And in the Formal Wear Competition ...

So, my show is on Thursday.

On Monday, I was informed that my official costume for the show should be an "evening gown." Because, you know, I have a bunch of those lying around.

I mean, the deal is that the show is a salute to Tony winners, and the other emcee and I are supposed to be like presenters on an awards show. You know, like the presenters who are mega-celebs and have stylists who dress them and jewelry companies that loan them stuff?

Fortunately I have my bridesmaid dress from Gracie's wedding, as seen in this post. Finally an opportunity to reuse a bridesmaid dress! And it's strapless and satin and puffy, so it sort of looks like something an awards show presenter might wear. You know, if awards shows presenters shopped at David's Bridal.

Problem #1: Despite the fact that the wedding was only 9 months ago, the dress is already too small for me. I hear celebrities coat their skin in hemorrhoid cream and wrap themselves in cellophane to sweat out the water weight before the big awards shows. Seeing as I need my body to have some water content in order to perform the basic functions of everyday life, it was 0ff to Target to buy off-brand Spanx.

Problem #2: I wanted to add the detachable straps that came with the dress, but I think I threw them away. This would be another example of when it would be useful to be a hoarder. So I went to Joann's to buy some ribbon to make straps, and, under the harsh stage lights, it will probably be glaringly obvious that the ribbon doesn't match the dress perfectly.
Problem #2a: I can't sew. So I bought some stick-on Velcro dots to attach the straps. And,
believe me, that top is so tight nothing's gonna slip out.

Problem #3: Formal dresses look better with high-heeled shoes, but due to comfort and fear-of-tripping issues, I want to wear flats. So I'm wearing some bronze ballet flats I already have in my closet.

Problem #4: How should I wear my hair so it looks appropriately fancy with a formal dress? It's not like I want to go to the salon and pay all kinds of money to have my hair done, especially because I already spent that money on restrictive undergarments. So I found this thing that's sort of like a Bump-It, except when I tried it on I looked so stupid. I think because I didn't tease my hair like the instructions said. What does teasing even mean? Isn't that, like, intentionally introducing tangles into your hair? Why would anybody do that? And can I do it with the little baby comb that came in Nathan's "welcome baby" kit? Because that's the only comb I have. Oh and also, I had to buy hair spray, and I don't think I've used hair spray since the big bangs era of the late 1980s. I scoured the hairspray aisle, and they have some fancy kinds with names like Cray-Z-High that cost like $13.99. I went with old-school Aqua Net for $1.94. It's a tribute to the musical Hairspray, which is featured in the show.

Problem #5: I have no accessories to go with formal wear. So often I'm in stores, seeing big dangling, sparkly earrings and thinking, you know, those just wouldn't really go with my everyday attire. And then today I was in Target (which, surprisingly, is not the place to shop for formal wear), and I couldn't find any earrings that even remotely resembled a wall of diamonds or a chandelier. And I finally found an earring/necklace set, a sort of nice, understated cubic zirconia ensemble, and it was effing $29.99. But by then I was so frazzled, it was like Christmas shopping on Dec. 23. I don't care what it costs, I just want to buy it and get out of here.

Problem #6: I must have been absent the day they taught makeup application at Girl School. Like, eyeliner? Forget it. And what are all these other weird products like eyeshadow base and cheek highlighter? Plus today I thought, for approximately the 15th time in my life, that it might be fun to try to wear red lipstick. Here is the path that all red lipstick takes in my life: Target shelf --> Target cart --> Target bag --> my lips --> garbage. I always want to get that cute, just-licked-a-cherry-popsicle look from red lipstick. Instead I just look like a crazy person.

I think I may have spent more time, money, and effort preparing for this show than I did for my own wedding.

