1. Vacation.  There probably isn’t a need to elaborate further on that, but let me just call out that it is the holiday break, my projects are done, and I am in full-on not-thinking-about-work mode.

2. Skiing.  Elizabeth and I have decided that we need to take up a hobby.  We’ve been looking for something we can do together, that’s active, and that we both enjoy.  Skiing (of the downhill variety) fits the bill, and has the added bonus that it’s frigid cold and offers an unparalleled opportunity to wrap ourselves around trees at high velocity.

3. Lasagna.  Diggory got a great recipe from his mother for the stuff, and it makes for a fantastic meal.  Plus, it’s one of the very few dishes that actually tastes better as leftovers.

photo credit: gregor_y

There’s an advantage to this; with all three of us participating, it creates a circle of shame.  If one of us so much as mentions going to the gym, the other two assume that person actually intends to go, and are thus guilted into tagging along.  So now, rather than individually going when the mood strikes us, we end up going when the thought even crosses the mind of anyone else in the house.

Given that exercise leaves me in considerable discomfort afterwards, the gym tends to be on my mind quite a bit these days — usually preceded by an unflattering adjective or two — and so we end up talking about said gym and, by extension, returning more and more frequently.  I expect us to hit critical mass soon, where we will simply drag sleeping bags and the microwave down to this gaping maw of fitness and spend our every waking and sleeping moment there.

At the very least, our foray into exercise has proven to be more enduring than our detox attempt.

photo credit: adria.richards