20150407.0725

The weather at Sherwood Cottage is predicted to remind us that summer is not too far away; temperatures are expected to reach the low 90s Fahrenheit, and humidity is up. I had been relying on fans and open windows to keep things feeling decent, but I may well have to turn on one or more of the window units the house has for cooling. Medievalist though I am, I have no desire to return to the medieval; I like such things as climate control, indoor plumbing, and information technology. (The last should be obvious. That I am not the only one for whom it is true should also be obvious.) Fortunately, my work is such that I get to stay inside for the day, and I need not undertake any heavy lifting.

That does not mean I will do *no* lifting, of course. Since the Mrs. is at work today, I will be taking care of Ms. 8, and she still likes to be picked up a fair bit. She still *has* to be, in fact, for although she walks (haltingly) and climbs (perhaps more than her mother and I would like), she can only get so far and so fast. I do not mind, though. Holding my daughter is a pleasure in most events (most because a full diaper is hardly nice to have around, and Ms. 8 is sometimes vigorous in the placement of her feet against her potential brothers and sisters), and I am not anhedonic. Rather the opposite, actually, and likely more than is good for me, as my flabby belly attests.

And it is flabby; I have not been as good about exercise and diet as I ought to have been. That is hardly new, of course, and even when I was being quite good about exercise, I carried a gut. Eight to ten hours of competitive judo practice each week did not strip it from me; nor did ten or more hours of aikido. Then again, I like beer, and while what I eat is usually reasonably good for me, I eat more of it than I ought to, my appetite a holdover from days when my work *was* outside and involved heavy lifting, my metabolism was that of a man a decade younger than I am now or a youth farther removed yet, and the cooking to which I had access still modeled after the farming life my grandparents knew and my parents glimpsed.

I need to drink more water.

Today will not be the day I correct such failings, however. Today will instead be a day of writing work, wherein I sit and stare at this screen for stretches of time and put words onto pixelated pages in the hopes of earning more money for myself and my household--when Ms. 8 allows me to do so. And when that is done, there are other tasks to which I must attend, as there ever are. As much as anything else, their presence accounts for my continued gut--and I know I am not like to change.