Confessions of a chronic jumper

(Pre-script: Before reading this post, please go down to the playlist, click on the song "Not Your Average Girl," by India Arie, then come back and read this post. I'll wait...)

(...still waiting...)

I became a jumping jacker* probably about 12 years ago, when this thought occurred to me: "I wonder if I can do 1,000 jumping jacks." So I proceeded to do 1,000 jumping jacks...and the rest, as they say, is history! Ever since then, I have proceeded to jump thousands and thousands of jumping jacks whenever it has occurred to me that I should kick my own butt into gear. I have done as many as 5,111 jumping jacks at a time, interrupted here and there to do things like cook dinner or in some other way take care of the peeps. As long as I keep the mental tally in my head, it's all good. Sometimes I don't count, I just do jumping jacks during commercial breaks, or until a hockey period is over. I find them to be a good alternative to couch sitting while watching a TV show or movie. The kids usually will do a few with me, and they laugh...and then I laugh, because uncoordinated children trying to do jumping jacks is very funny. Derek does not like my jumping, because he says it shakes the whole house. He had no idea just how quirky I was when he married me.

-XOXO,

*yes, I invented the term "jumping jacker," but I am not possessive of it; feel free to use it if you feel it accurately describes yourself or someone you love.

And yes, I am aware that "Jacker" has never been an actual word before. You will not find it in the dictionary, or win a game of Scrabble with it...unless you are playing Scrabble with someone who will let you get away with playing a made up word you read on a blog.