I wanted to share a picture of Chickadee's shoes on her first day of the semester, because for those of you who've stuck around for a long time, shoe pictures and the first day of school are a tradition 'round here, and this would've been a very significant picture, because... it will be the last one (at least for a good long while, anyway). Because---I hope you're sitting down, people who started reading here when my darling Chickie-pie was 6 years old and sassy beyond her years---my once tiny and chirpy firstborn is graduating from college in just a few months. Graduating. From. College....
Offspring: ecstasy and agony Articles
And then we went on vacation
You may or may not recall that every few years my father and stepmother gather up their collective children and grandchildren and take us all somewhere to sit around eating ourselves silly and telling embarrassing stories about the past. It's magical. My little nuclear family missed the last trip (which was three years ago) for Reasons and so this is our first time all together in five years. In preparation I went back and read my posts from the very first trip, which was a cruise, so it was fresh in my mind that when the cousins first met, Gerber had just turned one, Banana was a painfully...
This post is covered in pollen
Hello! Sorry it's been so long. In my defense, I was busy dying. I mean, OKAY, not DYING dying, just dying a little bit. Dying in the "dear God, I have woken up with a massive headache every day this week" and the "do I have a cold? a sinus infection? BUBONIC PLAGUE IN MY NOSE??" sense, which is to say: it's springtime in the south! The whole world is covered in a grainy yellow coating, my eyes are itchy, etc. Everyone is making the same joke about how meth dealers are trying to turn their product back into Sudafed, and we all laugh every single time, because what else can you do? Well, I...
Our healthcare dollars at work
Before I begin, let me just say 1) I didn't mean to leave you hanging on that last post, I swear, and 2) THANK YOU for all the nice comments and emails. February/March (Farch, as one commenter called it, which I shall use forevermore) is hard on a lot of us, huh? I'm really glad it's almost April. Also I am (finally) feeling somewhat better, so do not fret. But that is not why I am here today. OH HO HO HO, no. I am here today to tell you the story of why for-profit health insurance companies do not work and why when politicians start wringing their hands about how EXPENSIVE universal...
You’re gonna be so sorry you asked
Hey, Mir, how's your week been? OH WELL I HOPE YOU HAVE SOME TIME TO SPEND! Pull up a chair! Grab a cup of tea, and maybe a few benzodiazepines. Whatever. Let's start last Saturday, because why not? Monkey has had a cold which has morphed into a sinus infection, and Otto has remained healthy because 1) Otto never gets sick and 2) Otto is rarely actually home, and I spent most of my spare time since the first sniffle washing my hands every ten seconds. Because I would NOT get sick, damnit! I have no time! And this time, I would escape it! So: SATURDAY Otto and I puttered around the house for...
Something something metaphor
I go thrifting on a pretty regular basis. Sometimes I'm looking for something specific (e.g.: lo, I have partaken of too much ice cream, and require new pants), sometimes I'm just looking. [Sidebar/shameless plug: I'm finally putting some of this thrifting to good use by selling stuff on Poshmark. Here's my closet, and if you're new to Poshmark and put wantnotdotnet as your invite code, you get $5 of credit and so do I.] Usually I just look at clothes and shoes, but sometimes I look at other things. Anyway. A while back I was doing my regular Goodwill rounds and I found a wicker planter...
Hurricane, redux
I recently received a kind but somewhat plaintive "If you're never going to write again could you at least TELL us" message and then I felt guilty because guilt is my go-to emotion. (My second go-to emotion is anger, which is a real treat for those around me, lemme tell you.) I never INTEND to stop writing. I just... don't... for a while... and then inertia kicks in, and before I know it, months have passed. I do miss the days when my children were small and cherubic and uncomplicated and everything out of their mouths was entertaining and I had endless blog material simply from the...
Happy second GET OUT birthday!
Once upon a time, a long long (longlonglongLONG) time ago, I started a blog shortly after my firstborn turned six. At the time she had buckteeth and dark blonde hair and little blue glasses, and she often glared at me and said I DON'T LIKE YOU when I displeased her. This week that same sassypants turned TWENTY, only now her teeth look great and her hair is currently... um... strawberry blond with pink tips, I think... and she has a little opal nose stud instead of glasses (not to help her see... oh, you know what I mean) and nearly all of her texts to me start out I LOVE YOU but also I get I...
Recentish
I am positively CRUSHING 2018, in case you were wondering. Why, I made a new vision board on January 1st---as I've done for the past howevermany years---and I finally took down last year's board and hung the new one this week. In April. LOOK AT ME GO. (Okay, in my defense: It has to be sealed with some spray stuff and I couldn't find my old can of it, or maybe I'd used up the old can, I don't know, and then I didn't buy any until my 57 trips to the Big Home Improvement Store during Dressergate, and then I had to find the Command Strips, and... yeah, okay. That's not really a defense.) The...