That’s 315,532,800 seconds, or 5,258,880 minutes, or 87,648 hours, or 521 weeks.  Or 10 years and 3 kids.

Today is our 10th anniversary.  For anyone who’s doing the math, Aliya’s due date was exactly 40 weeks to the day from our wedding date, so it was not a shotgun wedding.  We eloped to Turks and Caicos, which is a GORGEOUS island in the British West Indies.  The flight is only a few hours and it’s a tropical paradise.  We spent a wonderful week there, including our brief wedding ceremony on the pier, which was observed by various tourists and the divers who unloaded from a dive boat during the vows.  The minister, who obviously spent each day going from resort to resort marrying random couples, got our names wrong twice, but I think we’re legal.

It’s a little sad that our 10th anniversary gift was a Wii, and instead of going out for a romantic dinner I went to Zumba class, but that’s our life at the moment.  My teacher Ali tried to help me get in a romantic mood by making us do the “Loosen Up My Buttons” routine, but it mostly put me in the mood for ice cream.  In case you haven’t seen 20 sweaty women gyrating to the Pussycat Dolls, here’s a video that doesn’t include me or my class, but you get the idea.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgyIvPdUbKI&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I’m actually pretty happy to see 2010 go and I’m ready to make a fresh start now that 2011 is here.  Along with the recent holiday insanity, I can wave goodbye to Norah’s thyroid issues, my own odd-ball symptoms which turned out to be thyroid-related too, the effects of the economy on my job and Ben’s…good riddance!  I’m feeling hopeful about 2011…I think it’s going to be a good year.

S0…my resolutions:

• Continue going to Zumba! My schedule was interrupted a bit by the holidays and our trip, but before Christmas I was going to Zumba at least 3 times per week, and once a week to yoga.  I’m still a little impatient with the yoga but I’m giving it a chance.  I just signed up for a different class which is supposed to help my back, and it doesn’t interfere with any of my Zumba opportunities like the previous yoga class did.  So, anyway, back to Zumba…I love it!  It’s the only form of exercise I’ve ever been able to commit to long-term.  I usually go to classes taught by Ali Struyk (www.zumbawithali.com), and she’s fabulous!  The women in the class are great too, and I just schedule the classes into my calendar and it’s pretty rare that I skip a class because I don’t feel like going.  As an added bonus, my company just started a reimbursement program for fitness classes, so they will pay $750 toward any classes I take this year – WOOHOO!  If any of you are interested in trying Ali’s class, she’s offering a special deal for January…if I bring a friend, the friend pays $5 for the first class and I get a free class.  Her classes are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7:45 p.m., 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, and 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, all at the Ballet Space / Mass Ballet in Saxonville.  Let me know if you want to go!

• Keep working on the clutter. When we got home from the Cape I had a serious moment of where-the-hell-are-we-going-to-put-all-this-stuff.  The kids’ rooms were seriously out of control, and there were remnants of Christmas everywhere.  There was also a renewed search for Aliya’s missing iPod Touch, when she found out that two of her friends had gotten them for Christmas.  We still haven’t found the iPod, but we did some organizing and purging, and hopefully we’ll have things back in order by tomorrow night.  My beloved grandmother used to look forward to January 2nd, the day when she organized closets, drawers, etc.  From the time that I knew her, her house was always ship-shape, but I’m hoping that when she had 3 small kids her house could use at least a little help.  So…15 minutes per day – 1 drawer, bin, or pile.  I may never get to the uncluttered state I desire, but at least I won’t end up on an episode of Hoarders.

• Devote time daily to my book(s). My work blog is getting a lot of action which is one of the reasons that I’ve had a hard time keeping up with this one.  Most people think that a blog or a book about doors is pretty strange, but there’s a real need in our industry for this information and I’m filling it.  I received permission from the leadership of our company to write on my own time (meaning that they will belong to ME), and due to a change in the building codes there are a lot of people teaching about this topic who could use my books as part of their curriculum.  The window of opportunity is now, and I will never forgive myself if I miss it.  A book editor actually called me a couple of weeks ago and we had a long talk about my project.  He was really encouraging and I think he’ll be a good source of help if / when I need it.  So…at least 5 times per week, I will work on my book about fire doors (to be followed by one on egress and one on accessibility) – whether it’s research, formatting, photos / graphics, or writing – just something.

Happy New Year everyone!!

People have started to check in and make sure I’m still alive, which means it’s definitely time for an update.  It’s comforting to know that if I die buried under the piles of crap stacked around my house, my body won’t go unnoticed for months.  Someone will miss me.

I’m alive, and this morning I arrived in Whateverland.  I think this is probably the earliest I’ve ever arrived.  If you’re not familiar with Whateverland, it’s more of a state of mind or acceptance rather than an actual place.  It’s the place where I stop stressing out and running around trying to make everything perfect or at least presentable, and sit down, pour myself a beverage, and say “whatever.”

This morning I dropped Norah off at preschool just as they were preparing for their holiday celebration.  When the teacher asked if I was staying I said that I had to go home and clean up because my mother’s arriving today.  She said, “Why are you worrying about cleaning?  It’s your mother, not your mother-in-law!”  Maybe she has a point.  What’s my mother going to do if the house is a mess when she gets here?  Fire me?  Tell everyone?  Write about it on her blog?

I did come home and do a few things, but there’s absolutely no way that I’m going to get everything *ready* the way I want it to be, so whatever.  I just went to BJs because someone had an accident on my featherbed (whatever) and I also had to buy new Christmas PJs for Adlani.  I had to let him wear his original new Christmas PJs to pajama day at school today because he had no decent pajamas to wear (whatever).  The kids’ rooms aren’t ship-shape (whatever), and my room isn’t ready to be occupied by Mom and Keith (whatever).  The presents aren’t wrapped (whatever), I haven’t done the grocery shopping (whatever), and I didn’t have time to hide the piles (whatever).  I haven’t printed and framed the annual photos (whatever), the Christmas cards will have to be Happy New Year cards (whatever), I didn’t ship out boxes to my 3 sets of remote peeps (sorry, but whatever), I still have a project that I really want to finish before Christmas (but if I don’t, whatever), and people are still emailing me about door hardware emergencies (sorry, I’m out of the office and I’ll answer your email when I get back from Whateverland).

On the bright side, I have to give kudos to Ben, who put up the Christmas lights and the tree, installed a new toilet (that’s a whole separate blog post), and spent 3 hours cleaning last night.  I got him a really nice present this year.  I hope he likes it, but if he doesn’t – whatever.

By the way, in a poll of 938 Americans, “whatever” was deemed to be the most annoying word used in English conversation (whatever).

Now where’s my beverage?