New Year's Column

I know it's a little late, but here's my New Year's column.  I'm currently hatching this fabulous post about, wait for it, Legos.  I promise it's life-altering.  Until then, here's a post about resolutions and time machines because, really, how can you have one without the other? (I don't know what that means either.)

Even though you’re reading this after Christmas, I’m writing it just before which means I’m currently experiencing Pre-Christmas Bloat which is followed by the New Years Eve Binge and then, finally, the guilt-induced Great Weight Loss Resolution.  It’s the circle of life, people.

This has been a stressful year for me.  I have prepared a house for the market (and it still hasn’t sold), moved my family to a different state, experienced BFF separation anxiety, and witnessed the death of our family vehicle, fondly referred to as that Stinkin’ White Mini Van Missing a Front Bumper.  All this means one thing: I have gained approximately 30 pounds.   

As a result, I had to unpack my big-girl pants, and it wasn’t a happy moment for me (not to mention, I hadn’t kept many of them in the first place).   It reminded me of the first few years of my kids’ lives.  My oldest and youngest are exactly three years apart which means we went through boxes and boxes of clothes.  In fact, every six months I’d travel to the attic where I would retrieve the next set of clothes big enough to fit my three toddlers.  Will I forever be keeping a spare wardrobe of clothes like that?  Boxes of skinny jeans or boxes of fat pants? Or, heaven forbid, bigger fat pants?  Let’s hope not!

So I’ve made a decision.  I will build a time machine and travel back to the Victorian Era when chunky was voluptuous and exercise machines were nonexistent.  There.  Problem solved.  Except for the pesky little part about the time machine.  

Maybe, ladies, we could band together and change society’s view of beauty.  Let’s bring voluptuous back!  Let’s boycott the waifish look and thumb our noses at washboard stomachs and buns of steel!  Let’s celebrate the female form that’s, say, approximately 30 pounds above her healthy weight range.  Pretty please?

Or, and this is a good one, we could bottle and sell Spunk’s metabolism and eat cinnamon rolls for the rest of our lives.  

Okay, okay.  So it’s probably easier to lose 30 pounds than it is to accomplish any of those things.  The only problem is I don’t wanna.  I don’t wanna count calories.  I don’t wanna stop eating movie popcorn.  I don’t wanna perform cardiovascular activity three to five times a week.  I also don’t wanna keep wearing my big-girl pants.  So I’ve reached an impasse.  Although the big-girl pants are more deplorable than the rest, which brings me back, once again, to the Great Weight Loss Resolution.

 

In my stocking, Santa gave me a pedometer—and for the record, you know something’s wrong when the Big Man implies you need a little exercise.  So I guess moving is part of that resolution.  As is eating fewer cinnamon rolls and more fruits and vegetables.  And doing things I don’t wanna until I feel like I do.

Unless someone can pass me a time machine.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Happy 2011, everyone.