Oh and I'm told for this show, there is going to be an actual red carpet. I'm pretty sure the commentators from E! are going to be there. And I'm sure I'm going to get interviewed during the pre-show:

Ryan Seacrest: Coming down the carpet now, we have Shannon, one of the emcees of tonight's show!
Me: Hey Ryan, I have wanted to punch you ever since you were a DJ back in L.A. on STAR 98.7.
RS: Hahahaha, so are you excited about tonight?
Me: No, seriously, I remember this one particularly disgusting story you told about eating cottage cheese in the men's room.
RS: So, Shannon, who are you wearing tonight?
Me: This is David's Bridal, plus shoes I bought from Target to go with a Halloween costume I wore in 2009. You know, Ryan, the contrast between your teeth and your skin color is disturbingly shocking.
RS: Are you wearing a Bump-It?
Me: No, NO, Ryan, I'll have you know this is a Con-Air Hi-Styles.
RS: Judging from that lipstick, I'll guess you're on a high dose of crazy-person medication.
Me: 30 mg of Prozac, plus 7.5 mg of Deplin. I picked up the prescriptions at Target when I bought the generic Spanx I'm wearing.
RS: You know, that dress doesn't really fit, and those earrings don't look like they cost more than the average American house.
Me: True on both counts.
RS: Well, have a great night!
Me: You're really short.

Although if I'm nicer to Ryan, maybe he'll introduce me to Joel McHale.

Virtual Coffee/The Happiness Project

Hey you guys! Today I am going to do two blog carnivals in one post. As you'll recall from last week, Amy from Lucky Number 13 hosts Virtual Coffee every Tuesday. It's a carnival where you just kind of talk about random things that you might talk about over coffee with a friend.

I'm also doing a Tuesday carnival hosted by Leigh vs. Laundry, which is called The Happiness Project. For this carnival, you post a photo of something that makes you happy. And there is a badge for it:

So, my picture for The Happiness Project is this one:

It's the exuberant Goldfish cracker!

Now, for reference, here is a (less blurry) photo of a regular Goldfish cracker, taken from the Internet:

Notice how the normal Goldfish cracker has that sort of lackluster, close-mouthed half-smile? Whereas my Goldfish is all Hell yeah, life, bring it on!

Or else that Goldfish cracker is saying, "Hey Shannon, please stop eating me and my friends." Because seriously, I bought one of those big cartons of Goldfish, you know, because "my kid" likes them, and isn't buying in bulk more economical? And then my kid ate maybe a small bowlful, dumped another bowlful on my carpet, and that was it. I ate all the rest.

You know the sound of that big carton opening? That quiet shhhh tearing sound? That is the sound of a bad idea.

Also bad ideas: gummi bears, soft pretzels, Trader Joe's letter cookies, homemade bread.

Anyway, since you came here for coffee, I will tell you that this will be the first of many cups of coffee I'll be having today. As I mentioned Sunday, this week I have rehearsals Monday through Wednesday nights, two shows Thursday, and one show Friday. I kind of enjoy feeling like I'm the master of the double-life. Like, Midwest Suburban Housewife Schlub by Day, Stage Star by Night. (I know, I am so lame.) But I am also The Exhausted Person All the Time. I wish I could be one of those energetic, perky people who can just go and go and go. But I expend a lot of energy worrying about things that probably won't happen, so I'm pretty tired by about dinnertime every day.

So I'm relying on coffee to get me through the week. And in my bio for the show, I had to list people who I wanted to thank. Of course I listed my family and friends, but I probably should have also included a shout-out to my BFF Keurig, without whom my performance wouldn't be possible. I love you, K.

So, can I tell you something about the show? It includes the song "Tomorrow" from Annie, which is my favorite musical. And there is this little girl singing it, and she doesn't really know the words, and the show is in three days, and I told the director I'd be happy to put on a red curly wig and sing it.

She laughed.

I wasn't actually joking.

I added that I dressed up as Annie for Halloween when I was four, and that was the year I trick-or-treated for UNICEF, and I saw the Annie movie at the drive-in ... yadda, yadda, yadda ... I'm a crazy person and I'm never gonna get to sing that song.

Oh well, it's better that I don't sing anything, because as it is I am so, so nervous about this show. (Also, minor technicality, but I can.not.sing.) I feel like I sound so funny in my head, and then in real life I rush the lines and sound a total dork. And I don't have to memorize all the lines, but I don't want to be staring down at my notecards the whole time, except when I try to memorize them I get all flustered and then I sound like an idiot.

And yes, I'm a little bit fishing for compliments here.

