7ToF: an update on my efforts to de-plastic and de-Amazon my life, and a brilliant travel plan

1. You remember my New Year's resolve to cut down on single-use plastic (see the end of this post)? I'd give myself a B- on this so far. I've found some replacement products that are working well, and I've found them at Target, so you know that means that the anti-plastic movement has hit the middle class mainstream. So now I can usually (not always) avoid using ziplock bags. I'm partial to these brown paper sandwich bags because I can toss them and not have to bring home a dirty bag, but MadMax likes the reusable bags better (see photo).

I'm pretty consistent about using reusable bags for shopping and carrying my own water bottle. But that's about all I've done. I need to get back to putting energy into this. I confess I bought some reusable produce bags that are still in the box.

2. I'm not doing so well on disentangling myself from Amazon (if you missed the post on why I'm trying to avoid Amazon, it is here). There are so many things that we just can't get around here even when there's not a pandemic, and the shutdown definitely made it worse. I buy local when I can, and I've ordered stuff from Target, Wal-Mart, etc. when I can't. But I've also ordered stuff from the Big A. ("A" can stand for whatever you want to insert there, depending on mood.)

3. On the other hand, I am doing much better about not buying books from Amazon. I think I've only ordered one physical book from them in the past six months. Bookshop.org is great, and they've become my go-to for ordering actual physical books. They redistribute their profits among independent booksellers. It's not as fast as Amazon, but I rarely need the books on my doorstep in 48 hours. 

4. I was so committed to cutting back on my reliance on Amazon that I bought a refurbished Nook, Barnes&Noble's e-reader, in an effort to quit buying new books for my Kindle. It works fine, but I have to tell you there is no comparison between a Nook and a Kindle. The Kindle is more thoughtfully designed, has better back-lighting, and feels about three times faster. So I'm conflicted about this. Kindle e-readers are a good product that I really enjoy and use the heck out of. I'm hoping that recent pressure from publishers and maybe even some thoughtful legislation will level the playing field so that I can keep using my Kindle without feeling guilty about it, because I do love it. It's complicated.

5. One of my Instagram friends posted a picture of a trip to Barbados that she took a couple of years ago, mourning our inability to travel. I was suddenly struck by an intensity of longing to go somewhere that was so strong it was almost physically painful. God, I miss traveling. SO. MUCH. But then I had a brilliant idea. For me, about half the fun of travel is planning the trip, so what if I go ahead and plan a trip? Maybe we'll never actually do it, but I can order the books and do internet research and make a plan. I'm so excited about this. It is actually pretty difficult to get to the Caribbean from here (as opposed to Hawaii or Mexico, which are two short plane flights away), so maybe I will even take advantage of the fantasy aspect and plan a trip to Barbados. Or Turks & Caicos. Or St. Lucia. I don't know. I'm just getting started. 

6. A friend of mine told me recently that her GI doctor told her she should be taking a probiotic. I nodded along, half-listening, because I've been taking a probiotic off and on for years. I even buy the refrigerated kind. But then she said he told her it has to be a particular brand, Culturelle. And then she said, I've been taking it for a month now and it's like my metabolism is working again. Well, enough said, because we all know what it feels like to have your metabolism slooooooooow doooooown. Good grief. So I trotted off the next day to Target (they also have it at Costco, I haven't looked anywhere else), and I've been taking it for three weeks now, and I have to agree. I have no studies, nothing but my friend's anecdotal evidence and my own. But it's definitely worth a try. Also, it doesn't have to be refrigerated, so I actually remember to take it since it's in the same place as my other meds/vitamins.

7. This week's movie worth re-watching: Galaxy Quest. If you didn't like it the first time, re-watching won't change your mind, but it's one of our family favorites and it had been too long since we'd seen it. By Grabthar's hammer, what a savings. oh lord, do I love Alan Rickman. I could go on and on about lines that have entered our family conversations, sometimes without us even remembering where they came from. Those poor people. Could you fashion some sort of rudimentary lathe? Hey, I'm just jazzed to be on the show. That was a hell of a thing. And of course, Sigourney Weaver's classic, Look, I've got one job to do on this ship. It's stupid, but I'm going to do it.

