Listography...5 things I wish I could do

  This week Kate Takes 5 has got us thinking about things we wish we could do.  This is a tricky one...do I go in glibly and wish I could pick those six numbers that would make me a millionaire?  Or do I dig deeply and profoundly reflect upon my earlier failings, wishing I could turn back time and rewrite my wrongdoings in some way?   Tricky indeed!

1:  Have a grasp of Spatial Awareness...I am so spatially challenged it actually handicaps my functioning in everyday life.  For example...my husband has actually found me sobbing, unable to complete a 32 piece Beauty and the Beast Jigsaw puzzle.  I can not read a map, work out directions or even understand a Sat Nav ( all that talk of left and right is way too complicated!)  I am the butt of family jokes when the Tangrams come out and I struggle to make a rectangle out of two triangles.  Most humiliatingly of all was trying to teach Symmetry to my Class 4 children in my role of Teaching Assistant...oh the shame!

2: Exercise...I have taken part in many an exercise class.  I have tried yoga, pilates and holistic training.  I've done a dance class and I've joined a gym, which I was attending three times a week at my peak.  However, I am rubbish.  Firstly, the left and right thing raises its ugly head.  In one particularly energetic dance class, I was  going the opposite way to everyone else and causing chaos (much to my sister's amusement!)  I ruptured my groin on a thigh press.  I put my back out and couldn't walk for three days doing a Pilates Spinal Curl (meant to strengthen the spine indeed!)  Walking hurts my bunions and my cartilages pop out of my knees with the least encouragement.  Some people are better off as sedentary social media addicts!

3:  Dance:  I guess this carries on from point 2, but has a whole new set of reasons.  My sister can dance...she belly dances, waltzes, foxtrots, tangos and pole dances.  Me...I goon around in a comedic, David Brent style, in a literal interpretive fashion, going purely for laughs, knowing full well that if I actually tried, everyone would laugh even harder.  My sister loves her ballroom dancing and constantly tries to teach me but to no avail.  I waltzed at her wedding and crashed into her new parents-in-law who, up until that point were floating elegantly around the dance floor.  At a family party, my husband dumped me as a partner to dance with our 6'4" nephew who was more elegant than me. My sister once tried to teach me to belly dance...my dad said it looked like an ironing board trying to dance :(  In my mind's eye I am elegant and graceful.  In reality I look like a six foot, uncoordinated version of this dancing cat!

4: Be Crafty:  I am quite the academic.  I collected A Grade A'Levels when I was a SAHM to my first two babies (in the days before Social Media!!)  I love essay writing and producing spreadsheets and collating evidence. I realised I was not testing the creative side of my nature and took classes in pottery and drawing.  I had visions of unleashing my inner Picasso.  Instead, I made a clay pinch pot and failed my shading assignment.  Seriously, in pottery everyone was making lamp stands except for me who never progressed beyond nursery level pinch pots.  I once tried to make curtains.  All I had to do was stitch up a hem in a straight line, but I didn't put the foot down on the sewing machine.  I wondered why my line was so wonky and hard to control.  I once knitted a toy lamb for my first born...it looked like a holey carthorse on steroids!  I so want to be able to do these things and I know I should be able to...but my hands just do not do what they are told!

5:   I wish I could be less obsessive!  I've given up alcohol and caffiene because I can not moderate.  If I'm eating I binge.  If I diet I starve.  If I take on a challenge (like blogging for example or my Graco Advocate Competition) I simply can't do it by halves.  I have to throw my self into everything 100%.  I avoid starting a book unless I have a whole day free ahead of me because I know I'll be unable to put it down.  However, I'm a slovenly housewife...until I get an urge and am taken over by the desire to scrub the entire house with a toothbrush and end up pulling everything out of cupboards to sort it all out.  I'm glad I'm not vain because I would spend hours and a fortune on hair, nails, clothes and make-up.  I'm glad I'm not 12 because I would probably chain myself to the rails of R-Patz or Justin Bieber's hotel (OK, maybe not!!)  luckily, my husband and family are my obsession and I wouldn't have that any other way!!