Cookies:
I don't like cookies. I'm not trying to say, "Look at me, I'm so awesome I can resist all temptation, all I'm interested in is salad." I love cheesecake, all fruit pies, fruit crisp, Popsicles, cake dripping with berry drizzle, ice cream, chocolate, mousse, tarts, custards, puddings. When I say I love them, what I mean is I love them and make them. One year for father's day I gave Paul a Williams-Sonoma Desserts cookbook and said for the next year every week I would make a dessert from it of his choosing. See, I'm not a sugar snob. I love it. I eat. I just really don't like cookies, which I realize makes me sound like a robot. Is it human not to like cookies? Well, regardless, I've made cookies about three times the last 7 years of our marriage. And I've made at least 30 pies, but probably more like 50. (One year I made 8 different pies for Thanksgiving!) I had an epiphany: A childhood without cookies is a sad childhood. I decided that if I want to succeed at being the best mom ever, I probably need to be able to make the best chocolate chip cookies ever.
Those three times I made cookies, they turned out badly. Really. How can I make intricately difficult desserts and mess up cookies? I don't know. Anyway, I'm on a mission to perfect my skills of cookie making. If you have an excellent recipe for cookies that you think would make childhood better, please email to me or leave comment. I'm on a quest. I will make your recipe.
Running:
In college I learned something in my anatomy class that was very valuable to my weak-trunk-muscle body, and only increased my love of running.
When you breathe you use your diaphragm to get air in and out of your lungs. However, when you work really hard, you need to get more oxygen into your lungs and more CO2 out, so your body recruits the muscles in between your ribs and your abdominal muscles to increase your lung fillage and emptyage. When you push that CO2 out really hard, your ab muscles constrict as tightly as they can; your ab muscles that connect to your pubic bone and the bottom of your ribs. What I'm saying is when you breathe hard that muscle is trying to pull as short as it can, and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And SISTAS, that is what I want, a straight line! So from this knowledge I decided that the best way for me to get a flat stomach was to do an exercise where I could keep my breathing hard an even. Sounds like running. And when I run I try to go a pace that will keep me breathing hard for 20 to 30 minutes. 
I go for increasing my running speed and not increasing my distance or time running. It really has helped. I am coming from a pretty round place, so any improvement is fairly noticeable, and my balloon belly fluctuates over every little thing, even dinner. Sorry. It's so gross, I know.
Ab Ripper X helps too.
I went to the gym today. It's been too long and it felt like dance music pumping through my blood. I was really on a treadmill watching HGTV, but it still felt great. 5 miles at 9 minute mile pace. My goal is six miles, three times a week, at a 8 min. mile pace. My abs will have to look better right? And my arteries will be so awesome I'll live forever.
It was better than the picture suggests. We'll be listening to the next 2 in the series as well.