I am so tired of our embarrassment of a country and the casual cruelty that has somehow become not just acceptable, but exciting to so many. I need a vacation from reality. Also, our air conditioner died. And it's fine---it's been replaced, and the new system is about a billion times better---but as someone who is just a weeeeeeeeeee tiny bit mentally ill about money (you hush, Otto), having just spent an enormous chunk of money is also not feeling great. As (cheap) retail therapy is often my solution in times like this, and as all the kids are about to move, I've been spending an inordinate...
It's been exactly one month since I last updated (as I discovered by checking, just now; this was not on purpose), and Operation Yeet The Adult Children Northward is well underway. Chickadee---firstborn daughter with lifelong anxiety through and through---has been making lists and finalizing plans and generally moving through the giant hassle that is moving two humans, three cats, and a pile of STUFF 2,000ish miles like a pro. The girls currently live in a condo Sunny owns (that would be a long sidebar story, but just understand that their experience has left them ready and eager to return...
It has been so long since I posted here, I forgot the password. It has been so long since I posted here, I had to read the previous post to 1) figure out what I'd last shared and 2) brace myself for how far back I'd need to go to catch you up. It's been so long since I posted here, I had a moment (okay; maybe several) of nostalgia for the days when I wrote all the time and my life didn't feel like a series of complicated situations I've neither asked for nor want, but nonetheless probably shouldn't air publicly because... reasons. (Let's ignore the fact that that plenty of people think the...
Apparently the wedding took a little longer to recover from than I'd planned. Ooops! So, uh, hi! Still alive! Mostly! And only a few things have happened since I was last here. I'm HILARIOUS. Surely I will forget some stuff, but I will do my darndest to cover the highlights as best I can. Maybe later my husband will come home and say "But what about [insert that super important thing I totally neglected to mention]??" and I'll say "Oh, yeah!" and actually come back sooner than six months from now. Who knows! Stranger things have happened. If you'd rather not waste your time, the Spark Notes...
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...
Look at me, writing again before a hundred days have passed! I don't know what has come over me! I think it might be that someone reminded me that I used to write endlessly about the dumb stuff I used to do. And I was all "HA! Used to?? I still do a lot of dumb stuff!" And now---after decades of earnestly training myself to pay LESS attention to the stupid things I do---I find myself reviewing the past day or week and thinking, "Wow, I am really just not getting any smarter. How unfortunate for those around me." So here I am, ready to tell you a story because I believe if you can't be a good...
Hello! The other day someone came to the blog's Facebook page and yelled at me. Well, that's not exactly true; they left a very concerned message asking for an update and if I'm okay, and it happened to be in all caps. So when I responded, I said "Please don't yell at me!" (I am delicate and have tender, easily-hurt feelings) and the commenter hastened to apologize for the accidental caps lock. This of course prompted me to check when I'd last updated, because surely it hadn't been that long, and.... yes it was. Months. I left you hanging for the entire summer. Whoops! Sorry about that. The...
I did not mean to leave things on such a down note, last time, but you know how it goes. Life has a way of barreling forward whether you're ready for it or not. So now it's---*checking calendar*---nearly December, and there is so very much news to share! That's a lie. I mean, very little of it is actual news, but I will share it anyway, because ye olde blog here is now old enough to vote, so why stop now? As Otto says, I always have many words, and it's simply for his safety that I spew some of them somewhere other than directly at him. (True story: last night when he arrived home from work...
As I am wont to do, I started noodling over the inevitable blog post several weeks ago. Where to start, how to do it? I couldn’t quite hit the ignition, and so it simmered in the back of my brain along with the rest of… everything… like how I should probably go get an oil change in my car and Chickadee asked me to look for something in her room and how I ordered groceries and asked for one of the pork shoulders that was on sale, “average weight: 4 lbs,” and I thought “Hmm, that’s a lot, but it’s so cheap, and I can freeze leftovers” and then they picked me one that was almost 9 pounds and...
