ROW80 Round 5 - 15th Update

Quick update tonight; haven't done much in the way of writing lately, since I've worked every day since the last check-in. I did get another few odd paragraphs (a little under 1,000 words, I'd estimate) done on Dark and Silent Waters, but I'm not entirely happy with them. I wrote them for the sake of trying to fill out a few odd scenes, but they didn't really 'flow' as well as I'd have liked. Still, at least they're there for now.

On Tuesday (the only day I wasn't at work all day), I finally managed to finish a painting with my new acrylics:

I've also decided I need to try to add some fitness goals. Even if they're not part of ROW80, it's still something I need to do. Until last year or so I've always been fairly fit. I did karate until a few years ago, and even though I had to give it away because of my knee and back injuries, I always made sure to at least keep up some level of fitness. But since I dislocated my knee last year (which in turn made my other, even dodgier knee play up from the extra strain), I've had a lot of trouble doing any real physical exercise; I literally can't run more than a block without my knees screaming in agony and often just giving out on me altogether (not only is it painful for my knees, but face-planting into the ground isn't much fun either).

Since most forms of weight-bearing exercise are out - at least til I build up some more strength; it's a lot stronger than it was before I saw the physio, since I've kept up with all the knee exercises, but it's nowhere near what it was before the injuries - I'm thinking swimming and bike riding are the main options. Except I'll be using the exercise bike in the kitchen because the only helmet I have for my real bike is a pink one my dad gave me when I was little, and I hate pink and don't want to wear it in public and am also too stingy to just go buy a new one. I've also thought about starting up that Zumba exercise dance thing (I actually have the starter set with the DVDs etc, don't even know where it came from), since it looks like it might make exercise fun, but I'm kind of wary it would make my knees even worse; it looks like there's a lot of jumping and twisting which are the two things my knees really hate. Has anyone else used Zumba/know anyone else who has used it? What are your thoughts?

Judgemental Dog is looking forward to tomorrow afternoon, when I'll have more time for writing.

See how other ROW80ers are going here.