Category: 2020

Family Flexibility

The range of flexibility in our family goes from Allison doing full splits and bending over backwards to Ryan and Matthew who can barely bend forward let alone touch their toes.

The past year Matthew has started having issues because he works out so much and then doesn’t stretch enough. On top of his lack of flexibility his muscles tighten up from working out and make him even less flexible and more tight. He has had to do several rounds of physical therapy. Of course Ryan and I have been nagging, harping, reminding, lecturing, begging, threatening, and anything else we can think of to get him to stretch 1-2 times a day. I’ve made him do Yoga with me. He is pretty ornery about it ,mainly because it hurts, he doesn’t like it, doesn’t get the importance of it, he is not good at it, and he is a belligerent teenager.

Our chiropractor gave us a video to use with some basic stretching. Ryan realized he needs to do it just as much as Matthew so the two of them have been doing it together at night. It is so ridiculous watching them. I switch between laughing so hard my eyes water to rolling my eyes as they moan and complain and roll around on the floor supposedly stretching but looking more like they are having a seizure or full body muscle spasm.

Kudos to them for trying though. They get an ‘A’ for effort. Well Ryan gets a ‘B’ and Matthew gets ‘C-‘

Philosophy and Toothpaste

I am not an idealist, I am a realist. Usually an optimistic realist but have my moments on the pessimistic side as well. So maybe you could say most of the time I am a realistic idealist, heavy on the realistic. 😂😂😂 I wonder if that is an original joke, or if my brain pulled it up from my memory that I heard somewhere before. Anyways. The reason I am rambling on about this is because it is a new year! One of, if not the highest time of year that people focus on making new goals for achievement and self improvement.

Ideally, many of us decide on something that we think will make our life better, or happier and make a plan to achieve it. Then follow the plan and achieve the goal. This process can then be repeated and goal by goal, step by step you are farther along the path of being a successful, fulfilled and happy person until your life is perfect and you are perfect.

Realistically, most of us start with great intentions and ambitions but then usually loose interest, desire, and/or motivation, and shortly afterwards and are back to our old habits. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are harder to make. Of course individual circumstances fortitude, self discipline and other traits have a big effect on success/failure too.

However, from an ideal realistic point of view. Sometimes we set goals for ourselves and are successful, sometimes we fail, sometimes we change our mind and change our goals. Sometimes we take a break then start again. There are almost numberless possibilities and reasons for why we do and don’t achieve goals. I think that the desire to make goals and put effort towards self improvement can be praised for heading in the right direction. Hopefully each day we can take another step in the direction we want to go. Sometimes the steps might be baby steps, giant leaps, maybe even a slip backwards, or complete stand still. Some goals are achieved in a day, some take years, some a lifetime, some are frivolous, inconsequential, life altering or even eternal but hopefully when all is said and done if you haven’t yet achieved the goal, you are closer than you were. And, along the way when needed you have the discipline to rededicate yourself and try harder, the courage to re-evaluate and change course, and the brains and humility to know which one of those to do-or come up with a third option.

Anywho. I am going to switch gears a little now and address the second part of the title of this blog. Toothpaste. The recent focus of a minor goal in my life.

Throughout our marriage we have lived in several different homes and sometimes Ryan and I have shared a bathroom sink, sometimes we have had our own. Depending on whether we shared a sink or not we would also share a tube of toothpaste or each have our own. Currently we have our own sinks and have our own toothpaste.

A while back while we were brushing our teeth one night, I made the comment that when I was helping the girls brush their teeth their toothpaste had so much dried toothpaste gunked up around the top that you couldn’t squeeze anymore toothpaste out even though it was at least still half full of toothpaste. Ryan chuckled and said it must be hereditary. To which I rolled my eyes and changed the subject because I knew where the conversation was headed. Ryan being Ryan wouldn’t let it go and asked to see my tube of toothpaste. I told him to not concern himself with my toothpaste…yaddy yaddy yaw…Ryan makes fun of me…I call him a turd…as the conversation is wrapping up he says something to the effect of it boggles his mind that he is a less detailed oriented person and messier than me but his toothpaste is clean as a whistle. I am a clean, organized, person but there are a few things in my life that are just a mess like my sock drawer and my tube of toothpaste. I laughed at the sock drawer comment because I know why I do that. It is the perfect amount of ‘controlled chaos’ for me and I like it. The toothpaste though…I don’t try and make it gunky but it usually is that way and I have to clean it up pretty often. So my curiosity was piqued as to why it was messy too.

So I decided to make it a goal of mine (definitely in the frivolous goal category) to keep the toothpaste tube nice and clean. Each time I brushed my teeth I made a conscious effort to leave the toothpaste nice and clean. A week later…it was getting gunky again.

I casually inspected Ryan’s toothpaste and noticed that he doesn’t just flip the lid down, he snaps it on tight, so I tried that. A week later I couldn’t snap the lid tight because it was getting gunky again.

Now it went from curiosity to a mission. So I checked the toothpaste after I put it on and and sure enough it was nice and clean but when I set it down a little toothpaste would come out the top and start building up. A little more trial and error and I discovered the proper way to apply toothpaste if you want to have a gunk free toothpaste tube.

  1. Squeeze the toothpaste to get the toothpaste you want. Then while simultaneously releasing the squeeze on the tube so it will suck the toothpaste down into the tube apply a moderate amount of pressure with the toothbrush while applying the toothpaste so that the bristles scoop out more of the toothpaste and leave a little dip going into the tube instead of a the toothpaste being flush with the opening. Then close the lid tightly. This method has successfully kept my toothpaste gunk free for several weeks. Also, a note is to squeeze from the bottom not the middle of the tube which is different then what I used to do.
  2. Basically, Ryan applies his toothpaste more aggressively so it stays clean. I have a more delicate approach due to the fact I inadvertently try not to touch the bristles when I apply toothpaste to anything except the toothpaste. If you have your own toothpaste either way is fine, but if you share a tube my way is a little more hygienic…until the tube gets gunky.
  3. I successfully achieved my goal (which turned out to be more of a science experiment) and now tend to switch back and forth between my old way and Ryan’s way.

I know it seems like I spent a lot of time and effort on this, but I would like to say I really didn’t. All the thinking and pondering of what to do next occurred during the time I spent applying the toothpaste. I have however spent a lot of time writing this blog about toothpaste.😁