I told my mother today that ballet has done one thing for me: proven beyond a doubt that I have absolutely no balance.

Her response: Yeah, I know.

Oh you do, do you? Thanks, mother dear, for your kind words and loving encouragement.

Ballet

Today is Wednesday. That means yesterday was Tuesday. Do you know what Tuesday means? Ballet. And hobbling. But the hobbling isn't important now. just the ballet.

No, I am not a ballerina. Ballet and I had a brief, slightly painful relationship when I was young. Very young. As in we skipped around the gym in a big circle young. Yup, call me ballerina.

I have no talent whatsoever. I'm not even sure of my ability to touch my toes. Oh, and I definitely don't have the body shape or weight to be a ballet person. But I'm doing it.

Ballet is always very exciting. It exposes me to things I never dreamed I could do. For example, has your foot ever managed to look like a head of cauliflower? It's remarkable the resemblance between my ballet foot and a head of cauliflower. I've taken to calling it cauliflower foot.

Try this. Point your toes as hard as you can. Harder. Harder! Feel the cramp? Now, continue to try to point your foot while it is cramping. Voila! Cauliflower foot.

You know something else interesting about ballet? Not only does it induce cauliflower foot in the uninitiated, it also involves a lot of straddles and split doing, both on the ground and in the air. Nope, not joking. Guess how close I can get to the straddles and the splits. Okay, you caught me. I'm not close at all. So, while everyone else in the class is almost down flat, completely spread apart, I'm having trouble holding myself up because I'm almost not close enough to the ground to be able to hold myself up, but I know if I stop holding myself up something somewhere that should not be torn will be torn.

My favorite part of the one hour class is unquestionably the last 7 minutes when my instructor stands up and claps her hands and says it is time to do some jumping to get our heart rates up. Oh dear. If it is time to get my heart rate up then what was it that my heart was doing for the last 53 minutes? Because if it wasn't up I don't want to get it up. Ever.

18

It came to my attention some time ago (think the beginning of February) that one item on my 24/24 list wasn't going to work because I had already done it. When I first finished my 24/24 list in January, item number 18 read

Go to my first non-classical music concert.

But I've already done it. My first non-classical music concert was last July. I went to the Pulaski County fair with my dear friends Sandy and Miriam and we saw . . . somebody. A country music group. There were a couple of their songs that I really liked. Hmm, I wonder who that was. Not important. What is important is that I have done it. You can't go to your first non-classical music concert twice.

This is the new number 18.

Put together a family cookbook with all our favorite recipes.

Has been for several months actually. And, like my other 24/24 goals, I haven't made any progress. At all.

Six months is enough time to do all the things I wasn't even sure I could get done in a year, right?

Books 6-11

Don't worry, I am fully aware that I am months behind. Not gonna lie, I have never done so little reading in my life. I am heartily ashamed.

The day the neon-colored snowflakes come down from the windows is unquestionably one of the most tragic days of the year.

Maybe you're one of those people that believe brightly colored, amateur paper snowflakes only belong on the windows of those with small children and that such things should be removed from sight as soon as it can be done justifiably, i.e., as soon as the holiday season is over.

I don't live in a house with small children. The middle of May is almost too soon to take down the snowflakes. And I believe there is a nearly untapped well of happiness full of things like paper snowflakes.


It's been a couple of weeks since ours came down and I miss them.

Bored Hungry

I eat when I'm bored. I've done it for years. Got nothing better to do? Why not eat something delicious. Usually I make the delicious thing first and then eat it, but if I don't have time to make something delicious, just eating something delicious will do just fine.

Most of the time this isn't a problem. I happen to suffer from chronic over-scheduling. I can't help myself. You give me 24 hours a day, I'll pack it with enough stuff to take at least 28. It's what I do. Occasionally I'll end up with more time than I thought I would have, but I rarely spend my extra time sitting around being bored. Over-scheduling yourself like I do tends to put you behind on, well, just about everything. A little bit of extra time? It turns out to not be extra at all because I spend it getting to something I had meant to get to a while ago. Or I spend it doing the things that I love doing but don't leave much time for

There are, however, a couple of occasions when boredom is expected:

1.  I don't want to do what I need to do, but I won't let myself do any of the things that I would like to do because I really need to do what I need to do, so I end up doing nothing. Yay for eating!
2.  I'm required to be doing something or to be somewhere, but there isn't much there for me to do so I'm stuck with nothing to do really but I have to stay there anyway. (Think public school.) Yay for eating!

Recently at work there hasn't always been quite enough work to keep us all busy.

me at work = me being bored
me being bored = me being hungry

But not real hungry; just bored hungry. Bad news, folks. Bad news.

Today was a boring day. I spent most of it wanting to snack. Love snacking. But I resisted the urge. I did some research instead. I found a handy, dandy list of things to do instead of eating. Several of them involved being active, but there were plenty that didn't. Needless to say, my favorite ones didn't.

Here are some of the gems:
•  Scream!
•  Listen to your inner conversations
•  Write in your awesomeness journal
•  Send a birthday card
•  Plan a romantic encounter

If you start receiving random birthday cards not on your birthday, are worrying about my sanity because I am either screaming my head of or concentrating very hard on something that nobody seems to be able to hear, or catch me making eyes at various, random strangers, everything is fine. I'm just busy working through my bored hunger.

PS Does anyone know where I might acquire an awesomeness journal? This is definitely something I want in on.

Five Sure Signs that Something's Up

1.  My room looks like a disaster area. (No really, it gets that bad.)
2.  I stop pretending to be the kind of girl that wears make-up.
3.  Unnecessary wardrobe purchases increase significantly.
4.  Spacing out becomes the way I live my life.
5.  There's no time for me kind of things, like reading books and writing in my journal or on my blog.

Bet you wanna know what's been up, huh? Life. You know how it just gets ya when you're not expecting it? Consider me got.

But don't you worry. I got life back. Obviously. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here.

Take that life.