As Otto and I lay in bed last night, I poured out my frustration while he held my hand and listened. Because I have a nice life. Actually, no; I have a pretty wonderful life. And yet I struggle, daily, against my will and my common sense, with the ability to just be happy. I still believe that---as I said once before---there is a certain arrogance in being unhappy when leading a good and blessed and lucky life. And to be clear, I'm not UNhappy. But I am not as happy as I could and should be, much of the time. Somewhere on my permanent medical chart I am officially diagnosed as being...
I know that every year I get a little loopy about my garden; in much the same way I can barely believe I'm an adult (with a driver's license and kids and everything), it still amazes me that I can grow things that turn into delicious food. I must've slept my way through botany in high school, because it still blows my mind. Soil and seeds and water make FOOD? It's like some kind of wonderful black magic. Of course, it's also a pretty nearly-instantly gratifying kind of thing, too. Plant, water, wait a month or two, enjoy the fruits (and veggies!) of your labors. For a devotee of Short...
I'm not here right now. Rather, I'm here, but I'm hiding. I am not being my best self right now, and as such I am looking for inspiration elsewhere on how people do the right thing even when, maybe, life is not feeling so right. Do you know what I mean? If you do (or even if you don't), here's three places to go today that I promise will up your good karma: 1) Please visit this post at BlogHer to painlessly donate a book to a child in need. Your comment = a book for a kid. It's that simple. (Bonus points: You blog about it, that's another book, too.) 2) I couldn't be more excited about my...
Last year when I started my garden, I had no idea what I was doing. This year I at least have some idea of how little I know, so I consider that progress. Last year I started almost everything as a plant, with a few seeds sown directly into my planter boxes and grown outside. About a month (maybe even more) after I began the garden, though, I decided to try starting some tomatoes from seed, and so I did that, inside, until they were big enough to transplant. I then moved them to their designated planting spots, where they promptly turned white and tried to die. If you're a seasoned gardener,...
Our next group challenge at Five Full Plates is the I Dare You challenge---stuff that legends are made of. If, of course, the legends involve us all clinging to our old comfort zones, and kicking and screaming our ways towards personal growth and exploration and all of that sort of thing. But the five of us are committed to TAKING THE DARE for the next month or so, and the results are already verrrry interesting. First Lydia started a rock band (no fooling). Then Joshilyn, who prefers to believe that everyone is smooth like a Ken doll under their clothes, shared the gory details of her...
I'm not here right now; I'm at Mom 2.0, about to go sit on a panel about Business Strategy. (I know, I know... I'm not sure how that happened, either.) In the meantime, I've finally unveiled the key to my success over at Five Full Plates, and you might be surprised to find out what it is. I know I was. But hey, I'm not arguing. Yesterday I took off my jeans without unbuttoning them---hard to not love THAT.
Otto and I have now been married for coming up on three years; I've been divorced for almost seven. My point is that there has been plenty of time for my "new life" to become the new status quo, and no matter how I look at it, there is no angle from which anything about the existence I now enjoy should be surprising or new-feeling. Except. There were bad years before the divorce, bad time DURING the divorce, bad years after the divorce---basically plenty of time in which my life marched along to misery and broken dreams and just the tiniest sliver of hope for better days ahead. I always said...
'Tis the season to be swept away on a wave of annoyances. I'm prone to agonizing over minutiae, anyway, and I don't think anyone could or does fault me for the things that often aggravate me these days---the kids' health, various family matters, work, school... you name it, there's stress attached. And whether it's a "good" reason to get upset or not, the fact remains that I fret. Endlessly. I want to take care of everyone. That's what I do. I want to soothe the savage hormone beast, make school a happy place again, and hear Otto talk about work without a multitude of heavy sighs. I want my...
We got up at an unholy hour yesterday and hit the road early enough to miss the traffic, which meant we'd already been on the road for hours when we stopped for breakfast. Our last Cracker Barrel meal for the foreseeable future, and not a moment too soon. My arteries were starting to congeal. (That's just my opinion, of course. The children's opinion on Cracker Barrel is something like "HOORAY FOR SHOT-SIZED BOTTLES OF MAPLE SYRUP! CAN I CHUG IT?") Back here at the ranch, we began the post-vacation madness, the part where you wish you could take a vacation from your vacation. Actually, I was...
