My Poor Yoga Mat

My house is on a very steep hill. Just getting to our truck requires climbing this mountain every day. For me in this heat, that's all the exercise I need. Also due to the sloping nature of our land, I don't have that one nice flat spot to park my yoga mat and do a little workout like the kind you see on TV. I have the perfect view overlooking the ocean, the palm trees, the whole deal. Oh yea, now that I think of it I do have a good flat spot but it's too sunny. Not enough shade. As you can see, I could go on and on like this for days. Plenty of good excuses not to exercise. We all have them. For most people it's time. I've got time. Lots of time.

Oh and then there's the dogs. Three 1-2 year old dogs and three little 8 week old pups. As you can see, there would be no way I could lie down on my yoga mat and do a little workout because 6 dogs would be licking my face, biting my toes, dying to play on and with me. That just wouldn't do.

But the yoga mat has not gone ignored entirely. When my step daughter Britnie comes she loves to color in her coloring books. After I noticed her coloring on my leather sofa or coffee table, I grabbed the yoga mat and asked her to use this under the book to keep my furniture free of stray crayon marks. She liked her little portable desk.

My mat is not the roll up kind. I can't find that one, it is still buried in a pile of shipping boxes. This is some strange one that came with some strange exercise machine that got inherited by an old friend when I left Dallas. This mat is a tri-fold thing. Folds into three sections like a big brochure.

Now that the puppies are a little older, they want to be in the house with me all the time. They also want to be in or near the kitchen at all times! My husband doesn't believe in having animals in the house, although his goats seem to drift in and out occasionally to study themselves in my big mirror. We like to leave the door open to allow the sea breeze to cool the house. I finally got fed up with the puppies dancing in and out so I unfolded the yoga mat and used it as a "baby gate" - sort of. It didn't take these clever little puppies long to figure out how to burst through that inferior barrier. I still keep putting it up in hopes they'll get the message. I've also tried the finger snapping "SHTTT" that the Dog Whisperer preaches, but my puppies don't seem to understand that kind of outburst either.

Then suddenly night before last we had this giant storm. The rainy season is officially upon us. As farmers we have been waiting expectantly for it. But at three in the morning it blew so hard it woke me. We're still building the house even though we're living in it. We haven't completed installing all the windows. The house is on stilts so it would be extremely difficult for anyone to enter through the window. Nevertheless, the rain and wind were blowing in through the open gap where a window is to be installed. Immediately I thought of the yoga mat and placed it over the open space blocking the rain. It worked pretty efficiently.

So I look at my yoga mat with mixed emotions. I feel sorry for it because it hasn't gotten the workout it so deserves in quite awhile, but yet it is very functional for more purposes than the inventor probably ever dreamed!