Who Needs Christmas When There's Laundry Day?

Rotating laundry today brought about so much excitement from the girls you'd have thought it was Christmas. Of course it was their laundry that was coming out of the dryer, but with practically everything that came out there were shouts of excitement - "OOOOh Pink Blankie!" "Oooh Monkey Jammies!" "My Doggie Shirt!" And so on. It was pretty funny.

Then I realized it wasn't too long ago that  I, too, was excited about laundry. See, there are lots of things that can motivate me to do laundry. A lack of clean unmentionables, for one. But laundry is pretty much one of the things I hate most about keeping house. It's up there with cleaning toilets. A necessary evil.

However, a few months ago we had to get a new washer/dryer set. It's a long story how that came about, but needless to say we had been convinced that the only way to go was with a spiffy High Efficiency kind. The day the set arrived you'd have thought it was Christmas for me. I couldn't wait to do a load of laundry. The fact that there were about 15 loads waiting could have had something to do with it, but I now had a washing machine that sung to me. Literally. It's really the bell to alert you when a load is finished, but I suppose it's the manufacturer's way of helping us whistle while we work.

Fast forward to now: The joy of laundry day was fleeting and the novelty is completely gone. Although, I am happy to have a washer/dryer that not only works but even saves us money. And I do smile a little when I hear it singing.

Mmmm.....Butter.

Julia Child once said "one can never have too much butter." At least that's what she said in the movie "Julie and Julia". We all know how accurate movies are, so it's got to be so.

Apparently someone in my family agrees and would like to eat it by the cube. I thought it was the little one, but the big one fessed up. Not Otterpop. The other big one.

Anyone need a monster to come visit for a while? May subsist on a diet of butter and not a whole lot else.

Tripping Over My Own Feet

I'm a bit of a klutz. I can't tell you how many times I've been walking along and out of the blue stumbled. Not even over a crack in the sidewalk, which would be pretty bad in and of itself. Nope, just my feet.

Not only do I trip over myself, any sport involving balls threatens to give me a coronary. A debilitating lack of eye-hand-coordination - plus the fact that I'm a klutz that trips over my feet - has cursed me since the time I was a girl. I still have nightmares of volleyball in 7th grade P.E. I eventually got over the fear of my feet and proudly call myself a runner. I can't say the same for balls. Overcoming my fear of them, that is.

It's kind of the same with yoga. When I started practicing yoga while in collage I fell over many, many times in the balance postures.  I hated them, yet I found an inner drive that pushed me through. Soon they became my favorite poses. In fact, (tooting my own horn here) I am often one of only a few people in a yoga class that go deep into those postures.

All this has given me inspiration for the new year. Those pesky resolutions and all. You see, there's been a bit of balance lacking in my life lately. The figurative kind. I think I've already established the physical kind has been lacking for years. Most of 2010 was out of whack. I was either in manic mode making sure my life was close to perfect, or a slug. Hence the reason The Blog was neglected for pretty much all of December. Maybe that was just the holidays that got to me. It's gotta be the holidays because I was definitely out of slug mode my then.

I know I'm certainly not the only person that struggles with the concept of a balanced, yet fulfilled life. After all, "Balance" seems to be the catch phrase of our generation. The ideal that pretty much no one can attain. It's kind of annoying. Yet as with all things cliché there is more than a grain of truth.

It seems that we are expected to be perfect in all we do. At least that's what we tell ourselves. Stop me if you've heard this. Yeah, thought so. I won't elaborate. I'll just say that as hard as I try to prevent external forces from derailing my personal progression and happiness it's pretty much impossible.

If running and yoga have taught me anything it's that it takes work to get better, and that you can only be as good as You can be. There will always be someone better and worse than you. So I've made resolutions. Most of which really aren't all that new. All of which will hopefully guide me to the happy equilibrium of self satisfaction with the desire to do and be more.

I have a sneaky suspicion that my list is a bit on the aggressive side which is what tends to get me in this situation anyway. At least it is being viewed with a fresh set of eyes. And that gives me hope.

So heres to a new year and new goals. And no. Overcoming my fear of a ball is not on that list.