The last New Year’s resolution I remember making — and keeping — was in middle school, when I resolved to never yawn with my mouth open again.  What?  It’s rude to throw out a big-mouth yawn when someone is talking!  I succeeded with that resolution — until I realized that when I yawn with my mouth closed, I look a little bit like my face is about to peel back, soon releasing from my mouth an alien who has taken residence in my body.

I now simply cover my mouth when yawning.

Since that pre-adolescence resolution, I have made a few attempts at more worthy New Year’s goals, — like exercising more — but like 99 percent of the nation (I’ve never been good at statistics, so I just make them up), I always end up falling short when I make New Year’s resolutions.

So I hadn’t even considered joining the ranks of my fellow resolution-making Americans this year — until a few days ago.  My friend Alina, who is now a fitness coach after amazingly transforming her body with healthy lifestyle choices, asked Facebook friends about their New Year’s goals.

One of her friends said she plans to run 1,000 miles in 2012, which averages out to about 20 miles per week.  When I read that, I guffawed.  I wasn’t guffawing at her friend (that would be rude — and I certainly wasn’t yawning with my mouth open at her either).  I guffawed simply because that sounds like insanity to me and my abilities.

But it got me thinking.  I am a new runner, and I really, really, really love it.  Plus, I finally got some new, attractive running shoes.

So why not make a running goal for the year to keep myself motivated?  I’ve made a gazillion fitness goals over the years, and have never stuck to them.  But I like the idea of setting a mileage goal.  Normally my goals are more along the lines of, “I plan to run X amount of times per week.”

Inevitably, something comes up: a holiday, a vacation, a kidney stone from Hades… and all of a sudden, I’ve fallen off the goal wagon.  Once off that wagon, I find it incredibly difficult to get back on.  It’s not logical, but when I miss a goal, it makes me want to give up completely, rather than try again.

So instead of committing to something that will most definitely not happen (i.e., running three times a week every week), I’m going to try and run 300 miles in 2012.  That averages out to about six miles a week, which means two miles three days a week.  If I get sick or feel lazy one week and don’t end up running, it will be ok because my goals won’t be missed.  I’ll just have to adjust my mileage in the weeks to come!

I’m working on a fancy schmany sticker chart to hang on the wall by the treadmill to track my progress.  Stickers helped my daughter learn to use the toilet, do her chores and stay in bed at night.  You can tell me a sticker chart is juvenile, but I’m pretty sure something that can produce those results in a toddler has magical powers.  Abra-cadabra — wish me luck!

I think most people agree that most people in the world are generally nice.  Most people will be kind in most situations.

But if you were the woman (who was most likely nice and kind) waiting in line for the bathroom at Burger King in Sparks, Nevada ten days ago and happened to encounter ME, well then — you might change your mind about the whole ‘most people being kind in most situations’ business.

When you were jiggling the handle to the bathroom door every 60 seconds, dear Burger King Bathroom User, you didn’t know the reason for the delay was an almost 4 year old taking her sweet time.  You didn’t know that her mother had begged her to hurry, which predictably produced the complete opposite action.

You didn’t know that minutes before, that sweet almost 4 year old had emptied her bladder in her baby sister’s car seat while her exhausted mother nursed said baby up front.  You didn’t know the exhausted mother was too exhausted to dig through the luggage in the trunk for replacement clothing, so the almost 4 year old was forced to sit in her wet clothing.

Burger King Bathroom User, you didn’t even know why the exhausted mother was exhausted.  You didn’t know she had already been driving for nine to ten-ish hours through a wasteland (Nevada) with the previously mentioned almost 4 year old and baby.  You didn’t know she was doing that all by her lonesome, and that she had already had to make one emergency potty break for the almost 4 year old, foolishly thinking that was going to be the most stressful part of the drive.

You didn’t know that not two hours into the trip, the almost 4 year old had spilled an entire water bottle — just turned it upside down, and let it empty in the space between the center console and the driver’s seat.  You didn’t know that the almost 4 year old had also spilled apple juice all over her blanket hours before, and then snuggled with said blanket.

You didn’t know that the exhausted mother still had four to five-ish hours on the road ahead of her.

So when you jiggled that handle one too many times and the exhausted mother yelled at you, you didn’t know she was immediately sorry.

