caring for my body'. 

Finally, as you know yesterday was a bit of a blah day for me. I bought some lilies on the way home from work and put one of the flowers by my gas hobs. Like lots of people in Tokyo, cooking space is very limited. I don't have an oven or microwave, just two ring burners. And sometimes I use an electric cooker pot, but not that often. Recently, I've felt a bit oppressed by the lack of space, need to constantly wash and put away and the smell of eggs, their shells, the left over yolks - you know how it is. I did a big clean up on Sunday, and that with the flowers has made me feel excited about being in this space again. The container behind is where I keep the leftovers food as I go along...

Our sense of smell is vital to how well we feel. 

Would you judge me if I said I sometimes put on perfume before working out? Very French, huh?