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Low Resolution for 2016

Aside ~ ~ mildlifecrisis ~ Leave a comment


Brand New Year. Same Old Me.

I have always thought New Years Resolutions were stupid. Completely worthless and downright sad. All the December magazine covers are filled with stuff to buy and all the January magazine covers are filled with tips to pare down and simplify.  As if we should and can flip a switch on January 1st. I am also opposed to ‘words of the year’, ‘lists of things I’m giving up”, “25 things I’ll do this year”, “Insane weight loss/fitness goals”, “getting completely organized once and for all”, and any other complete attempts at overhauling one life in one year. The resolutions are so intense, so lofty, so unrealistic. After all, January 1 is just a day. Just a Friday.

Often, New Years Eve itself, the build up of anticipation of the MOST FUN NIGHT EVER headed into THE BEST YEAR AHEAD EVER ends in colossal disappointment, failed goals and a longer list of things left undone than accomplished. My word, the pressure!!??? Boo hiss.

*note I might be a tiny irritable writing this. Last night ended with my son throwing up at his friend’s house. The friend took it amazingly well. We are starting this year with a haze of Lysol through the house.  P.S. That actually is an excellent time to start a diet change. Post stomach flu. That is the original ‘cleanse’ to kick start fitting into the skinny jeans. I’ll let my son know that as soon as he can crawl off the bathroom floor. I digress.

Our resolutions are set so high.  This is why the nice people at the fitness clubs can’t find parking spots for the first few weeks in January. Wait until March 1st. Plenty of spots.  I’m guess I’m not much for ‘saving up’ for a change. I’m not doing anything new and exciting on January 1 per se. I’m not going to make a huge list and then kick myself for 12 months when things don’t get checked off of it. I won’t post an inspirational theme word or poetic quote in my house this year to remind me where I’m headed in 2016.

Honestly, what I should post is “PICK UP YOUR OWN SH&T and PUT IT WHERE IT BELONGS” but that would be more instructional for the whole family than personally inspiring for the soul. Plus, it wouldn’t work.  I  just don’t like the idea of waiting until a special day to make a change, work on an improvement, or just simply be better at whatever I am currently failing at. I must be less goal oriented and more working-on-it oriented. Any forward progress is still good progress.

The day to do any and all of those things is the minute it occurs to me.

Right this second.

I think I might think like this for three reasons. (getting meta here) First, I have been burdened/blessed with the gift of very little patience. This does not come in handy for marriage or parenting (ever) but can be pretty useful in executing a plan. Second, most times when I set a goal, it turns out differently than I expected and sometimes I’m so bent on forcing it to happen I nearly miss the better thing waiting in front of me.  Lastly, while I would give my left arm to have my dad back, having him die at age 57 is a good motivator to not wait until the mystical concept of a new year or when the kids are older or retirement to do things or be things or see things or go places or try something or make a plan that I could very well put into motion right now. It’s a good motivation to not wait until next week. Not only do you wish away the time you are in, you also have no guarantee you will be here to “do all the great things”. The sense of urgency is palpable.  What on earth are we waiting for?

Perhaps the best part of being middle aged is not giving a flying fig anymore.   When you are 25, you SAY you don’t care about what others think or what your station in life is or your expectations of 25 compared to the reality of being 25. You think you have plenty of time.

At 35, you start losing your conceited mighty grip on your grand plans realizing you are not in control of much and by now you’ve made some choices and picked some lanes and they cannot be undone which is both a minor relief and a minor horror.

At 45, hopefully you are over yourself enough to see that you just won’t be here forever. Are some things just a soul crushing disappointment? Yes. Did you mess up a lot and say and do things that you are embarrassed about? Yes. Are there things that simply can’t be fixed? Yes. Are other aspects of this life more heartbreakingly joyful than you could have ever anticipated? YES.  Did you make some good choices and tell some people how you felt and had some genuine moments of pure thrill and witnessed some near miracles and are filled with gratitude for those? Yes. Do you see where you sidestepped metaphorical land mines and paths that would have been and could have been so much worse? Lord, yes.

In retrospect, I’d say I made some progress in 2015. Some things got done. Others didn’t. I can live with it that way. I think my designs on giving an Oscar speech can probably be filed away now.  It would have been a kick ass speech. FYI.

Cheers to all of you in 2016. May this year hold everything you hope for. I hope your year is filled with goodness.  And if not, just start over on any day, at any time, at any minute. Get back up and just try again.  Have a new idea in April and try it out.  Forgive someone in October.  An average Tuesday can be an astonishing start to something fantastic.

No ‘theme of the year’ necessary.

 

The Dog ate my Wi-Fi

~ mildlifecrisis ~ Leave a comment

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Ah…quarter one of the school year is almost over. We have settled in here and already survived our first round of sore throats. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy having a few moments to have a complete thought while the kids are at school. And I also must mention that having that complete thought is absolutely necessary since the hours between 2:55 and 9 are energy draining, patience testing and soul crushing juggling after school activities (and required drop offs and pick ups at various locales), last minute schedule changes, homework, some semblance of dinner, preparations for surviving the next day and the bedtime rituals that range from a peaceful drifting off to an epic meltdown.

One of the things the whole house enjoys during the summer months is no homework. But we are back in the thick of it and the homework is mind-boggling. As a student, I didn’t even complete have much homework until the high school years. And even then, I regarded homework as more of a light suggestion than a requirement. Now they brainwash them early and I’m hoping it pays off in the end…for me.

The first grader is already giving me a hard time over his 7 minutes of whatever and he knows I’m old now. I can see it in his eyes…he thinks, “I will be the one to finally break this woman. She’ll be 55 by the time I graduate from high school…there is NO way she can keep up this pace.”  We.will.see. I feel the need to enforce the homework to build the habit no matter how inane it is at 7 years old.  I was indeed questioning the necessity of (mock) wandering around our house with him looking for thermometers to tally.  Thermometers: one.  Such valuable learning.

The other two kids are in their homework routine. Truth be told, they don’t need my help nor do they want it with homework. They have surpassed me in math aptitude years ago; we all know it and they are polite enough to not bring it up. From time to time they will say something cute like, “Mom, do you remember the Pythagorean Theorem?” No. I don’t. So I’m just support staff for them now. I buy protractors, change ink cartridges in the printer, bring treats when they hit a depressive slump and give sympathetic looks when they have to read endless paragraphs about Mesopotamia. Recently, one of my children was found SLEEPING at 7:35 pm, having been lulled by an insufferable textbook into a quick eye nap. Now that I remember.

So I’m first in line when they need moral support but worst of all-tech support.