Because she then silently marched her sorry self and children to the counter, ordered two milkshakes without a glance your way and ran out of there as fast as she could, never looking you in the eye.

And what you didn’t know, dear handle jiggling lady, is that the exhausted mother was paid back for her bad Burger King behavior, when as she entered the long stretch into California through Donner Pass, her almost 4 year old mumbled, “Uh oh.  It’s ok.  Milkshakes dry.”

I’ve been doing my jogging regimen for a week now, and much to my dismay, I am not sporting well toned calves, fancy shmancy running shoes OR a cute, bobbing pony tail.

I mean, come on!

This week, I’m repeating the first week’s plan in the Couch to 5K program, if you can believe it (and you should, because why would I lie about such a thing?).  I went out a grand total of TWO times during my first week.  I couldn’t even find time to jog three days.  I blame my mini vacation.  It’s the best excuse I can come up with, even though my cute as a button sister in law ran ten miles the first morning we stayed at her house.

Yesterday, I set out on my jog, feeling good and optimistic.  So good that I decided to sprint a bit to avoid waiting at a light.  I tell ya, I was feeling so good as I jetted across the intersection in front of all of those commuters in their CARS (pshaw!), proud as can be of my new (very misguided) identity as a full fledged runner.

I imagined all the drivers watching my early morning dedication and abilities in amazement and awe.  Not really.  I’m not that delusional.

And then I promptly got a cramp in my side.

Yes, I got a cramp in my side after sprinting across one measly, teeny tiny intersection.

I finished my jog, but I’m pretty sure my pace after that point was slower than my first post-epidural steps when I had my husband on one side and a nurse on the other.

I stayed home today.  Take that, side cramp.

During piano lessons last week, my daughter came over to me, visibly agitated and whispered,

Mommy, there’s a thumb on the floor.

I looked her over and noticed she was shaking and close to tears but I wanted to make sure I was understanding her strange claim correctly.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Her response was the same.  ”There’s a thumb on the floor.”

“A thumb?” I clarified.

“Yes.  There’s a thumb on the floor,” she explained again to me while shaking harder than ever.

I was quite certain there was no thumb on the floor since I hadn’t heard of any dismemberments in our neighborhood of late, but her actions had me concerned, so I stood up to investigate.

In the few steps it took me to walk over to where she was pointing, I admit I did begin to doubt.  My husband and I watch a lot of CSI: New York, The Mentalist, Castle and other shows where fingers can be found just about anywhere.  I knew in my rational mind there couldn’t possibly be a thumb on my living room floor. However, the recent episodes I had watched started playing through my irrational mind and by the time I was to the designated spot, I had convinced myself that I was going to, indeed, find a human thumb on my floor.

So when I saw the very realistic looking toy thumb sitting at the feet of my next piano student, I actually felt a moment of panic.

Discovering the offending digit was only a toy was a happy moment for my worried daughter and me.  We were even able to share a nervous laugh.

My daughter will eventually grow up, develop a more rational mind and not be effected by such things.  But me?  Well, I think I need to lay off the crime shows.

I will be the first to admit that I am vain.  It’s absolutely not that I think I’m hot.  It’s just that I have a perception of myself at my best. If a certain outfit or hairstyle is not aiding in attaining that invented perception, then I am a little miffed, and I proceed to make life miserable for those I love.  (I’m sorry.)

I remember being about 15 years old and crying in an Anaheim hotel room because I wasn’t going to be taking my purse into Disneyland, so I wouldn’t have my cordless curling iron with me, so I wouldn’t be able to fix my bangs if they went flat in the heat of the day, and my life would be ruined.  RUINED.  My poor parents.

I have somewhat matured since then.  I no longer bring hair appliances wherever I go.  I carry no makeup or mirror in my purse.  I feel generally at ease with who I am, as well as my appearance.  I even recently wore a dress out of the house specifically to ask my sister if it made me look like a cow.  She told me it did (nicely) and I didn’t freak out.

But the one lingering vanity that has tenaciously hung on into adulthood is my tendency to check myself out in any mirror or store window that I pass.  You know you do it too.  At least sometimes.

Lately, every time I do such a thing, I am shocked and horrified.  I am 28 weeks pregnant and I keep forgetting that fact.  I am blessed with easy pregnancies (although, “easy pregnancy” is an oxymoron, because pregnancy is hard, even when it’s easy) so I don’t ever feel sick or lacking in energy.  I move about with pretty much the same speed and agility that I did before I was pregnant. I often forget that I am harboring a little creature inside my womb.

