Socks in Bed

Dearest Rachel –

For all that our bedroom was an addition tacked on later (and cheaply, we both had to agree) to the building, and therefore not connected to the main house’s HVAC system, and therefore quite cold in the winter without the wall-mounted space heater running (which would occasionally cause the room to get too hot for you while still not quite enough for me, given its positioning on your side of the room – imagine what life would have been like if you had made it to menopause – this is something of a “he never has coffee at home” kind of thing. Oh, I suppose there were nights when I would sleep with socks on back in the day, but usually, the ‘reindeer skins’ were sufficient to keep warm under (and besides, you tended to wear them to bed as often or more so than I would).

However, this morning I woke up realizing that I do this much more often than I used to, but for a rather different reason – although the cold does still factor into it; it’s still deep in the middle of winter, no matter what Punxsutawney Phil might have said on Monday (and no, I don’t think I ever heard what his forecast was, not that it matters, so far away from Pennsylvania as we are). To be sure, that reason isn’t always put into practice, like today. These days, I’m more likely to be wearing socks in bed because I intend to work out on the treadmill first thing in the morning, and I might as well use the same ones I’d been wearing the day before, as opposed to ruining a perfectly good pair of fresh socks… although the chill of the room is extra encouragement to do so, and it’s not as if it bothers you (or Megumi) at the moment, anyway. All I need to do is throw on a pair of gym shoes, and I’m good to go.

This morning, in particular, was a pretty good opportunity for me to do so, too; I hadn’t been wearing this pair all day, as I’d been walking in the woods with Lars yesterday afternoon. We’d had to take a detour through the New Trier high school parking lot, and stepped into a snowdrift along the way, resulting in both of us getting a fair amount of snow in our boots. It wasn’t enough to be uncomfortable at the time – or even during our customary lunch afterwards, for that matter – but I was happy to change for a dry pair upon getting home, especially since Daniel and I would be going out to Pastor Joel’s Bible study that evening (had there been nothing going on that evening, I probably would have gone barefoot at home, and sat in bed for most of the evening, like the night before).

With that situation in mind – as well as the fact that I hadn’t put in any time on the treadmill since leaving for Honduras – I had fully intended to do so this morning upon getting up, and work off a couple of pounds. However (and this is where things go awry), once Daniel and I got home last night, Logan was already bundling himself off to his room (we’re not sure that he actually goes straight to bed or anything, but that’s his concern; as long as he wakes up in time to report to work, it’s all good), so the two of us stayed up to watch videos together. It had been a while, after all, and we had a lot of catching up to do over the past week and a half, now.

So much catching up, in fact, that by the time we were ready to call it quits (and there was still a few more we could have looked into, but the ones we found were pretty long, to be honest) it was nearly midnight. I know; you would have been proud of us, despite the fact that the last one would have caught us napping a bit through it. With that in mind, we parted ways, and Daniel wandered off to his couch in the family room, while I let myself finish drifting off.

The next thing I was aware, the room was awash with the bright, but soft, light of a winter morning. There was no sun visible in the sky, so there were no visible beams attempting to penetrate through the various shades, but it was clearly making its presence felt through both the clouds and the window treatments. This doesn’t happen in the wee hours, especially not in winter. And sure enough, it was well into morning; I was rolling out of bed after seven-thirty. Not late enough that I could say I’d gotten my eight hours of sleep, but definitely too late for me to feasibly squeeze in an hour or so of uphill walking before I would prefer to be at the ‘office.’

The one consolation to the situation I could tell you about is the fact that, upon stepping on the scale this morning, is that it was essentially unchanged from the day before. Back in the day, if I went a day without exercising, I would slowly find myself putting on one or two pounds from day to day (and to be sure, I expect that to happen tomorrow morning, as there’s no question that Mom will feed the two of us well tonight). But it’s been over a week and a half, and I’m no worse off than when I left for Honduras; indeed, I’ve been inching my way back to the hundred-kilo mark after spending more time above it than below for the past few months. So with that in mind, as much as it embarrasses me to go without for yet another day, I think I can actually deal with it. If I’m maintaining my weight even now without the effort, imagine what I can do tomorrow if I actually put the time in.

But that’s for tomorrow, and I can let you know about it then. For now, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.