I had zero ambition this weekend. Zero.

If life was a highway, then every time I glanced in my rearview mirror this weekend I would have seen slugs cussing me out and making obscene gestures to wave me out of their way because I was slowing them down.

At one point I found myself hunkered down on the couch, sucking back a beer, fixedly watching the Canadian Women's Curling Final. Earlier in the day I had actually considered watching cricket -- which is a sport that I know absolutely nothing about.

I hit rock bottom, though, when I fixated for four hours on The Home And Garden Channel, or as the spousal unit calls it, "The House Porn Channel".

Good Lord, if that doesn't scream "Woman In Need of an Intervention" to you, then nothing will.

The Home and Garden Channel is all about home renovations, decorating and landscaping. They make it look insanely easy. They Put Ideas In My Head. They Put Ideas In My Head that I try to get the spousal unit to turn into a reality.

This sort of thing gets ugly fast.

Yesterday it was skylights. After watching a show about skylights I began to wave my arms around grandly and point out how cool it would be to add more skylights to the house.

I looked at the spousal unit expectantly.

I hate it when he rolls his eyes at me that way.

The spousal unit is a carpenter. He knows how hard and expensive these seemingly cheap and easy projects are. Plus, he works all week doing carpentry. The last thing he wants to do on his weekends is more carpentry.

He hates the House and Garden Channel with a pure, hot hate. After this weekend's irrational skylight-related outburst, he says he is seriously considering locking out said channel so I cannot watch it anymore.

Yes, he can be that cruel.

After my weekend of hibernating on the couch, the last thing I wanted to do today was motor out to the gym. I was especially dreading the cardio workout.

I have noticed the oddest thing. When I am coming close to another 50 mile increment on my 500 mile journey to nowhere, and thus in sight of the justly coveted virtual rubber duckie, I actually look forward to my workouts. I have my eyes on the prize, you see.

But I just got ducked for the second time a few days ago which means that I am about a month away from another ducking. A month of two 35 minute runs, three times a week. My next duck looks impossibly far away.

I sniveled all the way to the gym, but I went.

Wait, it gets even more exciting. Are you sitting down? Do you have smelling salts nearby? Remember how I set myself the goal to squat 100 pounds by my birthday in May? Well, it appears that was unrealistic. Today I squatted 105 pounds, three sets of 15 reps.

Yeah, I set the bar too low. In my head I had built that up as this big, unattainable thing.

Then one of my three loyal readers who's into strength training and body building informed me it's not outside of the realm of possibility that a woman could squat twice her body weight.

And now that I have that notion in my head, 100 pounds (which once seemed like this unbreakable barrier) is now simply an increment of what might be possible.

Can I do that, can I lift twice my body weight in metal? Well, I'm 52 so I'm not sure. It will be interesting though to see what is possible, to just gradually test my limits without setting artificial barriers.

This would be the place where a more philosophical person would probably segue into a rumination about how this sort of thing spills into other aspects of our lives.

I would imagine they would say something pithy about how we set artificial barriers in our heads as to what we can or cannot do and these self-imposed barriers box us in.

Yep, a more philosophical person would probably do that.

Me?

Oh puh-LEESE. If I wrap this up, I can catch the end of a landscaping show on the House and Garden Channel.

See ya.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 106.57 miles (171.47 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers