Mentor in training

Another memory: about ten years ago, I was eating dinner with a group of friends, mostly my age except Liz, who is about fifteen years older. My friend Ann was struggling with how to deal with an opinionated and adversarial daughter-in-law after her son's marriage a few months earlier. (We've all heard about dealing with your mother-in-law, but more and more of us are discovering how difficult children-in-law can be, yes?) 

Liz, my older friend, had kids who had been married for years, but she listened without comment while we all commiserated with Ann over how difficult her daughter-in-law was being. We encouraged her to stand up for herself, not let the young woman manipulate her, etc. We were being supportive, because that's what you do with your friends.

Finally, Ann turned to Liz and asked her if she had any advice, since she'd been dealing with this for years longer than any of the rest of us. Liz said, a little sheepishly, "I think you should let it go. You're in this for the long haul. They've been married less than a year, and she doesn't know you or trust you yet. If you make a fuss about this now, it could be years before she gives you another chance."

Which led to dead silence because of course Liz was right. Then we all started laughing, because we were so far off base in our response. Why did I think Ann needed my opinion? My kids aren't even married!

Maybe I'm making too much of this, but it keeps coming to mind when I think about being a crone/wise woman. Liz listened. She didn't jump in with her opinion. She waited until she was asked for advice. (Oh, lord, do I have a hard time with that one.) She stated her opinion and her reasoning without making it sound like she was the ultimate arbiter of the right thing to do. She was talking about a subject where she had direct experience, and she knew what she was talking about.

In other words, she was helpful instead of overbearing. I could choose a worse role model.

(as always, the names in this story have been changed)

7ToT: I'm on mini-vacation. *waves*

1. I read the first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, years ago. Now there is a whole series of of them, told in first person from the point of view of Flavia, a wildly precocious 11-year-old who solves mysteries using her wits, her trusty bicycle Gladys, and her great uncle's chemistry lab. I liked that first one OK, but I couldn't really connect with the voice of Flavia, so I never read any of the others. But recently I tried the audiobook, and the narrator is terrific. Finally understand why people think these are such great books.

2. Flavia does not get along with her sisters. They torment her unmercifully. Sometimes it amounts to outright torture. My first reaction was to be horrified at how awful her siblings were, but then I started remembering some of my own worst moments with my sisters. I have the best sisters on the planet, and as adults, we get along great. But we definitely had our moments growing up. I used to "cook" my younger sister in the oven as a game. The oven was totally imaginary, but I suspect a therapist would be only to happy to unpack that tangle of sibling rivalry issues. We spent hours playing that game. Did you play awful games with your siblings? How normal is this?

3. PellMel will not be home for Christmas for the first time ever. I've known that for quite awhile, but for some reason the implications just sank in this week. This is a heart wrencher. We are big on Christmas around here--not necessarily gifts, but we have a boatload of traditions, including specific movies to watch, the trip to get the tree, decorations to put up, special meals, music, and so on. *Ouch* We're trying to figure out a way we can get down there to celebrate some earlier weekend in December but everyone's schedule is complicated.

4. It's funny, we quit going back to Texas for Christmas more than 30 years ago, and I don't think I ever once thought that might be hard on my mother. So heartless.

5. I am still trying to keep a revolving door on the books, so that at least as many go out as come in. (spoiler alert: it's not working all that well. My most recent method for freeing up space for new books involved packing away old pre-digital photo albums rather than actually getting rid of books. Don't tell Marie Kondo.) I decided the easiest way to cull books right now would be to go through my cookbooks. I have a bunch, more than 40, which is a bit odd, because as we all know, I'm not much of a cook, and when I do cook, I don't usually follow a recipe. But for some strange reason, I looove to read cookbooks.

Some of my cookbooks. This is the stairwell down to our basement.

6. Also, I have several ancient cookbooks that I keep because of exactly one recipe. Those are actually hard to give up-- they are recipes I've used for years, and I know exactly where they are, because it's the wrinkly page in that cookbook. But really, it's ridiculous to keep an entire big fat cookbook for one recipe. So I made copies of those pages and off they went to our church bazaar. I did not cry.

7. But true confessions: then I bought a new one. I read a review of the new Better Homes & Gardens cookbook (titled, appropriately enough, New Cook Book, 17th edition) that intrigued me, so I ordered it. I'm surprised how much I like it. I tend to use cookbooks for ideas more than for actual instructions, and I've already seen a bunch of innovative ideas, in addition to all the old stand-bys. And also it has loads of beautiful photos. Thumbs up.

Hope you are having a good week.

