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How I Spent My Summer Vacation

by Mir on July 27, 2018 in Health is overrated, It's not a regret, it's an "experience", What do I do all day?

Or: Summer’s Almost Over And All I Have To Show For It Is A This Eye Twitch.

Or: My Children Came Home From College And All I Know For Sure Is That There Are Now Cheese Stick Wrappers In Weird Places All Over My House.

Or: Summer’s Almost Over But My Saltiness Shall Go On Forever.

So HEY, remember how I mentioned that this summer has completely and totally sucked and most of it I can’t even talk about but long story summed up, I strongly suspect I was a serial killer in a former life, and am now karma’s bitch? No? Well, I did. And I do. And we’re just a few weeks away from school starting back up, so I thought a Summer Summary (say it five times fast!) might be in order. Because misery loves company, and I remain hopeful that said company will sometimes show up with chocolate.

Without further ado, here are the things you probably didn’t care about at all that have been the hallmarks of my personal summer of 2018: (more…)

Comments { 30 }

Happy second GET OUT birthday!

by Mir on April 20, 2018 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony, What do I do all day?

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 HATE IT WHEN YOU’RE RIGHT sometimes, and I screen-cap it every time because it delights me.

We thought eighteen was a big deal, but she seems to be taking twenty much harder. “Now I REALLY have to be an adult,” she kept saying, like the Adulthood Police might pull up on her at the park and be all, “Ma’am, excuse me, but aren’t you a little too old to be riding on that playground equipment? Can I see some ID, please, and can you tell me when you last filed your own taxes?” I always found it hilarious when my father would say things about how he knows I’m an adult but he always thinks of me as a kid, but now I get it. Twenty is still a toddler. Twenty is playing grownup and hoping no one notices.

Just as the last birthday before you leave for college is the GET OUT birthday, the birthday before you move into your first apartment is a similar—and yet unique—extravaganza. (more…)

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Recentish

by Mir on April 6, 2018 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Oh look! Something furry!!, What do I do all day?

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 hanging of my New Year’s Plan (such as it is, in collage form) promptly during the first week of April was perhaps a perfect metaphor for the overcrowding and disorganization in my life of late, so I started making some hard decisions, too. For example: Easter was this past Sunday, so this should be the week I plant my garden. But after a survey of my current life circumstances and the dozen projects I have yet to complete, as well as a quick review of how much I hate tomato-thieving squirrels, for the first year in a decade, I’ve decided not to put in a vegetable garden. Instead, I signed us up for a CSA, like the crunchy hippie I aspire to be. I mean, the cost is probably about the same, but this way I get more variety, less work, and 100% fewer tomatoes pilfered by overgrown rodents. Plus we watch a lot of Chopped and so I’m looking forward to opening a week’s haul and going GOOD LORD WHAT IS THAT HOW DO I COOK IT OR IS IT HERE TO EAT ME. Adventure!

* * * * *
(more…)

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DIYDon’ts and other spare time disasters

by Mir on March 26, 2018 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", What do I do all day?

Hello! My father—you know, that guy you know as Mir’s Dad—was here to see the play (which was, I think, pretty much a success despite some, er, challenges), and during that time he asked when I was going to blog again, and I was all, “Dude, I am BUSY, with this SHOW and STUFF” and he let it go. But then he called me last week and toward the end of the call he said, “Well, that’s all. Just checking in. Also you do know you need to blog at least occasionally so I have something to read, right?” He wasn’t much for guilt trips when I was growing up, but geez, he’s making up for lost time now.

Hi, Dad! Here I am! Still without any earth-shattering news or happenings, but when has that ever stopped me?

When we last left off talking about The Children (subtitle: But They’re Adults Now And That’s Pretty Weird), the spring semester was just beginning. Off they went, like autonomous adult-like beings, and then I disappeared and never updated. Tralala! I mean, oops. They were just home for spring break, sort of. Both of them were only here for a few days, because apparently they have LIVES and OTHER THINGS TO DO and whatnot. Details. But the point here is that I blinked and the semester is suddenly half over, and—come closer, I don’t want to say it too loudly—everyone seems okay. Good, even. Good-ish, certainly. There’s no denying that after close to 20 (!!!) years of centering my life on these two knuckleheads, I’m now free to take an enormous chunk of my time and energy and place it elsewhere.

It’s incredibly freeing. I feel AMAZING!

