I bought a cinnamon broom for the den and it smells sooo autumnal.
It has been a very hot and dry month in Michigan yet this evening we are sitting here with the windows open listening to a gentle cool rain.
I just finished a fantastic creepy book – one of the best books I’ve read this year, I think – highly recommend “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It was EXCELLENT. So atmospheric with a heroine you immediately are staunchly behind and the most chilling and fascinating setting. I’ve just picked up another by her (“Gods of Jade and Shadow”).
We spent all day yesterday at the first marching band competition of the year. Unfortunately it was 85 degrees with a blazing sun on a high school football field with zero shadow (and zero parking which meant street parking blocks away). Wool uniforms are still de rigueur and if we parents in the stands were red faced and running with sweat then the kids were truly suffering. But I love a good marching band and so I was deeply satisfied and even more so when our kids won second place in Class A competition, best percussion, best color guard, and best in music!
Next week is Homecoming. Insert happy face emoji surrounded by hearts.
I need a few good things today because I have a case of the Sunday Scaries. My beloved boss has moved up and out of Widget Central and I am left with a mass of complex tasks, exponentially increasing workload, and instability. I keep telling myself it isn’t my first time at this rodeo but – let me bury my nose in a gothic horror novel and a delicious cinnamon broom for a bit longer, okay?
July has flown by and here we are with August ahead, which used to be a summer month (albeit an elderly one) but is now the back to school month. The kid has a driving test on Sunday, and then the hustle begins with pre-band camp, band camp, her sweet sixteen, picture day, and then the first day of school before Labor Day.
Brandon is still in Iowa but we managed to carve out a long weekend for a Chicago museum spree. (And gosh, I love Chicago. Maybe being a Midwesterner makes me biased, but that city has a vibe and an easygoing indifferent accessibility – a history and a style – like none other.) We stayed in a glass loft on the South Loop with a view of the rail and the river on one side and a glittering expanse of Lake Michigan on the other. It was blistering hot and stormed at night, lightning brighter than the city lights all around us.
“Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
We saw Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘My New Yorks’ exhibit at the Chicago Institute of Art and although I’ve never been a huge fan of her flowers or Southwest motifs, seeing the city through her eyes and brush changed my opinion on her altogether.
“New York Night” by Georgia O’Keeffe
“The Shelton with Sunspots”
I’d vastly prefer my mister to be here, but with him gone, the structure of the summer has softened and turned uncertain. With more time to myself, I turn inward. There have been lots of summer evenings on the front porch with books, watching the sun wheel through the western sky and come down in sprays of green and gold through the leaves of our old tulip tree. I’ve read some really good things this summer – I loved a book of Kate Atkinson short stories ‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’, and Lev Grossman’s ‘The Bright Sword’ was wonderful (and the last sentence flooded me with unexpected emotion and tears). I am reading a fantastic biography of Georgia O’Keeffe that reads almost like a novel and having these other little worlds to dive into after the workday is done (and sometimes before evening calls with my colleagues in Japan as we negotiate a thorny contract) has been like a swim in a very cool pool when you’re hot and sticky.
I head out on a business trip tomorrow which will likely be a short and uninspiring parade of a boxy interstate hotel and strip mall restaurants and then home for a weekend of hopefully not much by the pool with Georgia as she meets Alfred Steiglitz. There is a cardinal sitting in the pine tree outside of my open home office window singing for the feeders to be refilled. August ahead looks – busy? and short with all of the activity. It is a birthday month for a few very important women in my life – mother, grandmother, and the kid. Anyway, I hope to greet it on the porch with a book and possibly armed with a knitting needle. Be well and enjoy the last heavy breath of summertime.
I hate to make proclamations but the spring so far has been okay and vastly better than the winter was. I’ve avoided making this observation because – you know, the proverbial ‘other shoe’ – but in my little corner of the Internet no one is really listening anyway so knock wood and let’s goooooo.
