"Do you want to go for a walk?"
"No"
"Do you want to go running or exercise?"
"No"
"Do you want to play in the yard with Madeline?"
"No"
"Do you want to take care of Liam and/or Greg?"
"No"
"Do you want to write?"
"No"
"Do you want to do something constructive around the house?"
"No"
"What do you want to do then?!?"

"Nothing"

If this conversation was between my kids and I, and I was the one asking the questions. I'd be pissed beyond words. Unfortunately, this is the conversation that's been going on between me and myself and I'm disappointed. Sure I have excuses. The job is hard (it's only really hard one day in five), I'm doing a lot of exercising and I can only do so much (not lately) and last but not least the twins are so young and take a lot of my energy (the truth actually). So it's been a month and a half since I've written anything here. Not coincidentally, the twins are a month old. I could easily hide behind this excuse as the reason for my poor progress on my personal writing course. I could easily hide behind this as the reason why I've fallen behind on running. I could easily be mediocre for the rest of my life.

The fact is that I have had a lot on my plate and I will always have a lot on my plate because I've chosen to become a parent. I cant use that as a reason to avoid challenging myself though. So I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I'll redo my personal written class syllabus, call it a one-time twins adjustment. I'm going to select a race to train for. Then, I'm going to follow through on my commitments to myself. Because If I cant get it done now, then when? There will always be something family related taking up my time, there will always be something work related taking up my time. If I don't make time for my own personal goals then they aren't going to happen.

So what does this mean for me? It means a lot less choosing to do nothing. That means the time surfing the web at work has got to stop. It's absolutely killing me. I've never yet worked a job where I couldn't condense the required work enough to have ample free time on all but the most busy days. I've accomplished that with my current job as well. Now that I'm getting sleep at night again (thanks Liam and Greg, keep up the good work), I need to restart using that free time productively, for writing. The company will never hesitate to take useful family time away from me, I need to return the favor. It also means less video games at night. I've been pretty good in this regard but has more to do with necessity than virtue. Newborn twins really are high maintenance after all.

I don't want to sound too bad on myself about all this. I feel like I've been stuck someplace where there's only junkfood to eat and now I need to go on a diet, only a diet of the mind.