Nonsense – Midlife Sentence

Of genetics, realistic expectations, and Father’s Day epiphanies

June 22, 2017 No Comments

Midlife Sentence | Genetic Testing and Paranoia

We’re in the final stages of trip planning and last night Mike suggested renting a car and taking a road trip while we’re in Denmark. We could drive through a little town some of my ancestors are from. I can’t remember the name right now, but it starts with an H. And it probably has a lot of vowels in it.

… Which makes me wonder, not for the first time, whether poor Mike thinks it’s fun or exasperating to be married to someone with the memory of a goldfish. I suppose it could probably go either way, depending upon the conversation. I mean, he does repeat a lot of the same jokes. And I almost always laugh, which I think is the number one quality you should look for in a spouse.

Nonsense

We’re gonna need a bigger tiara

June 16, 2017 1 Comment

Midlife Sentence | My Apparently Fragile Ego

One of my favorite quotes is that one about doing something every day that scares the beejeebus out of you.

I know that’s not the exact wording, and I’m sure there’s another quote that speaks to my being too lazy to look it up. In my defense, I did, once, and found something about it being falsely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. Ever since, I figure it’s fair to just express the sentiment in whatever way I want. And you can attribute it to Eleanor if you choose. Or me. Or Captain Kangaroo.

I don’t think either Eleanor or the Captain probably used the word beejeebus nearly enough for my taste, though.

Well, guess what? I’ve landed on something I get to do every day for the foreseeable future that accomplishes that, and I don’t have to think about spelunking or jumping out of a plane to keep the fear queue full.

I’ll get to the actual thing in a sec, but first I want to share my favorite mechanism to cope with the biggest fears I have that don’t incorporate staring out a Cessna door at 12,000 feet.

musings, Nonsense, Parenting

Wake me when it’s time to be a grownup

June 2, 2017 1 Comment

I think it would really be nice to have some notice when a panic attack is due.

Like something on my calendar, so I’d know, for example, that at precisely 4am Mountain Time this coming Tuesday I would wake up wondering how much longer we were going to put off replacing the broken microwave, followed by my letting brain wander down various other rabbit holes that have to do with what is otherwise broken or incomplete in my life.

I might try to get to bed a little earlier if I knew I had that 4am thing looming. Maybe decide to actually get up then, instead of laying there, staring into space. I could do some laundry or something. You know, multitask.

A friend of mine wondered on social media recently whether she was of an age to start feeling like a “grown up,” and whether the fact she doesn’t most of the time has something to do with not having kids.

“Does having children make you feel more adult?” She asked.

I’m guessing my friend also had one of these unscheduled appointments, recently.

Nonsense

A Midlife Guide to Selfies that Don’t Suck

May 26, 2017 No Comments

As far as advice goes, I’m not ever going to be one to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do upon reaching a certain age. As far as I’m concerned, you should wear whatever makes you happy and comfortable. Whether it’s leggings, hoop earrings or hot pants, I don’t care. You should eat what you feel like, workout as often as it suits your fancy, and use the oxford comma or not according to your taste.

… Oh, wait. I will probably judge you on the comma use, but carry on with the other stuff.

But there is something I think anyone over a certain age needs to come to grips with: Selfies.

You guys. There is possibly no more distinct line of demarcation between the old and the young than the ability (or lack thereof) to take a decent self-portrait with one’s personal electronic device.

… Except for maybe the TV remote thing. But in the interest of being concise, we’re going to focus on the art of the selfie here.

musings

It doesn’t have to be a kidney, but if you have a spare …

May 17, 2017 1 Comment

After the winter we’ve had, I don’t think it’d be too much to look forward to Spring as some sort of relief. But, uh … nope. I mean, just look at this:

Photo by Tim Merrick

On the bright side, we haven’t had to do any lawn watering yet, which is weird because it’s mid May, when everything’s usually veering toward brownish and crispy. But the early freeze last winter broke our sprinklers (as well as a big hole in our bathroom ceiling), so now we have time to figure out how to fix that… and … I can’t remember where I was going with that whole upside thing.

On the downside, we have a river at flood stage running through the middle of town, and winter storm warnings (a month before summer, you guys!) to the north and east of here, which makes escape pretty difficult.