Making. My only recently finished object is a – dishcloth. (I subscribe to the Kitchen Sink Shop newsletter and every month she sends a free dishcloth pattern!) I am a slow knitter. I have two pairs of socks (plain vanilla on 9-inch circulars) going (they’ve been my springtime soccer field knitting), as well as the Cozy Comfort throw from Homespun House, and I have the Shift kit ready to cast on as soon as I finish the socks (and as a side note isn’t Andrea Mowry just absolutely gorgeous and so cool? I wish I could have that kind of edgy yet laid-back coolness). I’m also really close to finishing a cross-stitch kit (a little A-frame cottage). As usual I have too much stash, too many projects to start, and not enough time, and I still keep finding new kits, new patterns, and new yarn to fill all the nooks and crannies of my dusty little office / crafting space. I need to lock in and get some finished objects. (As usual you can find me on Ravelry as sixtenpine.)
Reading. On vacation in the Bahamas I blew through all seven of Martha Wells’ ‘Murderbot Diaries’ and would have just kept going if there were more. These were sci-fi about a futuristic security unit android that attains some level of cold human observation and affinity. SecUnit (or ‘Murderbot’ as it refers to itself) spends the seven novels alternately amused, horrified, sympathetic, fascinated, and repelled by the humans it is charged with guarding and its internal monologue is (for me) un-put-downable. After Murderbot I plunged into some dry histories (I went through a massive Mary Queen of Scots phase and then some Romanov which was depressing). Slogging through beheadings, conspiracies, doomed royals and the events of Ipatiev House might not have been the best overall choice and sadly my reading slowed down a bit. I’m trying to jump-start it with the new Tana French ‘The Hunter’ but it isn’t really doing it for me yet. (I wish she’d go back to the Dublin Murder squad format.)
Watching. Brandon and I finally watched ‘The Bear’ and loved it. I hope next season we get more of the Richie comeback and more Fak. The kid and I are watching the first two seasons of Twin Peaks (a multiple rewatchable for me, her first time) and she’s hooked. I’m debating about whether she’s ready for ‘Fire Walk With Me’ and you know, no one is ready for season 3 The Return. Maybe if I rewatched it, I’d understand it more. While Brandon is in Iowa during the week, I watched ‘Marie Antoinette‘ on Prime (LOVED it) and caught up on ‘Nordic Murders’.
Life Stuff. As I said, I think things have evened out from our winter of discontent (it was a tough one). Brandon still spends weekdays in Iowa and weekends here, and that has made for some adjustment, both for us as a couple and our family unit. It’s not ideal but we are working through it and understanding (or trying to) that it’s just a season of life and it too will pass and fade into a new season.
I am still dealing with pre-menopause health issues which all in all are pretty minor compared to some horror stories I’ve heard. HRT has helped with the mood swings, night sweats and recurring monthly pain and nausea. It hasn’t helped much with brain fog or weight gain, but I just have to keep pushing through. I try to eat well without restricting, and get out 3-4 times a week either to the gym or for runs around the neighborhood. I’d love to lose 20 lbs but I’m also not willing to head into the land of diet culture to do that, so for now it’s bigger pants. [shrug]
Soccer, soccer, soccer. Spring sports are a lot but this soccer season for the kid was fun and for the most part, laid-back. They’re not the best team but they’re not the worst, either, and manage to have fun and enjoy themselves even when they lose and when they’re playing in downpours or gale force winds. She just started a part-time summer job at the local family-owned garden center / plant nursery and I am hoping it’s a great vibe for her, working outdoors with little growing things. She has a male friend (ahem) and after several years of being at home with us every evening, now, on occasion, he’ll pick her up and they’ll get food or go to a school sporting event or movie. She is hoping to get her driver’s license this summer on her birthday and so I feel we’re on the verge of a big jump forward in terms of maturity and independence…I am alternately dreading it and looking forward to it. She took an AP exam this week, is mostly indifferent about her grades yet but still gets things done. She’s a good kid and we laugh a lot when we’re together, which is a lot, especially now that it’s just the two of us during the weekdays when Brandon is away. I have to balance the feeling that she is my best friend these days with the reminder that I am the parent, as well, and so that’s been an interesting line to tread.