Goldfishing for compliments.

See how this post comes full-circle?

Weekend Update

Saturday I woke up In A Mood. It just seems like we haven't seen the sun in ever so long, although I think it did make a brief appearance sometime last week. But a few days in a row without sun? That's not normal. That messes with you.

In attempt to boost my mood, I went to the gym to swim. Remember my resolution to swim three times a week? It's going well, thanks for asking.

Except when I got to the pool I had to wait 15 minutes to swim because a kid threw up in the pool during swim lessons and they had to put some kind of disinfectant in the water. I just thought you'd like to know that.

So, I swam 2,300 yards, which is good because this week I added 100 yards each time I went. I thought you'd like to know that, too.

And then I went home and I did just the best thing. I took a nap. And it was like, my kid was watching a movie and I didn't even fully confirm with my husband that he was watching the kid while I took a nap. And really it was only kind of a half-asleep nap, because at some point the kid came in and I turned on a DVD of that effing Caillou. But afterward I was well-rested, which was a good thing because we had plans to leave the house after 4 p.m.

It was my official birthday dinner! But on the way we went to the mall. I'm not used to the mall playground on Saturdays, but it is like the biggest clusterf*ck of insanity you have ever seen. Approximately 75 little screaming balls of pent-up energy, running and climbing in some kind of chaotic swarm. That playground is good birth control, which is probably why they put the Claire's accessories right next to it, so all the little tweens and teens can see their futures if they don't use protection. (Although strangely on the other side of the playground there's a Motherhood Maternity, so it's too late for those poor people.)

So, after the mall we tried to go to dinner at this one brewery place. But they said the wait was 35-45 minutes. I thought we should wait, but Bill said there was no way Nathan would make it. So we made our way south, stopping at three other restaurants, all of which had waits ranging from 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes. I thought people were dining out less often. Who are all these people?

Anyway, I finally decided we would go for take-out Mexican at this place with the extremely gringo-ified name of Buenas Nachos. (Although, help me out, Spanish-speaking people. Shouldn't it be Buenos Nachos, with an o? I guess maybe they did that because you would say Buenas Noches, with an a?) Anyway, despite the name, it's actually one of the more authentic Mexican food places in the area.

Also by then I realized we would have been seated at the original place had we just stayed there, so I made my husband admit I was right. That was birthday present enough right there.

But, good dinner at Buenas Nachos, even though I'm not so sure it was una noche buena overall.

Sunday I woke up rarin' to go. I was like, Bring it on, household chores! And first I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill. And I kicked that treadmill's ass, wherever a treadmill's ass may be.

Unfortunately it was one of the two Sundays a year when my husband has to go downtown to attend the graduation for the law school where he teaches. So I was on my own with the kid, which was a problem because I had to make a trip to (bum, bum, bum!) the grocery store.

I don't know what it is that makes me hate the grocery store with an all-consuming, burning passion. I like shopping. I like food. But shopping for food is like the most unpleasant chore ever. I hate the stupid meal-planning and list-making. I hate having to make room for the groceries by throwing out stuff I spent good money on at the grocery store the previous week. I hate making all the decisions as to what is most healthful/least expensive. I hate the line and the carrying bags in the house and the putting away, oh God the putting away.

And it's like a gazillion times worse with the kid. Never, not once, has my child been in a phase of his life where he was pleasant at the grocery store. The following is a run-down of my kid's pain-in-the-ass grocery store phases:

• The Crying Phase (birth to 1 year)
• The Climbing Out of the Cart Phase (1-2 years)
• The Fine-You-Can-Just-Walk/Knocking Over Everything on the Shelves Phase (2-3 years), and I swear during this phase on two separate occasions the child knocked over and broke some large, expensive bottle of liquor, and I was so frustrated/embarrassed it was all I could do not to lick the spilled contents off the floor
• The Disappearing Phase (3-3.5 years), which included the time I was searching for him frantically and another customer told me he had gone out the door and was (gulp) heading for the parking lot (yeah, that was a real Mother of the Year moment there)
• The Begging for Everything Phase (3.5-15? years), and yes, I know there are probably solutions to this problem, sound parenting practices such as "being firm" or "setting limits," but I have chosen the solution of "complain about it on my blog"

So, Sunday's grocery store trip felt like some kind of athletic event, and I was exhausted when it was over. And I still had to do crap like folding laundry (but not putting it away, remember?) and making dinner and blah, blah, blah, Midwest Suburban Housewife.

