a good excuse to eat cookies

You know that I am nuts when the most exciting thing that happens to me recently is that at my chiropractor appointment on Friday I get the go-ahead to work out (on the elliptical, low resistance, take it easy!) and I skip gleefully into the gym on Monday, grin the entire 35 minutes, and wish I could do more.

(The botanical gardens, btw, were beautiful, and I think I got some really good pictures. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to get them online. Dan's computer is too old/slow and the wireless card doesn't work, and my work computer (on which we do our at-home internetting, as it's a laptop and I bring it home most nights) is firewalled up the wazoo and won't accept any new software installation (that's needed for the pictures to get transferred onto my computer). We're still working on a solution.)

Today I got up from my dark grey cube in the dungeon and walked out to see whether the outside world still exists (it does) when I noticed that there was a blood drive going on. An hour, several personal but necessary questions, and a great phlebotomist later, I have 9 of the normal 10 pints of blood, and I was given juice and cookies. I thought I'd be going to the gym today but decided that giving blood was more important - and the one question I had (can I donate since I went to China?) was answered (yes, because I didn't go out into the sticks). I also found out that I might have issues donating after we go to Guatemala/Costa Rica this winter (malaria!). It's been three years since I donated, mostly because there was never a convenient blood drive to work (I guess this particular blood center will be coming on a regular basis now), and I feel much better about myself. My health (and therefore blood) is good, I'm A positive (most common blood type, very useful), and someone in a hospital somewhere maybe won't die because the phlebotomist sucked 1/10 of my blood out of me today.

And I don't feel a bit guilty about eating a cookie and not going to the gym.