Despite things being easier than they were a few months ago, overall, I am in a mostly introverted phase. And since I live my life as a baseline introvert, for me to say I am in an introverted phase probably realistically means I’m full-on hermit now. I viciously culled my personal social media feeds this winter and just don’t post much anymore. I’ve pulled back from volunteering for school things and the parent text threads. Work has settled back down into it’s usual place in my life, instead of waking me up at 3AM in a cold sweat, and if that means that some days I only can do what I can, that’s the way it is right now. I no longer have the bandwidth to put energy into things that look “right” but don’t feel “right” or pay back in emotional dividends and that runs the gamut from doing everything and more at work to trying to look like the perfect normal active cheerful mom in the neighborhood and school community. Hustle culture, social media pressure, competitiveness and comparison – it’s all real and I’ve had to seriously duck back into my introvert shell and focus on us – my little family – and how it feels instead of how it looks. We do our own thing and for us right now that’s healthy and positive.
July is strange – the whole month feels like a weird suspension of normal routine, with the 4th holiday, many people in my office taking vacations, the kid at camp, and the Tour de France. This week felt particularly disjointed – bouts of torrential rain and oppressive humidity, two very productive and busy office days, and many hours spent with the Tour.
The Tour has been good this year except for my overwhelming disappointment that Mark Cavendish – an oldster at the ripe age of 38 – crashed out and broke his collarbone in what he’d declared was his last TDF before retirement. He was trying to break the record of the most stage wins (he’s currently tied at 34 with Eddie Merckx). It was a good lesson not to get too attached to any one rider or team because it’s a fairly brutal sport and you can love someone and they can get knocked out in a millisecond and then you still have endless stages ahead of you to feel disappointed. In addition to the 4-5 hours a day viewing the stages, we also spend another 1-2 hours listening to Lance Armstrong’s podcast The Move to analyze each stage. Yes, I know that Lance is a douche but since it’s very difficult to find any mainstream news coverage of the Tour, my July is filled with his mellifluous boasting and I’ve come to enjoy it heartily.
In other news this week – solid office days (office days have become a vital part of my week and although I enjoy my work from home days, I’m finding that I need the anchoring of a couple in-person days, too), fresh salads from the new office lunch delivery service, a couple of exceptionally humid morning / lunchtime runs on work from home days, and doing my first Cologuard. This may be TMI but you know, health matters. It feels inappropriate to poop in a jar and have to take the conspicuous box to the UPS store (they could at least give you an anonymous box) to mail it somewhere – but that’s life these days. And dear God, those Cologuard people will run you to the ends of the freaking earth to get that jar back. I think I got at least twenty calls, emails, and texts from that happy little toilet so I was relieved to be able to dump it on the UPS counter and be done with the damn thing.
The kid has been at camp with no phone. She’s written a few letters, and I purchase email credits so I can send her an email every day that she’s gone. In one of her letters, she described writing snail mail letters to me like ‘screaming into a void and not getting any answer back’ and that’s how I feel about the daily emails I send her, too. So imagine my surprise when she convinced her unit director to let her call me on Thursday afternoon because she was feeling a smidge homesick and just wanted to hear my voice. My kiddo has always been brave, extroverted, social, and the type who from very early on didn’t want to hold my hand when I walked her into school, so, in the summer she turns 15, for her to want to write me letters from camp and call me just to hear my voice – well, that is quite gratifying for me.
I’m reading ‘A Deadly Education’ by Naomi Novik, which is sort of a violent and edgy Hogwarts school tale mixed with a bit of ‘Hunger Games’ and I’m really liking it so far. It’s part of a trilogy and I picked it up from the library after seeing the most recent one in a bookstore in Cincinnati. I am hoping the weekend will be full of some front porch reading and wine drinking, although Sunday will be a completely lost day as I travel 6+ hours round trip to fetch the kid from camp. It’s worth it – I can’t wait to hug her – and July rolls on.
I always have the best intentions to regularly update this space, and then I finally get around to writing and look back and realize I haven’t been here since March.
So what have I been up to since then? All the things I usually am. The kiddo has gone from her school year activities of band, soccer, and theater to her summer activities of Driver’s Ed (how??), band (always band), and art camp. Work has been busy and I have been active with running (sort of), knitting (probably need a whole post about that), and Weight Watchers. I have been pretty consistently on the WW app yet have only lost about 5 lbs in 2 months…menopause is a bitch.
