Take out the trash day

I’m almost famous today!  I didn’t quite come up with the idea for Stasha’s Monday Listicles for this week, but I did suggest it after reading this one of Jessica’s posts from My Time as Mom.  So yeah, almost famous.  I’ll take it!

The idea is to confess 10 Things I’m Rubbish At, so here are ten things that I have decided I shouldn’t bother even trying anymore.

1.  Any sport that involves hitting a ball with an object.  Yep, I’m pretty hopeless at tennis, golf, baseball, and even volleyball where I only have to hit the dratted thing with my hands.  Throwing or catching a football, kicking a soccer ball, even dribbling and shooting a basketball: there are all no problem.  But objects flying at my face that I have to whack back?  No skills whatsoever.

2.  Gymnastics.  I tried, I really did, because I loved it.  But it turns out that I have no natural aptitude at doing back handsprings, flipping around the parallel bars, or any other human pretzel technique.  The only thing I was even a little good at was the balance beam, but twenty-five years and two kids later, I wouldn’t even bet on that anymore.

3.   Skiing.  I learned how to water ski in middle school, but when it comes to the snow, it’s a pretty sad sight.  I can get down a beginner hill pretty happily, and avoid objects fairly well since the water skiing taught me how to move around.  But even just trying to move across the snow to get back up the hill, I have an embarrassing tendency to…. fall down.  There, I said it.  It’s too bad, considering that I now life in snow skiing heaven, but there it is.  If my kids ski, I’ll be the mom enjoying a book and hot chocolate in the lodge.

4.  Going to bed at a reasonable hour.  I’ve tried this for years, but it doesn’t work.  There is too much to do and my children suck up all the reasonable hours (and many of the unreasonable ones) every day.  I won’t be trying anymore.  I’ll just be drinking chai on weekdays and taking naps on weekends.

5.  Avoiding dessert.  I’m just not sure I care anymore whether I fit into my favorite pants, because knowing that I have some chocolate awaiting me at the end of my Must Do list is the only reason I get anything done these days.

6.  Insecticide.  I’m not good at the bug-killing.  I prefer to catch and release them.  I blame it on some icky beetle and his crunchy exoskeleton that traumatized me back in grade school.I suppose if I actually had a bug infestation, I’d be fine about killing them. Except I’d probably hire someone else to do it.

7.  Distinguishing among wines.  I mean, I can tell the difference between red and white without any difficulty, but all the other words people use to describe wines baffle me.  Earthy?  Nutty?  I have no clue what I’m talking about.  I either like it or I don’t.  That’s pretty much as sophisticated as my opinion gets.

8.  Putting down a good book.  This is a main contributor to #4.  Nuff said.

9.  Cooking without a recipe.  I often look at my fridge or pantry and think, “I should probably know how to just whip something up.  It’s not like there isn’t a ton of food here.”  But no, I can’t.  If I don’t have everything in the recipe onhand, I tend to resort to making breakfast for dinner, because improvising is not an option.  Fortunately that’s my boys’ favorite meal, so they don’t complain.

10.  Accepting a compliment.  This one is my husband’s contribution because he says that I always contradict the person who complimented me, instead of just saying, “thank you.”  I may or may not actually give up trying on this one.

There you have it.  Tune in next week for a Monday Listicle in celebration of International Women’s Day!