Have a great weekend.

7ToF: BETWEEN TRIPS, which means I am both happy to be traveling, and also completely nuts

Very cool succulents at Desert Botanical Garden

1. We went to Phoenix last weekend for a trip that was business for Dean, and nothing but fun for me. I wish we could do that more often-- Dean's air fare, the rental car, and the hotel room were paid for, we just have to pay for my airfare, food, and all the books I bought. Then on Monday, I'm headed to Texas to spend a few days with my mom and then go to Dallas for the big mystery readers/writers convention, Bouchercon. I've never done anything like this and I'm really excited about it. I will report back.

2. Highly recommend Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. It's the story of Wash, a young boy who starts life as a slave on a sugar plantation. The brother of the plantation owner takes him on, and then the two of them are forced to flee when Wash is implicated in the death of a white man. It obviously has some parts that are difficult to read, but for those of us who are Highly Sensitive Readers (a title I claim with some embarrassment), it's readable. You can do it. Edugyan's writing is wonderful, the voice of Wash is mesmerizing.

3. But I was struck by something that I guess is a sign of the times. (Minor spoilers ahead) Wash starts a relationship with a young woman several years after his escape. Even though they are clearly living together, at no point do they worry about getting pregnant. I've noticed this in various historical romances, too. Even though there weren't really any effective methods of birth control in the nineteenth century, somehow the author projects her own lack of worry about pregnancy back onto her characters. It is so weird. In my generation, as soon as you became sexually active, you worried about getting pregnant. Even when I was married, I worried somewhat obsessively about getting pregnant when I didn't want to. But apparently, today's young women are so confident in their birth control options that they don't know what that obsessive dread of getting pregnant is like.

4. On the one hand, I'm really happy about this. Women will never achieve economic stability if they can't control when they get pregnant, and this tells me that we're getting there. These young women don't seem to know the psychic burden of worrying about getting pregnant. That is great. But on the other hand, it's so not accurate. The consequences of an accidental unwanted pregnancy back then would have been enormous.

I guess it's the same argument as using a Bible that has the pronouns updated to be more inclusive, or Hamilton, where we are reimagining the past the way it should have been. And I am entirely in favor of both of those, so I think I am deciding that this is a good thing.

5. You know what I am tired of? (this is starting to be a regular topic: things that make me grumpy) I am tired of obsessing about skincare. MY GOD. I have a skincare routine--it even has several more steps to it than it did when I was in my 30s and all I had to worry about was preventing breakouts. So it's not that I'm completely uninterested in the topic. But suddenly it seems to have become The Thing to obsessively listen to skin care podcasts and read blog posts and spend hundreds of dollars on trying out new products. It's ridiculous. There are no men who are doing this. It is just women. What is it with us?

6. But now that I've said that *blush* I have to confess that I did a three-week test of a new skin care product someone raved about on buzzfeed. The skin of my chest, which I think we are supposed to call our décolletage, is covered in moles, age spots, dark patches, and red dots (yes, the dermatologist did tell me the technical name and no, I cannot remember it). The dermatologist told me that it's just the joys of aging, and we have to claim our wisdom and our years and whatever other bullshit they tell you, and there was nothing to be done. The downside of a northern European gene pool, I guess. I don't very often envy younger women, except when I see someone with a perfectly smooth décolletage. Then I want to scratch her eyes out.

7. So anyway. I tried Stila's One Step Correct ($36 at Ulta) for three weeks. I even took before and after pictures so I could tell what really happened, and as you might be able to predict, there is not a chance in hell I am posting them. But you know what? While it made zero difference in the number of moles/spots/skin tags, it made a huge difference in how my skin looks. I was, honestly, kinda shocked, because I am a pretty big skeptic about skin stuff. I'm going to keep using it. That particular product may not work for you, but I guess I can't turn my nose up at people who are trying different things, because sometimes you find something that helps.

That's it for me. Have a great weekend.

