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I’m long overdue on writing. But at the same time I’m really not. See here’s the thing with Writers, we do write. Then there’s a big drought when we’re out and about promoting, marketing, living life to collect more to write. My issue right now is that I’ve taken WAY too much time to live and collect.

Hence the ‘long overdue to write’ part because the ideas and words are starting to bubble up and I realize space up there is at a premium. It’s time to purge.

So this afternoon I sat down and started working on the sequel to Reckless Abandon. I decided there’s no reason to follow any rules this time. I’m not going to set it up in some type of formula or follow the first one situation-to-situation like many sequels tend to do. I think that’s the issue with a lot of follow-ups and why they don’t live up to the original – too many of them try to be the original when being original would be better.

This next book needs to share a different story. I think I owe it to the readers who loved Shaw & JJ to give this story a little more about their journey. We’ll see how it goes, I’ve got a lot of ideas how it can come together and though it might fall into a completely different genre than the first, that’s okay.

So while I’ve been out living life and collecting, a whole bunch of stuff happened. There was sister weekend

Which ended with us going to see Wicked with my mom (and it was…wicked awesome!).

There was a whole bunch of this

We were all drinkin’ at McSwiggins! Better known as our house when I made boiled dinner on St. Patrick’s Day and we had some friends & family over for a day filled with laughs & getting our Irish on.

Yummy veggies started growing in the garden. We’ve spent some time with the in-laws. Life stuff kind of took over. And it’s been a couple months of the ‘life stuff’ excuse.

Neither of us are going to die if the laundry doesn’t get done for a couple weeks. We’re not going to fall apart if dust builds up for a while. So it’s definitely time to get back to writing again.

I’m even comfortable starting with just these 420 words.

Don’t Forget the Bow in Your Hair

I came across an article in my local paper a couple days ago (meant to clip & scan it but forgot and now it’s in my outside recycle bin so, sorry, but I'm not fishing it out) that focused on how women weigh more these days because they don't do as much housework as compared to how much they did back in the late Sixties.

My gut reaction was that I was appalled someone would even begin to do this kind of a study. I mean it isn’t like men used to do the housework back then but they too were also much trimmer simply because the fast food, high fat crap diets and endless hours of sitting on one’s ass hasn’t yet filtered into the mainstream way of life and work. How dare this man put that kind of bullshit off on women!

But then I got to thinking, my house could really use a good solid cleaning. And I’m kind of lacking in cardio points this week. Maybe I should pull out the vacuum and go all Magda on my living room. Think Ethan Hawke in Gattaca only without the six pack abs. Well not yet, I haven’t cleaned this week.

And as a side note, whatever happened to Ethan Hawke? And how did I not recognize his amazing hotness until this very moment? I really need to watch Reality Bites in the next week or so. Damn.

But I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to run a vacuum over my floors and expect to lose weight or tone my muscles or anything but when I think about the way I clean my house I can’t help but wonder just how many calories I actually do burn. Obviously cleaning isn’t a daily activity so it isn’t part of a solid workout plan but that raised another question for me – can any movement be considered part of a solid workout plan? And if I do enough moving in a day – cleaning, dancing, fifty random jumping jacks, power walking as I shop at the mall – does it count toward my calorie burn?

Last weekend Matt, my sister and I all headed to my mom’s place to celebrate her birthday and on Saturday night we had a couple drinks and a lot of laughs to some random tunes. Gloria Estefan, the Xanadu soundtrack, “Jesse’s Girl”, just to name a few. I haven’t been dancing in what feels like forever so, with the music playing, I simply got out of the chair on the sun porch and started doing some serious cardio dancing. For about a solid hour. And it felt great!

 

Let me tell you, I sure was sore the next day in my sides, thighs, hips & butt so I know I worked something. But then I got back home and it was back to my standard one hour a day workout. Do daily tasks. Sit on ass writing (read: play Angry Birds for hours). Eat dinner. Workout. Pretend I’m actually changing my lifestyle.

Realize I’ve been lying to myself.

If I want to get in shape, really get in shape, I need to get off my ass more. A lot more. Now I don’t plan to go and fool myself into thinking I have to join a gym and workout six hours a day on nautilus equipment to get where I want to be, but I sure can’t see myself achieving my goal of losing ten pounds before my friend’s wedding in April while I veg out on the sofa all night after my one hour workout.

It's time to get up and get moving.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go put my pretty pink bow in my hair and move said sofa because there are a shitload of dust bunnies underneath it and it’s apparently my job as a woman to make sure they’re cleaned up.

And I’m going to do it while I dance to some Eighties pop music.