Adrian and Emiko: Day 40, Working Together

We tried out a new recipe for lunch today. We made chicken with sweet potatoes, carrots & onions in our slow cooker. The recipe also included a paste made of garlic, onion, honey, rosemary & pepper, and butter, which we made with our blender. (The full recipe is coming tomorrow, along with a sweet potato fries recipe we made yesterday.)

For dinner, Emiko made Adrian an apple & banana smoothie, but it had a garlicky after taste. We used honey to cover it up, but that just made it really sweet - with a garlicky after taste. Luckily, Adrian loves garlic.

Adrian was in a really bad mood this morning. He even cursed at the carrots and sweet potatoes as he was chopping them up for the chicken recipe. The mood followed him all the way into the evening. But, after going out to do jump-ropes, the negativity magically lifted. From then on it was all hugs, smiles and laughter. It's amazing how quickly these things can change.

Today we both really realized how much of an advantage we have because we can do things together. We have been able to help each other during our workouts in a bunch of different ways.

One thing we've been able to do is to point out mistakes the other person is making. For example, when Emiko was doing her tricep extensions, Adrian noticed that she was using her entire arm to get through the movement. After bringing this up, Emiko was able to correct herself and do the rest of the exercise properly. Later, while Adrian was doing his tricep dips, he mentioned to Emiko how easy they were. Emiko then pointed out that he was going through the exercises too quickly. After slowing down his pace, Adrian had a much harder time, but in the end got a better workout.

We are also big source of encouragement for each other. Today, while Emiko was doing her jump-ropes, she showed off some cool jump rope dance moves for Adrian which made him laugh. While she was fooling around, Emiko was able to do her first double-jump, and later Adrian did the same. It was lots of fun and broke up some of the monotony of jump-roping. Also, Emiko usually cheers Adrian on while he is struggling through a tough exercise like v-sits or tricep extensions, and it gives him an extra boost to go the extra mile.

These aspects are of course present in other parts of our relationship. We have decided to work together to put what we learn in school directly into use. Although we signed up for a Web Design class together this Fall, we decided today that our time would be best used if Emiko stays in the class and passes information along to Adrian, while he uses that time to create content for the website we are going to create. In this way, we are learning how to optimize our time, and to work together to complete tasks. It is exciting and motivating knowing that we are working as a team in order to move forward in our lives together.