The school gives the kids their own personal ipad in grades 6-12. Yay? I like this idea in theory. It is equalizing. Everyone has the same access to technology and it is free. (as much as public school is free) So they are fortunate. Truly blessed students-21st century learners…blah.blah.blah.

However, the ipads, the technology, the upkeep and troubleshooting are a 21st century pain in my ass. First, the ipads caused us to need a wireless printer. Fine. $60. We all use it printing from every device and every corner of the house. Still, I question the reasonableness of asking every family to purchase a number of accessories just to make your ‘free’ iPad functional.

The cords and chargers and keyboards and cases are everywhere.   Everywhere. Fine. I can live with it. Decorative basket to hold every necessary accessory is a jumble resembling a Christmas light nightmare despite my best efforts.

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yep.  That’s a Nerf bullet in there too.

My husband just built this last week.  He is quite hopeful that this will alleviate the need to charge things in 6 different spots.  I admire his optimism.


The apple ids, the downloading, ios updating, the charging, Wi-Fi passwords, password changes, logins, logouts, learning new apps, navigating the integration of everything. We have had tears/rage at 10:45pm when something goes wrong. (okay, they cry and I have the rage) Help me.

It really makes me rethink the college courses I selected. I took “Math for Poets”. Seriously. I should have taken classes in IT. Oh wait…there were no IT classes available because it was 1989-1993 and I was busy marveling over the word processor that my roommate owned. Magical. I remember one friend would “IM” her boyfriend freshman year and I thought she was absolutely part of the fringe of society.

A few days ago, my husband had to reset the modem and it booted my 9th grader off an online quiz. She can’t get back in because it is designed to only let you go through once to prevent cheating. He felt terrible. She wasn’t thrilled. We considered how to explain it to the teacher. What excuse was best to plead her case?

What excuses can they use? There are no excuses.

I literally could have said, “The dog ate my homework” in high school and a teacher might have believed me. I could have feigned illness, said I missed the instructions on the blackboard, conjured up some tears and it could have worked. I would have easily gotten an extension.  Honestly, I could have concealed my grades from my parents for months. They wouldn’t know a thing until the grades were mailed out. And they might never know if I intercepted them first. (Tip: If you find yourself in 1987 again, intercept 4th quarter grades because parents completely forget you even have grades after June 8th)

But now?

Everything in detail is at my fingertips and theirs now.  On the computer, and on the mobile app on my phone. I can see their schedules, their instructors, their standardized test scores, their lunch accounts, their grades, every quiz, and every 5-point assignment. I can set alerts to be pinged for missed assignments, a ‘grade drop threshold’, absences, etc. I can track and see their every move. Many pop tarts have been purchased this year. I’m privy to every single thing. I actually need to deal with the pop tarts limit after I post this…it’s out of control.

I had to download my defunct Twitter account to follow the high school principal. I don’t want to be on Twitter! I’m probably the only person in the world that is following Jimmy Fallon, 5 arts organizations and one high school principal.

So I’m sorry for holding you back kids. I’m sorry I have to learn alongside you starting at a significant deficit as a digital rookie. I’m a bad troubleshooter.

The only excuse they have now is this:

Hey, my mom makes a killer chocolate chip cookie when I’m neck deep in the periodic table and can give some pretty decent pointers in navigating dreaded ‘group project’ relationships but she doesn’t know SH&T about dropboxing a password protected Notability assignment with a Google link into a subfolder using a hot spot as a Wi-Fi connection.

A Diamond in the Ruff

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 2 Comments

I am no fun.  Risk averse. Chaos averse. I’m in recovery for non-spontaneous behavior syndrome.  I lack impulsivity.  Looking for a wild evening that could lead to anything? Don’t go with me.  Looking for a vacation where I have researched, planned, and booked things with 5 contingency plans and 2 extra of everything in your suitcase? I’m your woman.  If I wrote a memoir, potential titles would include “Addicted to moderation: One woman’s adherence to balance.”  I’ve been avoiding obvious blunders like the plague for as long as I can remember.  I figure enough crap happens that I have no control over…I have plenty to fill up my ’embarrassing story’ bank.

I need for no more. But-

I’ve gone ahead and done something wild.  Truly flies in the face of all logic.  It’s unlike me.  Maybe 43 is the year I really start to lose my grip on reason. I told my kids yesterday that this is probably the 2nd craziest decision I’ve made on purpose.  This was a huge decision.  They asked me what the craziest one was and I said, “Get married to a human.”  They rolled their eyes. I reminded them I loved Daddy but it was by far the single largest and most important decision I’ve ever made.  And now this.

So…(drumroll please) This happened.  Grover. He happened.

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We adopted him today.  I have a purse dog and I don’t have any clue what I’m doing. I ordered a book from Amazon on Yorkies.  It arrived the same day as Grover. Praise God for 2 day shipping.

I bought something called “Beef Fritatta” for him to eat.  I’m not kidding.

I went to Home Goods and bought a pet bed.  I literally had to whisper out loud to myself “The dog bed doesn’t need to be a fashion accessory.  You don’t need a chevron dog bed. Just pick something. Anything.”  Also, they sold Isaac Mizrahi designer printed bags for poop.  I don’t feel like I should pay extra for gift wrapped poop.  I resisted.

My son has already asked if we can buy him a sweater for Halloween and dress him up. Sure. What dog who has been rescued doesn’t love some fool dressing them up?  It’s not like he already has suffered enough humiliation growing up in a puppy mill.

Now, I’m not a huge dog person.   I’ve loved just two dogs in my life.  Snoopy was my childhood dog.  A hyperactive Brittany Spaniel.  My parents got Snoopy as a puppy to soften the blow of me getting a brother.  My mother readily admits it was not ideal to have a 4 year old, a newborn, and a puppy all being needy and helpless at the same time.  They let me name her (since they wouldn’t let me name my brother) and Snoopy was the only dog name I knew (Hey-I was 4!).  My poor dad would take her duck hunting and when others called out for Thor and Duke and Bandit and Maximus-he had to yell, “Snoopy, Bird down!”  That is me and Snoopy below. 8th grade. I can tell the year because of the unfortunate “I should totally get bangs!” idea.  See. Spontaneity-never pays.

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The only other dog I’ve ever loved was named Clyde.  Clyde, the massive black lab who belonged to some dear friends, was trained to play until you simply said “Game Over” and then he would sit and gaze at you with wisdom in his eyes.  He has his own theme song, “Clyde, clyde, the best dog in the world.”

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So, I’m not super keen on the dog thing.  I mean I’ve just recently trained 3 people to not eat things off the carpeting or pee on the floor and yet I find myself taking in something that will surely do both of the above and I can’t take away screen time as punishment.  I surely must be losing it.

