Friday, July 7, 2017

Once a year, whether you need it or not....

   It occurred to me that we, as a family, only take a vacation once a year for one week, whether we need it or not! That’s not  a lot of time off. I am a stay at home mom and my spouse gets three weeks off each year. While it’s true that I try to get him to take off the week between Christmas and New Year’s that leaves one week untouched. What the hell for??!! Are we waiting to make the news? “Suburban housewife goes on crime spree, film at 11!”  “She just snapped and started throwing canned goods! I had to fend her off with the floor attachment to the vacuum, it was awful!. her husband reported.”
   I know we have uses for that “third we My husband has to use vacation days when I have to take a class and can’t pick up my daughter, for example. I don’t think those occasions should eat a whole week. What’s wrong with a padded weekend or two?
   There is another thing I can do to help relieve the stress of daily survival. It starts with a “Yo” and ends with “ga”. I have been hounded for years to make time for Yoga because if its mind boggling mental health benefits and the physical ones, too. Yoga relieves stress, tones your body, helps grow hair, enables you to leap tall buildings, whitens teeth and gives you a shiny coat. OK,, I have my doubts about the buildings but I know it couldn’t hurt and beats the crap out of still more medication. Some of the side effects of the junk prescribed are worse than the conditions they’re attempting to cure. We’ve all heard those commercials for drugs where the narrator has to list the side effects like an auctioneer to fit them all in.
  You’ll never hear “Can cause your spleen to fall our, spontaneous human combustion, or random machete attacks “ in any yoga studio ad, not even “Hot Yoga”. So what’s my problem? My old nemesis, getting up, is my biggest obstacle.  I find the idea of shoveling my sad ass out of bed at ten after dawn to exercise is downright revolting. While I am far from averse to exercise, I just need to be awake and reasonably caffeinated first. That is basically, my biggest barrier. God knows I have no problem with the wardrobe. I already wear t-shirts and stretchy pants to work out now, so what would change? 
  The problem is flexibility, not in my joints, largely, but my schedule. I spend a lot of time working out as it is, so adding another thing is daunting. Hope springs eternal, however, so I’ll look for a slot of time when my daughter has an activity and maybe I’ll get lucky. I did notice I need to leave my house for this to make it happen. I could also cut something out but the problem is if I do that, that time needs to go to my husband so he could start to go out himself. I’m thinking of some time during the day maybe just once a week would work.            
  You’ve got to start somewhere, I just wish it wouldn’t take a cattle prod.