Tag Archives: community

thanksgiving weekend 2025

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Thanksgiving weekend is one of my favorite times of year. Although B and I had to work a little more than usual – ideally I would take the whole week off – it didn’t dim any of the luster. It’s laid back and there’s (usually) no craziness. We eat, we run, we enjoy each other’s company with fires in the woodstove and lots of candles, we take time to remember why we love living here, and we plan a Black Friday outing that does not center around shopping.

One of our favorite traditions is our local Thanksgiving Day turkey trot. No registration, no chip, no bibs, no t-shirts, everyone pays a few bucks to cover the insurance and whatever extra goes to the food pantry. This year it was cold and blustery and we rolled out of bed and ran the half-mile downtown to the start – along with neighbors, dogs, strollers, kids, the local run club, and many turkey onesies. Our little run raised over $500 for the food pantry and an anonymous donor matched it. We are thankful for many things and our community is always one of them.

We had ham this year because the kiddo is not a turkey fan (“it tastes like – meat”) and it was just the three of us so we can eat whatever we want! She spent hours the day before making a French silk pie that is truly a labor of love and B made his family stuffing recipe, so all of us contributed something to our meal. The Lions lost but Jack White performed a quick but electric halftime show with a special appearance by Eminem. (Two well-loved Detroit musicians who continue to represent.)

Past Black Fridays we’ve skated in the shadow of the big Christmas tree at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit and others we’ve visited John King, the enormous used bookstore, followed by burgers at Checker Bar. Unfortunately, Checker Bar suffered an electrical fire in January so we switched things up and went to Mercury Bar for lunch and then on to Michigan Central Station. It was beautifully decorated for the holidays and full of people admiring the decorations and taking photo opps. I tried to tell the kiddo that when she was just a baby this proud space was in ruins, full of broken glass and the winter wind, flooded with gallons of water, and possibly vampires; and now it shines with love and luster, green boughs and baubles, polished marble and wreaths. I don’t think she believed me.

I think one of the things I like best about this time is that it allows me to imagine what life will be like when I’m less tied to a corporate life. Right now my path is clear – I work, and am well compensated, and I am responsible for my daughter, and my home, and our lifestyle. I tuck my yearnings away inside myself during my work weeks and find satisfaction in the life I have now and there’s a lot of it! I like where I work and I like walking into our building and saying hello to people I’ve known now for over 20 years. I like knowing the answers to things and I like my paychecks and our healthcare and my robust retirement savings and I like that when my daughter needs something I don’t have to think twice about it. All of these things are true blessings and I am thankful for them every day while at the same time knowing that I’ve worked really hard to get here. But I am also thankful that I can still see a life past these things, that there’s still a little spark inside me that dreams about buying a cabin in the woods of Sweden or retiring early to become a crossing guard. I don’t want to wish my life away by hoping that the next decade until retirement goes any faster than it has to. The universe has always put me where I should be to achieve the things I need and I am grateful- but in the meantime, maybe a little manifestation and dreaming can help it along.

Now we’re watching an incoming winter storm which seems like the perfect end to a long holiday weekend. We’ll be curled up by the fire eating leftovers. I hope wherever you are, you are also warm and happy in that intersection between gratitude and dreams.

ruminating

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It’s been a bit quiet around the blog lately, but not in our lives. 

The election was of course a dark time for us, as for many others. I am bitter and I cannot understand my fellow Americans. My heart is broken for all of the people who will suffer under this regime of unbridled ignorance, hate, greed and stupidity – gay and lesbian couples, bi, trans and all others who fear for their safety and their rights to live openly and love freely. The migrants who live in fear for themselves and their family members being harassed, hurt, put into camps and deported. Women and girls who will go without vital health care, contraception, and the right to safe abortions. And who have to know that a man found guilty of rape is considered by a majority of the country to be worthy of the presidency. The kids and families who have survived and those yet to be victimized by school shootings and then see the MAGA deplorables wear their NRA pins and show their AR-15’s in Christmas pictures. I’m disappointed and angry. And more than anything I just hope we have the right to vote again in 4 years. 

However, after the election, Brandon and I got on an airplane in rainy Detroit and after a day of travel, were disgorged, disheveled, in hot and humid St. Croix. We spent the next week there, living in a remote seaside villa with 15 other people that I’ve never met before (childhood friends of Brandon’s). I can guarantee you that we did not see eye to eye on politics with at least half of our fellow houseguests but do you know how many times politics came up? Zero times. For that week we lived quite comfortably and happily in that small community where we were mutually respectful, shared food and time and space and resources, and enjoyed each other’s company. I wanted to love them for the people they are and not even know how they voted and for that brief moment I was able to do that. It was healing to my soul.

