All I have to say is this: 

GAME ON DUDE!

You might want to try out your recipe prior to presenting it in a bake off, do you remember the last time you tried a new recipe and had guests over for dinner? Do you? You could have burned the house down. Or at least splattered boiling french fry oil all over the place.

All I know is that my recipe is recognizable. It’s comfort food. You were shopping for corn chips on Sunday. CORN CHIPS. IN A MEATLOAF.

There ya go.

After attending the vinyasa classes for two weeks, I finally felt up to the power yoga class — which was taught by my very first yoga instructor when I began yoga 13 years ago. That was yesterday, and this morning my glutes were killing me! Then, my husband told me to go to the 10 a.m. yoga class today, rather than the 5 p.m. vinyasa class. Well, the 10 a.m. class is called Strength and Wellness. It focuses on my upper body and core, and I almost died. Especially when I got to the class at 10 a.m. and was all set to do my normal 75 minute class, then go about the rest of my day. However, at about 10:10 a.m. I was informed that I had just committed myself to 120 minutes of the hardest class on the schedule, AND it was taught by THE YOGA NAZI (her words, not mine).

Of course, I left my water bottle in my car, and I was dying of thirst while I downward dogged and did dolphin push-ups and then one legged dolphin push-ups for two hours straight. The whole time I could see my car from the window and wished that I’d brought my water bottle into the class with me.

Note to self: NEVER LEAVE YOUR WATER BOTTLE IN THE CAR AGAIN.

I made it though. I made it through the entire class and I did not die. And I can’t believe it, but I think I’m going back next week Sunday. Here’s the thing about yoga. It’s great conditioning for the body, and afterwards you might feel sore, the best remedy for the after-yoga soreness is more yoga. It becomes a cycle. You do yoga, if you hurt the next day, you do more yoga for relief, and on it goes.

It’s a wonderful yoga studio though! If you are in the area, I highly recommend it.

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I remember the first time I heard of this thing called feng shui. I was in Texas, visiting a good friend of mine. We were walking through her subdivision and she pointed out a home of an asian couple who had decorated their entire home in feng shui. I said to her, “what is feng shui?” and after she told me what it was she then promised me that now that I knew what it was, I would be hearing about it a lot.

And she was right, nine years later, I’m hearing about it ALL THE TIME. In fact, I might just have to reorganize my home a la feng shui. Of course, this would be moving all my furniture around, and hey, I don’t mind doing that at all.

I draw the line at painting though. Seriously. I can’t even find the time to paint behind my new entertainment center that was delivered in June. The old entertainment center was about shoulder high and when I originally painted it was too heavy to move, so I just painted around it, and I use the term “around it” very loosely to mean that I painted the areas of the walls that were visible from the couch. The new entertainment center is table high, and well, let’s just say that there is a nice arc of rolled paint that highlights the television.

Anyhow, I found this lovely new blog theme. If your screen is wide enough you’ll see the koi on the upper left hand side, I’m hoping that they bring me prosperity.

I wrote all of that on December 4th, and then I put it in the draft folder and forgot about it. Since then I’ve actually purchased a book on feng shui, called Feng Shui Your Life, by Jayme Barrett. I’m about half way through, and since I’m on vacation right now, I’m actually feng shui’ing. You are supposed to start with your front door entrance, but I started with my laundry room because it’s our main entrance from the garage. Oh. My. Gosh. The difference is remarkable!

I’ve even decided to paint the laundry room. And my husband is all, “I said let’s paint the laundry room when we first moved in — but YOU said, ‘Why?? It’s only a laundry room.’” Oh jeez, cut me some slack! I didn’t realize it would be the hub of the home!

On Sunday I went through my closet, which was more of a What Not To Wear moment. I got rid of everything that I didn’t wear, didn’t fit, didn’t flatter my figure, or was shabby (and not in a shabby chic sort of way).

Today we organized the entire kitchen. Every. Single. Freaking. Cabinet. ALL OF THEM. We decluttered, put stuff in a box for the annual rummage sale, put stuff in bags to take to Goodwill, tossed what we needed to, and then put whatever we were keeping away in an orderly fashion. I think it took about 3-1/2 hours, what a project, but we did it, and we still love each other afterwards. Although, there was some heated arguments when we were going through the glasses and cups. What can I say? He has a huge beer glass collection, and all of the other glasses are mismatched because I have a small problem with breaking them.

That’s all I’ve got for now, I’ve got to finish the book, but in the meantime I’m working on the Act of Putting Things Away. I’m enforcing the Act, but those who live here aren’t always adhering, so it’s making me a little bit nuts.

Thank God for yoga.

Today I painted using my new paints that I got for Christmas. I wasn’t feeling too creative, so I copied Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. I think it would have turned out better with oil paints, rather than acrylic, but I’m still pleased with it. I put away all of my paints and cleaned the brushes before I realized that I forgot a star. Maybe I’ll add it later.

Zoe painted too. That kid can paint horses better than anyone I know!

Zoe: Why do you and dad call Theodore “Ted”.

Me: Because it’s short for Theodore.

Zoe: Well I like Theodore, I’m going to call him Theodore. How do you spell Theodore?

Me: Well, let’s sound it out.

Zoe: T. H. E. what comes after E?

Me: O.

Zoe: D. O. R. E.

Me: Yep.

Zoe: No. It’s T. H. E. A. D. O. R. E. Theadore.

Me: No, it’s O.

Zoe: The-o-dore? That is weird.

Me: It’s right.

Zoe: I don’t like it. I’m going to call him Ted.

Him: Can you rap?

Her: Yeah, I can wrap presents.

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I didn’t leave work until close to 6 p.m. Then there were a ton of errands to run, which had me stopping at four different stores, and I didn’t get home until almost 8 p.m. I had wrapped almost all of my gifts for my husband and Zoe prior to leaving work, I do it every year like this, it’s just easier to wrap them there. Well, I forgot one my husband’s gift on a shelf in our closet. Knowing that I wouldn’t have the house to myself to wrap it between now and Christmas morning, I sent him in the other room, and then I told him to stay there until I wrapped it. I figured a gift bag would be the perfect choice, and as I stuffed it into the bag, Zoe came out to see me. Prior to me coming home, she and my husband had wrapped all of my presents and placed them under the tree. Here is our conversation:

Zoe (stomping her feet and flailing her hands in the air): You’re wrapping Dad’s present in a gift bag!?!?

Me (trying to get the tissue paper just right): Yep.

Zoe (very exasperated): But Mom! Dad went on the internet to find out how to wrap presents!! You can’t put his present in a gift bag!!

Jeez! What is she? The Present Police??  And seriously, HE WENT ON THE INTERNET TO LOOK UP HOW TO WRAP PRESENTS?  I didn’t even know that was an option available to gift wrappers. Did you?

(FYI: upon inspection of the gifts I’d have to say that his gift wrapping abilities have greatly improved, so the instructions must be worth it)