Ignoring Your Inner Couch Potato

Remember thee days when coming in after dark meant the clocks were well past 9:00?  Late run to the grocery store or an extra walk in the neighborhood was just regular parts of the evening  Now I find myself diving to and leaving work in the dark, and once home, I kind of would like to put my feet up, and make peace with the couch.  Really though, the earlier darkness should provide more incentive to ignore the inner couch potato within me.  Here some strategies and activities I came up with.

• Schedule moonlight walks with walking buddies.  I have the lunar calendar to work into my own schedule and the brightness of the moon creates terrific ambiance to grab that gal pal that unfortunately I see less of once fall comes to an end, and get at lest a couple uninterrupted chats going
• Seek out author readings.  The Twin Cities had some good ones recently, held in a couple coffee houses in partnership with a next door independent book store.  Besides some good Q&A, the java jolt should keep me energized for the drive home and to read a few chapters. I have enjoyed these in the past and don't know why I let regular readings escape my planner.
• Try a community education course.  I am very fortunate to live in a community that has low cost  education programs, taught by local experts on every thing from computers, to personal finance, to cooking and home organizing. I'll give the catalog a look this weekend and see what peaks my interest.
• Don't waste the weekend days doing housework.  If I knock off a few things from the chore list during the work week, once I am home and settled in the house for the night, that should save prime daylight hours on weekends
• This one is bold for me.  Invite people over for dinner or drinks and h'ordeuvres, on a week night.  This would motivate me to do the previous item, cleaning during the week, and since it will be dark anyway, I'll be less self aware of lurking things in corners.
• Window shop and browse at malls and downtown.  This could be dangerous though if I move beyond window shopping.

How do you squash that wanting to just cocoon every evening?  What ideas would you share to  keep a winter calendar full?