The kids have been working on me for some time.  When I got pregnant with #3…my son said, “I want a boy. It has to be a brother.  If it isn’t a brother, I’d rather just have a dog.” That was 7 years ago and while he did get his brother, he hasn’t forgotten about the dog.

Then 3 years ago my two oldest children participated in something school called “The Principals Challenge.” It’s a summer challenge aimed at having kids keep up on reading/writing/math and if they complete The Trifecta (and they did because I cracked the proverbial whip ALL summer) they have lunch with the principal and get a gift card for the book fair.  The challenge requires each kid to write 6 stories.  At the end of the summer we had 12 original stories.  When I went to compile them for submission I realized there was a theme. 8 of them were about getting a dog, finding a dog, wanting a dog, dogs talking to other dogs, dreaming about a damn dog.

So why now?  Good question.  It’s the fault of the baby.  The baby is no longer a baby.  He said just two days ago, “Is it a thing now that people keep forgetting that I am six AND A HALF!?” Then a chain of events…One friend kept posting pictures of rescue dogs. Another friend knew of this specific rescue organization she knew and trusted (underdogrescuemn) This rescue organization was having a foster dog event 5 miles from my house. We went.  My two oldest sat in a pen filled with dogs that were in foster care.  I knew it the minute they set foot in there it was going to happen. Their eyes glassed over with happiness.  We talked to Grovers foster parent.  She said all the right things. AT the event was another friend from college I haven’t seen in 20 years. She works for the organization and is the one in charge of this breed of dog for adopting. She said all the right things. Except for the fact her own dog just had a $2700 surgery. I’m ignoring that.  Everything else she said was reassuring. Dog kismet.

It was meant to be.  I can’t even believe it.

I am not a dog person. Yet.  I’m very much a people person.  And my people?  These people. They neeeeeeeed a dog.  Badly.  So Grover it is.  Honestly, I couldn’t even live with myself if they don’t have this experience.

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend but dog is mans best friend.

If this doesn’t go well, next time I’m getting a diamond the same carat weight as Grover.

Ooooooooooh he is pretty darling though.

Help.Me.

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It’s a sign: Except when it isn’t

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 1 Comment

We all need some reminders in life from time to time. Signs. Instructions.  A visual prompt in an otherwise chaotic world.

I’ve been collecting things for this for a bit…I could have entitled this post, “Things that I have spent entirely too much time pondering”  but that just sounds sad.  So-signs.  The following signs/printed materials have been bothering for some time. So please, join me in my bewildered irritation.

This is on my street. I think of my dad every single time I pull onto our street because the very first time he came to see the house he said, “Oh, Jen…do you really want to live here?  You’ll end up having slow children. Look how slowly they run!”

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This one is just around the bend.

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I was recently describing what neighborhood I lived in to a new friend and I said, “We are right past the turtle sign.”   She said, ” I think that sign is a joke.  Right? It has to be a joke.”

I don’t think the city would use taxpayer dollars for a joke, at least not so overtly. A month ago they added the orange flag. Higher alert.  Not a joke.

Hey-I love turtles.  But they don’t exactly ‘dart’ out onto the road. Deer?  Deer jump out at you.  People total their cars and get injured when they hit a deer with their car.  Snapping turtles?  No.  So this sign WITH the huge orange flag is basically saying “Please drive with your eyes open in case a giant, boulder sized turtle is in the middle of the road and you may have to slow down or swerve around it.”

This is at my grocery store.

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What is the relationship between these people? Are they the 3 kids? If so, why does the one on the left have such a mom haircut?  Are they a female couple with a child in the middle?  If they are, why does the one on the left have the weird pouch on her dress?  Wait, is she expecting?  Is that an indication of a pregnancy? That’s just mean.  Stupid maternity clothes. And if she is expecting, why does her partner have to wear the same ugly type tunic?  Is that a mother with two children?  If so, why is the mom wearing the super short dress and the daughter is wearing the modest one?

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This is the sign at the restroom at a resort I went to on vacation.  Pipe and fan.  What on earth?  I went with fan.  I guess I’m more likely to use a fan than smoke a pipe?  But just barely. This is more vague than if they had written men and women in a language I don’t speak. I had to tell my six-year-old to go to the one with the picture of the tuba.

These are near a bridge that will be shut down for 2 years.  This made me laugh. It reminds me of Alice In Wonderland.  This is a series of signs if Alice hadn’t found the rabbit hole but had gotten lost in the suburbs instead.

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So while driving by, not only reduce your speed to 15mph, there is a bump coming up and it’s a one lane road and in case you are an idiot (TAKE TURNS!) Oh, plus there is a human directing traffic with a flag and if all else fails you also may have to stop.  In other words, just DO NOT drive down here.  Go away.

This was at Target. I posted it on Facebook.  I needed others to share in my horror. Immediately.

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In the Acid Relief and Planning and Protection aisle is where they featured a “Check this out” 50 Shades of Grey display.  Gross.  Actually seeing this made me need Tums.

These were at the grocery store.

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They called these “Big Yummy Muffins” which look neither big nor yummy to me.  Also, these were on the shelves in January.  Why the green muffin?  Not St. Patricks, not Christmas. Assorted Variety?  I would say so. Who would buy those?

I found this while shopping for an anniversary card. Wow.  I’m guessing a difficult year can’t be smoothed over with someone else’s words…even if there are TWO designs to choose from.

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and finally this…which has really bugged me for years.  My kids are sick of me talking about it.  They eat a lot of hot pretzels.

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This is the salt pack that comes with the pretzels in the clear cellophane bag.  Note: It reminds you to not use all the salt if you aren’t eating all the pretzels. Oh my word.  We have lost our way as a society. We need an instruction manual for pretzels. In case we don’t realize that if you use all the salt-it’s gone.

Signs. They are everywhere.

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I hope the ice cream truck has Red Bull

~ mildlifecrisis ~ Leave a comment

I recently read an article about the trend of “Slow Parenting”.  The article was not only discouraging; I found it a bit naïve. Maybe I’m just jealous. I can’t do it. I can’t get into the slow parenting.

I’m fast parenting.  Like, wear your seatbelt.

My first two children are 27 months apart…then there is a five-year gap and then the last one. The first year that I had all 3 of them with those age differences I thought this was a huge disadvantage. Actually the first year I cried a lot. Oh hell…I don’t remember much of the first year.  I do remember being exhausted and eating MANY chocolate croissants to make myself feel better and inconveniently dragging my big blue eyed boy around EVERY SINGLE MINUTE like a court ordered home monitoring bracelet…but way heavier. It felt like the movie Groundhog’s Day but without any of the fun parts.

