Donations!

I am fortunate that Kathrynn (my niece and roommate) is almost as happy as I am at the donations, because every time I see a new one come in, I yelp with excitement and immediately announce it to her. (And to my cat.  We're a small but excitable group.) Unless one of you is a secret Mr./Ms. Moneybags, it will obviously take many many donations to reach my goal, so I suspect I'll eventually drive her mad with this behavior. She's great at pretending I'm not annoying her, though, so domestic tranquility is likely to continue.

But anyway, my point is: YAY THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!! Well, thanks to those of you who've donated, at least. Screw the rest of you.

Kidding! I kid! I kid because I love. Naturally, I'll love you more after you donate, though. Haha, just kidding. (No I'm not.)

So this was a very good kick-off and it is strengthening me for tomorrow's task. And guess what that is? A spinning class. Yes, yes - the one workout that I've pretty consistently disdained. But come on, can you really blame me? It's pedaling and pedaling and pedaling and you never get anywhere. You don't even get to feel the wind in your hair or see any changing scenery, you know? It's just never been my bag, dad, so I stayed away. But it turns out that our first few months of training will be indoors, on stationary bikes. This makes sense when you remember that I live in Chicago, and that the mere idea of voluntarily being outdoors for more than say 2 minutes in a Chicago February is literally bringing tears to my eyes, right now. Therefore, indoors it is.

As I mentioned (I think), training actually starts on January 7- and rest assured I plan to be slothful to the max over the last week of the year, drinking whatever takes my fancy (tip: hot chocolate + Cointreau = bliss), spending inordinate amounts of time napping, renewing my love affair with my couch, and stuffing myself with foods on the American Heart Association's Most Wanted List. But I realized I don't want to be completely blindsided on my first day of real training. There's enough of a learning curve for me that I'd like to get a bit of a handle on at least what this part of it might be like.

So tomorrow I will go to the spinning class at my gym, to get a little taste of what's in store. If I don't wind up in the ER having my lungs re-installed afterward, I will come straight to the keyboard and tell you all about it.