7ToF: Catching up, reunion version

1. Remember how I smugly told you in my last post that I never buy books from amazon anymore? Yeah, well, less than TWELVE HOURS later I bought a book from Amazon. I didn't even realize the horror until several hours later. *rolls eyes at self* But I also said the exceptions were gifts and Kindle sale books, and it was a gift to myself. That's my story.

2. It was a gift to myself because yesterday was my birthday, so I am now 58 years old and sixty is looming ever closer on the horizon. I can't quite believe I'm this old, but other than that, it feels pretty good. I don't think sixty will bother me the way fifty did.

aside: I think the age I feel is mid-forties, maybe 46? Some days it's even mid-thirties.

3. The book was Evvie Drake Starts Over, which had been recommended as a fun read at least half a dozen times recently. Since it was my birthday, I let myself read a lot longer than I usually do and I finished it late last night (with some time out for a) boring errands and b) birthday fun betwixt). It is indeed a fun book, and even made me laugh out loud once or twice. It's fairly short--less than 300 pages-- and that is both part of what makes it fun and part of what makes it a little thin. There were a few things that felt under-developed. But you know, fun reading isn't supposed to be dense and heavy. I gave it four stars on Goodreads.

aside: I decided after typing that that I am going to make a push to bring back the use of betwixt. Great word.

4. So, I think I told you that I had three reunions in a row during my two week vacation. There was a week in South Dakota with us and 30 of my cousins and their families, my mom, and an aunt and uncle. Fun and relaxing. Then there was the one night 40-year high school reunion, which was also fun, but since it involved four plane flights in about 48 hours to make it happen, it was a little stressful. Maybe I will write more about it later. It was fun to reconnect with people I hadn't seen in decades, and also to see a couple of friends that I do see more regularly. In fact, that was the best part.

5. Then the second week was here locally-- we rented a place on a lake near here and Dean's siblings and their families and his dad and wife came and spent the week. We weren't really officially hosting since we've all known each other forever and we don't really need a host. But still, it's our home town and we felt responsible-- and the weather was not good. Unlike our usual pristine July weather (which coincidentally we are having this week), last week was rainy and windy and cool. No one --including us-- wanted to hang out and swim at the lake, which was pretty much all we had planned. But we managed to come up with things to do, and I think everybody ended up having fun, even if it was a little disappointing.

6. All of that meant that when things finally calmed down this week, I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation. I was worn out, and you know-- introvert with two solid weeks of fairly intense socializing. Ouch. I plowed through the mountains of laundry, dealt with leftover food from the rental last week, unpacked, ran errands, paid bills, etc etc and then yesterday for my birthday, I gave myself the day off. It was great. I don't usually do much about my birthday because I've never seen the point of big birthday celebrations-- it always feels like just another day to me-- but it was pretty nice yesterday.

7. So, back to it today. I shouldn't even be sitting here typing this! Hope you have a great weekend, and that you get to relax and read a fun book.

updates on several things

I should stop talking about things I'm unqualfied to talk about, so I will just update you on things we've talked about previously.

- A couple of months ago I told you I was going to try out a more intentional meditation practice. I did really well for about six weeks, at least in terms of keeping up with it. I'm sure I didn't meditate every single day, but I didn't miss many days, either. Then a couple of situations happened and things got stressful, and as I've said before, the more I "need" to meditate, the harder it seems to be to find the time.

But overall, this is going well-- the doing it part of it. I'm still terrible at meditation. I used to think it was because I had an unusually distractible mind, but now that I'm using this app (10% Happier) that is sort of a meditation community, I'm discovering that it's that way for everybody. So, I'm still doing it, I'm still terrible at it, and it's still helping with my sanity.

- Oh, Lord, remember the winter vegetables project? That has been a total fail. Partly because I haven't cooked much. We were gone, and then Dean was gone, and we've both had things going on in the evening, and a couple of times when I was planning on cooking dinner, we got a last minute invite to meet friends out for dinner, etc etc. You get the idea. But the intention is still floating around in my head, and since this is Montana, it's still winter no matter what the calendar says, so I may get back to this. After vacation (see below). Although by then, it really will be moving toward spring. I hope.

