How we exercise in Maine during the wintah

It's not easy to stay in shape during a Maine winter. Yes, we get exercise by shoveling and trudging through the high snow. But as far as going for walks or runs or any of that other fun stuff we can do during the summer, good luck. You'll either slip on the ice and break your hip or get pneumonia because it's so cold. We exercise to stay healthy, and getting injured or sick is not healthy.

Now some people might say I'm being a wimp. Plenty of other people ski and snowshoe and find ways to stay active outdoors in the winter. Good for them. I don't like cold. It's that simple. My son is the same way. I know some parents force their kids to go outside. My mother used to lock us out of the house for hours during the winter. Let me tell you, mittens get awfully cold when they get wet and freeze over. Like having icicles on your hands.

I won't do that to my son. He's like me - he'd rather stay inside and read than go out in the snow. So we bought a treadmill, plus there are exercise routines online that he likes to do. Here's how we get our exercise during the winter:

But spring is coming, and soon we'll get outside for some exercise. And we are supposed to get a big snowstorm next week, so we'll get a lot of exercise shoveling out from that.

I've had a couple of things published in the past few weeks - a column in the Sanford News about how bad health care has gotten, and a post on Grown and Flown about my son leaving college and moving back home.

Right now I'm reading George Carlin's Last Words. I read it when it first came out, it's pretty good. I'm thinking about starting Stephen King's Dark Tower series next. I don't know, though. People seem to like it but it doesn't sound interesting to me at all. So maybe I shouldn't read it.