We saw ‘Six’ at the Fisher, the kiddo had a spectacular run in ‘Hello Dolly’, we got a bond at the local pool club, and I got braces.
And I turned 50.
I started a whole solipsistic post about that and didn’t finish it (you’re welcome). I know age is just a number, but I really do feel a sea change about this particular number. I know I can’t just entirely retire in this decade, but I have been able to begin the process of evaluating where I am investing my time and energy and more importantly, why. During this decade, I hope to be more thoughtful about that and begin to swing away from doing things for other people and more for myself. Less because I ‘have’ to and more because I ‘want’ to. And when that’s not possible, to give myself grace in how I approach those things. For example – can I quit my job? No. Do I sometimes dream about retirement? Yes. But when I stop and think about it – I really like my job and even in retirement I don’t plan on giving up work altogether unless I’m forced to. So is it my job itself that I dream of giving up, or the mental stress and pressure I put on myself ABOUT my job that I can reconsider? It’s more about shifting the narrative about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I work because I love being able to financially support myself, my home, and my daughter. I work because I really love the people I work with and am interested in the job I do. I GET to work. However, I also love who I am without work. I have no interest in being promoted, making more money, hustling, changing jobs, or advancing myself in any way other than showing up and doing a solid, ethical job at what I’m responsible for – but putting work on an equal footing with my family, my home, and MYSELF. Not letting it usurp other things I love and need, and take up more space than it should – and this decade, that is enough.
Same with my health. Would I love to lose 20 lbs and be the same weight I was ten years ago? Yep. Am I willing to put the work into doing that? Probably not. Am I tracking and using WW just for the weight loss and how I look? No. I feel better when I consider what I am putting into my body and have goals about the kind of foods I am eating, about drinking less wine, drinking more water. And running. Would I love to set a half-marathon PR that crushes what I could do ten years ago? Yes, but I don’t run because I am trying to do that (or even think that’s really possible). I am not doing these things to flog myself into being something I’m not. I run because I feel better when I move my body and I know that these things give me a greater ability to grow old gracefully in a healthy and happy way.
So those are the big things. In other news, it’s summertime here in SE MI and I’m looking forward to a relaxing evening at home with Brandon and then a busier day tomorrow. The Girl Scout troop (yes my kiddo and her friends are still hanging in there with Girl Scouts) and accompanying mom troop are all headed to Cincinnati on Sunday for a couple of days hanging out in a sprawling, historic AirBNB Victorian, cooking for each other, shopping, eating, and visiting King’s Island. Ten years ago the thought of these 2-3 days would have given me hives. Now – I’ve known these women since our kids were in second grade and they’re my mom tribe. They’re the women I text when I have questions about marching band or something happening at the high school. We are who we turn to when the school is on lockdown because of a threat investigation (which has happened no fewer than 8 times this year). So while this probably isn’t the ideal way I would spend my vacation days, I no longer have any anxiety about it – I’ll load up my books and knitting and they’ll know that I’ll be the first to go to bed and no one cares.
I do have plans for a knitting post and a Favorite Things post – I have lots of little fun conspicuous consumption items that I’ve found and have been enjoying. Whether those posts come in June, July, August or beyond – I make no promises. But be well in the meantime!
It’s March and 2023 already feels pretty action packed. Our power grid in suburban Elysia is always a matter of heated local commentary and it’s been tested severely over the past couple of weeks. An ice storm knocked out about 500,000 households two weeks ago, and just as the vast majority of those folks were coming back online, we got hit with an unusually intense snowfall on Friday night that delivered another wallop. The snow started showering down at about 3:30 Friday afternoon – it was heavy and wet, and came down so fast that it took more trees, branches, and power lines with it. We made it all the way through our Friday night movie selection (“The ‘Burbs” which Brandon had never seen) and within seconds of the end credits, we heard the familiar sound of blowing transformers and the lights went out. I’ve lived in Michigan almost all my life and I’ve never experienced thunder snow and lightning before. It was amazing and terrifying. Luckily, I had the foresight to blow up our air mattress so we could sleep downstairs near the woodstove, so we were fairly comfortable, but still. It’s a matter of convenience. The rest of the weekend felt like a wash – power going off and on until Sunday mid-afternoon. When it was finally restored, we could start laundry, meal plan for the week ahead, restock the fridge, etc. Pretty much everyone in the neighborhood is just pissed and done with the fact that our power goes out whenever someone sneezes. There will be a long line of generator customers (including us) once tax refund checks are delivered.
