March’s challenge was to do 30 minutes of sustained activity every single day. While I did not accomplish this goal 100%, I came closer than I thought I would and exercised 25 out of the 31 days in March. The term “exercise” was pretty loosely applied here--one particularly sluggish day I walked to the store about a half mile away...to get ingredients for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies--but it did get me up and moving on days that I was feeling more inclined to stay supine. I even-surprises of surprises-exercised while on vacation! I usually have a pretty strict No Exercising, Thanks, I’m On Vacation Here rule but since this was a very laid back visit, I had some downtime and thought I’d use it to run outside in the warm sun (on hills! oh, topography I’ve missed you) and also to mitigate the effects of the massive amounts of goat cheese and homestyle biscuits I consumed. Those North Carolinians, they sure do down home comfort food up right. The days that I got waylaid were when I left for NC, the day I got back from NC, and a few times I went to happy hour after work with friends.
You see, I had to work the day that I left for vacation, which is kind of genius because then you don’t have to take off a day just for travel, but kind of lame because hey, you might be on vacation tonight but you still have to put on your work clothes and go to the office first. So I had lofty plans to get up and go to the gym before work and hahahahahah. That didn’t happen, to say the least. I think I might have muttered a halfhearted “f*ck no” before I hit snooze and rolled back over to sleep for another thirty minutes. The day I was coming back from Asheville I actually did a fair bit of walking around with the family at the botanical gardens, so that mayyybe counts, but probably not. All the time I spent sitting at the Asheville airport while my plane was delayed because of issues at O’Hare? Did not count. Once I finally made it home (with a massive freelance project in tow, natch) I was in no mood to pull on workout clothes and hit up the exercise room. Instead we ordered pizza and I fired up the old laptop to get to work. There were a few other days where I had plans to work out after work but then something more fun came up, namely something with alcohol and friends. If alcohol wasn’t involved, I went home and went to the gym. If alcohol was involved, I lost interest in working out. Funny how that happens.
Now if we’re being perfectly honest, part of the reason I really committed to this challenge was because I have been holding on to a few extra holiday pounds, or winter weight, or whatever you want to call it. The little extra cushion that comes from it being below 30 degrees every day for months on end--you know, the kind of weather that makes you want to eat something carb-y and creamy and WARM. And while you’re at it, why don’t you eat another piece of candy and hey look at that, it’s almost April and they’re predicting snow. Better make that several more pieces of candy. Yeah, that weight. I’d hoped that kicking my act into high gear would help out with losing that bit. Sadly, that weight is still here, stubbornly, and I’ve tried everything and will now just accept it as the new norm. While I go buy some more, bigger pants. Poor D has had to listen to all my kvetching, and keeps helpfully reminding me that “Muscle weighs more than fat!” To which I reply “Muscle doesn’t weight THAT MUCH more than fat!”
Anyway, on to the recurring monthly challenges: read one classic, call my sister once a week, call my Austin friends more. Well, I DID call my sister once a week--GREAT SUCCESS--and I also even went and visited her! Gold stars for me! I also called my Austin friends more--keep the gold stars coming--and even met up with one in Asheville, North Carolina! How random is that? I had mentioned to Karl (lives in Chicago, used to live in Austin) that I was going to be in Asheville. Karl happened to mention it to Wes (his best friend from high school, lives in Austin), and Wes mentioned it to his wife Meredith (my good friend from college, lives in Austin). Did you follow all that? So Meredith texted me, out of the blue, “are you in North Carolina? Where?” because they also happened, completely randomly, to be visiting family in Asheville during the exact time that I was. Talk about a small world. So we met up one night and got dinner and caught up like no time at all had passed. As for Reading The Classics, well, I’m still working my way through good old Walden. Slowly.
