Had an odd weekend recently. I turned down a night out drinking and grilling with some old buddies and, instead, went to a hot yoga class on Sunday morning with some lady friends.

Makes sense I’d blog about this, right?

Granted, it wasn’t a one for one … I could’ve done both, I suppose, but opted on Saturday night for a “night in” that I spent watching Matilda with my 7-year-old because we’d just finished the book. This was her “special night” because I’m always doing “boy nights” with my son …case in point, we watched the original Thor on Friday night in the basement home theater in preparation for seeing Thor 2: The Dark World on Sunday.

So, if you’re keeping score, I technically replaced “grilling and drinking” with Matilda, snuggle time, a Thor double feature, and yoga. And, by avoiding a massive ingestion of meat and beer on Saturday night, I was much better prepared for an early Sunday yoga session.

So …Yoga. I could see myself getting into it. A co-worker and client invited me (they were probably just being polite, but I’ve been told I’d probably really enjoy hot yoga and it would be good for my lungs, so I politely accepted and met up with them). Yoga is supposed to be relaxing, and I’m guessing someday it will be, but when your first yoga experience is in a room full of seasoned yoga folks and the yoga instructor is barking out positions and philosophy, and I’m trying to learn the routines and the proper form while not falling down and making a fool of myself, this time wasn’t “relaxing” as it could’ve been. But I’ll get there. Oh, and a big sorry to the lady on the mat next to me …I didn’t mean to fall over onto your mat, grab your arm to keep my balance, or have my butt that close to your face.

Also eventually, I’ll figure out how to free my mind of negative thoughts and energy. In two yoga sessions, so far, I was able to forget the outside world because I was trying to remember all the moves …Downward Dog. Fierce Warrior. Airplane. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Wax On. Kung Fu Panda. And then I didn’t realize we were actually doing a “routine” and not a random sequence of moves, so I spent most of the class trying to copy some other people in the class who were at my skill level …I wasn’t about to copy the ladies doing handstands blindfolded and lifting an X Wing fighter out of the Degoba swamp. And there was one old dude who just sat there cross-legged for the whole hour… not sure why he paid money for that, but I could’ve kept up with his yoga pace. I was gonna make fun of him, but turns out yoga really frowns on bullying.

When all was said and done, after an hour in a room they kept at 101-degrees, I can proudly say I will be back. I like yoga. And I have a coupon.

Hopefully by Christmas my body will look like Adam Levine’s – who also does yoga.

If you care about my yoga adventures in real time, I’ll Tweet them at @donkowalewski.

It’s official. We have a Shelf Elf. Not sure why I have resisted this year after year, but I’m sure I had my irrational reasons. And I’m sure they were great irrational reasons. The biggest thing was, well, probably laziness.

Every night? I gotta pose this thing every dang night?

Then I realized something … a parents love for his or her children is directly proportional to the creativity used in posing the Shelf Elf, daily. As you can see from day 1-4 below, I don’t love my kids very much. But lemme tell ya, by December 25th, you’re gonna see some proof I do love these kids of mine … more than you love your kids.

Yes, in a world where we’re already too busy for relaxing, we’ve decided to add yet another daily “to-do” to our list. But life is all about doing things that are worthy of posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, so screw “relaxing.”

My initial observation, however, is that the presence of the Shelf Elf isn’t modifying the behavior of my children enough. In the first few days, we’ve had more melt-downs, shouting, and pouting than we’ve had in a long time … and I make my threats … “I hope when the Shelf Elf flies back to the North Pole every night he doesn’t tell Santa what he’s seeing.” And I add, “hey, it’s in the damn song …you better not cry, I’m tellin’ ya why.”

Yes. You knew the premise of the shelf elf is that he flies back to the North Pole nightly to report and then flies back and has “fun” around the house.

Well, either way, we’re on the hook for the next 17 days. More to follow.

Oh, and I love this song … and it’s fitting because this weekend is going to be cold. And if this song is really about a sweater, yes, it’s perfect.

For probably the last 5 years I’ve been known as “the meanest Dad, ever,” because I wouldn’t authorize the addition of a dog to our family. But it was with good reason. From about 2000-2006, we had a dog.  While I owned that dog I learned I’m not a “dog person.” See, “dog people” get dogs and understand dogs chew on things, are not human, and that they do dog things (bark, get sprayed by skunks, run away, bark, shed, have accidents in the house, bark at 2 a.m. at nothing, are a burden because they need to eat and visit the vet every now and then, and completely tie you down when it comes to blowing outta town for a weekend or going on a long vacation).

I had another problem with our dog – it was a pure bred beagle and it’s boss was always it’s nose, so that came with added fun. Our dog would find everything that smelled good and then eat that good-smelling thing (trash, food off the table, diapers, random fecal matter in the yard or on walks). We went to three rounds of obedience school and the dog was OK except when left alone with it’s nose. Maybe our beagle was high-strung, but it just couldn’t resist anything that smelled awesome. It would climb like a monkey to get at peanut butter brownies.

The dog had to go. Beagles scent receptors are 1,000x more powerful than humans and 100x more powerful than any other breed of dog.

“Dog people” might’ve tolerated it. I could not.

I vowed that if I ever got a dog again, it would be a mutt. I had an unidentifiable mutt growing up and it was the calmest, smartest, most easy going dog the world has ever seen. Enter the mutt you see above. It’s the result of two mutts having puppies. It’s like a Super Mutt. So, it is my conclusion this dog is the dog I’ve been waiting for and it will be calm, and easy-going, easy to train, it won’t be beholden to a host of instinctive behaviors (hunting, attacking, digging), and it looks like it’ll have short(ish) hair and might be right around 20-25 pounds when full grown.

I’ve been the “meanest Dad, ever” for years, now, but I always (secretly) enjoy when we get to babysit our dog-nephew and neighbor’s dogs. My family has been begging – including my youngest daughter who dubbed herself a “dog trainer” from about the time she was three years old. Truly, today when we talked about inviting some friends over for a cookout and watching some football, she breathlessly said, “oh, and they can bring their dog, too.”

I’m not kidding. She was breathless. The idea of a dog in our house for a few hours literally took her breath away.

So, here I am. I’ve given this new adventure the green light and I want to go on record that, if a dog isn’t in our house by Christmas, it’s because my wife is the “meanest Mom, ever.”

This was a nice re-entry into the blogging world. I’ve had a lot going on. I hope you missed me.

Oh …my point? People can change.

If we get this dog, I’ll be tweeting about that …so you can hang on my every word at @donkowalewski.