What I plan to do one week from today, the day after LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER Chicago, in no particular order: 1. Take Roxie for a long-overdue walk (one that is longer than twenty minutes) 2. Write up a post that describes how fantastic the show was 3. Laundry 4. Iron 5. Make some phone calls to a few friends with whom I haven’t had much time to chat lately 6. Catch up on my Google Reader 7. Make a really nice dinner for my family without rushing back to work right after we finish eating 8. Call Tracey What I imagine I’ll probably end up doing one week from…
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Bags.
- Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, Queen of Denial, Something That Could Change Your Life
The Haircut (Alternate Title: “I Guess It Just Wasn’t Meant To Be.”)
My hair has never been long, thick, and glorious. It’s been long. That’s it. One out of three? Not so great. I have always wanted to have bouncin’ and behavin’ hair that has just the right amount of curl and looks just as full at the end of the day as it does in the morning. I have always wanted to put my hair up in a messy-on-purpose-but-still-looks-cute ponytail, or a casual bun with pretty tendrils gracefully hanging down on each side of my face. I have always wanted to have hair that allowed barrettes and other accessories to cling to it rather than sliding off almost immediately as if…
- Childhood Memories, Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, Food, My Mom Has Mad Skillz
Old Habits Die Hard.
When he was little, J–like so many other young kids–had a strong aversion to bread crust. Unfortunately for him, I had a strong aversion to making a sandwich and then cutting off the crusts for my kid. Call me mean if you want, but I just figured that if he didn’t like the bread crust that much, he could just eat around it. I did help him out a little bit, though, by cutting his sandwiches into quarters on the diagonal. This way, he could nibble what he considered “the good stuff” all the way down to the crust. That picture above, though? That was my sandwich, from yesterday’s lunch.…
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Making Change
I ran out to the store today to pick up a new air filter for our furnace. I saw a report on The Today Show once that said you shouldn’t spend lots of money on the expensive air filters that are really tightly woven to block allergens, that it’s better to get the cheap, generic ones and change them out more often for better air quality in the house. (This post is not about air filters but I thought you might enjoy learning something here today.) ANYWAY. I only had the one item so I walked over to the Self Check Out registers and scanned the code. My total? $4.32.…
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What’s It Worth To You?
Way back in the day when Jim and I were newlyweds and we were watching every penny, I did the math on just about every single food product I put into the cart at the grocery store to make sure I was paying the least amount possible per ounce. Outside of food shopping, however, it was all about spending the least amount of money, plain and simple. I used to get the hairsprays and shampoos that cost under a dollar, I only bought clothing on sale or clearance (and usually out of season!), and housewares, when absolutely needed, were purchased (while cringing, usually) at a discount store whenever possible. Once…
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Festival of Lights
In keeping with how things have been going here at my house for the last I-don’t-know-how-long, we did not get any Hanukkah decorations up before the holiday officially began at sundown last night. It wasn’t for lack of trying: We (and by “we”, I mean Jim) dragged the two massive, storage-locker-sized Rubbermaid containers of Hanukkah decorations (mostly menorahs) up to the family room from the crawlspace about a week ago. They have been sitting there ever since, untouched and attracting piles of random stuff on top much like a treadmill ends up with clothing draped all over it. Around 5:00 p.m. yesterday (the sun was DOWN), I opened up the…
- Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, Family Fun, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, Working On My Fitness
Lazy (River) Is Relative.
My family just returned from a night away at Keylime Cove, a fantastic water park resort in Gurnee, Illinois. Like all good water parks, Keylime Cove has a lazy river. For those of you who don’t know what a lazy river is, you’re totally missing out. A lazy river is basically a shallow pool (only about three feet deep) that winds through a water park much like the river it’s named for. There are underwater jets that are pointed strategically so that the water flows in one direction. The lazy part comes in when you sit in an inner tube and…well, you just get carried away on your inner tube…
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On Kindness
Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s a really good time to start thinking about making good manners and consideration for others a habit so that when the holidays are over, we will be fostering a better environment in the world around us without thinking much about it. Wait…do you think you don’t have any issues with kindness? It’s possible that you don’t, of course, but sometimes–because most of us are so busy all the time–we become very emotionally impulsive and less thoughtful without even realizing it. I performed a little experiment last night and I challenge you to do something similar. I had to stop at the grocery…
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Let The To Do List-ing Begin!
After yesterday’s announcement, I was pretty keyed up and had the absolute worst night of sleep in recent memory. It took me two hours to fall asleep in bed because I was thinkingthinkingthinking, and I was wide awake again after about two hours because I was thinkingthinkingthinking. I came downstairs at about 3:30 a.m., turned on the television and opened the ole’ laptop. I worked on a post, checked emails, and scrolled Facebook–but not for long because my friends were all sleeping at the time and there were few updates posted since I had gone to bed earlier. I finally went back to sleep on the couch and got about…