I-I-INSPIRATION . . .

Hooch is my latest inspiration, my kick in the pants, if you will. Every morning, that lady gets up at 4:30 to work out before hitting the road a little after 6:00a.m. to make the long and dreary commute to work at our glorious little courthouse. Today, she demonstrated to me how loose her pants had become on her trimmer waist as a result of her steady workouts; I told her that was a great excuse to go shopping. Although we hate shopping. So online shopping. Anyway, I digress.

I've been kind of lax with my workouts lately. My evenings have gotten a bit busier (or I've gotten lazier, I can't tell which), so it's harder to get motivated to change out of work clothes into exercise clothes, work out for 45 minutes, take another shower, then eat dinner. All I want to do in the evenings now is change into comfortable clothes and lay like broccoli. So I have taken a page from the Book of Hooch and have begun exercising in the mornings. OK, maybe that's not entirely true. This morning, I exercised in the morning. Hee hee.

There's only a few issues I have with morning workouts, aside from the horrific fact that I have to get up earlier. First, I hate, so early in the morning, guzzling the amount of water needed to hydrate myself sufficiently to run two miles. All that water sloshing around in me -- oh, and it does slosh -- just makes me feel like vomiting. Plus, my strong gag reflex and apparently small throat opening make it very difficult to guzzle anything without starting to choke. Second, my entire family has lately taken to ending our evenings with mugs of hot chocolate made from real milk instead of simply water. Delicious, yes ... but also stinky. Dr.G and all you other lactose-intolerants out there, you feel me? I know you do. Suffice to say, if you didn't love me or my family very VERY much, it would be very difficult for you to be here with us. Smirk. I love toilet humor. But again, I digress. The point is, running in the morning with residual milky hot chocolate issues is ... questionable, at best. And finally, something about all that activity first thing upon waking makes me feel icky within the next hour or two hours. When I get to work, I gulp my first cup of morning coffee and head straight out of chambers to complete my "morning routine." C, you feel me? I know you do. Not the daintiest image of myself that I could put forth, but I'm just being honest here.

Nevertheless! I loved having my evening free tonight, with no "oh, I didn't exercise" guilt looming over my head like an ominous cartoon bubble. So I have set my alarm clock for an hour earlier tomorrow morning. It will be the ultimate test: whether I can do this two mornings in a row. I hope I do; I hope I hear my alarm and get out of bed, even if I kind of slide and crawl in the process, clinging desperately to my pillows. No milky hot chocolate side effects or sloshy stomachs can hold me back, oh no!