I don’t know how to reconcile this with my feeling of deep disappointment in and anger towards MAGA voters. I have wrestled for a long time with my feeling that this is more than a political disagreement, it’s a disagreement on fundamental values and human rights. I don’t have answers about how to reconcile and move forward, but I feel in equal measure that this knowledge and identification of community over and above rage baiting means that we are capable of doing better. I don’t have answers. But if anything, the election and the weeks following have made me think that the answer for me is grassroots. I am motivated to be more kind, to seek to understand and build in my community. I want to work less and volunteer more. I don’t want to argue about politics on the Internet or at all. I don’t want to cut people out of my life but I don’t want to suffer fools or villains. I want to defend and protect those among us who need it. I want to do better, be better and more compassionate while also demanding that same compassion and accountability from the people in my life. And to know how to move forward and beyond them if that isn’t given. I just don’t know the answers on how to seek common ground and live as humans and not parties, and truly if those are even the right questions when such fundamental issues are at stake.

That may be the work of years, not days or weeks. 

Sigh.

Now we are getting ready for Thanksgiving next week – we are hosting my family so this weekend will be housecleaning, menu planning, and shopping, in between the kiddo’s indoor soccer games. We got our first mild snow on Thursday – nothing that really stuck, but after a very mild autumn, it was thrilling to see the weather finally catching up. I hope that you are all well and safe and that you have time to enjoy your people and your communities. 

a few good things

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  1. I bought a cinnamon broom for the den and it smells sooo autumnal.
  2. 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.
  3. 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”).
  4. 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!
  5. 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?

long spring catch-up post.

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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.

weekending

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I think everyone who works a regular 9-5 weekday schedule knows that one of their weekend days is almost entirely spent doing things to get ready for the upcoming work week. This is usually my Sunday. Case in point, today I ran 4.5 miles, did the meal plan for the week, got an oil change, grocery shopped, picked up prescriptions, made dinner, cleaned the kitchen and mopped the floor. It kind of pisses me off that I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Otherwise, it was a really nice weekend. The kid had a marching band performance on Saturday and Brandon headed down to Greenfield Village for a classic car show. She and I ambled downtown and had dinner on the patio of the Mexican restaurant, nosed around TJMaxx and on a whim decided to check out a movie at our local 1920’s movie theatre. The only thing playing was “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” and although I haven’t seen the second one, neither of us had anything better to do and I really wanted Reese’s Pieces. The theater was full of old people (no surprise) and elementary school kids (somewhat surprising). Apparently it was a birthday party and it definitely seemed like an odd activity for kids who had to have booster seats. It did, however, undoubtedly improve a mediocre film to have a pack of kids waving plastic Greece flags. It also really improved the joke of the elderly aunt donning an apron displaying the figure of a voluptuous naked woman – the kids shrieked with hilarity and shock, popcorn flew, flags waved, and parents sighed.

The week ahead is busy but at least I’m ready, and we are looking forward to the first real season Friday night home game, tailgate and band halftime show. Fall is underway!

thoughts on betty & homes

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We live in a residential neighborhood full of houses from the 1950’s and 1960’s, with wide sidewalks and tall trees. We have an elementary school two blocks in one direction and a vibrant little downtown full of shops, restaurants, and the library two blocks in the other direction. My house is a modest 1962 Colonial – definitely not the nicest house on the block, but definitely not the worst, either. Brandon’s landscaping talents have helped turn the yard into something special and we continually make investments in our nest. I am fanciful – the benevolent queen of my household queendom. If in my younger days I aspired to be an acolyte of fancy goddesses like Athena or Artemis, now I would be at the altar of Hestia. I believe that the more we show love to our house – in small ways like cleaning and feeding birds and watering our flowers and in big ways like making capital improvements and loving each other well under our roof – the more it loves us back. The more it protects and shelters us and casts a dome of honeyed golden magic over all of us who live here.

Our next-door neighbor was an older, widowed lady who lived by herself. She may have been the original tenant / owner of her 1950s-era house. Betty and I did not always see eye to eye. When my ex-husband and I moved in, we were immediately assailed by her requests that we cut down the gorgeous pine trees in our backyard because they cast too much shade. (These trees are 25 years old if they’re a day.) Obviously we refused, which did not deter her from continually complaining about them.