And that, folks, is a recap of my oh-so-fascinating weekend.

SuperIma Sunday Check-In

My blog friend Leigh Ann has a weekly blog carnival called SuperIma Sunday Check-In. Ima means "mom" in Hebrew, so SuperIma = SuperMom. Like all of us, Leigh Ann says that she doesn't feel like a SuperMom, although I would say that anybody who has three kids ages 3 and under is a SuperMom. (And she cooks inexpensive, tasty meals several nights a week, whereas I'm all We're having cereal for dinner.)

Anyway, so Leigh Ann's carnival is about giving yourself a break, and remembering to do something for yourself in the midst of caring for others. To quote her SuperIma Sunday Check-In inaugural edition:

Just tell us what you're going to do for yourself, and maybe what you're going to let slide a little bit.
You deserve it. And I support you.

So, I was going to do this carnival last week, and then I realized it was the kind of thing where you have to plan in advance and set a goal, so I had to set the goal last week and wait until this week to write about it.

And I still think I kind of screwed it up.

The thing is, I think I kind of let things slide all the time. Like, for example, on Friday I could easily have put together some kind of simple dinner or even served leftovers, but instead I picked up Chinese food on the way home from Nathan's ice skating.

And I have gone four days without cleaning up my complete shitstorm of a living room, where, you guys, there is literally a large amount of garbage (like, actual trash) just sitting on the floor.

But, I also think there is a difference between letting things slide and being okay with letting things slide. I think the idea behind Leigh Ann's carnival is accepting that you can't do it all, which is an empowering and healthy attitude. Whereas I let things slide and I beat myself up over it, thinking that I should be able to do it all. I end the day exhausted and mad and frustrated by my general craphole of a house.

So, this week I didn't do well on the "let things slide" part of the challenge. I think, at least for me, I'm not going to be successful at letting things slide until I accept that it's okay to let things slide. I was thinking about what I should let slide for next week, and I got all upset. Allowing myself to leave things in a cluttered state will not be good for my mental health, so I'm not going to set a goal about letting cleaning slide. And I think we're all more relaxed and happier when I plan meals and cook them at home, so I'm not going to set a goal about letting the cooking slide.

But there is one thing I think I beat myself up unnecessarily for. I don't put away the clean laundry. Never, ever, ever. Every single day I say I will put away the laundry, and of course that never happens. I'm more or less on top of washing and folding the laundry, but then I just leave all the clothes in the basement and go down there and grab whatever Nathan and I are going to wear that day. Which, I mean really, is okay. We're always wearing clean clothes. It's not like I go out into the world each day and people say, "Wow, it looks like they are wearing clothes that never made it back into the drawer or closet after being washed."

So this week's "letting slide": putting away the laundry.

As for taking time to do something for myself, my goal for the week was to spend more time outdoors. As I said yesterday, winter and cabin fever will drive you insane.

You know what I think is kind of weird? There is always this sort of aura of comfort and awesomeness surrounding the concept of home. We have sayings like Home Sweet Home and Home is where the heart is. Dorothy wanted to go home, and so did Michael Bublé. Most financial experts will tell you that a home is the best investment you can make. In fact, isn't owning your own home the American dream? There's no place like home.

And yet, in the dead of January, all we can say is, "We have to get out of this house!" I find my home to be the most comforting and frustrating place on the planet. Homes, like the people in them, can be the source of your highest highs and your lowest lows.

So, in an attempt to bring more highs and fewer lows, my goal was to get outdoors a little bit more this week. I did okay on this. Nathan and I went out a couple of times in our snow gear and shoveled/walked around. But I think I would have been happier taking a walk alone. I kind of love the shock of the cold, and the joy of the contrasting warmth when you get back indoors. It would have been nice to go out on a walk alone.

