keeping it going (#fall7up8)

Happy Monday everyone! (Possibly Tuesday... I'm posting this pretty late.)

I've been doing a few things to get myself stronger this week. One thing I worry about is getting lazy. I do it all the time. Not just lazy physically, but lazy about keeping this little blog thing going even after a good start. I expect to post something at least once a week. During the week, I'll be working on various goals that will hopefully and eventually help me stand up from laying flat on the ground.

This week, I recorded a little video of where I'm at right now as far as standing up if I fall. It's not pretty. Here's what I got...

I was surprised at how high my stomach is off the ground when I'm laying flat! I'm thinking the "biggest" problem is likely my weight. I just can't lift that much Mitch off the ground! In the video, I mentioned "when I was younger" and I'm thinking I weighed almost half of what I weigh now.

My main goal this week, then, is to keep walking. Over the summer, I've been reporting step count and minutes of activity to my nephew, Johnathan, each day. I started out barely walking 3000 steps or doing much more than 30 minutes of exercise a day. This week, I'm planning on 60 minutes active time and 6000 steps each day. I'm just using the Google Fit app on my phone to do the counting for me.

So far, I can only walk just over 6 minutes at a time. Then I need to rest a bit before I move onward. I was really happy to have survived a half mile walk this week using a Walkstool that I carried to rest on every few minutes. Using that method, I made it to dinner and rested, then walked the half mile back home, as well!

I also went downtown to the Salt Lake City Library this weekend and spoke with the folks at the Creative Lab. They have a 3D printer and I'm thinking I may try creating a cleaner "top" for the cane my dad built me last month. Between the Walkstool and the cane as good starts, we'll get something working so I can start getting some distance.

I can't explain how useful the video above was! I don't visualize myself accurately, and seeing my own struggle on screen will continue to help. I've created a YouTube channel with the same name as the blog... mitch is wandering -- not lost. The blog and the YouTube channel are for both this project and for general posts and videos as I travel and otherwise move around in the world. I'm commandeering the hashtag #fall7up8 for the standing up project. You can follow just this standing up project by clicking on that link on the right of this blog.

Thanks for reading this far! I'm really excited you're with me on this journey.

See you next week! If you don't see me, feel free to chase me down and demand an explanation!

fall down 7 times... get up 8

This summer has been a bit of a success for me! I started really paying attention to walking. I found a coach and we have been steadily increasing how much I could walk daily and how long I could walk in a single attempt. It's been enough of an improvement that I started looking dreamily down hiking trails and wishing I could take longer walks that went places besides close to home or around my car.

Last month Dad and I designed this cane to use when I'm hiking. His pictures of the cane triggered a heartwarming response on Facebook. As we were creating the cane, however, I realized that I'm still going to fall out there.

That led to the realization that I'm going to have to re-learn how to get up after a fall. Getting up from the ground implies getting down on the ground. Looks like I'll have plenty of chances to practice falling, too. Hopefully by winter, I'll be less fearful of falling so I'll go outside more than I did last winter.

Learning or retraining myself on a physically weak area like getting up after a fall is a really visceral and physical experience. I'm hoping the experience will be more universal than just watching a guy flounder on the ground. Sharing the process with others, I hope, will will inspire others to plan improvements for their own lives.

As a storyteller, I'm sure there will be a story out of all this. It'll be fun telling the final and even intermediate stories. I can totally see myself falling on stage and freaking everyone out until they realize it's what I'm telling about.

...and that's how this project was born. I am not just creating a neat and pretty story, I'll be creating a new me. It's going to be great and fun and I'll finally be able to go on long walks and hikes and fall down as much as I want! It's going to be long and tedious and I may give up again and again.

I am starting today. This is what you're reading right now.

So watch this new blog! I'm going to fix this weakness in front of the whole world. I hope the project attracts help and wisdom I might not have right now. In turn, I hope to share that wisdom with others, as well. I'm curious what types of responses the project generates.

Come along!

what's this?

So I'm always driving and taking pictures and visiting friends and trying stuff and generally moving around in the world. I'm calling all of that wandering. This blog is where I stuff all that stuff.

Enjoy!