I have a new(ish) local friend who is, like Otto, a professor, and therefore is free to do all sorts of things in the summer which she will be far too busy for once classes start up again. Me, I'm all slacker, all the time, but I'm coming to the realization that summer is a mystical time for most people here in Universityland. For one thing, most folks are working a lot less in the summer. For another, you can actually go downtown for pizza or whatever and FIND A PARKING SPACE. It's lovely. Anyway, my new friend---let's call her Foodie, because it will make her laugh---and I have been...
This is the part of our story where the children have returned, and Otto has returned, and the cartoon bluebirds sing and all is well and easy and back to normal, hallelujah and amen! Except that this is ME, so nothing is ever that easy. Of course. Really, that sort of tranquility would make me highly suspicious, anyway. So have I ever told you the story about how I am a wee bit impatient when I get a bee in my bonnet about redecorating and home projects? It's true! I can see that you are astonished! But yes, occasionally once the decision has been made to do something, I am not so good with...
I have a great many awesome friends. Some of them take me out of my comfort zone, periodically, which is to say that they make me leave the house and pretend to be an adult. I hear that this is good for me. So when my buddy Melissa sent me an email that said, "Hey, I often have to go to these media dinner things to check out restaurants, and I get to bring a guest, so do you think you'd like to come with me sometime?" I immediately replied that YES, that sounds like FREE FOOD GREAT FUN and she should count me in. Silly me. A couple of weeks later she mailed to invite me to a dinner at...
The children are leaving (again) tomorrow, so today I am all aflurry with laundry and packing and snuggling and cooking (motto: When in doubt, BAKE!). I figure that blogging can wait a day, and even if it can't, tough. However, as I was making a fresh pitcher of iced tea, this morning, I couldn't resist a bit of delight, thinking about telling all of you mintphobics that I just brewed my own concoction of mint tea, with MINT! MIIIIIIINT! from my herb garden. It smells divine. And I always brew my tea without any sweetener, because I'm a complete sugar fiend and am therefore not allowed to...
I'm not the sort of person to blog about what goes on in therapy, usually. I mean, why would I tell you about that when there are so many more interesting things to talk about, like mammograms and surly children and such? The point is that I generally consider that to be a situation above reproach and somewhat sacred/private. [Well, usually. There was that one marriage counselor my ex and I saw who sat in an oversize rocking chair, sipping I'm not sure what (tea? bourbon?) from a mason jar and telling us---in the midst of what anyone could see was a badly broken marriage---that if we just...
Our internet is all messed up at home, today (gosh, HOW UNUSUAL), and so I trundled off to my favorite coffee shop to steal borrow their internet. And really, after I pay $5 for a cup of coffee, I think I'm entitled to QUITE A LOT OF INTERNET. Anyway, first I had to finish up some work that was due this morning. Done. Then I had to do my regular Friday morning post for Want Not, because if I don't, a rift will form in the space-time continuum and we are all doomed. And then when all of THAT was done, I decided (even though I'm done with my coffee) that I could do a quick post for here,...
I am one of those people who has felt like a full-blown adult ever since I was about six. I'm not saying that I'm MATURE, because lord knows I am NOT, but neither am I one of those "Oh, gosh, when did I become the grown-up??" sorts of people. I can't remember NOT feeling like a grown-up. (I do remember feeling mighty aggrieved when I wasn't being treated like one, as a kid and particularly as a teen. I see this same frustration in my daughter and when it's not DRIVING ME UP A WALL it cracks me up. I think we should isolate the chromosome responsible for this premature sense of adulthood and...
Greetings from the land of Unplanned-For Expenses, otherwise known simply as Home Ownership. Why, we'd noticed the deck seemed to be settling a little, last year, when we moved in, and this spring we could no longer ignore that the gazebo seems a bit... SLANTY... and so we called our favorite contractor and asked him to come take a look. He checked it out and told us how much it would be to bring in a jack and prop up the corner and reinforce it, and we nodded and agreed, and the price was not exactly pocket change, but it made sense and wasn't too traumatic. The same week, it became clear...
Contrary to what you might think about a woman who writes about her entire life on the internet, I'm a fairly private person. STOP LAUGHING. I know that seems a complete contradiction of terms and some of you are thinking that I've finally started drinking during the day, but REALLY, it's true. There's a reason I blog about the stuff I do from the relative anonymity provided behind the computer screen, and believe it or not, there's plenty of stuff I don't write about at all. Yes, yes, I know. My uterus and subsequent lack thereof, talking to the kids about sex, tormenting my husband into...
