responses

Amie, how are you doing? Hope you're recovering and staying out of the hospital! Sounds like a nasty infection . . . so sorry you were ill! Especially with the three little ones running around! So hard to be sick when there are people who need you. 

Katie J - how's the biking? I was digging the mileage posts (again, love the numbers, it's just me . . .) - are you back in the saddle? So to speak? ;)

Christa - how's the veggie-centered meal planning going? And the Shred? And the (hate to ask, because I know sleepless nights suck) baby's sleeping? Hope you and yours are well.

Kelly, I'm interested to hear how your experiment goes. I've gotten used to longer workouts, so I can understand not wanting to go down to short ones, but it sounds like getting 40 minutes, just broken up, might still work really well. Let us know how it goes?

Also, I saw my dad reading The Spark this weekend (he's very into anything that combines brain research and education research) and I arranged to borrow it when he's finished. I knew I'd seen it mentioned somewhere, and now I realize that it was you!

As to brain benefits that go along with exercise . . . I don't know how exactly it's connected, but I feel that when I'm disciplined in exercise, I'm more disciplined in other areas of my life, particularly in getting my writing time in. That's a bit odd, because you'd think exercise would take away the time I need in order to write, but now I'm wondering if it's not just that discipline begets discipline (which is what I thought before, and what I still think is partly true), but that exercise does help me think more clearly and creatively (which helps the story-making!).

Emily, I think it'd be cool to hear more about what you're doing in karate, esp. as it sounds like the warm-up/stretching time has gotten a lot more intense with Charles in charge (heh).

Oh, and I haven't run yet, but I still want to. It's going to take getting to bed by 10 though, and that hasn't happened for quite some time! (Let's not talk about Sunday night, when I went to bed at 3:30 a.m.!)