Haaaaaaaaahahahahaha, just kidding. It’s terrifying. I have taken up other things to ruin now that my offspring have escaped. (more…)

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Tech Week

by Mir on February 6, 2018 in My name is Grumplestiltskin, Oh look! Something furry!!, What do I do all day?

Or, Snot: The Opera.

Or, Tell Me Again Why I Thought I Liked Doing Theater?

Or, My Children Moved Out And All I Got Was The Plague (Twice).

Or, Someone Hates Me And It’s Hurting My Delicate Feelings.

Good morning! Gosh, this is early for me to be blogging. (As in, early in the day. I realize I disappeared for a month, again.) But WHY NOT, I say, because I am 1) awake and 2) far too cranky to do anything else. I’ve already gotten out of bed, made myself some tea, irrigated my nasal passages with saline (sexxxxxy), taken some of the good, meth-making kind of decongestant where you have to go to the pharmacy and hand over your license and a bag of magic beans, and whined to my husband about how much I hate everything. Now I’m here to share it all with the world. LUCKY YOU!

First things first: The children are both away at college and doing well, by which I mean that both of them are still alive. Both of them would like me to leave them alone, except of course for the twenty times each day they contact me to ask such burning questions as “should I take Advil for a stomachache?” (answer: no, do not do that, are you kidding me right now) and “do I own a three-hole punch?” (answer: I don’t think so, but what a great opportunity to talk to some of those other humanoids living in that large building with you as you try to locate one, P.S. it might be time to stop asking me what may or may not be in your room). They came home last weekend to hassle the dogs and complain that there’s no food in the house, and I assume that if I had been home at all to spend any time with them, that would’ve been nice. Maybe next time. (more…)

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Hello yes hi we are alive

by Mir on June 20, 2017 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony, What do I do all day?

A very patient reader pointed out over on the Facebook page that I never updated after the last post (about Chickadee being in the hospital). I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to be a giant jerkface, but it just happens naturally, I guess. So, to clarify:

1) I suck.
2) Chickie was in the hospital for 5 days and then was released to us.
3) She is feeling a billion and twelve percent better than she did during the acute phase which landed her in the hospital.
4) She does, however, still have mono, which means…
5) … she sleeps roughly 16 hours/day, and…
6) … she had to resign from her summer job, and…
7) … her liver is still Not Happy and being tested every couple of weeks, and…
8) … she is well enough to do things she likes but not well enough to unload the dishwasher, okay??

We are getting on each others’ nerves but she is recovering. And I will take squabbles about the dishes all summer long over literally carrying my child into the ER because she’s too sick to walk. So. Practical take: Also let us not forget that timing-wise this was pretty much best case scenario; if she’d gotten sick earlier in the semester it would’ve been catastrophic. Opportunity to torment our child take: Jokes about who your kid was swapping spit with while away at college never get old!

So that’s that. Everyone lived and the folks at the hospital were great, but we sure are glad to be home. (more…)

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Whoops

by Mir on February 16, 2017 in What do I do all day?

So it’s been about a month since I wrote here. Honestly, it only felt like a couple of weeks, which is weird, because in our new dystopian reality, every single day feels like a month, lately. Still, I knew I’d been remiss when my father called me to make sure I was still alive. When I go Dad-wondering-if-I-still-exist many days between writing, that’s when I’ve been a jerk. Er, a bigger jerk than normal.

Hi, Dad! I’m alive!

This is the part where I tell you how thrilling my life has been that I just haven’t had a SINGLE MOMENT to come here and detail it for you, what with the EXCITEMENT and DIRE IMPORTANCE of it all. And I would totally do that if I’d been doing anything that fit that criteria, but still I am mostly reading news, listening to news, and waiting for the sky to fall. Turns out that that takes up a crazy amount of time.

A few other things have happened in the interim as well, but mostly the news-and-panicking stuff. And baking. DON’T FORGET THE BAKING, because the only thing better than being certain that the world is ending is being certain that the world is ending but you probably should have some cookies, first.

And so I present to you a brief summary of the Very Exciting Things Which Happened of the last month or so: (more…)

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Let’s give ’em something to taco ’bout…

by Mir on November 8, 2016 in What do I do all day?

Today’s the day, people. We made it. Election Day! Now we all just have to make it to tomorrow, sans heart attacks. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can….

In the meantime, may I remind you that it’s Tuesday? As in… TACO TUESDAY.

I can think of no better Tuesday in the history of (wo)mankind to well and fully commit to Taco Tuesday. Can you?

