Coordinating my workouts with my dog's

I'm really good at multitasking. After 12 years of waitressing and bartending, I should be. I can check my email while doing the laundry, organizing a grocery list, prepping dinner, keeping an eye on my very active chocolate lab puppy, and probably still carry on a conversation with Andy. Impressive, I know, but what isn't that impressive is that exercising tends to end up at the bottom of my "to do" list. Not only is that not impressive, but slightly embarrassing being that I have made Pilates instruction my career. It's crazy, I would never dream of not walking my dog or hiking with him everyday, but my workouts always take a back burner. Hmmm.

So, I have started coordinating my workouts with my dog's. There is a walk/hike that we have done together for the past 3 days that takes about an hour. It is straight uphill in our neighborhood (which means straight up a mountain) to a trail that takes us down to a park. Then back up a steep, quad burning hill to a baseball diamond where we play soccer in the snow. I throw and kick the ball to Paisley, he blocks it or catches it in his mouth and brings it back to me. We chase eachother around, dribbling the ball and actually have a lot of fun. After we both get tired out, we hike back down the hill and walk home. It takes about an hour, and I feel myself getting stronger everyday. I definitely need to do more than just that to feel really fit, but it's a good cardio workout and a glute and quad burner.

I am learning that the busier I get, the more I need to multi-task...especially when it comes to things that get put on the back burner (exercising, bookkeeping, laundry, returning phone calls, etc.). I want to know how people with kids do it. How do you work full-time, take care of a household, raise children and still manage to have time for yourself? I'm not that good at multitasking....yet. In the meantime, I'll stick to doing lunges while waiting for my water to boil.