But now I love the age difference. I mean, nobody has expressed any interest in me teaching a family planning class…but it’s working out nicely now because I get to enjoy them all in their own unique phases and stages. It’s a lot to absorb but they are fun and funny.

When I don’t want to beat them, they are my favorite people. But it’s not slow. Ever.

The Slow Parenting movement favors less structured activities and letting children explore.  Explore like let them live like I did in the 70’s. Maybe you did too. I read a lot upside down in chairs, in the car, in a hammock, in a fishing boat. I stared at seed pods floating by through the air. In the 80’s in the summer I watched MTV videos until my eyes hurt, taking a 4 minute break to go outside and cut a bouquet of zinnias from the side garden. Sometimes I saw my friends but sometimes I didn’t. I had lemonade stands. I talked on the phone quite a bit. Every summer I nourished the fantasy that I would ‘transform’ over the summer and dazzle everyone in school in the fall after an incredible summer of physical and personal metamorphosis. Never happened.

My most out of the ordinary summer was in between sophomore and junior year of high school. I lived in Ohio and did a summer program at the School of Cleveland Ballet. Leaving for the summer was fairly common among my dance friends but unheard of among my school friends. But now…it seems like the ‘opportunities for summer extraordinaire’ for my kids are endless. Camps, classes, theme parks, public beaches, pools, water parks, travel, video games, service projects, volunteering, ways to earn money, a community triathlon , art shows, fun runs, PLUS the lemonade stand thing.

I once had a professor whose wise words come to mind over and over and OVER again. He said (paraphrasing here) the grand challenge of parenting isn’t to parent your kids in an effort to repair your own childhood. Don’t try to give them the perfect childhood that you didn’t get. (i.e.: I never got to take piano lessons and therefore I’m going to force you to take piano even if it makes you physically ill because then I can live vicariously through you and you better appreciate it, etc.) He said, the challenge is to raise them the very best way possible given their own reality.

I can’t get enough of those words.

My kids are growing up very differently than I did. The basics are similar. But there is a lot that is very different. We are a bigger family than my family of origin, my husband and I are not the people our parents were, the world of school and technology and activities and expectations are different. And while I don’t want to schedule the summer away…I need to have a plan.  Big plans.

I love those old Country Time Lemonade ads with the tree swing and the haze of summer heat and kids outside running down the dock with inner tubes and the soothing voice over of nostalgia…The reality though…summer is so short. Phineas and Ferb claim we have 104 days of summer vacation. Our school district only has 91 days. 91 days of summer??? Plus we have to jam in a few teeth cleanings and haircuts and I suppose people are going to need to eat?

There needs to be time for camp and lemonade stands and going to the beach with friends and playing basketball in the driveway and planting/tending/harvesting cherry tomatoes.  We have to get in some chores and some tennis and a lot of freaking out when the giant dragonflies land on our faces. There needs to be time for bike rides and stargazing and sparklers and playing at a new, never been to before park and many minutes of listening to the frogs. There needs to be a family trip with time in the car and reading Calvin and Hobbes and sidewalk chalk and outdoor movie night and badminton tournaments in the yard that end participants knees (that actually happened two years ago-the husband and the brother got competitive and let’s just say a knee replacement for my husband is now on the bucket list). There needs to be time with friends over and time without and long lectures from me about the great blue heron in the backyard. (I’m a little excitable over the great blue heron.  I want to hug him.)  There needs to be long walks and giant ice cream cones and the State Fair and being out on the water.  We have to have bonfires, and friends over to grill out and cheer at soccer games and farmers market trips where I embarrass the children by buying far more blueberries than I can carry.  And there has to be day where I teach them to roast a chicken.  Yep. That’s in my plans tooMG_1143 IMG_9008 IMG_0025 IMG_9801 IMG_9014 IMG_0578IMG_1141

We can‘t possibly do it all in only 91 days, can we?

You’re darn right we can.

I want to do it all. With them. THIS is part of the why of why I had the children. To show them the best of the world and try to prepare them for it and then sit back and watch them take it in. I can’t let everyone just free range it because at 6, 11, and 13…everyone will be free ranging in disparate directions.  They are young for such a short shot and with the age gap…they only overlap in this house for 11 years. So I’m fast parenting.

So get ready kids-it’s my summer too. We are having a Red Bull Lemonade Summer. We are going to squeeze the life out of it. We are going to drink up summer while driving to and from soccer or sitting still at the campfire. We are going to bookend a beach trip with a pancake flipping contest and so many S’mores you are going to stick to your pillow. We are going to work our way through our summer list (which this year includes a family stay on the island in the BWCA) and fill up our bags with library books to devour like the world is ending. And we are going to do it fast.  Before summer gets away from us. And before your collective childhood gets away from me.* IMG_1373

*There WILL be a couple of times in this 91 day period that I will want to run away from home. Get in my car and leave this crew in the dust.  It happens every summer.  Then the irritation melts away like a bomb pop on the 4th of July. Ooh-BOMB POPS!

So this is 20…

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 1 Comment

I had no intention of writing anything today.  But sometimes things just mysteriously come together.

I’ve been married for 20 years today. 20 years.  2 decades.  My husband said, “Wow. 240 months. 20 Christmases. 20 Thanksgivings.”  Sometimes it feels like 5 years and other times it feels like 30.  Such is the nature of marriage and of time.

I once told my parents (after much self-examination) that I was just not “marriage material”.  I was 21.  I didn’t want to get married. Ever.  I was not the marrying type.  I just did not feel like ‘that‘ type of girl.  The permanency scared me.  The necessary compromising offended me.  The lack of control over who the other person becomes and who you yourself may become sickened me. It just seemed like a real stupid risk.  Unfortunately, I announced this to my parents on a morning that they were rushing out to a breakfast and they wouldn’t even let me come with them.  I felt abandoned.  Unbeknownst to me, they were having breakfast with my boyfriend who was on a mission to ‘ask for my hand’ and ‘get their blessing’.

They said, “No.”

HAHAHAHA!  Have you ever heard of that happening in real life?  Me neither.  They said, “No” to my earnest, optimistic, 22 year old boyfriend.  They thought we were too young.  (we were) They thought we were not ready.  (we weren’t) They thought their daughter was at home in a pool of her own tears and wallowing in some self made melodrama about how she was not a marrying type of girl. (I was) Some months passed.  There was a lot of crying.  blah. blah. blah.

My husband persevered.  He is very tenacious. We got engaged. We got married.

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pictured above (clueless people with immature pre-frontal cortexes)

I can boil it down to 2 simple reasons why I married him.

The man never gives up on becoming better.  He is relentless.  I knew that he would never give up on me, on us, on himself. I thought that would prove to be a useful and necessary trait if you were going to put up with the likes of me.  I think it is still a valuable quality to have.  It has served our family well.

