This story actually began in 1999 when I was working at a local health club. I was friendly with the general manager–well, we all were–and whenever I met him in his office he would open his dorm-sized refrigerator and offer me a can of flavored carbonated water. I hadn’t heard of La Croix before I met him and always politely refused the offer because it just didn’t sound very good to me. He drank it like it was going out of style. I mean, he had a refrigerator in his office for the sole purpose of keeping his La Croix cold. One day, after many days of sticking to my…
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Garage Sales. Don’t Get Me Started.
Garage sales. Sigh. I’m not a fan of attending them, and I’m not a fan of hosting them. When I was a kid, my mom hosted multiple garage sales every year, and I wasn’t enamored with the process at all, to put it lightly. Sure, my sister and I got to be the creative geniuses behind the signs, which took hours thanks to my mom being an evil genius (story here), but we also had to do the work of going through our stuff, helping to price it, and sitting outside watching strangers pick through it all. Of course I completely get that many people LOVE garage sales as a…
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Picture Perfect Memory
Recently I saw a meme floating around Facebook that said something along the lines of “I’m so old, I remember days when I didn’t take one picture”. I laughed, because I am that old, and then I stopped laughing and thought, “Huh, wow.” That meme was a think piece. There really was a time when we didn’t take pictures of everything, every day. When we weren’t all that concerned with remembering each moment. When only professional photographers knew anything about filters. When we–ack!–didn’t even have cell phones. Developing photos taken with traditional cameras, the ones that don’t allow you to talk or text with others or surf the web, is…
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Grief Is a Jerk.
It’s been nine weeks, and depending on when you ask me I’ll tell you either it feels like forever ago or it feels like it was yesterday. Regardless of how it feels, it wasn’t yesterday. Yesterday I was dreading what I had to do today, spending an hour dicing apples into tiny pieces for the charoset I am taking with me to a Passover seder this afternoon. I wasn’t dreading the task itself; I was dreading completing it without the presence of my kitchen companion. I think if dogs could claim to have favorite holidays, Passover would have been high on Roxie’s list because of all the apples. Anytime she…
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Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.
Today I’m participating in an old school Blog Hop, organized by my friend Nancy over at Midlife Mixtape. (Thanks for inviting me, Nancy!) The theme, as you may have guessed by reading my post title, is “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.” Way (way) back in the summer of 1979, my family was preparing to move away from the Chicago area for the very first time. My dad was hired to manage a Holiday Inn outside of Ft. Worth, Texas. I was very upset about the move, specifically because I was scared to leave the the home I knew and loved and my friends and everything that was…
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Spring Cleaning
Back when the boys were younger, spring cleaning happened in all four seasons. Rather, it was attempted in all four seasons. As a young family we were constantly bringing stuff (and more stuff) into the house, whether we purchased it or it was given as gifts or hand-me-downs. The struggle for extra space was real, all the time. Coming from a long line of packrats and being a mostly-recovered one myself (long story) it shouldn’t have surprised me when my older son D was traumatized at the mere suggestion of getting rid of, well, anything. It was his opinion that we should keep everything, because we might need it someday.…
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Oh, Nothing.
I’m good at quite a few things, like accomplishing tasks like a madwoman. I’m terrible at quite a few things too, like doing nothing at all. To me, a Type A Control Freak Perfectionist Workaholic, the idea of doing nothing seems horrifying, dreamlike, and extremely unattainable in equal parts. I mean, in theory I love the idea. In practice, it feels like a waste of time. Either way, doing nothing at all as a part of my plan (because I always have a plan) is nearly impossible, mentally AND physically. My friends know me as a Do-er. I have been told more than once that I am envied for my…
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Candy Girl
Over the weekend while at a candy store I came across some Spree candy in a bulk container and paused for a moment. I hadn’t enjoyed Sprees in years, as in “I can’t REMEMBER the last time I enjoyed Sprees but I think it may have been the early eighties”. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember what they tasted like other than my childhood. After standing there for a moment staring at the colorful disks, I reached for the scoop to put some in one of those “fill-your-own” buckets. When I was six or seven, I attended the birthday party of my cousin, who’s just a year older. My aunt came…
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Partying Like It’s 1986.
Since Jim and I had a pretty relaxing morning and afternoon—including going to see “Joy”, starring Jennifer Lawrence and by the way you should go see it right after you finish reading this post—I’m trying to get some work stuff checked off my list this evening. I can get into a zone and mostly ignore what he’s watching on television as long as it’s something I don’t care about or something I’ve seen before, so he put on “Top Gun” and that pleased me. It was released in 1986, the year we were married. Jim was in the Navy back then, which made the movie doubly interesting. I think I’ve…
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So Long, 2015!
Another year is gone (I think I have whiplash!) and Jim and I will be spending another New Year’s Eve like boring older people. In fact, last night as we were discussing our exciting plans (basically watching movies on Netflix), our older son, who is headed to Wisconsin to do a bar crawl with friends, was sitting there thinking, “That is such a LAME New Year’s Eve.” No, I’m not a mind reader but his eye roll and head shake told me all I needed to know to make a good guess regarding his thoughts. Good thing he won’t be around, I guess. I mean, Netflixing IS a really good…