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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Childhood, Revisited
When I was a kid my family lived in Park Forest, one of Chicago’s south suburbs. We occupied one half of a duplex in a neighborhood that was quintessentially 1970’s, with mostly stay-at-home moms and mostly dads that left for work every day and mostly kids that goofed off outside in everybody’s yards until they got called in at dinnertime. It was a happy childhood for me and I wrote about it three years ago. I have always wanted to go back to see that neighborhood as an adult, and two years ago I finally did. It was more emotional for me than I thought it would be. Oddly enough…
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Missy.
In case you didn’t hear me shrieking yesterday during Super Bowl 50, Missy Elliott followed me on Twitter. Yes, THE Missy Elliott. One minute I was tweeting a reply (“I’d like to see Missy Elliott back up there!”) to Sirius XM’s question about who else I’d like to see on stage with Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and Beyonce, and the next minute, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott herself was following me. And that’s when the evening took on an ALL CAPS flavor. (Apologies to my friends. I know how annoying that is, but MISSY ELLIOTT, YOU GUYS.) I was so excited about it that I was doing a little bit of tearing up…
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City Girl Farming
Way back in the day, before I was spending a good chunk of my waking hours online (blogging and such) I spent a good chunk of my time playing games like “Sim City” and “Roller Coaster Tycoon”. Looking back, I can’t believe I played as much as I did, but I suppose in a few years I’ll be in disbelief about all the time I spend on the internet, too. Eventually blogging and other social media pursuits took over and I stopped playing computer games. Over the years I have received countless invitations from friends to play every game under the sun, like “Words With Friends”, “Candy Crush”, and lots…
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Happy To Help.
On Sunday I received an unusual answer from my mom when I asked her if she needed me to do anything before heading down to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. Naturally, “Happy to help” is an understatement. She had already talked to my sister about it, who was completely on board (of course) with the plan. I’m pretty sure she’s been researching specialty drinks to prepare for this very important task. When we arrived today it was only a matter of minutes before we opened up that cabinet to see what we were up against. I spotted a bottle of Green Label Jack Daniels in the back and immediately called…
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On Holiday
I just returned home from out of town, again. I spent the last couple of days in Madison, Wisconsin to attend a conference for women in leadership (more on that next week). I’ve visited Madison a few times this year, since D works and lives there, and I’ve truly fallen in love with it. It’s an awesome town with beauty everywhere you look, radiating out from the center of town and the Capitol building. Last night we were lucky enough to catch this sunset on the campus of UW-Madison. No filter!! I am terribly blessed to have the ability to gallivant all over the country; traveling is one of my…
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Making Seventy-Seven Look Good
It’s Roxie’s eleventh birthday today and we’re celebrating! Err, I’m celebrating. (Jim doesn’t celebrate dog birthdays.) Where does the time go??? Roxie has accomplished so much in her eleven years (seventy-seven dog years, whew!). In addition to electrocuting herself as a puppy, actually eating a kid’s homework once, getting skunked, eating entire loaves of bread, bags of chocolate*, and part of a container of baking cocoa and living to tell about it, she has also run away for an afternoon (twice), ripped up paper money that totaled approximately $73 for all incidents, rolled in rabbit poo multiple times every summer, destroyed many stuffed animals, scared an infinite number of people…
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Once Again, It’s All In The Attitude.
We spent most of last weekend moving D from Kenosha to Madison (Wisconsin!). It’s an interesting time for him right now. After doing production work for a mid-sized marketing company for the last year, he was hired by a much smaller graphic design firm. He’s wanted to work at this place for nearly three years, since he was still finishing his classes. Here’s the rub: he’ll be a design intern, which is fantastic for long-term and getting him where he wants to go in his career but in the short-term, it’s a pretty significant pay cut. That’s why we’re focusing on the long-term. His living situation is also being downgraded;…
- Confessions, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Something That Could Change Your Life, Working On My Fitness
Rebalancing.
Making it through last week felt like a huge victory for me because, well, you probably read all about it already. Besides the moving parts of my life over which I have no control that I ever-so-vaguely mentioned, the other main source of my internal crisis was a repeat offender: hormones. THANKS, MOM. KIDDING, MOM. I took some action over the weekend and reached out to a friend who is a wellness coach and so smart about and active in treating things holistically that one of her nicknames is “Witch Doctor”. This is NOT my thing. I’ve always been skeptical of the healing properties of oils and other natural—what shall…
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Reason #829 Why I Love The Internet
The internet is pretty awesome. Okay, it is awesome if you set aside the ways in which it sucks. I’m focusing on the awesome today. Here’s the thing. It’s very common for people on the internet to band together and come forward to be supportive when there’s a personal crisis going on. There’s always someone on the internet to say, “Oh my gosh, me too!” or “Don’t worry; that’s totally normal!” whether you’re talking about physical issues, mental issues, home repair issues, kid issues, or any other kind of issue, really. The Good People of the Internet* are right there, helping others feel better. I was having my own crisis…