After Thanksgiving, Todd and I decided we really needed to exercise more. It’s funny: we both enjoy exercise, feel better if we’re exercising regularly, know it’s good for us, but yet tend to neglect it for weeks at a time.

Part of the problem, I know, is the way we go about it. I tend to go full throttle: I’ll jog daily for a month, work myself up to the point that I’m jogging for 45 minutes or more. Then, one day, I’ll only have time to jog for 20 minutes or so, so instead I’ll take 3 weeks off. This is the same logic I employ when I decide that since I’ve already eaten too many potato chips, I might as well go ahead and finish the whole bag today. There is no universe, either alternate or imaginary, where any of this makes sense. Other than inside my head, which doesn’t count.

The alert readers may notice that this is one of the problems of perfectionism that I covered in my book. I am a work in progress who doesn’t always follow her own advice.

This time, though, I was going to approach it more reasonably. Sure, great, sweeping changes in both exercise and diet would be wonderful, but little changes are better than nothing. Moderate changes that I can stick to are better than drastic changes that I’ll drop before Christmas. I committed to exercising three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

So, today was the day. But my oldest son needed a ride to school, which eats up a bit of my morning. I was also having a good hair day and didn’t want to ruin it by sweating. By the time I returned from dropping him off, I decided that I would skip exercise for today. I would pick it up tomorrow…perhaps. But this morning I would enjoy my quiet time before the other two woke up and we needed to start the homeschool day.

I could almost taste the coffee as I got out of the van. But first I needed to deal with the jack-o-lanterns. I know it’s way too late to still have jack-o-lanterns, but we didn’t even get them carved until October 31. Then Veterans Day threw off our garbage schedule. Then they were full of rainwater, then we were out of town. Since the temperature this morning was in the 20s, though, I decided that the water in the bottom would be frozen, making it easier to carry them to our compost pile.

Guess what? Rainwater in the bottom of a jack-o-lantern apparently does NOT freeze in 20 degree temperatures. Instead, it covers one with all manner of nearly frozen water and pumpkin slime.

My emotional state at this moment? Let’s just say it gave a new dimension of meaning to “madder than a wet hen.”

I carried the first pumpkin to the compost pile. Then I tipped the other two over on the grass. This is mostly to let the water drain out, but also to show them that I meant business.

Then, since I had to take a shower anyway, I changed clothes (throwing the slimed clothes directly into the washing machine) and got on the treadmill. It was perhaps the grumpiest I have even been while exercising, but I got it done.

Next time I hope to stick to the schedule without getting covered in putrid vegetable slime. We shall see.

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