Excuses, Excuses

I am awakened by a crying baby.  I look at the clock - 3:15.  I decide to get up and rock her back to sleep so my wife doesn't have to.  As soon as I stand up, I feel the effects of the kickboxing workout that I did yesterday.  My legs hurt, my arms hurt, even my toes hurt and I don't ever remember doing any sort of workout on my toes.

I slowly move my way towards the baby's room.  Even though I just woke up, my mind is filled with all of the things I need to do this morning before work: 1) Exercise  2) Finish and turn in the assignment for my Diversity & Inclusion class.  3) Write a chapter in my novel.  4) Write a blog about how much I want to kickbox Jillian Michaels for causing my body to hurt like this.  5) Study Greek.

I check the outside temperature: 22 degrees.  

As I am rocking the baby back to sleep I keep telling myself that I don't really need to go to the gym this morning.  "You worked hard yesterday", the voice in my head says.  (It sounds a little like Elvis.)  "You're tired, you're cold and your muscles hurt.  Why don't you go back to your warm bed and sleep a little longer, then get up and finish your paper before work?"

What the voice is saying makes sense, but I decide that I really need to exercise today.  I start rearranging my schedule in my mind and decide to do away with the blog about kickboxing Jillian Michaels.  (She'd kick my butt anyway.)

The baby finally goes back to sleep and I slowly waddle my way back into my bedroom.  As I stand in the doorway, I argue mentally with "Elvis" as he tries to get me to get back into bed - where my wife is sleeping all toasty and warm.  Meanwhile, I walk to the dresser and pull out my sweats and slowly put them on.  (I never realized how many muscles I use to put on clothes.  I am quite aware of their presence this morning.)

I lace up my shoes, open the front door and the 22 degrees smacks me in the face.

"It's not too late to go back to bed," says the mental Elvis.

I take a deep breath, hit play on my MP3 player and step out into the cold darkness, closing the door behind me.