Woulda Coulda Shoulda

We’re just past the halfway point of the kids’ first week away this summer, and truthfully, the days are passing at a tolerable pace. It helps to have a major catastrophe to tend to, I guess, to take my mind off of other things. LUCKY ME!

Oh, I kid. The whole computer failure and subsequent retreat into the fetal position has only occupied a tiny (gigantic) sliver of my time. Actually, I’ve been quite busy with my little container garden out on the deck. And that’s because I love to garden! Oh, wait. Actually, I think it’s because some sort of mystery bug is eating through my banana pepper plants. I spend a lot of time out there trying to find the culprits, and shaking my fist at the sky, and watering, and pinching the basil, and just generally fussing over my plants because my children aren’t here to fuss at. Don’t judge me. If all YOU had was lemon verbena, you’d spend more time with it, too. (more…)

Things have been a tiny bit tense around here lately; I don’t suppose you’ve noticed. To say we’ve all been a little stressed out would not be inaccurate. And while I can’t speak for the kids, obviously, I know that I personally feel a lot more angst when my children are having trouble getting over a hump and I can’t seem to help them.

Both of them are struggling right now with different things. I am left feeling like what I do is never enough and that if only I could find THAT THING that would fix it all, we could all heave a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, THAT THING is completely beyond my grasp; whether because it’s imaginary or because I’m a moron, well… sometimes it’s hard to know. Nevertheless, some days life feels more like a struggle than a journey. And some days I wonder if hoping for change is foolhardy. (more…)

I may have mentioned that I accompanied my daughter’s class on a field trip on Monday. There’s really no way to describe heading into the woods with twenty-four fourth graders, some of whom believe that nature ends at the edge of the playground.

Chickadee is turning ten soon, and I keep asking her, “So, when do I become an embarrassment? When will the very idea of me daring to show my face within a mile radius strike fear into your heart?” Make no mistake—I’ve already started becoming stupid. Very, very stupid. And demanding. [Insert huffy sigh here.] But so far, she laughs at the idea of my mere presence being horrifying.

She loves to have me come into her class. She’s proud to have me along, while the other kids cluster around and ask to see my nails, my phone, my shoes; they ripple with shy happiness when I remember their names; I am a rare and exotic life form in the classrom, and it never ceases to amaze me. Still, my days are numbered. (more…)

In the last year and a half, I’ve managed to transform my hobby-and-occasional-gig into a sustainable career. Which, frankly, still amazes me. When we were down in Georgia a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me what I did and I answered, “I’m a writer” without batting an eyelash.

I had only a short period of time to bask in this accomplishment before the logical follow-on to triumph took over: Exhaustion. Freelancing is not for wimps. There are no paid vacations, no sick days, and it’s very easy to fall into a pattern of working all hours, every day of the week. And then? What initially felt SO GOOD starts to feel a little bit like the third circle of hell. (more…)

Because I was raised Jewish and then fell into a rather extreme Christian religion in college, when I regained my senses I was (understandly, I think) a bit wary of committing myself to another church. It wasn’t that I didn’t still consider myself a person of faith; it was that I was beginning to realize that first I needed to know what I believed, apart from what a group of people might tell me to believe.

My (ex) husband (is) was Methodist. I went to church with him. Sometimes. The Methodists seemed nice enough. (more…)