I may be the last person on Earth who should start a blog. Seriously, the last. But here I go anyway. Here are the reasons why I should just say no to blogging:

1. I need a blog like I need another pet. For the record, I have 5 pets (2 dogs and 3 cats), and my house is barely 1100 square feet. Yes, you read that correctly. My house is TINY. And I live in the Animal House. Literally. And I don't like to clean. Having 5 pets (two of those pets are Golden Retrievers) and not cleaning every 5 minutes is a recipe for disaster. If you look up the word disaster in the dictionary, you should find a picture of me. Instead of writing this post right now, I should be swiffering the gobs of fur that are lurking in every corner of my house, sticking to the legs of every chair, table, and person, and accumulating under the bed, couch, and radiators. I could grow another dog with all the fur that is in my house. But here I sit.

2. I am messy. Like really messy. And unorganized. I am so messy and unorganized that I am probably the messiest and the most organized person that I ever met in my life. I have piles of laundry that aren't done, months worth of dust piling in places, stacks and stacks of papers that need tossed or filed, and drawers stuffed with clothes that need to go to Goodwill or at least need to be folded neatly. I. Am. A. Mess. I should be cleaning right now. Oh well.

3. I became a new mom this year. I love being a mom more than anything else in my life. Being a mom has completed my life in a way that I didn't know was possible.  I feel crazy mom guilt when I am not spending a moment with my sweet babe. This leads to many of the problems I noted above...it is hard for me to get things done when all I want to do is snuggle or play with Sweet L. But I also feel crazy mom guilt when I take time for myself. Even when Sweet L is napping and I feel the need to scroll mindlessly through my Facebook feed, I think, "I should be filling out her baby book" or "I really need to finish my thank you cards and send her birth announcements." Nope. Haven't done any of those things. I. Am. The. Worst. Mom. Ever.

4. I have two full time jobs. I am a mom (that is full time job number 1), and I have another job where I get paid. This job requires me to leave my house, take my Sweet L to daycare, work all day, pick Sweet L up from daycare, and come home after dinnertime exhausted and starving. My job requires a lot of work to be done outside of the office, so my work is literally never done. Right now, I should be working, but here I am doing exactly what I shouldn't be doing...

5. Besides walking, I have exercised about five times in the last year. The month I became pregnant (but before I was actually pregnant), I ran my second half marathon and set a new personal record. Back then, it was not unusual for me to go to my fitness studio and take three classes back to back. I LOVED yoga and practiced almost every day. I was in the BEST shape of my life. Exercise was my drug, and I was addicted. When I was pregnant, I continued to workout, but did so at a much more relaxed and easy pace. I was too paranoid to go crazy and hot yoga was just out of the question for me (again, I worried too much). In my last month of pregnancy, I stopped exercising. In addition to worrying about overworking myself, the flu was going around and the flu shot apparently was ineffective, and everyone seemed to be sick. So, I stopped going. When Sweet L was born, it was the coldest winter ever, so we pretty much hibernated until April. What's my excuse now? My studio is about 30 minutes from my house. I drive this drive when I go to work, and so when I don't have to drive I don't want to drive. Why don't I go on the days when I work, you ask? That would mean Sweet L would be at daycare for two hours longer than usual. I am not ready to do that. When you are unorganized, finding time for exercise is tough. What's that? Why don't I run at home? Oh, yes. That is exactly what I should be doing. But I would rather sit in my cozy house and eat cheesecake instead.

6. I am not sure I have any friends left. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have hung out with my friends over the last 11 months. When my phone rings, I am pretty sure that it is either my mom or my husband calling. I get the occasional text from friends, but I do not have much of a social life, and I am okay with it (I think). Like my work, many of my friends live about 30 minutes away. That may not seem very far, but it is not an easy 30 minute drive, and when the town is a place where a 15-minute drive to a destination seems like an eternity to the townsfolk, a 30-minute drive is completely out of the question. My husband and I used to make the drive daily, sometimes even twice daily. I still make the drive almost daily, now with Sweet L in tow, so again, when I don't have to drive, I don't want to. This has changed my circle of friends drastically. If we don't make the drive, we pretty much don't have friends to hang out with because no one wants to drive here. I can't blame them though. Everyone is busy. Right now, I should be trying to get together with my friends. But that would mean I would have to drive 30 minutes. Ugh, I think we just need to move...

A view from my daily drive. Yes, it can be pretty, but it's still long. And the view does not entice others to make the drive to us.

So, why am I starting a blog? That is a really good question. I'll have a better response prepared for another day. For now, I will just say this: Because life is too short to be so serious all the time. I worry a lot. Like A LOT A LOT. I need to laugh at myself more. I need to laugh at everything a little more. I need to appreciate and savor everything a little more. Writing helps me to do all of those things. Plus, it gets me out of cleaning and I can eat cheesecake while doing it.