Anyway – it’s March and I have some goals!
Firstly – health and self-image – I am getting my teeth fixed. I resisted for a long time but my dentist told me before the holidays that my bite has become so bad that my teeth are actually loose on top and chipping on the bottom. I had braces as a kid, but I didn’t wear my retainers so….cautionary tale. I went in for an ortho consult last week and unfortunately, Invisalign is not an option…I need an extraction to relieve overcrowding and then it’s good old-fashioned brackets and bands for me. Starting soon.
Also in the health and self-image category – I’m back on Weight Watchers. While I’m all about body positivity, and embracing that my peri-menopausal body at 49 and 8 months is never going to look like it did before (and that’s okay) – I would really like to feel a bit better in my clothes than I do currently. I am short, and I gain weight around my belly and as a result I can just look barrel-shaped which makes finding pants that fit almost impossible. So another March goal is tracking and doing better with my food choices and getting back into some of my work pants. It’s also somewhat true that once I do one positive thing for my overall health and well-being (see ortho above) then I feel inspired to do other things. I spontaneously re-upped Weight Watchers a few hours after my ortho consult.
Professional goals – Although Widget Central has been fairly lax about hybrid schedule and working from home, I’m conscious that these things are much about perception, too, so in March I will try to be more faithful to 2-3 days a week in the physical office building. I’ve been averaging about 1 office day a week since January. I like work from home, but I also don’t mind time in the office, so this shouldn’t be a major problem for me – the biggest thing is just planning to pack my lunch and snacks (which should also be good because – see above with weight issues).
Miscellaneous goals include keeping up with my 2023 reading challenge, running at least 20 miles, blogging once a week and finishing at least 1 knitting project. I’ll check in on these things at the beginning of April, hopefully in a bit more organized format.
Not really a goal here, but at the end of the month, for the kiddo’s Spring Break, we’ll be taking a trip to Williamsburg, VA – she’s going to be 15 this summer so she has probably already aged out of the ‘educational trip with parents’ bracket, but I still think it will be cool for her to see Williamsburg and Jamestown, the weather should be mild and pleasant, the hotel has an indoor pool and we’ll eat some nice meals. I’m currently trying to decide whether to drive our Subaru Outback (the inexpensive route) or rent a more comfy minivan for the 20ish hour (round trip) drive.
And of course there are the usual tasks of getting taxes done (tomorrow), running the kiddo around to theater rehearsals (Hello, Dolly! in May! she plays the judge!) and marching band and music lessons and scheduling her summer music camp and driver’s education class in June (!!).
And that’s our March.
The title of my post is from William C. Bryant: “The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.”
Daily Tarot card pulls and this Queen has come up for me twice in two weeks.
Obligatory cute cat pic starring Emmett.
My work pants are perilously close to not fitting me; thinking about these “Dream Pants” but afraid I’ll look like a chimney sweep in them.
Windy, warm, and wet for Michigan February.
Finished the Road Trippin’ hat in time for my bestie’s 50th birthday celebration this weekend – we have an AirBnB, champagne, facial and dinner reservations, and an itinerary of vintage and antique stores to explore.
It’s just a quick Friday hello from the depths of the Michigan February refrigerator. We’ve entered the time of the winter season that’s the hardest for me. The cold has turned dry and grinding (several three-cat nights and single-digit mornings). Running outside is dangerous because of the slick conditions so the exercise I get is indoors and unsatisfactory. In summary I am bloated, tired, pale and pimply.
