Four years on WordPress! Happy Anniversary to MEEEEE!!!!

                                                 

 

 

How do you like my lovely laurel wreath?  Does it make my head look big? Thanks WordPress for acknowledging my stick-to-itness (it’s a word if I want it to be).  Four years of blogging, albeit  a bit sporadically, and still typing away.    Yes, yes, also Bubble Witching away, working away, and doing lots of other life related stuff away, but blogging too!  After four years perhaps it’s time for a facelift (easy now people – I meant of the blog page) and some layout changes.   I think it’s time to add a published books page because, well, I FINALLY have one!  And maybe a static first page….and new curtains…and some throw pillows….and a coffee table…..sorry – went a little Pinterest there for a second.  So off to tend to some long overdue fixer uppers on here and looking forward to another 4 years of blah, blah, blogging.

P.S. Update on my last post.  The open letter was published in a local paper in the “Letters to the editor” section!  Yay!  I’m famous!  (in a 20 square foot radius, but still…..)

An open letter to retailers

An open letter to retailers:

Hello out there – anyone listening to the consumers?  I DO NOT want to buy markers and notebooks and backpacks in July!!!!!  I don’t want to see them in your flyers, littering my mailbox with unwanted thoughts of the back to school madness.  Your one day only sales that pressure me into buying things long before class lists are ready because now I am wondering: if you are doing this in July does that mean it will all be gone by late August and I will be facing isles of Christmas wreaths and Menorahs when instead I need protractors and pencil cases?

Why when teachers and parents and children have just started to dig toes into sand dunes, are busy splashing in pools, and summer camp has just kicked off for the season, do you think for any reason that we want to be lining up for crayons and calendars?
Do you know what I want to buy now?  Bathing suits and flip-flops and fun things that float in the water.  You know – all the things that are harder to find IN THE SUMMER than Jimmy Hoffa’s body. PLEASE  – stop forcing the seasons to change months ahead of time.  Let us, the poor consumers, have a rest.  Let us enjoy the sunshine and saltwater for the brief time it lasts.

Trust me, we will be back – we love your ten-cent pencil cases.   But we don’t love them until school starts.

Sincerely your very tired and in desperate need of a break from your onslaught of marketing gimmicks (and in need of sunscreen and a beach towel) consumer,

Laura E.

One Bad Fairy

That moment when you know that she knows that you know that she knows.  Confused yet?  Let me try this another way….

Daughter Two: “So, Mom, I’ve been having some trouble with the tooth fairy.”

Me: “What kind of trouble?” (Asked in a sing-song, Mary Poppins voice – ‘cause that’s how I roll)

Daughter Two: “Well I put my tooth under my pillow last night and the tooth fairy didn’t come.  AGAIN.”

Me (feigning surprise): “Oh, you put that under your pillow already? “

I should note that at this point she is glaring at me like something from “Evil Dead” and I am realizing that there is a very good reason that second children have an actual syndrome named after their status in life.  Thank GOD I was a first born.

Daughter Two: “Yes, yes I did.  And once again she is late.  MAYBE she’ll make it tonight.”

Final piercing glare then exit, stage left.

And then I knew.  I knew that she knew that I knew that she KNEW.   We were there – that delicate crossroad in life when the fairy tale ends but no one is ready to say the words.   She knew that the fairy wasn’t delayed because of a volcanic explosion in Iceland that grounded all creatures of flight or late by a couple of days because she had a broken wing.   Uh-huh, before you ask, used them both and few more.  Like I said above – second child syndrome is real for a reason.

So bittersweet is that moment of knowing, for both of us.  Because now I know that she knows that I definitely suck as a fairy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make some interest payments on an enamel coated dentin blob.

Five Dollar Pizza From Heaven

Every now and again the universe sends you exactly what you need in the seconds before you think all is lost. In my case it was a piping hot $5.00 pizza from Price Chopper. Now you are most likely thinking to yourself right about now that I need to step up my expectations in life if this is my version of Heaven. Just read.

Won’t bore you with the minutia of my endless Friday but here’s the condensed overview: Awake at 5:00am after a couple of hours of sleep, get kids up, ready, out, work, errands, run Girl Scout meeting, pick up rest of the pack from babysitter, home, more errands, and then St. Patrick’s day grocery shopping. That brings us to the moments before my manna from Heaven (if manna comes with tomato sauce and a heavy handed layer of mozzarella).

Picture three tired children along with their cranky mom (insert my face) on their way to the second grocery store because first one did not have all of the necessary Irish accoutrements for our upcoming celebrations. It’s after 8pm; no one has eaten, and trust me when I say that doesn’t make anyone in this family any nicer. The wall of glass slides open and in we walk to be greeted by a woman in a flowing robe and a halo. Okay – the children are saying that she was in a Price Chopper polo shirt and the light over her head was the glare off the donut case but hey, we all see what we want, right?

Anyway…..in we walk to find this angel (a.k.a. underpaid Price Chopper employee) approaching us with a box held regally before her. Angels sang as she asked us, “Would you like a fresh, hot, five dollar pizza tonight?”

And there it was – the one thing I didn’t have to think about taking care of on our never-ending Friday. Dinner. Gifted to us from a woman who had to be Heaven sent. Wasn’t the best pizza we’ve ever had, nor was it the worst, but last night it was the most appreciated pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Off Road Life

I should state up front that I am not a quad fanatic, dirtbiker, or Dacar Rally participant(although that last one may have to be added to the bucket list because it is VERY cool).  I am however a big fan of the “road less traveled” lifestyle.  The kind of life lived wherein friends and family simultaneously find themselves both shuddering in horror and desiring to try on some of your choices.

To date I have lived in 24 homes, 2 countries, and 7 states.  My choices are not for the faint of heart – in fact some days I am not even sure if they are for me – but life is short and the world is big.    To many friends and family we are the wild things. The take chances and hopefully land on our feet people. To others we are just plain crazy (not entirely sure they are wrong in that assessment). To myself I think, “Wow – only 2 countries?  When did I get so boring?”

But what about those who have forsaken the path altogether?  They are not on the well-worn nor the less travelled.  Instead they are bushwhacking their way into adventures that even those of us who walk on the wild side are shy to go.

There is a whole other subculture that I envy and whom I want to emulate when I one day pluck some vestige of courage out of the mountain air.  It’s a lifestyle that requires throwing off every expectation of what is “normal” and forging ahead with a boldness that is often mistaken for irresponsibility (okay, that can really be a fine line to walk).

These are the off-road, beating new paths, wild folk who can live in real freedom and toss what the world thinks out the window as they head into the next adventure.   Ahhh..sweet freedom.  Which path do you follow?  Are you a straight and narrow kind of traveler or, to quote some beloved pop culture sci-fi AKA Star Trek, do you yearn “to explore strange new worlds; To seek out new life and new civilizations; To boldly go where no man has gone before” ?

“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to
decide.”  ~Napoeon Bonaparte

Where will your next adventure take you?