• Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Working On My Fitness,  Zumba

    Zumba-versary

    January 31, 2013

    The first time I ever took a Zumba class, it was at a fitness conference called Midwest Mania. I loved it so much that I came home and immediately looked up a local instructor on their website so I could try a class close to home. I took the class, and was officially hooked. I have always loved to dance. I still do: I have a dance floor radar and if I sense one is nearby, I make a beeline for it. I am *that* woman who is out there for any group dance at a wedding or Bar Mitzvah reception. I am a quintuple threat (1. Cha Cha Slide,…

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  • Blessings,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Shameless Promotion

    Totally Worth Your Time

    January 24, 2013

    Having blogged for more than five years–which, face it, is like twenty-five years in internet time–often I come up with a great idea for a post and then realize that I may have written about it already. If it’s something worth repeating, I put a new twist on it and present it to you again*, sort of like re-gifting, but better. And with that… I received a card today from a friend we haven’t seen in a while, and when I opened it I was pleasantly surprised to see that every inch of the inside was covered in handwriting. It was a note describing how much she and her family…

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  • Blessings,  Friends

    Old Friends

    January 1, 2013

    It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson As we have for MANY of the last twenty-six years, Jim and I rang in the new year with our oldest friends, Dawn and Scott. Scott and Jim were in Navy boot camp together back in 1985 and Dawn and I became penpals shortly after that. We married only eight days apart in 1986 and grew close when the guys were both stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. I could tell you lots more about our history but I already wrote about it extensively four years ago, HERE. (You’ll want to…

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  • Blessings,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Twenty-six

    December 29, 2012

    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…

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  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments

    The Bad Parent, Good Teenager Strategy In Action

    November 30, 2012

    The scene: My dining room, earlier this week The players: Seventeen-year-old J, me, and my sister J: “So, Tim* and Megan* want me and (girlfriend) Shannon* to go to this dance club with them on Saturday night.” Me: “Really? A DANCE CLUB? Like, for under twenty-ones?” J: “Yep.” I glanced across the table and raised my eyebrows at my sister. Me: “What is the name of this dance club?” J: “The Zone.**” Me: “And where is this ‘The Zone Dance Club’ that I’ve never heard of after twenty years of living in this Chicago suburb?” J: (shrugging shoulders) “I don’t know. They have a 17+ night on Saturdays. It starts…

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  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Too Funny To Ignore

    My Friends + Laughter = Me + Thankful

    November 29, 2012

    I had a couple of ideas for this, the penultimate NaBloPoMo post for 2012. I thought I might write about how I used to sew clothing (easy patterns, but still) for the boys when they were little and how a matching pair of shorts led to one of my favorite pictures of them from way back when. Then I thought that I would post a couple of black and white pictures I took of the boys over Thanksgiving weekend. (I love black and white pictures, don’t you?) I also considered sharing (finally) one of the buildings I toured during Open House Chicago, since I never got past talking about Marina…

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  • Blessings

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    November 22, 2012

    As it turns out, the problem I was having with getting the WiFi at my parents’ house last night was caused by where I was choosing to sit in the family room. I moved my laptop to the dining room this morning and–like magic!–I am connected. Shew, that was a close one! I got some work done this morning and now I’m all ready to make the deviled eggs and a salad for our Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade at the same time (tradition!), and generally enjoying the day with my family. I hope YOU have a great day too, no matter where you are…

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  • Blessings

    Signs

    November 10, 2012

    I am a HUGE believer in signs and messages that are quite possibly strictly coincidence but, when interpreted the way I need to at any given time, can seem other-worldly, comforting, or just good reminders. (And if you’re wondering, although I don’t check on a daily basis I do happen to enjoy reading my horoscope. As long as it’s good. Bad? Forget it. Those are the days I don’t believe it.) When my first beagle–the late, great Bijoux–died back in 2003, I took major comfort in what I interpreted as signs from her. It started with an INXS song (I wrote about it on my first blog, here), and after…

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  • Blessings

    Five Years Down…

    October 28, 2012

    Today happens to be my 5th Blogoversary! Over the past five years I have written 1453 posts on Suburban Scrawl, which is a pretty darn good average: 291 per year. I didn’t feel any pressure to write any kind of overly spectacular post to celebrate this milestone for a couple of reasons: 1. It’s Sunday and I’m in the middle of a bathroom renovation so I can’t sit here working on my craft for hours. 2. No matter how little effort I put into writing this post, it is bound to end up better (by leaps and bounds) than my very first post here on Suburban Scrawl on October 28,…

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  • Blessings,  How To,  Random Thoughts

    It’s Up To You. You Can Quote Me On That.

    October 23, 2012

    Well, hello! Nice to see you again! Since it’s been five days since I last posted (yikes!), I have had to wrestle with a brain on overload. There’s not much to write about, but there’s so much to write about. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me, either. I had a post planned for today but put it on the back burner early this morning when I scrolled through my Facebook news feed and found an inspirational quote, one I have since lost track of but it went something along the lines of “My life is fantastic because I decided that it should be.” I love it (and probably…

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