If leaves or yard trash fell in her yard, she would rake or sweep it over the property line into my yard, regardless of its origin. When Brandon moved in, he made instant friends with all of the neighbors, including many that I hadn’t ever met. He considered Betty harmless and often made small talk with her when they happened upon one another in the yard or street. I warned him that this would not alter her behavior towards our property and sure enough, one autumn Monday after he’d spent many weekend hours raking our yard, he came home from a long day of work to a disheveled pile of leaves and twigs on our side of the property line, all of which had obviously come from her trees. There were Trump signs in her yard and some racially tinged comments during Covid and a small wire fence that she put up on the property line so that the mailperson couldn’t cut across to deliver our mail. In a neighborhood that continues to upgrade, her house was frozen in time, with plastic over the windows and chipped stone angels in the small garden.

As the years went on, though, Betty became more frail and less contentious, and she developed an anxious dependency on her neighbors, especially Brandon. She would bring her cellphone over to have him help her figure it out, and once, when she was feeling poorly, called him to take her to the hospital (he missed the call and she was taken by another neighbor). We began to wonder about Betty’s longevity and sure enough, one morning, I saw strange cars in her driveway and Betty’s house was buttoned up, curtains drawn.

It took a few weeks during which we thought she may have been in the hospital, or residential care, but before Labor Day, a crew of Detroit junk haulers descended on her house. My home office window looks over her driveway and for several days I heard their radio, I heard them moving her furniture out and breaking it up with sledgehammers and throwing it into a large dumpster. They tore out old carpets and demolished the small, run-down greenhouse in the back where Betty had hung her clothesline. They took a sledgehammer to the little porch stoop where she used to sit, because it was uneven and broken.

And I felt horrible.

Betty and I never really got along as good neighbors, but Brandon’s gentle good care of her and his complete willingness to overlook her less charitable qualities made me feel a little ashamed of myself. And when I realized that she was gone, and her family viewed her home and possessions as so much junk, a melancholy settled over me. I understand that there is no right answer, sometimes, when a relative dies and one is confronted with years worth of belongings and detritus. I realize that in this neighborhood, and in this housing market, they need to get it cleaned and on the market. Betty’s house will sell quickly and for likely a nice profit, and we’ll get new neighbors (hopefully nice ones). However, I still feel distressed at how time is relentless. Belongings come and go – even homes. They don’t have feelings, despite my anthropomorphic fancies. But in some way it will always be Betty’s house and she will always have a hatred for my trees and an attachment to my partner and her nightgowns hanging in her greenhouse and her Christmas tree up in July and I hope that wherever she is now, she is home.

thursday night lights

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As anticipated, last week was rough. I went into it without a lot of energy and my sense of stress and overwhelm already at a high level. The kiddo had a lot of activities that made for a couple of late nights for both of us, on top of a work schedule that was pushing me to take on challenges I didn’t particularly want or feel capable of. Everything just looked like a slog of responsibilities and nothing inspired any real joy or excitement in me.

When my kiddo is struggling, I try to impart on her that she’s not alone and doesn’t need to be. And that when it’s possible, the best way to deal with times of stress, overwhelm, and uncertainty is by leaning on people around you and pushing through. Make lists; tackle things one small step at a time. If you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl. Just keep moving forward any way you can and celebrating all of your positive actions, no matter how tiny they may seem to you. This is easy advice to give someone else and hard for me to take myself. When I struggle, I don’t want to lean on anyone and I don’t feel like anything I do is worthy of celebration – it all just feels inadequate. But this week, I DID take the small steps. Pot Roast helped keep me company on those late nights waiting up for the kiddo. I pushed through at work with lists and busy, productive mornings – even if I didn’t accomplish everything, I didn’t stay in bed with the covers over my head.

And I showed up at the first marching band tailgate for the first home football game with a big bowl of pasta salad and another newbie neighborhood mom in tow. She had texted me earlier that day telling me she was having a similar week of challenges at work, she was overwhelmed and tired, had never been to a tailgate and didn’t know what to bring; she didn’t even have camp chairs. “Don’t stress about it. Just bring juice boxes – I heard the kids love them – and I have two chairs, you can sit with me,” I said, without adding that her relying on me was like the blind leading the blind.

As an introvert, and a full time working mom, I frequently feel like I don’t need community or new friends, because they just end up being a drain on my already limited time and anyway, I get enough social stimulation at work. But sitting at that tailgate, hanging out with other marching band parents and petting dogs and swatting away bees while eating really unhealthy yummy food off paper plates balanced on our knees, I felt like it was the best time of the week. Even us newbie moms who felt like it was going to be just another challenge to ‘get through’ found ourselves relaxed and calm. No one needed anything from us except to be there and enjoy ourselves.

So I sat back and took a deep breath; I had another helping of someone’s macaroni and cheese, popped a juice box, and watched my kid fill her own plate and sit in a circle with the other band kids. The hum of laughter and parent conversation rose and fell around me, and later on, we all sat together on the bleachers and watched the halftime show under the Thursday night lights.