The other reason is a two-word comment he made in the car to me when we were dating.  We were talking about something (nothing of note) and he locked eyes with me and smiled and said, “Cute brain.”

I had never had anyone say anything so amazing to me before those two words or ever since. Cute brain.  It struck a chord in me and has stayed with me.  That guy knows how to close the deal.

He just gets me.

For the sake of transparency, I would like to say-It hasn’t been a perfect 20 years.  Far from it.  We have had our challenges.  We have made some colossal mistakes. We have had our disagreements.  If we had followed the asinine “don’t go to bed angry” advice, we would both have died from insomnia in 2004. Goodness, that was a bad year. The beauty of staying together is that we made it past 2004.  It’s far in the rear view mirror now and that is a blessing.

The traditional 20 year gift is China and the modern 20 year gift is Platinum.  Please no.  First, if one more dish makes its way into this house my husband will go insane in the 21st year of marriage.

A platinum something? Nope.  No platinum knick knacks shall enter into this house.  No more objet of any kind.  Nothing on a shelf. Clutter kills.

We have had some memorable and disastrous gift exchanges over the years. One of the first years we were married he gave me a gift that he wrapped up inside a box for an Oster blender.

The problem is, it was an actual blender.

It was Christmas and I kept repeating, “Oh. It is a blender. An actual blender.  You gave me a blender. Blender. You thought of me and you thought ‘b l e n d e r”.  It was an awkward moment for the rest of the family. He said (bewildered) “But you SAID you wanted a blender someday.”   I did say that.  Aaaand that is the last appliance I ever received as a gift.

One year we just blindly gave the other what we like.  He prefers experiences.  I prefer something to mark the occasion that I can hold on to, pass down, potentially store in the basement for all eternity.  I gave him a book.  He doesn’t care for books. He gave me tickets to a concert.  I can’t remember what concert.   We both opened our gifts and felt, “meh”-we should have swapped them.

We had talked about going to see the jeweler that made our wedding rings.  He is a darling semi-retired man with a tiny office in the Medical Arts Building in downtown Minneapolis.  We talked about picking out an anniversary band to mark 20 years.  I like this idea.  It marks the occasion.  I can pass it on to my children.  It has symbolic meaning.

Today I got a voicemail from my husband.  This is what prompted me to write this all down. The voicemail was in the middle of the day while he drove four hours roundtrip for a meeting.  He said, “….Also, I think we should go meet with the jeweler.  I’m kind of waiting on you to tell me when you are free to go…Also, I was thinking..not sure…maybe it’s dorky or dumb but…What about a new front door?  It might be kind of dumb. I just know it’s something you talked about and it would kind of be fun down the road to you know…say we put that in for our 20 year anniversary.   I know it’s just one step away from something to plug into the wall but…let me know.”

I welled up.  Real heartfelt tears.  See…I hate my front door.  I would love a new front door.  YES.   I’m in love with this idea. It is symbolic.  It will last.  We are here to stay.  We are only just 20 years into building something to last.

He just gets me.  That is the best gift of all.

Please send Botox~I have 12 more years of high school

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 2 Comments

Oh, Molly Ringwald…you still know how to break my heart.  You were on the Today show talking about the 30 year anniversary of The Breakfast Club. 30 years.  That’s how long it has been since I started high school.  Poignant timing Molly. Nicely done.

My first-born registered for high school this week. It was a new experience to sit back and watch her do it on her own…no parent login wanted or required. I took a picture of her while she registered. She said, “What are you doing???”  She is rounding the bend to 14 and I feel and hear the click of my seatbelt as I get into the roller-coaster that is high school.  I’m documenting dear girl- because I am in shock.

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When I was in 8th grade, I was shopping with my mother one day at Calhoun Square in Minneapolis and we were looking at Benetton sweaters. I remember because I was very fixated on Benetton sweaters in 1985.   Obsession.  I’m wearing a grey and cream mohair number in my 8th grade photo. I can’t locate the photo this minute so I spared you my unfortunate hair and the heavy aqua-green Clinique eyeliner on the inside rim of my eyes.  Good Lord.

Anyway, just outside the store, we ran into a friend of mine from school.  She was with her mother and grandmother. The mothers made the usual small talk, with my friend and I rolling our eyes at each other and when we walked away her grandmother said, “Oh, you girls are going to have so much fun. High school: It’s the best years of your life.”

We walked 20 paces just out of earshot, when my mother grabbed my elbow, faced me squarely and said, “High School is going to be great. It will be fun, but it is not the best years of your life. That is ridiculous. I know what she said, but it’s not true.”

It wasn’t her usual uplifting pep talk but she was right about high school and nearly (at last count) a million other things. There were some good times and some not so good times and it was four good years for me…but not the best four by any stretch of the imagination. Does anyone really think those were the very best years? Let me know if you did-I must have been doing something wrong.

As a teenager, I told my parents everything. I mean everything. No sugar-coating. If I knew you growing up, and you did or said something that fell anywhere outside of the lines, I told my parents what you did and they didn’t judge you nearly as harshly as I likely did. My parents had a very ‘open door’ policy which I have tried (am trying) hard to replicate but I am missing one critical element.

I need to work on my poker face.

My parents, particularly my mother, never flinched. Sometimes, (evil teenager tactic) I would tell her things in a dramatic way. Sometimes I would casually toss out little grenades while waiting in line for an ice cream cone or at the bank just to see if I could get a reaction. No. Complete doe-eyed and calm. Unflappable.  I remember one time I talked about cutting off all of my hair.  My mother said, “Well, it’s only hair.”  I didn’t inherit this skill from her and when my daughter tells me things I try to exude calm but I can already tell…I’ve said too much.

With my face.

Because I’m not just worrying about my daughter. I’m worrying about the kids she grew up with. I’m worrying about her friends. And the friends of those friends. And the friends of the friends of the friends.  And all of the kids that belong to my friends.  It’s a lot of people.  I really so desperately want them all to make it through adolescence in one piece physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. High expectations.  Unrealistic expectations.  I’ve already seen a decent amount of the texting activity and adolescent posts and comments on Instagram the last couple of years. Yikes.

Spend 6 minutes on ask.fm. It will make your stomach turn. It’s the updated version of a slam book but anonymous. Kids are bolder when they are anonymous.

I have some apprehension about the next four years. There is a saying “Little kids. Little Problems. Big Kids. Big Problems.” Maybe it’s because you think you have more control when they are little. They have less access to the world and vice versa. I’ve considered that it’s easier when they are little because I figure I might still have time to fix things I’ve screwed up when they are 3 rather than when they are 17 with one foot out the door.