This upcoming week, I'm not going to have the same goal. It's going to be a bit of a crazy, atypical week in our house. I have rehearsals Monday through Wednesday, and then Thursday I have two shows and Friday I have one. It's going to be a crazy week of scrambling to have dinner ready right at 5:00, jumping through hoops to find childcare for Nathan, finding something to wear for this show that doesn't make me look hideously fat, making myself a cat-ears headband ... you know, the usual.

So, because of the craziness of this week, my "do something for myself goal" is actually going to be about time management. I'm going to plan out a schedule for the day in advance, and write it down. Of course I always have a loose schedule based on whatever activities we have for the day, but I tend to get frustrated by the blocks of free time and all the stuff I feel like I should be doing.

So, to sum up:

Let slide: putting away laundry (and being okay with that)
For myself: plan out day's schedule on paper

I know my own particular goals may not be all that interesting to you. But I hope that in writing about them, I have inspired you to think about your own lives, about what you need to do to make yourself happier. So often in life we go along living the frustrating status quo, assuming that this is the way it has to be. And then we step back and say, Why?! Will the house explode or the world come to an end if I don't do x, y, and z?

There are realities in life that you cannot change or control. And working to accept those realities is a whole separate challenge. But there are many, many areas of life where you can make some changes. And I am grateful to Leigh Ann for helping me sit down and start to think about what those changes should be.

Window Decoration

Yes, I already decorated for Valentine's Day. And I know some people hate Valentine's Day. They say it's a dumb Hallmark holiday, one that excludes people who aren't in the throes of some red-hot, passionate relationship. Or they say that it shouldn't take a holiday for somebody to acknowledge his or her significant other.

Well, first of all, some people (coughmencough) need a little bit of a reminder to acknowledge their significant others. Oh, and I know, not your husband. Your husband is a hopeless romantic. Your husband is perfect. Your husband brings you flowers once a week, washes all the dishes without having to be asked, and cares for the children every waking minute that he's not at work. Your husband wishes he could grow breasts and lactate so he could just be that much more helpful around the house.

Oh but anyway, it isn't the forced exchanging of romantic tokens that I like about Valentine's Day. I like Valentine's Day because it brings color into an otherwise bleak season.

I like when you drive through a dark, gray snowstorm to get to Target, and once you get in the store it's all hearts and flowers and pink and red. And chocolate.

So I like Valentine's Day because it brings color back into our lives. And that is why I already decorated my windows.

Also, Nathan loves to put up gel decorations up on the window for every holiday, and Leia loves to pull them down. So, you know, that's cute.

I wish a bunch of cheap gel clings were all it took to make us all feel better about winter, but it's bleak out there:

Photo credit: My husband

The color green is conspicuously missing:

Also taken by husband

The sun shines sometimes, but a few days in a row without sunshine kind of does you in. It's so damn cold and dark.

Today is January 15, which means we have two weeks in January behind us, which means today is the official start of the third week of January. Some years ago I determined that it was the third week of January when people started to get the "Winter Madness" (to borrow a term from 30 Rock).

See, winter is kind of fun and festive during the December holiday season. You know, we have terms like white Christmas and winter wonderland. For those of us living in colder climates, a warm December would be weird.

And then when New Year's hits, it just feels so good to have all the pressure of the holiday season over, and you're just so overcome with the spirit of newness and discipline. This spirit carries you through January for like a week or two. For me personally, my birthday in the second week of January is always good for a little additional January boost.

But by the third week of January, it's like noooooooooo moooooooorrrrrre. We have spent so many days trapped in the house, where I swear to God there are little invisible gnomes who scatter clutter around when we aren't looking. It's just all laundrycleaningexercisedishescookingerrandsfrustrationrepeat.

Plus there's the stir-crazy child. I'm pretty sure there was a time when Saturdays in winter were really nice and warm and cozy, where I just sat around all day and read a book under the covers. But then you add a child to the mix, and there is no sitting or reading or covers. There is holy shit, we have to get this kid out of the house to burn off some energy. Again.

