Back in the mid-1980's when I was thirty years old, I'd don my one piece leotard, pull my hair up in a ponytail, clear out a spot on the living room floor, and pop in the aerobics video. I vividly remember watching Jane Fonda, also wearing a one piece leotard with a ponytail, jumping and gyrating and 'goin' for the burn.' Back then the thinking was, 'no pain, no gain'. It was a pain, but I figured I might come out equal for all the bags of doritos I'd munched away on, sitting on the front porch steps, mad at DH surveying the world. Sit and eat doritos - jump around with Ms. Fonda. I was willing to do what was necessary to avoid a gain in measurements of the three vital areas of me.

I remember at some point hearing or reading that Ms. Fonda was FIFTY YEARS OLD!?, and wondering what on earth I'd look like when I was ancient fifty, since I did the aerobics but also ate the doritos and I highly doubted she ate the doritos since she also wrote a cookbook that mostly involved putting various strange things in blenders, and pouring them into tall, icy glasses. Slurping it down, you'd call it dinner. I wasn't willing to eat whatever she ate to look like she looked at that age.

Twenty plus years later, I don't do aerobics, I don't even exercise that often, not in the purest sense anyway. I definitely don't wear that one piece leotard anymore. I did not get up either morning of this weekend and walk or spend time on the ellyptical. Instead, I got up and drank three cups of coffee with creamer while I read most of the paper and ate two cinnamon rolls. Then I put on my paint-covered overalls and tank top and headed to the garage. I applied the second coat of dry-lock to the cinder block walls of the garage. I've gone through four gallons of the mucky stuff this past week. Then I cleaned that brush, grabbed another and began to paint the ceiling of the garage. After getting half of it done, I cleaned that brush, put away that roller, switched out of my overalls to an outfit more comfortable for yardwork, and began to trim shrubs in the front beds. Three hours later, I'd cleaned up that mess of limbs, dead plants, trimmed leaves, etc. and dragged all the yard stuff to the ravine behind our house. I then dragged me into the house, climbed into the shower and scrubbed every inch of me to clean off dirt and dust and two kinds of paint, paying special attention to my hair which felt lumpy from the ceiling paint.

I didn't exercise this weekend, but what I did do was a pain. While I was having a blast with my activities, DH was busy mowing and power washing the fence and sorting through the junk in the garage since trash day is just around the corner. Tonight we're both whipped, but we think we gained on the battle of getting this house ready to put on the market next spring. I don't know if I could say I felt a 'burn' but my body is weary from top to bottom, too weary to eat doritos actually. Who the heck has time for exercising? Surely Ms. Fonda looked so great, back then, because she was busy jumping and gyrating all over the place, rather than painting cinder block walls and ceilings that left lumps of wet paint on top of that ponytail? There you go, that's the biggest difference between us. Lumps of wet paint on our hair - please don't correct me on this one, I'm way too worn out to eat doritos, let alone argue with anyone.

Labels: Busy Buzz