I’ve got your taco recipes right here, in case you need some inspiration. Until there’s a taco truck on every corner, you can just make yours at home, I guess. Enjoy!

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Batten down those dryer sheets

by Mir on September 2, 2016 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, What do I do all day?

Welcome to another episode of, “Well hello there, I am not in fact dead, I have just been busy elsewhere and also I suck.” I have baked things for Nerd Night! I have fitted one hundred smelly teenagers for band uniforms! (That’s not a slam; we do fittings during practice and they’re practicing outside and it’s hot and seriously, please send air freshener.) I have Cleaned Things and Dealt With Broken Things and said “let me know how I can help” and actually meant it, which means I have been doing lots of things which are probably uninteresting to anyone other than the folks I am helping, but whatever.

Chickadee is loving college. Monkey is loving his time on our local campus, too, and this week submitted his last college application (!!!), meaning that now we just sit back and wait and see what happens. I feel like both kids were young- and middle-teens with various issues and that time period stretched out in whatever the opposite of dog years would be; each of those hard years seemed to last at least a decade, while I wondered if we would ever be through it. Now that they are both upper-teens and doing well, time is going WOOSH right past us in a blur. It’s early to submit applications, for example, but if I blink, we’ll be at graduation. So.

My darling daughter was already slated to take a trip home this weekend, meaning I’d be seeing her for the first time in a month (not counting FaceTime…), and I was like a kid counting down to Christmas morning. She’d finish class at 2:00 and get her stuff and be home before dinner! SO GREAT! And then—I don’t know if you’ve heard that there’s a hurricane trying to eat the southeastern US right now?—the phone rang before 6:00 this morning and it was a robocall letting us know that classes were canceled for the day due to the storm. Which: thanks? Instead of waiting for dinnertime, my (supposedly) fully functional adult child stumbled into my office around 9:30, still in her pajamas, with a car full of laundry, and yay for her being home ahead of the storm. BUT I DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW THIS BEFORE DAWN. Also when you see that it is 1) way too early and 2) the caller ID says it’s your kid’s college calling, that has a way of making you (me) release all the adrenaline in the world while you steel for Terrible News, and then when it turns out to be a robocall, you might be kind of angry. And jumpy. Because adrenaline.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose. Except the laundry, because that’s never going to end. (No, she hasn’t done laundry at school even once. In a whole month. I KNOW.)

While I was off doing other things, I did write a couple of posts over at Alpha Mom. First, I am admitting that my neuroses about my career choices and salary know no bounds, and then yesterday I answered a reader question about transitioning from homeschooling to public school. You could go read those while I fold laundry, if you wanted.

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Back to the grind

by Mir on August 24, 2016 in What do I do all day?

Otto has this thing about asking me how my day was. I mean, he really wants to know, I’m sure. But he asks when he gets home and he often asks at dinner and sometimes he asks when we sit down on the couch later to watch TV, and he almost always asks again when we turn out the light and get into bed at night. It’s endearing the first fifty-seven thousand times. Last night when he asked me for the third time that evening I snapped, “YOU ALREADY ASKED ME THAT” both because I’m a terrible person AND because half the time, I have no freaking clue how my day was. How was my day? What did I do all day? WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???

I don’t think this is a kid-away-at-college thing. I think this is a Mir-is-a-somewhat-disorganized-dumbass thing. I do a certain amount of work each day, of course, but then I also find myself saying things like “Oh, I went grocery shopping!” like that’s some sort of major achievement. Um. Yay me? Yes, we have orange juice and a fresh loaf of bread! TRULY I AM A MARVEL! And if I manage to both do laundry AND put it away, well, I don’t require a standing ovation or anything, but if you must….

Summer was flying by the seat of our pants. Now that school is back in session, I’m trying to get us back on schedule. I’ve found that making dinner sacred again (you know, around marching band and everything else…) is usually a good anchor, so to that end, I’m over at Alpha Mom sharing my 10 Commandments of Drama-Free School Night Dinners. If you must know, last night we had chicken chili (made in the crock pot, natch), the leftovers of which will be nachos later this week. Tonight we’re having savory (gluten-free) cheddar buckwheat waffles topped with sautéed mushrooms, spinach, and onions in a white wine reduction. I can’t swear that cooking dinner is the reason my family still puts up with me, but I have my suspicions.

Tonight when Otto asks how my day was, I’ll reply with grace and love, “It was delightful. Shut up and eat your fancy waffles.”

Comments { 13 }
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