And yes, there are a lot of indoor entertainment options. But they are far away, and also many of them are what I call "big ticket outings." A big ticket outing is like a museum or zoo, the kind of thing where you have to pack a bunch of stuff in advance, drive a long way, possibly pay a lot of money, deal with irritating parking and/or public transit, and then walk around all day until you're exhausted. It's a far cry from the ease of the park and pool in the warmer months.

We have two indoor playground options that are relatively easy: McDonald's and the mall. And how many days in a row can we go to those?

Plus, what winter really makes me want to do is stay home and ... get mad at the clutter. Because it's a pain to find everybody's coats and boots and gloves, and it's a pain to drive anywhere, and, and, and ...

So, I try little remedies. I buy myself lotions that smell pretty. I arrange grocery store flowers in vases. And I put hearts and cupcakes on my windows.

In Comparison

Yesterday at yoga the teacher began with the standard yoga instructor admonition about how you should never compare your yoga practice to anybody else's. They all say that.

In the confines of yoga, the idea of not comparing yourself to others makes sense to me. I mean yeah, I am guilty of sneaking a peek at the woman who can stand on her head and fold her body like a pretzel, but even then I usually don't feel horrible about myself compared to her. I'm like, we all have our yoga strengths and weaknesses.

Out in the real world, the one where we wear shoes and the lights are on, I have a harder time trying not to compare myself to others. I mean, it's sort of human nature to draw comparisons between yourself and others. Whether you're trying to figure out how many days a week to work out, when your child should be able to walk, or whether you're earning an adequate salary, you look to the examples set by others so you can have a reference frame. You can only know how you measure up if you look at how other people measure up. People ask, How far do you swim? Is Billy walking yet? How much did they pay for their house? Qualities such as normal, adequate, and right are subjective, and the best way to measure them is to look at examples set by other people. Sometimes comparing yourself to others is necessary.

And sometimes comparing yourself to others can drive you bat-shit insane.

How can she be pregnant with her sixth child when I feel overwhelmed with one? Why does her husband cook dinner every night when my husband doesn't actually know where the kitchen is? Why is she so thin when I'm so fat? How can she work full-time and run a business on the side when I haven't been able to earn a single cent since 2008? How come her kid can read and mine still doesn't know what the letter "A" looks like?

And it gets even worse when you start comparing your emotions to other people's.

If she can do X and Y and still have the energy to do Z, I am not allowed to be tired just from my dumb day of sitting around blogging. She's dealing with [insert legitimate life problem here] and she seems happier than I am, and I have a really good, easy life and I feel sad.

I am not allowed to feel tired. I am not allowed to feel sad. I am not allowed to feel overwhelmed by my stupid, petty problems. Nobody else feels this way.

But I think of something else the yoga teacher said:

Nobody else is inside your body.

(I guess this statement doesn't work when you're an instructor for prenatal yoga. Or if, you know, one of your students has some kind of parasite. But fetuses and tapeworms aren't really all that judgmental, so I think the whole spirit of "nobody else is inside your body" is still true.)

Nobody else feels the exact same things you feel. Nobody else experiences life the way you do. Things may not affect you the same way they affect other people.

All of this is just more stuff that seems so obvious, and yet our thoughts and actions never seem to reflect an understanding of this most basic principle. People say things like, What does she have to be depressed about? Or, You should be over this by now.

Except, you don't know. You are you, and I am me. And we've never traded places like in the movie Freaky Friday, so you don't feel life the way I feel it. And, of course, I don't know what it feels like to be you, either.

I am not cured of my tendency to compare myself to others. But I try to keep my yoga instructor's words in my mind.

Nobody else is inside your body.

Mix of Awesomeness

The other day, in response to this post, my college friend Melyssa (mother of twins and native of Calaveras County, CA, home of the Celebrated Jumping Frogs in the Mark Twain story) asked me about the contents of my playlist called "Mix of Awesomeness." So:

Click on it for a larger view

So, yes, the Mix of Awesomeness is totally random and eclectic, but that's what iPods are for, right? Oh, and there is overlap between this mix and the mix I shared in my other post, including my power song, Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road," which Josie commented on. My spin instructor sometimes plays that song when we do a really hard hill at the end, because it's the perfect combination of comforting and motivational. It's the song that gives you a hug and a little kick in the ass at the same time.

