Years ago a fan sent me an e-mail complaining about the name of one of the characters in the first Walker Family book, Hour of the Hunter.  The character’s name was Fat Crack Ortiz, and my correspondent wanted to know why I gave him that name.  I was a bit perplexed about how to respond, I mean where did he think nick names come from?

My response was short and to the point:  “Think of any plumber you’ve ever met.”

His reply?  “Too much information.”

You may want to file this blog post in the same spot.

We went to see our doctor a couple of weeks ago and he gave us what my mother would have called “a severe talking to.”  In a word—get off your butts!  He suggested we get a trainer or join a gym.  Nope, that’s not gonna happen.  Ever.  I am not and will never be a gym rat.  And I am not and never will be an athlete.  In Janis Ian’s song, At Seventeen, the words that spoke to me the most were these:  “For those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball.”

I was tall but clumsy.  My near-sightedness compounded by a severe astigmatism meant I had zero depth perception.  (That changed twenty years ago now, thanks to Lasik.)  But my being out there on any kind of playing field is a totally foreign idea.  Totally!

This time our doctor had a surprising ally—our new iPhone 6s. Built into the phone is an app called Health.  It has any number of options that will let you see how you’re doing in terms of exercise—number of steps taken, number of miles walked or run, number of flights of stairs climbed.

In order to make it work, you have to input your personal details.  I did not follow the directions properly.  I’m six-one.  That’s what I put into my profile—6.1 which the phone translated into 6.1 inches.  That first day I walked a lot.  Bill and I took the same number of steps, but my distance barely registered.  No wonder.  The phone thought I was Bella’s size.  When Bill entered my inches properly, the distance statistics began to make better sense.

The next morning, when I came down the hall to start the coffee what did I see at the end of the hallway?  A stairway.  The stairway to upstairs, a place we seldom go.  We used the upstairs during the renovations after our great flood, but since then?  Not so much.  So I looked at those stairs and thought about them.  Then while the coffee was brewing, I went back to the stairs and climbed up—well dragged myself up.  And since the coffee machine was still brewing when I came down, I did it again.  Quite a bit slower the second time, but when I checked on my dashboard, there it was—2 Flights Climbed. YAY!

That first day, I made four flights and a little over a mile, and I’ve been gradually upping those numbers, walking in the back yard or the front driveway.  The front driveway lap amounts to just over 100 steps.  I can walk away from my writing chair, do twenty laps in about twenty minutes, and voila, I have 2000 plus steps—and a down payment on that day’s mileage.  Without ever leaving home or wearing spandex.

When I was in the insurance business, my Agency Manager, Gilbert F. Lawson, often repeated the following words: “Know the score; keep the score; report the score.  The score will improve.”  That’s why, when I’m writing, I always count the words.  I need to know if I’m making forward progress

The same thing is true for this.  I’ve just checked my score, and my monthly averages are as follows:  Distance daily: 2.37 miles; Steps daily: 4,636; Flights climbed daily: 13. But that’s the average.  Yesterday I clocked in at 9,000 steps, 5 miles, and 20 flights climbed.

So that’s a big change for me.  And it’s a big change for Bill, too.  His legs are shorter than mine, so if he takes the same number of steps, they don’t add up to the same mileage.

My ultimate goal is to walk 5 miles a day, and the last two days I’ve done that.

So we’re doing it.  We’re doing it at home.  We don’t have a Stair-master, but we do have stairs.  Every time I start the coffee machine, that’s where I go—up and down the stairs.  As for having to make pit stops?  Those happen in one of the upstairs bathrooms, too, not here on the ground floor.

We’re also tackling this problem together and we’re doing it rain or shine, Bella included.  By the way, she really is 6.1 inches tall.

Now, once this blog is in the can it’s time for a new cup of coffee and at least two flights of stairs.

If I can do it, so can you.

And remember, keeping track of whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish really does make a huge difference.