And then vanity takes over and I look in a window.

There I was today, happily skipping all over the zoo with my 3 year old, hoisting her up with ease whenever she was too short to see an animal, merrily riding the merry-go-round and pushing my way through field trip kiddos to get better views of the animals.  I completely forgot that I am carrying extra poundage around my middle.

Until the reptile house.  We walked by that long wall of windows and I allowed myself a glance.  Just one little glance.  And SHABLAM!  Shock and awe.  Oh yeah!  I’m pregnant.  Very much so!  I looked again.  And again.  And again.  And then I almost ran into two dads pushing strollers.  But then I looked again one more time.

To calm myself down, I reminded myself that I am in my third trimester.  I only have 12 weeks to go.  That’s not that much time.  I can’t get that much bigger.  But then I did some math and realized that 12 weeks is THREE MONTHS!  Three months is a SEASON.

Here’s to no more looking in reptile house windows.

Man, oh man.  There is just nothing going on right now.  Well, that’s not true.  A LOT is going on right now but it’s all just busy work and normal life stuff.  None of it is interesting.  I think that’s probably a good thing.  Nothing outside of busy work and normal life stuff going on means no problems or drama for the time being.  It also means time for naps when I decide to avoid busy work stuff.

I think I’d like to keep it that way, but the sad thing is that when excitement is down, blog posts are dreadful.  So sorry.

I’ll leave you with a reason why I love my husband this week.  He isn’t afraid to wear my flowery apron when he bakes 5 loaves of bread each weekend.

Maybe I’ll share the recipe for the delicious bread when I am done avoiding work stuff and cramming in naps.

Happy Thursday!  Hope your day is as deliciously boring as mine!

Today is my birthday.  Birthdays make me sad these days because I have to be the one to make sure I’m having a good time.  My parents and school friends aren’t around to shower me with attention anymore.  Plus, having to work on your birthday (even if you work from home) is just a bummer.  Really.  (I’m really not this much of a diva in real life, only on my birthdays.)

But maybe if I had a better attitude, I could have the best birthday in the world again.  Reading through my old journal, I discovered that my twelfth birthday was really quite amazing.  Here, I’ll share:

Everything went just great.  The secretary asked me to help her.  We had our pictures taken and I was the one who got all the classes to come get their pictures done.  So I wasn’t in class for half the day!  I also finally got in double dutch.  I’ve never been able to do that!

Yep, friends.  I was the secretary’s special helper, I missed half a day of school, and I perfected a jump rope move.  Who could ask for more?

Maybe if I re-write my day to sound more upbeat like I did as a 12 year old, I would realize just how wonderful my day really has been.

Everything has been wonderful.  I had to hurry out of the shower because my daughter was screaming for me!  And then I got to threaten her not once, not twice, but probably a dozen times that we would absolutely NOT be going to Jamba Juice if she didn’t change her attitude right away, all the while silently pleading with her to just change her stinkin’ attitude so I could go get my Razzmatazz fix on my birthday for crying out loud!  And then I stuffed my pregnant face with homemade peanut butter cookies while I avoided my writing deadlines and watched the minutes count down until I would have to begin teaching piano lessons, which I love any other day of the year but today make me want to run away!

Best day ever!

No really, my husband has done a wonderful job- breakfast in bed, homemade peanut butter cookies with hearts stamped in them, flowers on the kitchen table, out to lunch at Cafe Rio and a special evening up his sleeve.  I’m having a fabulous day.  But wouldn’t it be nice to sign out on mommy and work duties for one day?!?

I wish you all a happy day, in my honor!

I very nearly died on more than one occasion this week while spending time in the high school parking lot, picking up and dropping off for various activities.  (I’m prone to exaggeration.  Near death was not actually part of my high school parking lot experience this week, but it’s more exciting to speak as if it was.)

Teenagers drive FAST!  And they zip around corners with a confidence that is very, very misplaced and quite frightening.  I actually yelled at one girl who almost drove into me.  She maturely responded by rolling her eyes and laughing.  Not 10 years out of high school (yet) and I’m already acting like the middle-agers I made fun of when I was freshly licensed.  It’s payback for the sort of teenager I was.

