Offspring: ecstasy and agony Articles

Picture rainbow confetti everywhere

I popped up long enough, last month, to tell you that I have So Many Wedding Planning Stories and also to tell you about Monkey graduating from college, and then I disappeared (again! I am nothing if not predictable in my slacker-ness!) because it turns out that the last month before a wedding is ABSOLUTE BONKERS INSANITY no matter how well you thought you planned. Those last four weeks, I kept saying "After this task, I'm done!" and I believed it, too, every single time. But I wasn't actually done until the wedding day itself, because there was always someone who needed me to verify...

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What a(nother) long strange trip it’s been

I have about six million things I've been meaning to update y'all on---most of them wedding-related, because HOOBOY planning a wedding is not for the faint of heart or sober, and I happen to be both---but they will have to wait just a wee bit longer. (Those tidbits will be worth the wait, I think. If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me "ONLY YOU, MIR!"... well, I'd have a whole lot of nickels. Not enough to pay for the wedding, you understand, but a LOT.) Nope, today is not for that, because today I have finally gathered my thoughts (as much as they are ever gathered, anyway) on...

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Insanity (a love story)

A person might think---had they, say, never met me---that after the saga of the cupcake stands I might have, I don't know, learned my lesson about "simple" DIY projects. In the end, did I really save any money? (Maybe just a little.) Did I really save any money if we put even the bare minimum value on my time as a factor? (Definitely not.) Was the hassle worth the outcome? (Ask me after the wedding, I guess.) Did I learn that making things myself is always going to take more materials, time, and know-how than I probably have on hand? (Listen, I am starting to feel personally attacked, and I...

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… and a tiny pirate costume

Once again, I came, I saw, I blogged, and then I disappeared. If only this was a marketable skill, I would have so much more money than I actually do. (Other things I wish were marketable skills: insomnia, snacking, still getting zits in middle age, being a hermit, and swearing.) (Honestly, I am SO GOOD at all of those things! It's unfair that my superpowers go unrecognized, is all I'm saying.) There was Holiday Hubbub and Dog Hubbub and Other Hubbub I would very much like to know where the word "hubbub" came from, just on general principle and also because after I type it a few times it...

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Well that was quite a summer

I did not mean to leave you with the depressingness of Duncan's demise for quite so long. I apologize. We had a rough week there and then gradually settled into being able to reference and talk about him fondly and without tears. It helped that Licorice has taken to having periodic accidents in the house (SHE IS JUST TRYING TO HELP) and Monkey loves to proclaim that it's "The ghost of Duncan!" peeing on the floor. So. Who knows? Maybe it is Ghost Leaky Duncan. I feel like haunting us with puddles would be on brand for him, honestly. And then... the second half of the summer seemed to rev up...

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Your package is running late

My father texted me yesterday, and I need you to understand that my father only types on a regular keyboard with two fingers, so texting---even worse---is for him a laborious and unfathomably slow process. I knew it must be something very urgent. He texted to say I need to blog to "protect his sanity." I was tempted to let him know I'll miss him if I'm all that's standing between him and the brink, but instead I told him I'd try as soon as I had some time. Because, you know, time is weird right now. Also I was on a Zoom meeting when he texted, so technically I did NOT have the time right...

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Important critter updates

We're rather like a nature preserve, over here, if you like your nature preserve with a motley assortment of dying plants and high-strung creatures, that is. I thought before telling you the new news, I should probably cover some old news. Good old news, even! 1) We have not had a recurrence of any car mice. Thank God. 2) Nor have we had a recurrence of any possums in the pool. (In fact, there hasn't been anything of note in the pool for a while, or maybe Otto is just no longer telling me, which would also be fine.) 3) Despite the fact that we are rapidly coming up on a year from Duncan's...

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Will swap sourdough for bubble wrap

So much has happened since I was last here! Hahahahaaaaaaaa. Just a little bit of shelter-in-place humor for you. I'M HILARIOUS. Actually, a few things have happened. First of all, our moron governor decided that certain businesses could open back up again. This is measured and sensible, yes? Of course! But then you find out that these essential businesses of which he speaks are... salons, nail places, and bowling alleys. And even if you don't live in Georgia, you've heard about this, because we're now The State That Spawned a Hundred Memes, starting with a few dozen riffs on how it's time...

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1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a worm war

I think I mentioned that Chickadee moved back home with allllll her stuff, and the idea is that she's taking this semester she should've still been in school to kind of decompress and tend to her health (HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA because 20-somethings are notorious for taking good care of themselves, amirite?) and figure out what's next, and then around May or maybe before (she said, trying not to sound too eager), she'll move back out to another apartment, taking all of this stuff with her. We'd cleaned out the attic, some, but let's just say that organization is not my darling daughter's strong...

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