I got an e-mail Tuesday from a friend in El Paso who had been without water and electricity for a week. It has been so long since my last post that perhaps you thought I was one of those casualties of the extraordinarily cold weather. No. We have power, we have water, we have food. We’ve just been staying close to home and wearing lots of extra clothes, trying to do our part to avoid more rolling blackouts and stay warm at the same time.

Texans are smart, independent, and tough. We have the best economy of any state during this recession. We brag a little, but we have a lot to brag about. However, I will admit that we are wimps about winter.

A half inch of snow paralyzes a city. Below freezing temperatures lead to school closures. We tell horror stories about walking our dogs in 16 degree weather. My daughter said that she braved the icy streets to go to Wal-Mart to get bottled water and fresh fruit. People were stocking up on frozen dinners to eat in case there was another power outage. Laughter is good for you, so I’m glad the rest of the country is getting a good laugh at the expense of us Texans.

Even our wildlife is soft and weak. My husband has been refilling the bird feeders every day, and the deer are hanging around waiting for me to put out leftover scraps. We look out the windows of our warm living room and remind them of their cousins in Colorado.

I’m just as wimpy as the rest. I have zero desire to go outside and walk or run. Taking the dog to the top of the hill and back makes my hands hurt. I don’t want to go to the fitness center either. There is an air conditioner for hot summer days, but no heat. Yikes, those metal weights are cold in a freezing room. I get to feeling all comfortable in my sweater and jeans, and I dread changing into workout clothes and exposing my skin to the 68 degree air in the house.

To my shame, I have taken several days off from exercise. But I have enjoyed something new in the way of exercise. When DD was home at Christmas we went to a couple of used DVD stores looking for movies. What we found was an amazing collection of discarded exercise DVDs. They must not sell well, because we bought several for next to nothing.

I have two kick boxing workouts that I really like. I actually got warm enough doing one of those DVDs to get down to a T-shirt! I have an aerobic walking DVD that gets my heart pumping. There is a fat burning DVD from the 80s that I can hardly do because I’m laughing so hard at the clothes they are wearing.

I’m a Texan. I’d rather be outside running or swimming or hauling rocks. But when the temperature doesn’t get above freezing for two days, an exercise DVD is a good alternative. One more thing. If you come to Texas, I wouldn’t say the words “global warming.”