Midlife celebration #8: adult children

(I'm not entirely sure which # number celebration we're up to, but I'm going with eight.) Both kids are home this week, and PellMel brought her boyfriend with her. Our house is full! PellMel turned 28 in May, and MadMax just turned 21. We went out to dinner last night and he could order a beer, have his ID checked, and be legal.

It's strange to think of them both being full-on adults. (Of course, maturity level is another question, but let's go with the legal definition for now.) It has only been a few days since MadMax caught his first fish at age 4, or PellMel went to her 70s-themed winter formal in a Goodwill dress that can only be described as a Twiggy-LisaFrank mashup. (I don't have time to dig up the picture right now but I will try to by Friday.)

Not being a born cook--as I know some of you are-- I'm good for about one meal a day. If I make breakfast, I don't feel like I should have to make dinner. If I made dinner the night before, I feel like you should be able to get your own breakfast together. Since we went out to dinner last night, and we'll probably be picking up takeout tonight, I made pancakes this morning. After breakfast, I went up to dry my hair, and when I came back, the kitchen was clean.

I'm telling you, adult children are awesome.

Also, they make me laugh. My kids have always been able to make me laugh--sometimes even when I was furious at them-- but it's a different kind of thing to sit around the dinner table and laugh with other adults, adults it turns out that you like as well as love.

Trivia I learned from the boyfriend: Cap'n Crunch is actually wearing a corporal's insignia on the cereal box, not a captain's. Who knew?

I'm sure I drive them nuts sometimes, and by the end of the week, maybe they'll be driving me nuts, but at this particular moment, I am beyond grateful for my adult kids. 

7ToF: the bird has flown the coop

1. I was a sobbing mess while we were packing up MadMax's stuff. It was ridiculous. Even for a devoted mom, it was excessive. I managed to do it mostly in private and not in front of poor Max, but still. I put the T in INTJ, you know. I hate emotional messiness. Ugh.

2. But you know what? The actual drop-off wasn't that bad-- I mean, in terms of me holding it together. There's so much excitement, and the school he chose did a great job of making 3,000+ freshmen and their families feel welcomed and cared for. Once he gets things figured out he's going to be fine. And I'm positive that he's going to miss his dog more than he misses us.

3. Now that we're back home, I think I'm having an easier time adjusting than Dean is. Dean and MadMax share many of the same interests, so he lost one of his best buds. On the other hand, I'm discovering that having MadMax out of the house means that there's considerably less laundry, and "his" bathroom (the only bathroom on the main floor of our house) stays clean. Not that I cleaned it all that often, mind you, but I don't have to walk in there after an adult has used it and realize that I let an unarmed, unwarned innocent go into an oversized petri dish. I think I'm already through the worst of it. Plus, we text just about every day and he's already called once. We'll be fine.

4. Random observation of the week: Chickens don't like bell peppers. Who knew?

5. I don't think I have any male readers at the moment so let's talk shopping. Is there anything worse than bra shopping? (as I type that, I realize that yes, there is, and it's swimsuit shopping. But bra shopping is still pretty bad.) With all my weight gain and loss and gain and loss over the past few years, my bras have been through the wringer. I've had bra expanders and gotten rid of them and adjusted them up and down. My bras--all of which were at least six years old, and some more like eight--were in tatters. But still I resisted, because UGH.

6. Then I saw a flyer from our local dept store about their annual INTIMATES sale, and practically on impulse I found myself pulling into their parking lot. I'm not gonna lie, it was still awful. There is no amount of intimate engineering, shall we say, that is going to make me look good nekkid, and there's no avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror while you're trying on bras. I tried on at least half a dozen before I found one I liked. But I persevered, and I ended up with three. Finally bra makers must be actually listening to what women want, because once I waded through the ones I didn't like to get to the ones I did, these are the most comfortable bras I've ever worn. If you haven't bought new bras recently, give it a go.

7. I bought the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking (by Susan Cain) not long after it came out, just to be supportive since I am a pretty major introvert. But I never got around to reading it because I thought I knew everything I need to know about being an introvert. But then I heard the author speak on a podcast (more about that nother time), and decided I should actually read what she had to say. I am loving it. I don't always agree with her, but overall it has been one helpful insight after another. I'm probably the last introvert to read this book, but if you are and you haven't, you definitely should. Great book, fascinating stuff.

SO now that I've done FIVE "seven things" posts in a row, I will try to do something else next time. But probably not next week since I'm going to Seattle. Woot! Road trip!! If you've heard a terrific audiobook recently, let me know!

7ToF: Except it's Tuesday.

1. One of the reasons I went on a blogging break this summer is because I knew it would be crazy. It turned out to be even more crazy than I was expecting. After all the craziness around MadMax's graduation, I ended up being out of town for four of the next five weeks. That's the most I've been away from home ever. Some of it, most of it, was really fun, but it was such a relief to be back home again.

