Exercising Muscles

Thanks to a non-gym-related injury last month (let's just say, unstable chairs and kids don't mix well), I haven't set foot on the elliptical in many weeks. Though I am much better now, each day away makes it harder to walk to the gym in the dark early morning hours. I'm hoping that my desire to go everywhere on foot and my need to keep up with my son's scooter will keep the muscles from going completely south. It's hard to keep up anything you don't do regularly.

My husband and others often wonder how I can come up with something to say in this blog every day.  I'll admit, there are days when it's a challenge, either to have a topic, or to express what's going on in a way that's bloggable--that is, appropriate for reading by the assorted friends, relatives, and potential employers who might check it out on any given day. And yet, like making sure homework is done or starting the dishwasher (wow, those sound mundane!), it is something I commit to doing each day, and my ability to craft a topic, even on a day when no topic is obvious, has increased, just as my time on the elliptical was increasing when I was still going to the gym every day. Muscles get stronger when we use them regularly, and, while I have considered myself a writer for years, these days, I am a writer with stronger muscles because I have pushed myself, even on the days when I don't know what to say, or on the nights I'd rather just fall into bed.

While I accept that my stronger gym muscles are unlikely to turn me into a personal trainer, I would like to think that my stronger writing muscles will help me push open some new doors (pun intended).

One of the interesting things about this past year, a year that began with the end of One Life to Live and ended with what appears to be the show's new beginning, is that I've had the time to exercise some new muscles--leg, head, and otherwise. And, one way or the other, no matter what crazy direction this new year takes, I can say that I'm starting it with my muscles exercised.  And with stronger muscles, how can the rest of me feel anything but strong?