Cold Feet

Adelay and I were sitting at the kitchen table just now, me reading my library book and drinking coffee and she, oh scorner of books, working on a dot-to-dot, biting her tongue in concentration. After awhile I heard her sigh heavily, and asked her what was wrong.

"My feet are really cold!" she said crossly. "It's making me freezing!"

"Well, go get some socks or your slippers," I responded easily, returning to my book.

"No, because I'm too cold to walk to my room!" she moaned, and crawled into my lap instead.

Instantly, because I am an introspective, metaphorically-thinking dork, I thought of all the times that I myself know exactly what it is I need to feel better- more sleep, more exercise, more time with the husband, better eating habits- but am so full of excuses for why I can't give myself the very thing I want or need.

Just today I was bemoaning my lack of muscle tone to my friend, noting that even though I weigh a little less than I did pre-pregnancy, I feel that I look much flabbier and less shapely. "I think I'd take a higher number on the scale if it meant my body looked a little firmer!" I told her. But the next thing out of my mouth was, of course, a litany of reasons why exercise is so inconvenient right now: don't want to spend money on a gym membership, can't run or jog in our neighborhood because of my bad knee, can't buy an elliptical for the house because there's nowhere to put it, ditto for a weight machine, I can barely find time for the stuff I already have to do, blah blah blah.

Not that those reasons are not true or not legitimate. It's just that I still know I could find ways to tone up and strengthen my knee again if I really wanted to. I did it once and I could do it again. I have come to believe that ultimately, we do what we want to do. Everything else is mostly excuses, you know? So I think this is one of those situations in which I either need to suck it up and find a way to do some weight training, or I need to stop complaining about my lumpy love handles and jiggly thighs. Stop whining about having cold feet, or walk down the hall and get myself a pair of slippers, so to speak.