Little House in the Suburbs

Today I am longing for the life of Ma Ingalls.  She had the most lovely & romantic name, Caroline, & she got to wake up next to Pa Ingalls (whom I had a crush on as a line drawing...to say nothing of the Michael Landon iteration).  But, today it is neither of those things that is making me wish for a magical switcheroo.  I want to be Ma Ingalls because I didn't want to go work out this morning.

Ma Ingalls & her prairie companions didn't have to go for a run...they had to run to catch food.  They didn't have to do squats...they had to squat down to pick up tubs of water, heave it onto a stove & boil it so that they could wash their nineteen layers of clothing by hand.  They didn't have to do crunches...they had to build their own houses & furniture out of trees & mud.

Today, I'm longing for a life that's not so easy, where the work out is built into the work of survival.  Oddly, this desire for a hard life is springing from laziness.  I didn't want to make a special trip to go do something extraneous to burn calories.  Down the rabbit hole I spiralled & I realized that the need to specifically work out is heightened by our desire to make life easy.  I have a car, a roomba and a dishwasher.  I bought my bread & didn't have to gather the eggs I will eat for breakfast or butcher/pluck/clean the chicken that I will eat for supper.

Those lucky pioneers weren't burdened with the guilt of missing a morning work-out because just going to "the store" meant lacing up & doing a 10K, then doing another on the way back while carrying 20 lbs of flour. 

I'm going to turn this envy into productivity.  This week, while I acknowledge that I am not going to forgo my washing machine, I am going to try to look for ways to make my life a little harder.  I'll park in the far spot.  I'll take the stairs instead of the elevator.  I may even vacuum my house without the help of a robot.  And if all of that doesn't get me off of the hook, maybe I'll build a buckboard (whatever that is) & start out on the Oregon Trail.  Diphtheria, schmiphtheria.  Think of the calorie burn!