The 80’s were a ‘simpler’ time as they say. Unlike as pictured above, a cell phone, containing a live feed of everything everyone else is doing/saying/posting/photographing did not always accompany me. If I didn’t get invited to something, it was 6 days until I found out, if ever. I logged some serious time on the phone after school but only with friends, people I knew well. I had no contact with kids from other schools or other grades that I barely knew like modern children do. I had no ‘virtual’ friends, only real ones.

I also spent a majority of my time outside of school at Minnesota Dance Theater in downtown Minneapolis. This allowed a distance from the school drama because I could retreat to my dance friends and talk about school/girls/boys with no repercussions since they didn’t know any of the players. Sometimes it made me feel like a bit of an outsider at school but that had pros and cons and now I believe mostly pros. I was in my twenties before I knew that there were drugs at my high school. Newsflash: Drugs were available in the late 80’s in suburban MN.  However, you couldn’t have gotten any from me, I wouldn’t have even known who to ask.

And- I think I was just so fortunate to have the relationships that I did.

I had some really good friends and many lifelong friendships that originated in high school. I was in hysterics at lunch every single week. I got kicked out of Psychology class for “excessive laughter”.   I cried many times-in French class.  Maybe everything seemed more hysterical because all I ate for lunch were french fries, cookies and pop for four years.  Sure there was some friend drama and minor disagreements but nothing that followed me into adulthood. I felt like I knew a lot of my classmates and their families really well. (Please don’t quiz me now…now I have to consult the yearbook and five other mutual classmates) My graduating class was about 380 people. She is going to a high school of 3,000.

I dated good, decent men.  Well, they were just boys back then.  Apologies if they are reading this and wanted to be characterized as dangerous or edgy.  Who knows…maybe they were but they were only thoughtful and considerate to me. They never hurt me in a long-term psychologically damaging after school special kind of way and I hope I never hurt them in that way. I know many people who had a relationship in high school that set them on a course that they could never seem to correct. They had been devastated at age 15 or 16 from a 90 day relationship and struggled to fully recover. I hope nobody hurts my daughter in that way. I hope she doesn’t hurt anybody in that way. She and I have discussed this quite a bit. I’ve tried to encourage her to tread very gently because these are fragile times even when people don’t appear very fragile.

I was/am not/never will be a big risk taker. I’m still waiting for my rebellion.  But there was still danger back in the day.  I was in more car accidents in those four years than in the subsequent 30 years and I didn’t even drive. I was at a football game in the fall of 1988 at Cooper High School wandering around in a big group of friends and some other kid (a spectator)  lifted up his shirt showing he had a gun.   Threatening a friend. Oh, and all the drugs…apparently. HA! Things seemed innocent then.  What are they like now?

School was just plain easier. My 8th grader has already faced more academic rigor and certainly more math than I ever did K-12. She probably had won that race by 6th grade. I was thinking about how I took Typing as a class in high school. Typing. By the time my brother got there 4 years later, it was called Keyboarding. My oldest son is in 5th grade. He finished up the keyboarding program before the first of this year. He’s done. They are coding.  We are living at warp speed.

The pressure on students today seems astonishing compared to what I endured. I had very little homework and even less competition with my classmates academically.  I’m less concerned about her academic performance going forward than I am about her mental state. Can she stay afloat? Can she manage the classes, the friends, the extra-curricular things, the testing, the competitive culture, the social media?

Can I?    Again, working on holding my expression perfectly still.

So I will enjoy now.  The sweet comfort of the known. Middle school.  Who knew that middle school would seem like a panacea?  In the fall, it feels like we are embarking on an amusement park ride starting at orientation and ending (ideally) with Pomp and Circumstance. So we are on this ride together. I’m just hoping it’s more like the Merry Go Round at the State Fair and less like The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney.   And I hope she holds my hand the whole time.

And I hope I can conceal the fear on my face.

Go Ahead Hit Reply All-I Will Hurt You

~ mildlifecrisis ~ Leave a comment

On the long list (and growing) of modern inventions designed to make life easier/better/faster that in turn ruins our lives, at the top of my list has to be email.

I asked my husband what his emails look like on the worst days at work. He replied, “Hmm…maybe upwards of 300. That would be a pretty crazy day.”

300.  That sounds terrible. And none of those are from West Elm or Schoolhouse Electric. He doesn’t even know about West Elm or Schoolhouse Electric. And West Elm and Schoolhouse Electric, you better not tell him about what we have going on. You need me.

Aside from West Elm and Schoolhouse Electric and every place I have ever ordered from, tried to get a coupon from, given my email on a tiny slip of paper to and daughter companies of the above etc…the bulk of my emails originate from things relating to my children. I have 3 children that range from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Annually, they participate in school, dance, scouts, soccer, choir, orchestra, camps, church, birthday parties, etc. Emails come in every day from one of the above. Here are a few tips for organizations about sending out mass emails to me if you don’t want me to make fun of you:

  1. Don’t put ALERT, URGENT , PRIORITY, or IMPORTANT in the Re: line. You just got yourself an automatic delete. If it were truly any of those things…you wouldn’t send it to me in an email. Hey…send a carrier pigeon. That I would notice.
  2. Check your group email lists. If I have a kid in rec sports and you send me a bunch of crap about traveling. I hate you now.
  3. Don’t send me an email about something happening 8 months from now. I delete those too. You’ll tell me again at least twice or change the date.
  4. Quit asking me for money via email. I currently get emails asking for money from 1,2,3,4,5,6 institutions of higher learning…1 that has yet to yield a graduate from this house.  I love to support the organizations that are near and dear to this family.  Call me. I’d love to talk to a real human about it.
  5. Don’t send me a bunch of drivel that is already on your website or at least don’t contradict your OWN website. (That happens a lot)
  6. Don’t keep my name in some sort of email purgatory 4 years after we are part of your organization. I’ve unsubscribed. You keep sending stuff. I’ve broken up with you. Go away.

School is the biggest offender of email glut…out of necessity (3 kids, 3 grades, blah blah).  HOWEVER…Three types of email originate from school. I get weekly updates from (4-5) of the teachers and the principal. Our district often pats itself on the back for their wonderful communication. True, you could never claim they didn’t send you information. The are winning the volume war.  However, if there is a non-school day it means 5 phone calls, emails, announcement on the website, coverage on local media, coverage on social media.  I wouldn’t get that kind of coverage if I had a family member win a Grammy.  School is a bit trigger happy over there because there are many emails that require follow-up emails because of an error in the original email.  But again…good job school…if it crossed your mind you sent it to me and you could never say that you didn’t tell me.  I can’t find many of them because you sent me 20 emails when I was away for one week ( I counted) .  You win.

