I’m kidding.. I’m kidding… I haven’t got any grievances to air.  Life is visions of sugar plums over here…

What I do have is a rehash of an old blog… with some additions.

Things I KNOW I SHOULD like, and that I kinda WANT to like…but I really, really don’t like  (originally posting date June 23, 2011… so there are some references made to a summer teacher.  🙂

I’ve mentioned this before, however (much to the chagrin of many of my teacher friends). A month off is PLENTY for me.  After that, I get bored.  If I were made of money and Richard had the summer off, too… things would be different, but even then… there’s so much I WISH I enjoyed doing…

I wish I enjoyed being crafty…  I could play around with paint on the walls and stencils.  I could go to Michael s and put together flower arrangements or whatever it is people go to Michael s to do…and look for uplights and accents… I could wander the scrapbook aisle looking for the perfect ribbon to put on my pages…  but it’s messy and tedious and detail oriented… so I don’t enjoy being crafty.  I don’t look at other items and think, “Hey, I could do that.”   I think “Hey, I could buy that…”  because there is ZERO fun for me in the process of making.  I lack dexterity.  I lack an eye for detail.  It’s no fun at all and makes me feel frustrated and inferior.

I wish I enjoyed spa days…  I would love to enjoy hour long massages and pedicures and walking around in a robe and fuzzy slippers while I drink cucumber water and green tea and sit in a sauna and spend the day “relaxing”…but I feel sticky and fat and out of place and hot…so I don’t enjoy the spa. The same can be said for getting my hair and/or nails done.  I don’t like to take the time to go in and sit there for hours.  Besides, the final product always involves MORE getting ready once I get something new done.  I wish that I could be excited about the thought of hilights and lowlights and manicures and pedicures, but it all sounds like a day of torture.

I wish I enjoyed shopping.  I know that I have friends who spend happy hours at the Domain going from store to store and buying one or two little things.  When I shop, it’s on a MISSION… and I HOPE it’s on Amazon…  I do not enjoy looking for the “perfect” whatever in one store after another.  When I buy a CAR, it takes me less than an hour…  I certainly don’t want to spend longer than that looking for a candle! And why would I want to shop for clothes all year long?  I shop once when it’s hot and once when it’s cold… and even then it’s only if I have to replace items from the year before.  If I feel like I can get through hot or cold without anything new, even better!

I wish I enjoyed reading classic novels… I would love to enjoy getting  involved in the stories of Austen and Bronte… the characterization and sentence structure of Faulkner… to read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and broaden my literary horizons… but the writing is hard and you have to pay attention and all those characters run together. I don’t enjoy classic novels.

I wish I enjoyed gardening…I would love to enjoy going down to the Natural Gardner and learn all there is to know about organic gardening and plant my own vegetables and herbs.  I wish I wanted to know which kind of foliage does best in a hanging basket and which should be potted on the ground.  What are my annuals and my perennials, and can I buy ladybugs to help with pests??…but it’s really really hot outside, and that’s a whole lot of stooping and dirty hands… plus flowers take a lot of work.  I don’t enjoy gardening.

I wish I enjoyed cooking…So many farmers’ markets, so many specialty stores, so many places to search and find the very best ingredients.  I could spend all day researching recipes and cooking techniques.  I could go to free cooking demonstrations and learn fabulous knife skills… but there’s a lot of running around involved with really good cooking, and it’s hot… and it’s messy… and it’s expensive. I don’t enjoy cooking.

I wish I enjoyed exploring.on my own….I could go down to the museums, hang out in SoCo and watch the world go by.  I could check out all the funky shops and finally go on the Austin duck tour… but I DO like to explore, I just like to explore with OTHER people.  Most of the fun I get out of my exploration experiences is sharing them with someone else, but I don’t enjoy exploring on my own.

I wish I enjoyed cleaning and organizing… but I DON’T!!!!  🙂  I enjoy buying new cleaning PRODUCTS and new smells… but the actual nitty gritty of cleaning is no fun at all.  It takes a long time, and when you’re finished you always notice one more thing you should have done better.  I don’t enjoy cleaning at all.

I wish I enjoyed “dressing up.”   This includes ANY kind of dressing up.  It doesn’t matter if it’s dressing for a luncheon, or a bridal shower, or a wedding, or business casual, or the opera, or Halloween..  any kind of dressing other than every day dressing is NOT enjoyable.  You’re always expected to be wearing something new or different for the occasion.  People are looking and judging.. and dressing up is never just the “dress”… (and woe is me if it’s an ACTUAL dress!!!)…  but it’s the shoes, the hair, the accessories, the makeup, the bag… the whole shebang…  UGH!!!!  I LOVE spending time with my friends… but dressing up?  NEVER!!!   Worse yet?  When you’re not dressing up for friends ,but dressing up for strangers..  Egad!   My skin crawls just thinking about it!

…but I often spend so much time thinking about what I feel like I SHOULD be enjoying that I forget to enjoy the things I AM doing.  I enjoy reading my cheapo grocery store novels, I enjoy People magazine, I enjoy walking my dog, I enjoy writing, I enjoy spending time with my girlfriends, I enjoy drinking cucumber vodka, I enjoy a good movie.

I enjoy kissing my husband when he comes in the door.

I  enjoy being able to work out at 9:30 in the morning and then again at 4:30 in the afternoon if I like.  I enjoy being able to “get ready” over a three hour time span.  I enjoy making plans to play trivia, go to the Texas wineries, go to Grease sing-a-longs all in the middle of the week.  I enjoy wine tastings and hew restaurants. I enjoy making plans to go to new places and trying new things.  I enjoy teaching and coming up with lesson plans and spending hours on Facebook.

…I enjoy my life.