My life is nuts.

Kid, mate, work, play life, work, social life, kid, work, extended family drama, kid, add a dash of mate, put all ingredients in a blender, and purée.

I’ll own up to the fact that my job rocks, and is often fun, but while many of those around me are punching a clock on a Friday evening and calling it good, I’m finding myself at home on a Sunday afternoon tapping away at the keyboard, stressing out about e-mail programs, lost photos, deadlines and unreturned phone calls from Monday as I try to deal with locating clean underpants for a family of three, while dislodging a limbless Barbie from the clenched jaws of a pup.

Sometimes, I just want to trade in the frappaccino meal replacement for a slow-food supper, paring the ingredients down to the basics, taking out the incidentals while adding some fresh seasonings.

So what would those basics be, in my ideal life? Family. Friends. Good food. Good wine. Community. Money. Time for myself and my body, add a sprinkling of breathing in some nature with a dash of Om.

Well look at that; the ingredients for both are awfully similar — it’s mostly in the preparations that they differ. Oh yeah, also in the seasonings.

So now, how to retool my life to incorporate a different, slow-food lifestyle?

Let’s see. The good food, good wine and community are all incorporated in my job, if I can find some way to keep things more condensed. Add a smattering of friends into the bowl and I’ve got a single meal that has a whole lot of good stuff.

Then there’s the Family component. 

Occasionally, the wee one can come with me to events, the mate can come to others, and we can all go together for still others. Call it a work/food/family salad.

Yum.

Now the seasonings. Lately, I’m kind of a bland frappaccino sluggin’ gal, with a shot of extra excuses, like “I don’t have time to work out” or “I’d like to take a yoga class, but people will laugh at me.”

Let’s rethink that.

There’s Om on the trails at Point Defiance, and on Five Mile Drive. I have running shoes, I have an amazing bike, and I can use both. Better yet, I can use said running shoes on said trails while watching the tails of the pups wag briskly back and forth and gaining an upper body workout as I harness them in. This would be a multi-function seasoning, as this could staunch their canine hunger for Barbie parts while making us all happy as we suck in oxygen and breathe in the water, the woods, and the neighborhoods we love.

Perhaps that’s all well and good, but maybe I want something else, too. 

There’s that whole, “My arms look like hams,” thing, and that “my legs have lost all triathlon tone.”

I know I don’t have time for triathlons, but I may have some time for a gym if I quit with the excuses and treat that time with reverence. So much the better if I pay someone to wait for me at the gym: I may actually show up. And if that person is like Troy Nesby at the YMCA Downtown (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for four-person boot camps), then maybe I can get some weight lifting RAWR into my bod.

Call it a sprinkling of cayenne pepper.

But now let’s remember that Om. Sure, strength training and high-tech machines are fine. And I have no doubt my core will get worked, too. But how about a dash of ballet-like core work with a softer focus?

Add multi-purpose functioning when you throw in working out with a friend, and you have me considering working out at Pilates Body. Apparently I’d need a three-class intro before getting into the duet classes on the machines, but it might be a really great way to spend a late Saturday morning catching up with a friend as we catch rock-hard abs.

As a last, sweet treat, throw in the self-love. Consider it a sprinkling of sugar in the form of massage while catching up with friend Gretchen at Zinnia, or any number of holistic treatments at the home of friends Chiara and Kate at the Turning Point.

Will it be a challenge to change from the blender lifestyle to a more deliberate, peaceful existence?

Heck yeah, because I’m an adrenaline junkie.

But do I have a lot more to gain?

Heck yeah — I’d get my health back.



[YMCA of Tacoma Pierce County go to http://www.tacomaymca.org/ for locations and phone numbers]

[Pilates Body, 7326 27th St. W., University Place, 253.472.7117]

[Zinnia at Sanford & Son, middle floor, 743 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.383.3168]

[The Turning Point, 2211 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.7876]