Every morning on the school run, though, the sunrise is more vivid, streaks of blue and pink and gold, over the steeple of the Catholic church on the hill. We are moving back towards the light. I made it into the office twice this week and my biggest battle has been the high school after-school pickup line. It’s always an exercise in kamikaze driving, cutting each other off and angling for a spot, minivans on two wheels and SUV’s making questionable judgments. But if that’s the worst of my week, then I know my week is going pretty well.
My brother recently said that his week felt like drinking from a fire hose and I thought it was such a perfect description of my 2023 so far. As always, there are things that I can’t / won’t blog about but let me just say that teenagers are no joke, y’all. There are times when I feel like a stranger has taken up residence in my kiddo’s appallingly messy bedroom and is stomping around in her new varsity jacket. I know we all go through this terrifying developmental stage and my own parents advised me on more than one occasion that I was a massive storm cloud during my teen years but sometimes you have to live with it to really get it. And kids these days have very different concerns and stressors than we did with the omnipresent influence of technology and social media. Sooo… deep breath, both hands on the wheel.
Likes this week: A mid-week snow storm which didn’t disrupt my life too badly, just laid down a nice fluffy blanket of white that’s been largely absent so far this winter. Looking up at almost 6pm the other day and seeing that it was still light outside (we’re starting to move out of the dark season now). Keeping up with my 2023 reading challenge and finding a new cozy series (the Dr. Nell Ward mysteries by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett) to keep me occupied. Keeping up with my vitamin D and happily finding the missing 3 cards from the tarot deck that my parents gave me for Christmas when I turned 14.
Dislikes this week: See first paragraph above.
This weekend is a breakfast with my bestie and a big football day on Sunday for Brandon, via his team the Bengals. TGIF!
We’re getting long stretches of mild and uninspiring weather here in SE Michigan – no snow, no sun, not much except a cool grey damp. Is this climate change in action? Winters of my childhood seemed much different, with snow so deep we could dig igloos and tunnels in it, elementary school lockers crowded with wet-smelling coats and mittens, clumping home in moon boots that leaked and had to be lined with bread bags. Regardless, it makes running outside feasible so I’m hoping my January running will be much better than the last 2 years (I don’t think I did more than 10 total miles in January in 2021 and 2022).
A few good things this week: The Elvis birthday movie on Saturday night was everything we hoped it would be – a true Elvis / Colonel Tom Parker stinker called ‘Spinout’. No real plot to speak of, disjointed and ill-timed music numbers (one of which was called ‘Smorgasbord’, which referred to all of the women that Elvis’s character liked to enjoy being a single swinger). We chatted with the theater owner for awhile after the show and recommended ‘Clambake’ for next year’s offering.
My boss and I were finally in the office at the same time this week and she gave me a Christmas present – the Five Minute Journal. My boss is pretty amazing and always thinks of me around the holidays, usually with a nice bottle of champagne. But for a journal geek like me, this gift was perfect. I’m really looking forward to spending some time with it. This will be the 3rd journal / planner I keep – I have a Hobonichi Techo for my personal / family life, a five year journal that I’m 3 years into, and now this.
Other likes: ‘Pale Blue Eye’ on Netflix, which we’re about halfway through – massive shout out that Edgar Allan Poe is played by Dudley of Harry Potter film fame which is an almost unbelievable transformation. My work pants still fit (barely). I’ve been watching a lot of homesteading channels on YouTube (recently just found Little Spanish Farmstead and Hannah Lee Duggan).
two weeks in a row of painting my nails! I don’t even know who I am anymore!
Dislikes this week: I picked up “Livid”, the new Patricia Cornwell, off my library reserve list and so far it is a dud. I’m going to keep going with it but this is a disappointment, since I really enjoyed the last one. MTC on this but so far this is just an ‘everyone is part of a massive conspiracy out to get Scarpetta’ and those are so tiring. I have to go for an ortho consult on Monday because my bite is so bad that my teeth are loose and some are chipping and my dentist can’t do Invisalign out of his office, he has to outsource me due to the complications.
The weekend will be quiet with the kiddo preparing for final exams and Brandon still on a six day work schedule. I hope everyone is able to recharge and enjoy!
Six Ten 