The weather hasn’t been conducive to that lately. There have been long periods of rain or snow, lots of ice, and very little sun. I don’t really mind exercising in the cold so much as long as there’s sun. The geography around my house is NOT flat, and icy roads and I don’t get along. Short days mean no more 8pm walks in the park.

Yeah, I know, whine, whine, whine.

Truth is, when I don’t get lots of light and some exercise, my creative energy wans dramatically. A type of mental lethargy takes over, and I crave long hours of Law & Order and hot tea. Not good for my writing – or my backside.

Today we had sun for the first time in almost a week, and, boy, did I strap on the hiking boots. It helped – I came back in much more ready to work – so I hope the coming moments of sun do more than melt snow – I want them to melt the freeze in my spirit.

As to the other health goals – I’m doing about as expected with cutting out colas (I’m down to about 1 a week), but the weight loss is still stalled. We’ll see what the hiking boots can do about that over the next week or so. Till then – back to the creative part of the world….

Stana Katic on Castle is svelte. I’m more . . . well . . . zaftig. I’ve not been svelte since I was four years old, and there’s no way I’ll be that thin. What I would like to do, however, is get to a comfortable size so that I don’t have to worry about turning my ankles in high heels or taking out small children with my purse when I turn around in WalMart.

To get to a size where I’m a little less embarrassed to have my photographer do those new headshots later in the spring. Jason’s great (just look at some of his portraits on Facebook), but . . . hey, I may not be svelte but I do still have an ego.

I want to look as good as I can, considering.

So this Friday space will be my accountability ledger, a chart of my progress. Now, I’m not going to bore you with preachy entries about nutrition, new diets, new exercises. Instead, what I want to do is talk about (with humor, I hope) on my progress, what worked, what I tripped over. After all, if this can’t be a little fun, I probably won’t get far with it.

Y’see, one of my biggest problems with exercise and dieting is that they’re boring. I don’t care how good they are for me; I can think of a thousand things more intriguing than walking on a treadmill. It’s why I prefer hiking over walking a track, and I suspect this is why the Wii Fit programs have been so successful. Fun. Combine Fun with Progress, and you get a program that will continue.

What does this have to with writing? You’d be surprised.

Here’s a hint, which is a preview of next week’s progress report:
1) writer’s butt
2) creative energy

The point is to get rid of one and increase the other. You can guess which is which.

Are we having fun yet?