It really isn’t any wonder I’m thinking lately about how ready we’d be for disaster and whether Mike had the right idea when he put together our collection of bottled water and canned meat last winter.

Nonsense

You knew it couldn’t last forever … or maybe you didn’t think about it much

May 1, 2017 3 Comments

So… things are changing around here, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I’d like to think those changes are going to happen/have happened in some sort of orderly and seamless manner, and that I’ll not lose a single one of you, or leave anyone confused.

… kind of like my approach to parenting.

The reality is, I’ve been sitting on this new URL and mulling over this move for almost a year, now, and it’s not like some miraculous window of time has opened up wherein I can concentrate on one thing for any length of time.

So … screw orderly and seamless. I’m just going to go for it. If you’re a subscriber, this might be the last post you get in your inbox unless you click through to the article, where – if all goes well – you’ll be re-directed to the new site and you can re-subscribe there (look for the widget that promises FREE PRIZES, because I’m all about over-promising and the upsell you know).

Fitness, Nonsense

Breakfast with Jerks: Musings on a #Whole30 Morning

April 19, 2017 1 Comment

Who eats grapefruit at a pancake house? Actually, who eats grapefruit anyway?

You know what happens when you order grapefruit? You pay three bucks for an orb of sour water pustules on which you must perform delicate surgery with a weird, serrated spoon to excise each tiny bite full of kill-me-right-now.

This is currently my life. A table in a pancake house, smack in the middle of maple and bacon and bakery smells threatening my thirty-days-and-then-some of meal prep and healthy eating and a whole lotta’ pretending I wouldn’t kill someone for a pancake at any moment.

And I normally don’t even like pancakes.

Nonsense

Hot Water and House Mysteries

April 1, 2017 No Comments

One morning last week, I was washing my hands in the bathroom sink, the timing of which prompted someone upstairs to yell and pound on the wall.

Our water heater, probably like most residential heaters, delivers water of the precise temperature requested to only one person at a time, with preference to whoever most recently summoned it. Turning on the faucet in one part of the house will result in an either bracing or scalding blast for anyone already showering, possibly also triggering a tirade from a teenager who really should have been ready for school a while ago.

… Which makes me wonder, if we can only ever use one faucet at a time, what brainiac decided this house needed three and a half bathrooms? It’s one of those great mysteries. Like: why is there a cupboard above the refrigerator, all but inaccessible to even the tallest among us? And why do we put stuff there, ever?

Fitness, Nonsense

My Pre-Run Whine Session

March 1, 2017 No Comments

Midlife Sentence - Pre-Run Whine Session

I admit I’m not feeling much into the running thing lately.

And here I just signed up for another half marathon. This one’s in April, and I have to tell you if the registration wasn’t almost as arduous as the actual event, I might not have.

That makes more sense the better you know me.

This particular run is a big deal around here. It sells out in a few minutes. And since I’m competitive about stupid stuff, I get kind of wound up around this time every year.

First thing that morning, I was online, watching the countdown clock and yelling at my family to stop streaming stuff so I wouldn’t have fight for bandwidth at noon when registration opened.

I’d signed up and forked over my money before I even thought about what I was doing. And then I thought “well crap. I should probably train now.”

Nonsense

A Few, Mostly Useless Lessons from the Snowpocalypse

January 8, 2017 No Comments

First, regardless of the title, let’s just get this out of the way: there are too many made up words with which one can describe what’s been going on around here, but probably shouldn’t. To wit:

Snowpocalypse, Snowtastrophe, Snowstruction, Snowmageddon, Snowlamity, Snowlocaust, Snowfandango.

Maybe some of those were cute after the snow started coming. But then it kept coming and then started breaking off gutters and marooning cars. Now we’ve had three days of no school, and yesterday there was five more inches of the white stuff and then freezing rain, and there’s no way any of that’s cute any more. None of it.

I actually love the snow. I do. Sure it’s inconvenient and messy, but this year it came right before Christmas and you’d have to be a sour pit of misery not to notice when your neighborhood looks like it’s auditioning for a Hallmark Hall of Fame special about do-gooders and miracles and fa-la-la-la-la.

But, now it’s January, and we’re socked in and preparing for power outages and trees falling and ice dams, and wondering whether we’re insured for flooding. Okay, we’re weather lightweights, but whatever. I’m getting antsy.

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