• Jims guitar
    I've Got Mad Skillz,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Middle-Aged Dogs, New Tricks

    One of the trade-offs of having grown kids who live elsewhere (Wah! I miss them!!) is that we have a lot of spare time to do…well, whatever we want. A few months ago Jim made a couple of comments about possibly wanting to learn how to play guitar, something he did as a child but only short term. I thought about buying him a guitar for his birthday and, after debating with myself about whether he was really serious about wanting to take it on, I headed to Guitar Center. I bought him a basic acoustic guitar, figuring that if he didn’t really care to learn we could just return…

  • wedding day
    Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Fun in Knoxville,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    On Getting Lost and Found

    The very first argument Jim and I had as a married couple was on our wedding day. We left the courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia and drove back to Knoxville; he was on leave from the Navy for the rest of the week. After a very long eight-hour drive, we got off the interstate and had to navigate through downtown Knoxville, which has lots of one way streets and odd intersections. It wasn’t long before we got completely turned around and totally lost. This was way before cell phones and GPS navigation (imagine that, kids!), and we didn’t have a map in the car. I wanted him to pull over so…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  The House,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    The Dining Room and Other Ways We’re In Sync.

    I figured a month was long enough to have my toilet paper obsession have center stage. Actually, to be honest, I’ve been too busy even to think about blogging. It’s all good, though. I’m in the thick of LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO season (13 days until the show! Need tickets? Go here.), work is gearing up to Level: Crazytown (#BlogHer17 is only two months away! Need a ticket? Go here.), and Jim and I are busily working on our new house in Knoxville. The house thing? It’s been awesome. As unhappy as I was when Jim and I were hanging in that special kind of limbo that occurs when…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    My Favorite Things: The New Jersey Edition (Yo!)

    Yesterday was my last day in New Jersey and, because she’s real smart like that, Liz thought we should go out to breakfast and do a little more local sightseeing in the area rather than sit around at her house, crying because we had to say goodbye in the afternoon, which totally would have happened. During a lovely walk in Thompson Park—which is NOT named after Liz or her husband Garth (Not His Real Name); I checked!!–we talked about our week and I told her that I didn’t even have a favorite part; the entire visit was my favorite. That was only a little true. I have some favorites, but…

  • Fun in Chicago,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Stalking In Starved Rock State Park

    A little more than a week ago, Jim and I were sitting around trying to make a variety of plans for the weekends ahead. It’s what you do when you’re an Empty Nester, you know. Suddenly you have all of this time on the weekends because you don’t have kids coming and going at various times: if you don’t make plans to do things, you’re basically just living from meal to meal and that’s no fun at all. Jim and I are all for fun, so we spend lots of time on our calendar of activities. After a few minutes of silent and individual thinking he said, “You know, if…

  • Reflections on Parenting,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life Goes On…

    We’re just about ten days into our new Empty Nester status and I can report that things are going very well. Life goes on, you know? Just as I thought, the transition itself and the actual act of dropping J off at college were the toughest parts. The adjusting to his daily absence in the house has been easier. I mean, I have done only four loads of laundry in ten days, and I probably could’ve gotten away with doing only three loads if Jim and I weren’t exercisers, needing our workout clothes laundered so we could throw them back in the rotation. Also, a couple of days ago I…

  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    It’s Bathroom Reveal Day!

    FINALLY. Our DIY bathroom renovation has been officially complete for about two weeks now since we hung the curtains my mom made for us (the final element!) (thanks, Mom!), but every time I have thought about taking pictures, I wasn’t anywhere near the house. Jim and I are so very happy to be finished with this, the largest DIY project we’ve ever tackled. We did every ounce of work in the room with the exception of the new tub installation; we left that part to our plumber. After hours and hours (and hours) of work and in just a few short months that seemed like forever, this room went from…

  • Pretty Pictures,  Travels,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Escape To Key West: It Only Takes A Weekend

    Each year before Hanukkah, Jim and I have a discussion about budgeting for the holiday overall as well as specifically how much our budget is for each other’s gifts. When the holiday rolled around last month, Jim (once again) proved himself to be quite clever, as he came up with a gift that was not only way below budget but was romantic and pretty awesome: plane tickets to Key West. No, our budget was not THAT high. He bought the tickets with airline miles: it only cost him twenty bucks! See? Clever! With a little research and some more budgeting, we found a nice, very reasonably-priced guest house where we…

  • Blessings,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Twenty-six

    To my love on our twenty-sixth wedding anniversary: Every year when we go on our anniversary dinner date, you ask me the same question. “So…where do you think we’ll be in ten years?” Though I love the idea of verbalizing our ideas of what life will be like a decade from today while enjoying a meal together at a romantic restaurant, I never feel like I have a good enough answer: you always seem to have a more specific picture in mind than I do. I’m an excellent planner on a day-to-day basis but life has so many twists and turns that it’s hard for me to imagine what it…