2. The extra week away was to stay with my mom while she had unexpected surgery. She had a mammogram in the spring which showed a suspicious lump, which ended up being early stages of cancer. Her outlook is good, but all of us who love her would be grateful if you sent a get-healthy blessing her way.

3. I'm typing this on my new laptop. Six years later, I finally decided it was time to move on, and I love love love this new one. It has a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a traditional hard drive, and it is fast and quiet.

4. Preparations to get MadMax off to college continue. I'm intermittently misty-eyed over some sweet memento and thrilled about the new stage of life we're moving into (empty nesters! wow!). I am continuing said preparations entirely without MadMax's help. What color bedspread do you want, I ask him. He looks at me blankly. Can't I just take my old one? So far he seems to consider his college adventure to be about fishing and hunting on the weekends, and maybe he'll be able to sneak out occasionally during the week. We have to remind him that he will need to study.

5. He broke up with his girlfriend of four years this week, which was heartbreaking for both of them. It's so hard to see your kids hurting, which includes her because she's been part of our family since they were in eighth grade. But they've been moving in different directions the past year or two and it will be good for both of them to try dating some other people. But, ouch. Ouch.

6. Reader Laurel and her wife Kami are biking from Mexico to Canada this summer. They started at the Mexico border back in June, and they're just about to finish up, probably later this week. Apologies for the late notice, but if you want to read about their trip, Laurel has been blogging and posting spectacular pictures here.

7. I'm officially declaring the end of my midlife crisis. I see now why there are so few people blogging about this stage of life, because who wants to read it? I had my few months of wallowing in my disappointment over all the things I'll never do, but I've had several sharp wake-up moments in the past few weeks that have done their work. I have two healthy kids and a spouse who not only still loves me 32 years later but puts up with all my crap. I live in a spectacularly beautiful place, and I am one lucky woman. Moving on. Thanks for putting up with me.

One thing I realized this summer is that I'm not a big fan of blogging to a schedule. So I'm going to stop doing it. I end up posting things I don't care about because the post I do care about isn't ready yet, and then I get distracted and never finish the first one, etc. It always astonishes me that anybody reads my drivel at all, so you're all a miracle to me.

Happy August. Hope you're having a great summer.

We partied like it's 2016

Well, we survived and MadMax is now officially a high school graduate. Enormous graduation party, beloved house guests and RV guests, graduation ceremony, three and a half hour shift at the all-night senior party (that ended with me home and unable to sleep at 3 a.m.), and finally sending PellMel and house/RV guests off this morning.

Now I've proceeded to the collapsed-on-the-couch-like-a-truck-ran-over-me part of the weekend (I'm writing this on Sunday). Emotional rollercoaster times twelve. Expect no coherent thoughts in this post.

When MadMax was two, we moved across town to a neighborhood full of kids. They rode the school bus together, hunted for Easter eggs, decorated their bikes for fourth of July parades, fought and made up, grew apart and back together and apart again.

We moved out of the neighborhood (but still close by) a couple of years ago, and another family moved across town, but we're still friends. So when a bunch of them were all graduating the same weekend, we decided to band together and throw one big graduation party Friday night.

You probably know me well enough to know that parties are not my thing. But sometimes you have to do it, and when you're splitting up the work (and the expenses) between six different families, really it's not so bad.

We had it here since we have access to the biggest stretch of flat area for a crowd. My cousin was keeping a head count, and at one point we had 85 people here. Since there was quite a bit of coming and going, probably at least 100 people stopped by.

The amazing thing is, it was fun. The weather was spectacular, the food was great, there were kids from grade school through college tearing all over the yard, chasing frisbees and soccer balls and each other. After all the worrying I'd done, it was the most amazing thing.

Then there was their graduation ceremony, which was a bit too long-- have you ever been to one that wasn't? -- but otherwise joyously celebratory. I told you that MadMax was co-valedictorian, which is true, but because of the way they calculate GPA at their school, there were about a dozen valedictorians, so he didn't have to give a speech (much to his relief, he sadly inherited his mother's aversion to public speaking).

In the afternoon we went to another dear friend's party, then took my cousin and her husband up to Glacier NP for ice cream and a stroll along Lake MacDonald. Then I did my shift at the all-night community-wide senior party and came home and tried to get some sleep. Then this morning, PellMel drove off to get back to her studies, and my cousin and her spouse drove off to California, and I collapsed on the couch.

Where I may stay for days.

The Party. This was early on before it got crowded.

a bunch of amazing seniors

MadMax and PellMel