In other exercise news, today I began Life Attempt #57 to enjoy yoga. Let me give you a brief history of my yoga experiences, since you asked.

First I did yoga a couple of times at 24-Hour Fitness with my stepdad. Since I only went twice and I was just trying to get a feel for it, I didn't really form an opinion one way or the other about yoga.

My next, longer, attempt at yoga was when I took it with my old teaching partner at the local Senior Center. (No, it wasn't like an old folks' home or anything. It was just like a community center where they held various functions, most of which were, I guess, for seniors. But yoga was open to all ages.) I was 24 at the time and really dealing with my first struggles with depression and anxiety. Everybody said yoga would be great for me, but I just never really got into it. A big part of the problem, if you can call this a "problem," was that I was single at the time and yoga was really cutting into my lying-around-doing-nothing time. Oh, dumb little 24-year-old Shannon, if only you knew. The end relaxation part of the class, which seemed to last forever, felt particularly pointless. Like, why am I lying on the floor of a drafty community center when I could just go home and lie in my bed?

When I got massively shit-slammed with depression after Nathan was born, I thought maybe I would give yoga another try. Since I was faced with the demands of motherhood and working full-time back then, I decided maybe I could squeeze in more time for yoga if I had a DVD I could do at home. I ordered this DVD called Life-Force Yoga to Beat the Blues. It was okay, but a little too spiritual and chanting-based for my taste. I felt dumb sitting in my living room chanting. Even Leia was looking at me funny.

I wasn't motivated to do the yoga DVD at home enough, because I have a hard time working out at home when there's all kinds of other stuff I could be doing at home. So about a year and half ago, I decided to try another yoga class. Unfortunately, the yoga class I chose was at the gym, and so understandably it was a little bit more of an exercise-oriented yoga. Vinyasa yoga, they call it. This yoga was less about relaxation and more about strengthening your core. Generally speaking, I hate all mention of the word core at the gym. And I know that the gym's yoga was a good workout (if the level of sweat it generated was any indication), but I preferred to get my workouts elsewhere. I wanted yoga to be about relaxation. I wanted yoga to be something I looked forward to, not dreaded like some of the other exercise classes I was taking during that same period of my life.

So, anyway, yoga was on hiatus for like a year, and then a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it another shot. I'm still looking for that elusive sense of balance and inner peace that yoga promises. So, I picked a yoga class out of the park district catalog. They offer various forms of yoga, but I picked this one because it coincides with Nathan's preschool and is in the exact same location at the exact same time I drop him off. Oh and also, bonus, it said you had to be at least 30 years old to be in the class, so I knew it would be more of an older crowd.

I know it's too soon to tell, but I think this yoga might be the best of my 57 attempts. (And yes, I know, this is really only like my fifth attempt. I just like the number 57.) The poses were appropriately challenging, and I really, truly felt relaxed at the end. I liked how the instructor didn't talk about the God of This and the Goddess of That, because I have no problem with anybody's religion, but I have enough to worry about trying to stay in the pose without having to worry about whether or not the Goddess of Light is sending a love ray of radiance straight into my heart center. The teacher kept it more on the secular level of let go of what is bothering you, we are all connected kind of stuff. And that relaxation part at the end, the one I couldn't wait to be done with at my old class? I was seriously thinking, please, don't ever let this end.

Ahh, how times have changed.

Lest you think I'm now on some sort of higher spiritual plane, let me share with you that a couple of days ago I got a pedicure just because I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to become One With the Universe at yoga while looking at my hideous toenails. And I took this picture in the car afterward:


Yep, that's snow. I got a pedicure during a snowstorm, because that's how committed I am to toenail upkeep. It's the Snodicure!

Oh, and just to make this post enough of a mix (of awesomeness), I'll just talk about my show here at the end. It's super fun! Except I'm having a hard time with my jokes because the only people watching me at rehearsal are kids, and they don't find me funny. And now I'm feeling insecure and thinking maybe I'm not as funny as I thought I was.

Except I'm one with the universe now and superficial earthly things like comedy don't matter. Or something.