Second, special events emails from various district sources such as choir concerts, fundraisers, after school clubs, invitations to be part of this or that, volunteering opportunities, updates, summer classes,etc.  Great.  I write it down in my paper calendar because I am part Amish and because when my husband’s phone crashes I can laugh at him. Done.

Third, parent to parent emails to coordinate school events like classroom parties, book fairs, talent shows and the like. This last category is a problem. It’s a problem because despite the fact that anyone with functioning corneas can see 47 people in the group email list AND can see the specific instruction to “reply directly to me” they hit Reply All.    25% of the population hits reply all. I made up that statistic. It feels like 25%. On a light day.

Here is an example:

To: Jen, (and 15 other moms)

From: Poor sap who signed up to run this circus

Re: party donations

We need cups, napkins, water bottles and m&m’s.

Please reply to me and let me know what you can contribute.

Thanks!

(cute emoji)

————————————————————————-

Then all hell breaks loose. The rest of the inbox looks like this.

————————————————————————-

To: everyone

Re: party donations

I’ll bring cups. Do you want plastic or paper?

-b 🙂

————————————————————————-

To: everyone

Re:party donations

I think paper. Don’t you think? Also, do you guys have the hockey tournament this weekend? I could swing by and get them if you don’t have time. No problem!

-K

————————————————————————

To: everyone:

Re: party donations

No b..don’t bring cups. I already have some. I wish WE could be at the tournament but Susie has a dance competition.

(sad cat face emoji)    -Z

———————————————————————

To: everyone

Re:party donations

Oh thanks Z!  Ok…Should I bring plates then?  Let me know.

🙂  ~b

——————————————————————–

To: Jen (+15 other moms)

From: Poor sap who signed up to run this circus

Re: party donations

Thanks so much for jumping in ladies! Actually, the Andersons who own JUICE BARN have donated custom juice boxes with everybody’s name on them so we don’t even need cups!

Let me know who can bring plates.  We still need plates!

Thank you! (hearts, rainbows, unicorn graphics)

—————————————————————

NOOOOOOOOO!   I want that hour of my life back. Now I regret offering to bring something and have developed some frosty feelings toward a few people I haven’t met yet.

School moms…I do love you. I would not trade you for any other group of school moms on earth.  I know this because I have friends that are in other areas of the state and country that don’t have this team of people who could run a state or country if need be.   Many of you would drop everything and pick up my kid if I needed it and so I’ll bring the plates into perpetuity but I don’t want to discuss it in emails.

I could be wasting my time in dozens of other ways…like reading a blog about too many emails.

cc: Everyone

~Sometimes I need to stand on my head to see things clearly~

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 4 Comments

I went on a trip. (see blog post #5)   Update: The children are alive. I am alive. My husband is alive. A few things got broken while I was gone but none of them were bones.

It has taken me a couple of weeks to think of what to say about it and what I don’t want to say about it.

If I had to sum up my experience with one word it would be…Amazeballs.  That is not a Sanskrit word but we say amazeballs in our house often and it conveys the mood I’m after.

I meditated. I did yoga. As in, I took 11 yoga classes in 7 days. I ate delicious, healthy meals, that were delivered to me while I stared at the ocean. I got massages. I actually got a “I am a skeptical person but I’ll just push past it because this is a new-age type massage and oh sure I’ll just hang onto these crystals while you clang a gong in my ear massage”.  (highly recommend it)    I had acupuncture. I did Zumba. (this was more difficult for me than the crystals or the needles in my head. I have 0 dance ability when I have to follow someone else at a rapid pace)  I spent A LOT of time on this platform.

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I attended a full moon ceremony.

I attended a cacao ceremony.

I found a live sand dollar.

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I met some really lovely new people.  Some were in their 20’s and some were in their 60’s and it was  so much more enjoyable and interesting because of the age range. It felt like a multi-generational women’s slumber party and it was fun. We were so all so much more alike than we were different.

I had a chance to enjoy and appreciate some people who I already know. We had some good laughs.  I rode a horse on the beach at sunset.  I watched a horse ahead of me (carrying my friend) collapse onto the sand, crumpling from exhaustion at the end of a long day and I nearly peed in my pants laughing.  (The horse and the friend are both fine)

One day, my eyes were closed (while I was still awake) for six hours.   And apparently, I become a much calmer person when I do this.

I drank Mescal out of this and then I took the cup. Don’t tell.

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I danced. Wildly. If a video surfaces of this, I am denying everything.

I saw baby turtles hatch and walk into the ocean.

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I cried. I laughed. I wrote. I read part of a book. I didn’t miss reliable wifi. I didn’t miss text messages. I stopped importing emails. I loved leaving everything in my open air hut with no lock.  I relaxed into rotating my same 5 items of clothing.  (Turns out I didn’t even need my fleece socks that I brought in 88 degree weather) Everything fell away and the things that don’t matter really didn’t matter. I missed my people at home but nothing else.

I let my guard down. This was tougher than the Zumba.

I was thinking about what it is about travel that is so appealing. It is more than the sun, the lull of the ocean, the escape of daily responsibilities, the novelty of a foreign place.  Okay, the scenery was pretty incredible.

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But I think even more than that, it’s the perspective gained.  It is being able to take 5 minutes to resolve something that you have been trying to resolve in your head/heart for weeks at home.  Or to decide you are done with it altogether.  It is doing one thing at a time.  It is the indulgent 30 minutes spent on thinking about a dream, a plan, a possibility, a change you want to make.  It is the simple pleasure of having a conversation in its entirety.  It is the decadent hour spent on nothing but being.

I have been thinking about how once you are a ‘certain age’, you are surrounded by people and reminders of things you no longer do. I hear things along this vein daily.  Things that people used to do that they can’t do any longer.  The losses.  They used to ski but now their knees are bad.  They used to drive but now their night vision is poor.  They used to go out and hear new bands play but now they don’t.  Used to. Used to.  Then there are the losses of things that never happened. Things that they wanted to do but they can’t. Or think they can’t.  They wanted to go to Venice but now they won’t make it.  They wanted to live in a rural area but are stuck in a big city.  They dreamt of being a painter/doctor/singer but never thought they were good enough.  Maybe logistics or family or money or health or circumstances  or previous choices are standing in their way.  Maybe we all stand in our own way sometimes.

But for a week I was encouraged to do everything.  I can’t tell you how restful it is to be given a blanket permission slip to do everything or nothing with equal value placed on both.  Restful.  I was exposed to things I had never tried and surprised myself with this:

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Yeah.  That’s me.  I had no idea I could stand on my head.  I’ve never done it before and when the instructor asked if anyone wanted help trying it…the elderly woman behind me said, “Go on. Just try. You should.”  And it worked.

