I may not have any money but at least my butt will look better in jeans.

It’s been at least a week since I’ve had to resist cookie temptation at an office birthday party. Nearly a week since I’ve been held captive at a desk, chained to my chair all day. A week tomorrow, actually. A week since it was too cold to go outside during lunch so I stayed in AGAIN at my desk or reading in a chair tucked away in a corner.

I hate hate hate not having a job, not having a paycheck.

But y’all? I’m so busy.

Granted, I haven’t relaxed hardly at all this week. I haven’t truly relaxed since Chris and I went out of town for a few days and there was wine (see that picture?) and Game of Thrones and all of the napping (who knew I was so tired?).

But even though I’m hanging around the house, I find my days full.

Perhaps they are so full because idle time scares me a bit – I don’t want to think about things. And so to avoid stress I make these lists of things for myself to do.

Laundry, menu planning, grocery shopping, shovel snow, touch up paint on a mirror.

Chris mentioned running a 10K this spring and so the past few days, I’ve started to incorporate some running on the treadmill into my routine. I forgot how much running makes my muscles sing. It makes me absolutely miserable while I’m doing it, for sure, but I feel the fatigue in my legs – nearly every muscle, I feel it in my abs. I’d forgotten. And with these hours stretching long each day, I have time to spend a bit more quality time with my treadmill than I might have before.

It feels…good.

The past few months, and this past month in particular, have been brutal for me, stress wise. And it’s manifesting itself in weird stupid ways, one of them being my inability to resist an office birthday party cookie and my decreased likelihood of getting my ass out of my cubicle for 8.5 hours a day and so…

This movement, this productivity, feels like something even if that something isn’t going to keep a roof over my head.

I was able to run an extra tenth of a mile in my allotted time today – just a tiny bit more than Saturday but still, it’s progress.

The exertion feels good. The muscle ache feels good.

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I hope that this period of unemployment is short lived. Interviews are lined up and I keep applying for work (OY DO I KEEP APPLYING FOR WORK). I hope that something comes of all of this soon.

And I hope when it does, I remember how good it feels to move like this, to challenge myself.

I hope I get to the point where I can actually run 10K.

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Silver linings. How do they work? But that’s what I’m calling this, these fabulously sore muscles. A silver lining. Because otherwise, I dunno, I’d have to focus on that whole not having a job thing.