After a winter spent basically hibernating, unable to make myself move when even the weather couldn’t muster the get-up-and-go to supply me with more than about 45 minutes of sunlight per day, or temperatures above zero, or really any sign that it cared for my well-being, I’ve decided I need to jump start my exercise routine for Spring. By pure luck, I’m not a blimp right now, but I do have a wedding to be in this Spring, and I’d prefer to look really good for that. After all, there will surely be pictures taken, and I’m not above a little petty vanity.

So yesterday I bought a book that my mom recommended. It promises results if I do it’s 20-minute routine twice a week. If there’s one thing I hate more than being weak, it’s exercising, so this sounds like a pretty enticing promise to me. And besides, my mom says it’s working really well for her, so I can glibly gloss over the “Wow! Only 40 minutes a week!” reaction and concentrate on the “It’ll make me really strong” reaction, right? I thought so. And because it’ll make me really strong, and because that’s good for my health, and because almost anything is worth it when it comes to health (don’t question that… the logic works perfectly, thank you very much), I shelled out the big bucks for the hardcover book that will teach me the exercises I need to know.

Unfortunately, I also need weights and an exercise ball, so today I went hunting and gathering for those items. Target had some exercise balls, but no really good colors, which was disappointing. (Don’t ask why the color of my exercise ball is important to me. I’d tell you if only I knew.) There was a drab grey ball with a huge company name plastered across one side. That was out. There was a deep red one, and I like deep red, but again the company figured I might not get the full value from the product unless the company name was prominently and gigantically displayed on said product. Still… it was deep red. But then there was a light green ball with only the smallest company name stamped unobtrusively on one side. I didn’t like the green quite as much as the red, and the green one also came with a stretchy band and two DVDs, so it was about twice as expensive as the red one… but it didn’t yell its company affiliation at me, so I bought it, DVDs and stretchy band and all.

This just left the weights. I was looking for 5-pound weights to complement the 10-pounders that I already own. But Target only had stupid weights. Sure, they had 5-pounders, but they were “designer” weights or something. They had special plastic holes where your hands go, or they were oblong, or they were multi-colored in pink and fuchsia. Seriously, I’d never be able to look directly at pink/fuchsia oblong designer weights. So I left with only the exercise ball and went to K-Mart.

I’ve only ever been to K-Mart once before because I get sad just by walking into the place. It sits like a forlorn little island in a sea of empty parking lot, and it’s insides make it look more like a loading dock than a store. It’s even given up caring that most of its shelves are only partially stocked. But it did have two brands of weights for me to choose from: the “I’m a weight; got a problem with that” brand with the octagonal metal ends on a metal bar, and the squatter dumbbells covered in foamy stuff. Of course, the foamy ones are twice as expensive, but the 5-pounders were also deep blue, and I like deep blue. I’m trying to concentrate on the fact that they’re also easier to hold. Surely that’s why I shelled out 6.50 for them rather than the 2.99 for the stripped down version.

Well, now I’m home, have successfully inflated the exercise ball (which took half an hour, even with a bicycle pump, and which I’m counting as my cardio for the day), have decided that the light green isn’t a bad color after all, and have laid out my deep blue weights neatly next to the 10-pound weights. (By the way, Pippin does not approve of the exercise ball.) But the magical exercise program says I should plan on doing the routine on Mondays and Thursdays, and today is Wednesday. The way I see it, there’s nothing for it, I’ll just have to kick back and relax for the evening and wait until tomorrow to start. And anyway, I’ve already inflated an exercise ball today, so that should count for something.

Somebody please pass me the cookies and the remote.