So that is what I am going to try desperately to hang onto at home…Life isn’t full of things I used to be able to do.

The world is abundant with experiences I haven’t even yet entertained.

Me: Patron Saint of Doughnuts

~ mildlifecrisis ~ 2 Comments

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I just read that Cauliflower is Food of the Year for 2015.  I’m disgusted. First, gross…I don’t love it and instead of my paltry 3 piece per year consumption, it will now be everywhere and people will offer it up raw, cooked, mashed, grilled, in a smoothie and for dessert. It will be on every Food Network show, every food segment on late night, every magazine, and on every restaurant menu. Second, I’m growing very weary of our ‘eureka culture’ that seems to arbitrarily nominate something as the next magic bullet, the cure-all to everything that ails us but then everything still ails us. The unwavering belief in our own expertise and our faith in untested hype is becoming an ailment unto itself.

I’m not saying that I don’t eat healthy food in an effort to be healthy. I do. I try to avoid chemicals and preservatives when I can. I’ve been known to buy organic fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy. I do think of food as fuel or food as medicine or food as a drug (depending on your philosophical bent). Anyone who has spent time with me after 3 cups of coffee and a blueberry muffin has seen the full display of that shocking cause and effect.

I cook for myself and for my family in an effort to provide some balance in our diets. We can’t live on noodles alone (although the children try).  I don’t ingest much that is processed or shelf stable mainly because it makes me feel bad. But I’m not at all convinced by all the nutritionists, doctors, institutes, research studies, food coaches, shamans, trainers, bloggers, fit persons, etc. that they have the answer let alone all of the answers. I’m just not sold on cauliflower. There is nothing new about cauliflower and I don’t think it’s special…even wearing the crown of food of the year.

Eventually all the experts’ subjects that support their theories are dead just the same and there are a multitude of factors far beyond how many ounces of açai juice they ingested. Although açai juice is so three years ago….substitute kale, quinoa or kefir into the equation and the result is similar.   Plus, the professionals keep changing their damn minds as they learn new information. Hence, my anger at the 2015 favorite cruciferous food. It cannot possibly be that simple. If it were, I would think we would have century long longitudinal, mass scale, research and professional consensus internationally and all be doing X and would not feel the need to designate anything a ‘super food’ ever again. We would just call it food.

Many years ago I worked with a woman who I will call Sharon. (Her name actually was Sharon. Pseudonyms confuse me.) She was always on a diet. In the two years I knew her, she did The Atkins Diet, The South Beach Diet, something with pure cranberry juice, a grapefruit torture as well as other things she cobbled together on her own like the “Drink chocolate flavored slim fast all day plan”. She wanted to lose weight and have more energy.

Sharon’s diets resulted in 3 things. She always had what she called “diet breath” meaning a strange atrophy of her tongue and mouth that was hideously unpleasant. This couldn’t have done anything positive for her professionally as she was a salesperson meeting face to face with clients all day long. Also, she screamed at everyone when she was on a diet (we quietly prayed behind her back that she would just eat a sandwich so she would calm the heck down and we stocked the break room accordingly). Lastly, she never lost weight.

I did once see her order a side salad with two glasses of wine at lunch. We were at Ciatti’s in Eden Prairie, MN. I was likely shoveling pasta and baskets of bread sticks down. (remember those glorious bread sticks?)  This was before the whole “calories in calories out” sensibility and some carbs were still our friends. Frankly, I was thrilled she had the wine. She was way nicer that day. More energy. Nice energy.  The part of her diet odyssey that always fascinated me was her absolute conviction that the new diet was going to work. She dragged around the current book, measured out food like a mad scientist and despite the fact that none of them yielded the results she was after, she eventually gave into the absolute abandonment of the previous diet in search of the next magical fix. Hope triumphing over experience I guess. I fear Sharon is somewhere right now cramming cauliflower into her refrigerator planning on making it taste like a steak. Angrily.

I like healthy food. I like unhealthy food. I like food. I love to cook. I love to bake. I bake better than I cook.  That guy who does the severe calorie restriction for health and long life looks insane and emaciated to me. I don’t think severe a calorie restriction diet would add 5 great years to my life because I would hurt anyone if they denied me gluten packed, flour filled, buttered, leavened, nutritionally shallow bread every once in a while.  I really believe I’d have a lower quality of life if I didn’t share good meals made with some non-super foods with people I love.

Reading the labels for calories seems ridiculous to me because I would never actually keep a log of how many I ate, how many I burned, what weight I’m at. We don’t own a scale.  Our scale is this…pants fit or pants don’t fit. I can’t put forth the mental energy into making my food intake a research project. It would be like me setting goals each day for breaths taken. It’s just going to happen whether or not I’m counting them. I’ve got other things more enjoyable to me and more important to me than tracking myself like a lab rat. Plus, I fully grasp that I am eating things often that will likely kill me. I’m just not always sure what those things are. I don’t want to know because I’m doing the best I can…the best I’m willing to do.

Here is my non-expert, not even rooted in science thought process with food (post 35 years old):

  1. Try not to eat junk because it makes me feel terrible. Often I don’t, sometimes I do. My passionate love affair with Frito-Lay and everything they make has cooled off. Goodbye entire family sized bag of chips…it was beautiful while it lasted. Sadly, a cocktail of MSG and salt gives me a serious hangover.
  2. Do I want to wear this doughnut on my thighs for the next month? Often, my answer is yes. Yes, I do. That doughnut is so worth it to me, I will walk around until it falls off again. The doughnut pictured above?  I ate it yesterday.
  3. Should I finish this even though I’m full? (Oh full cycle of guilt ensues: the cost of food, wasting food, feeling overfull, general tempting yumminess, etc.) Before age 35…eat it. Every single time. Now…leave it. Even at a restaurant-even if it’s my favorite.  My pants still fit. I’d rather waste $4 worth of food than endure the cost of purchasing new pants PLUS the mental anguish of finding said pants. My metabolism used to be a star sprinter but now it only walks along leisurely.

So–cauliflower. I’m already over you. You are not new or super to me. If I find out that in addition to fiber and vitamins, you smooth wrinkles, inject me with super human strength, improve my linear algebra ability, clean my house and make the DMV feel like Vegas, I might be willing to give you a chance.

I’m assuming though…there will be someone who has newsworthy GI issues from a Cauliflower overdose this year and you will be knocked off your pedestal replaced by something else for 2016.

I’m holding out for BANANAS! Listen up Dole…get out the studies on bananas for 2016: Super food of really lazy people. One of my faves. They need no refrigeration and come in their OWN biodegradable wrappers. Plus, I’m not a doctor, but I’m guessing people are going to welcome some bananas after they down all that cauliflower.