It’s 28° outside, and I just finished walking a dog, and I just completed 30 minutes outdoors for the day.

It’s easy to cocoon in a Midwestern winter. I drive to work. I drive home. I eat, read, and sit in front of the fire. My father picks up the dog poop before I can even get to it. There’s no yardwork to accomplish. I open the front door in my LL Bean house slides (featuring goats) to get my mail, and slam it shut before the wind can catch the storm door. But this month, as my challenge, I spent 30 minutes outside every day.

It wasn’t that easy. I was sick for the first week of the month, but I bundled up and sat on a lawn chair on my deck, face to the low winter sun. Later in the month it got easier, walking my dog, and my charges. These last two weeks I’ve been dogsitting, and spending lots of time snuffling through marshes with a big, drooling monster. Even in the rain, she needs a good long walk. There are so many things to smell.

Tomorrow is the last month of the year, and my challenge is to finish right where I started, with a month of yoga.