Jogging Along With Jim

Now, y'all know I don't Jazzercise on Saturdays. We have a rule in our house that, as far as it's possible, we'll spend Saturdays together. And, even though I have assured him that other red blooded American men--other husbands who have a heart-felt desire to share things with their wives--do occasionally Jazzercise, he balks like a mule. So we walk. Sometimes in the park, sometimes around the neighborhood, or, like this morning, along the sidewalks in downtown Greer. Walking with Jim is problematic for me because his legs are eleven feet long. I try to walk at my own pace, but he gets cranky because he's half a mile ahead and can't talk to me. He commences to coach me. I do not find this particularly helpful. His coaching goes something like this: "What are you doing back there? I thought you wanted to exercise, not stroll around and window shop. You're not getting your heart rate up." Then he'll grab my arm and pull me down the street. In order to keep from stumbling, I retrieve my arm and jog alongside him while he walks. I don't like to jog. I find that it makes me sweat, which I do not care for. Not only that, it causes various parts of my anatomy to bounce uncomfortably. I am of the opinion that this bouncing can cause said parts to sag. Jogging makes me cranky, so I don't do it for very long. I slow down to a fast walk, fall behind, and the whole thing starts all over with the coaching. This morning, in an entertaining variation, he suggested I Jazzercise down the street--even sang a few bars of "Can't Touch This" for me. Because neither of us is interested in fighting, we keep the complaining at the good-natured ribbing level. But I know a few couples that would wind up sleeping in separate rooms for a night or two after that kind of workout. I don't know about y'all, but I think marriage requires a sense of humor. Now that I think about it, that really ought to be somewhere in the vows. "I promise to love, honor, obey and laugh with." I think I'll put that in the suggestion box!

Wow, Where Did That Week Go?

It's Friday already again. I feel like somebody stole a week from me. I didn't get everything done that I needed to...I want an extension!! I made it to Jazzercise three times this week and did not pass out a single time, although I thought I had for a minute in Wendy's class yesterday. Why is it that when an instructor is trying to loose weight, (Wendy had a baby a while back) we all suffer for it? That girl was in turbo drive. She worked us like marine recruits. She sure looks good, though. I asked her what she's been doing, and she told me the name of some program she's doing that's like Weight Watchers, but with a Bible study. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I think there's something basically wrong about getting weighed at church. I'm already confessing my sins, putting me up on the scales to document them is just going to send me into some sort of traumatic episode that will no doubt lead to stress eating. I think I'm just going to pray before I get on the scales at home, and hope for the best.
I had two writer's group meeting this week. Monday night was the Christian Writer's Group. We had a small group, but a lot of good discussion. I took the second scene in the new novel I'm working on. I can't talk about that one yet. Something in my circuitry gets fouled up when I talk about something before I write it. It's like all the life goes out of it. Last night was our first Thursday meeting of the SCWW (South Carolina Writers Workshop) Greenville chapter. There were sixteen people there, and ten readers, which is a lot. I read the latest version of the first chapter of my novel, Lowcountry Boil. It went pretty well, I think. I don't know what I'd do without all those extra sets of eyes. It's amazing to me how many times I can read the same sentence and not realize I've left out a word. Overall, it was a good week for writing. There were a couple of days I didn't get my four hours in, but there were also a couple that I wrote for seven or eight. The blogging thing is off to a slower start than I'd hoped. I think for the accountability thing to work, I've got to do it more than once a week!! In the immortal words of Scarlett, tomorrow is another day!!