Really though, your perspective changes a great deal when you have one child in the back seat and one in your womb.

But while I carefully maneuvered through the parking lot on one of my excursions, I suddenly found myself smack dab in the middle of a driver’s ed course, the kind where student drivers follow lines in the road to get “real” practice driving.

It’s all a bit creepy, really: six or seven identical cars all in a line, slowly following the painted twists and turns, trying not to make a mistake.  I felt like I was in the middle of a zombie movie.  The cars were all moving very slowly in their zombie-like trances, and the longer I stayed in that freaky place, the more I realized those headlights were all moving towards ME!  All that was missing from this horror movie experience were some creepy moans and groans from the undead.

Every time I turned my car to exit, another student driver car was blocking my way.  And each time I turned, I got more and more mixed up until I could no longer figure out how to get out of that bewildering place!  And the cars!  They just kept inching and inching towards me.

I finally found an opening between two student drivers and drove out, thankfully unscathed.  Immediately, I had to slam on my breaks because some 16 year old punk cut into my lane as he drove into the parking lot at full speed.

But I fought the urge to yell at him or shake my fist because I realized that with my psycho-lost behavior just seconds before, I became a contributor in the erratic behavior of the future drivers of America.

Whoops.

Do you ever want to do something weird just to see how it would work?  Or try some weird combination of foods just to see how they would taste together?  But then you never find out because you really don’t want to feel the possible pain or taste the likely disaster in your mouth?

Well, I think of myself as a pretty lucky girl because I have a volunteer tester in my house.  Any strange idea that pops into my head has already popped into my husband’s head and been tested out by said husband.

Consider our recent card game the other night.  I had a handful of cards that needed to be sorted until I could play.  While waiting for me to finish, my husband noticed there was one snickerdoodle left on the table.  Also on the table?  A can of Cheez-Whiz.

Naturally, he wondered how the combination would taste.  (Surprisingly, I had already seen the items together and wondered the same thing.  Nearly 6 years of marriage warps your brain if you’re married to a man like my husband.)

So while he patiently waited for me (and while I took my sweet time so I could see if he would really go through with the combination), he squeezed that Cheez-Whiz on that snickerdoodle and popped the entire thing in his mouth.

Of course it was disgusting and sent him to the fridge to find anything, ANYTHING, to erase the awful taste in his mouth.  But now we don’t have to wonder.  Does Cheez-Whiz taste good on a snickerdoodle?  Absolutely not.

Or consider the time we sat in church pinching each other’s elbow skin as hard as we could.  Have you ever done that?  Do it now.  It doesn’t hurt.  You can’t feel a thing.  It’s quite perplexing.

Well, remember how being married nearly 6 years to a man like this warps your brain?  So I thought out loud, “I wonder if it would hurt if you stabbed the skin…”

Lucky me- that wonderful husband already had the answer.

“Nope, it hurts.  I tried piercing it once.”

Just one more thing you don’t have to try out on your own.  You’re welcome.

My eyesight is getting worse and worse, something that doesn’t seem to bother the good people at the DMV all that much.

I have an eye phobia, which has kept me from the eye doctor for well over 8 years, but realizing I need a stronger prescription in my driving glasses, I muscled up some courage and trekked over to the dreaded doc.

The exam itself was surprisingly non-traumatic.  But then the discussion.  Oh, the discussion.  I will be having nightmares for a week after that discussion.

You see, I’m a great candidate for Lasik eye surgery, something my doctor decided to describe to me in excruciatingly painful detail, complete with a large model of an eyeball.  The helpful model even opened up so you could conveniently see the larger than life eyeball VEINS.

I really thought I might be over my eye phobia because I’ve been able to put eye drops in my own eyes, handle really disgusting eyeball issues with my daughter and discuss eyes with somebody who dissects them for a living.

But when the doctor kept using the words “flap,” “blade,” and “eyeball” in the same sentence, I could feel my Cheerios rumbling in my tummy.

I told him I had a hard time with eyes and he just giggled, then told me I wouldn’t have to keep my own eyes open because there would be instruments doing that for me.

That’s when I decided, right then and there, that I will have to be under the influence of something incredibly and powerfully strong before I go anywhere NEAR a person, place or thing that claims to have any sort of affiliation with eyes.