Aspirations

aspiration, noun: a strong desire to achieve something high or great

I am the kind of person who has to have something to strive for.  Before I had kids, my life was pretty focused on completing my college degree.  That is on hold for awhile, until the kids are in school full time.

Goals and aspirations were on the back burner for awhile while my babies were babies.  Feeding them, changing diapers, and keeping the house reasonably clean consumed my thoughts 24/7.  Now that they are growing up (*sniff*), I have decided to bring back some modest goals into my life.  I am going to start working out again, and I am going to get this house in order.

I already have a gym membership that I was seriously considering canceling, but I found a new location with a wonderful daycare center that my son seems to love.  The first location we went to was just not good; my son would scream for 10 minutes straight until they called me away from exercising.  I never got anything done.  Today he stayed in the daycare center for almost two hours while I exercised, took a nice long shower, and blow-dried my hair.  You might not understand what a luxury it is for me to blow-dry my hair without being interrupted, but it's pretty up there these days.  My workout plan includes going to the gym 3-5 times a week, sometimes to attend classes and sometimes to workout on my own.  That will mostly depend on when I can get there and what is available.  Last night I tried to go to this class called "Soul Grooves," which I thought was dancing, but which turned out to be belly dancing.  I just could not get into it!  There was a 70-year-old woman there who was hilarious to watch, both because she was so into it and because she could barely move her hips.  I had to leave after 20 minutes because I was so frustrated with the routine.  I just wanted to jump around and dance, not wiggle my hips leftrightleftrightleftright over and over!

Part of the problem with keeping the house as clean as I would like it is not remembering/realizing what needs to be cleaned at any given time.  It's kind of an out of sight, out of mind issue.  So I made a list of everything that needs to be cleaned on a weekly and daily basis and have been trying to stick to that.  It's been immensely helpful and the house looks much better!

What are your aspirations, big or small?

Bad Joke of the Day

I have an on-again/off-again relationship with my television.

Green Blog Post

My not quite two-year-old son loves the word "green."

For example:

"Which book do you want to read?"
"Green book."

Or:
"What color is the flamingo?"
"Green."

Or:

"What do you want for breakfast?"
"Cereal."
"What kind of cereal?"
"Green cereal."

Pretty Shoes!

I have a month to learn how to walk in these without falling on my face. Wish me luck!

ETA:  My little boy just picked these up and said, "Wow, nice!  Wow, nice!"

Sisyphean

Laundry in my house is a Sisyphean task.

Sisyphus, noun: a legendary king of Corinth condemned eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top

Sisyphean, adjective: of, relating to, or suggestive of the labors of Sisyphus.

Mighty Girl

Mighty Girl is a blog that is new to me within the past couple of months.

Why I like Mighty Girl:

1. Mighty Life List:  This blogger has set some lofty goals for herself.  She is very adventurous and fun loving.  There are some things on her list that I would not even want to do, and some that sound like they would be amazing.  She has inspired me to make my own life list, but it's pretty short.  One day I plan to share my list here as well.
2. Camp Mighty:  Attending Camp Mighty is the first thing I put on my life list.  To quote from the blog, "Camp Mighty is a weekend structured around the idea of getting good at life.  We ask 150 attendees to draw up Life Lists - a list of about 100 things you'd like to do in your lifetime.  The retreat gives attendees space to think about what they want to accomplish, and a team to help them get there." One of these years, I am going to attend!
3. Browsing Mighty Girl feels to me kind of like shopping at an antique store. The more you dig, the more interesting and whimsical things you are likely to find.

Tomato Nation

Tomato Nation is probably my favorite blog of all time.  I have been reading this web site for over ten years.

Why I like Tomato Nation:

1. The Vine:  Hilarious and spot on advice.  Sars is not afraid to tell it like it is. (One of the funniest Vine letters ever is the second letter at this link:   http://tomatonation.com/vine/the-vine-september-19-2001/)
2. Grammar:  I have a good sense of grammar because I read a lot, but my grammar knowledge is amateur in comparison to hers.
3. The Nation:  The other people who read and/or comment on Tomato Nation are intelligent and give well considered responses.  It's one of the few sites where I truly look forward to reading the comments in addition to the blog posts.
4. Charity:  Every year, Tomato Nation hosts a charity event to raise money for DonorsChoose.org.  If you haven't heard of this charity, they raise money to buy school supplies for classrooms across the country.  In addition to helping our underfunded education system, contributors work toward a goal set by Sars.  If that goal is achieved, antics ensue.  The first year of the contest, she shaved her head!

So head on over and check out Tomato Nation.

Blogs

I've decided that I need to return to blogging.  To inspire myself, I am going to start by featuring a different blog every day.

Scratch that, I am just going to complain about my children instead.  I can't even sit here and type a complete sentence without being interrupted.  Oh well, maybe I'll do an actual blog post tomorrow!

This post was brought to you by the letter "L," as in "The darn letter 'L' on my keyboard is stubbornly refusing to work today!"