Love is grateful, day 5
Today I’m grateful for writing, even on days like today, when I don’t want to, I’m not “feeling” it, and I would rather be in bed with the covers over my head. And I’m grateful for all of the people who encouraged me along the way.
This is the (very worn) back cover of my 6th grade yearbook. (Thank you, Mrs. Simons—it took me a while to get around to it, but you can rest easy knowing you were right after all.) And thank you to every single one of you who stops by my little corner of the ‘net, too.
Love is grateful, day 4
We finally have a local Trader Joe’s, and I am probably more grateful for it than is reasonable.
Go ahead and scoff, but I’ll take my convenient, low-price, delicious opportunities to be elevated to hero status where I can find them, thanks.
Love is grateful, day 3
Today I’m grateful for hubcaps. Particularly, this hubcap:
I took Monkey to a doctor’s appointment this week and when we were done, my left rear hubcap was missing. I called Otto in an indignant rage; who the hell steals ONE HUBCAP in the middle of the day in the middle of town?
Otto said, “I’ll take care of it.” And he did. Like magic. A new hubcap showed up in the mail, and then on my car.
I could’ve lived with a missing hubcap. But Otto took care of it. Because that’s just how he is. That there hubcap? IT’S MY VERY FAVORITE. (This is not really about my hubcap. Just in case you couldn’t tell.)
Love is grateful, day 2
No matter what the day brings, I am grateful that within seconds of sitting down here at home, I’ll have a lapful of this:
Love is grateful, for a solid week
Thanksgiving is one week from today, and we are hosting dinner, and I’ve bought nothing. My desk looks like a cyclone hit it, I’m behind on work, and right now there is a big scary drama going on behind the curtain which I am tired of thinking about every single waking moment.
So.
One week of gratefulness from me. Starting with this, for day one: I am grateful for my goofy gazelle of a girl-woman daughter, springing from childhood to young adulthood and back again faster than I can keep track. I am grateful for her never-failing ability to make me laugh, whether with a well-timed comic comment or a simple declaration of, “JAZZ HAND BUDDIES!” as she assumes the (jazz-handed) position and demands I do the same and then give her ten. It even happens when we’re not in the same room; I recently got this from her in an email as a reminder that no matter how stupid and mean she says I am, really, we’re okay.
Happy Love Thursday, everyone. What are you grateful for today?
International Special Needs Kids Amnesty Day
It’s today. I am declaring it to be today. Right now.
It’s International Special Needs Kids Amnesty Day.
So here’s the deal: There are plenty of kids with special needs whose challenges you can easily see. You know what it means when a kid is in a wheelchair—you wouldn’t expect him to get up and walk. You know what it means when a kid has the tell-tale facial features of Down Syndrome—you wouldn’t expect him to do some calculus for you.
But for every kid whom you recognize, there’s another one—maybe more than one—who has special needs you can’t easily discern, and those kids are sorely in need of a break from your judgmental jackassery. I am in need of a break from it, because GUESS WHAT! I have enough crap to deal with right now.
So it’s today. You may wish to take notes, because I’m going to tell you how it’s done: read more…
Even oversharers have limits
Someday I’m going to sit down and diagram what is—in my mind, anyway—okay to share with others and what is most definitely NOT okay. I remember once hearing someone say they’d never blog something they wouldn’t share with a small crowd at a cocktail party, and at the time I thought to myself that that was not such a bad rubric, really, even though I personally would have to have QUITE A FEW drinks before sharing at a cocktail party the way I generally do here on the blog.
Regardless. I have some sort of internal this-is-acceptable meter, and it may not match yours, and I’m not saying mine is the One True Meter, but the point is that I have certain tolerances. And I am a delicate flower, sometimes, when those internal lines are crossed.
Most of the time I can make sure everything stays within my self-imposed guidelines, you know. Like, I just don’t blog about stuff I don’t want to share. Easy. But then there are, you know, PEOPLE, who TALK TO ME and stuff. And sometimes they don’t know the rules. read more…
My hair had a great time in Chicago
I totally meant to write something deep and meaningful for you yesterday, to make up for my absence, but it turned out that—it being my first day back home, and all—I was far too busy:
1) sleeping
2) playing with the dog
3) slurping vitamin C to ward off the cold I tried to bring home
4) wading through fifty gazillion emails
5) trying to catch up on work
6) whining about how much work I had to catch up on
7) inviting people to a party I haven’t started planning yet (oops!)
8) trying to advise my daughter on the politics of cookie dough
9) trying to tune out my son watching every Annoying Orange video in existence
10) eating frozen coconut milk ice cream analog.
Never let it be said that I don’t lead a varied and full life, right? Right.
Also, I appeared on the news while I was gone, and everyone who saw the clip basically responded with some variation of “YOUR HAIR LOOKS AWESOME!” Points for my stylist, but I’m not sure that bodes well for the whole “positioning myself as an expert” thing, unless I want to be an expert at shiny hair. Which, actually, I kind of do. read more…
Traveling is always an adventure
Hello from Chicago! It feels like I spent all day en route to getting here, which is dumb, because it’s not really all that far away from where I live. Still, once you figure the ride to the ride to the airport, the time in the airport, the flight, the shuttle from the airport… it’s been kind of a long day.
Two items of note before I go to bed:
1) For the first time in a long time, I didn’t attempt to smuggle any contraband hair product through TSA; everything I had was regulation size. So you can imagine my consternation when a TSA agent tried to confiscate my (very expensive) dry shampoo, telling me that it was “too big.” I had to ask him several times to please read the size on the can, and finally he did—3.4 ounces, totally regulation—and then he very politely apologized. “You can’t go just taking a girl’s hair product, dude,” I said to him. “That’s just MEAN.” He cracked a tiny smile, and the (female) agent next to him harumphed “Men!” at me and he just lost it, laughing.
2) While I was traveling today, the owner of the domain biscuit.us emailed me to ask if I’d like to buy it, because I own “the similar domain, wouldashoulda.com.” He is asking $300 for the domain, which I think we can all agree is a bargain at any price. Upon seeing this email I immediately sent it on to Otto, telling him that it had made me laugh out loud in the airport. He mailed back to say he thinks I should buy it. I agree; once I snap it up, I shall change this blog’s tag line to “Woulda Coulda Shoulda: SIMILAR TO BISCUITS!”
It all evens out in the end
I am leaving town tomorrow to do a business thing, and—per my usual routine, which includes neglecting myself entirely, until doing so will make me look like a homeless person has wandered into a conference—yesterday and today I took care of making myself look like someone who gives a damn, again.
Yesterday, I got a manicure and a pedicure. The last time I did that was… right before Otto and I got married. I am not so much a “regular nails” kind of gal. But I got one of those Groupon deals to do it cheap, and thought it might be a nice pick-me-up before my trip, so off I went.
I found the salon, which is the good news. And the woman who did my nails was VERY VERY VERY nice. Like, grandma nice. BLESS HER HEART kind of nice, really.
That is where the good nail news ends, however. read more…