- Last week I told you I was halfway through The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. Honestly, I picked it up because I knew I didn't have the stomach for the brutality I've heard about in his better known book Underground Railroad, but I'd heard he is an amazing writer, so I wanted to read something by him. And he is. A terrific writer, I mean. Intuitionist is crazy smart.

You could read it as just a standard plot-- young woman gets framed for an elevator accident and goes off on her own to find out what really happened-- but it is also an allegory? satire? alternate reality? with all kinds of stuff happening. It's fascinating. Highly recommended if you want your brain stretched, but if you just want to read a good plot (which is all I'm going to be reading on vacation next week)(see below), probably not the best choice. I will give it this-- unlike most allegories? satires? alternate realities? where the plot eventually falls apart under the weight of The Message Being Delivered, this one really does work as its own story.

- You know, I confess I've had the thought I don't have any friends a couple of times in the last few months. I've been surprised to hear two other people say the same thing recently. People who look as if they have plenty of friends. Which has me wondering, is this part and parcel of the larger changes we're going through? Is there something about the breaking up of cultural expectations that is also disrupting personal connections? I don't know. Have just been thinking about this.

- So here we are at below. I can't remember how much I've told you about our upcoming vacation that starts on Saturday, but I am really looking forward to it. We went to a little town north of Cabo for a week last spring with both kids and loved it. When they were able to finagle the same week off this year and I asked them where they wanted to go, the unanimous decision was the same place.

So off we go. I won't be writing anything new next week, but while poking around for some other stuff I ran across a couple of old posts that made me laugh, so if I have time I'll set them up to repost next week. Otherwise, I'll catch you when I get back. Hope spring is springing wherever you are.

Best Laid Plans and all that-- Happy Thanksgiving!

I had planned to schedule two posts for this week while we're gone, but it's Monday afternoon and I can already tell it's not going to happen. So here are some pictures, one of the view to our south (carefully aimed so you can't see any houses), and two of our cat being a mighty huntress.

I hope you have a lovely holiday full of whatever you are thankful for-- food, family, football, and maybe also some things that don't start with f.  I am thankful for my readers. I'll be back next week.

7ToF: searching for my lost shaker of salt

It's Thursday night, 11:17 at this moment, and I still haven't written a post for tomorrow. Usually I come back from vacation all revved up with things to write about, but for some reason it didn't happen this time.

1. Vacation reading report: I only finished two books, although there are a couple of others I'm still working on. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (same guy who wrote Gentleman in Moscow) and The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson. I loved them both, but they are not fast-paced page-turners. Gently plotted books about interesting people. I found them both completely absorbing.

2. Gretchen Rubin of the Happier podcast did an episode on travel hacks this week-- tips and tricks to make travelling easier. There are some good suggestions, and it got me thinking about my own travel tricks. She mentions one I've been doing for twenty years now, ever since we got past the point where we were so broke that I couldn't imagine keeping two sets of anything: have a separate set of toiletries for travel so you don't have to pack them up every time you're going somewhere.

3. And I'll add my own twist that I've just started doing in the last year: refresh and refill your travel toiletries when you return from a trip instead of waiting until the night before you go on the next trip. That way it's fresh in your mind what needs to be refilled and what you wished you had with you.

4. I gave Dean a set of packing cubes for Christmas 4-5 years ago that he has never used. So I've gradually taken them over for packing various things, even though I wasn't sure the packing cube theory worked for me-- why is it so much better to have things zipped into cubes? But I have to admit I'm kind of growing into it. I've used one for chargers, cords, and headphones for a a couple of years now, and on this trip I used another one to pack up a swimsuit and a change of clothes. We checked two bags and only took one carry-on for the three of us, and that way I had a change of clothes in the carry-on in case our luggage got lost.

5. Where do you stand on the checked bag vs. carry-on issue? Theoretically I like the idea of not having to go to baggage claim when we arrive, but for a weeklong trip, those roll-aboards don't have much space. It's not the clothes I have a problem with-- I can fit a week's worth of clothes in a carry-on sized bag with no problem. (Another one of my travel tips: you never need as many clothes as you think you will.) It's the toiletries that are the problem. I cannot fit a week's worth of toiletries in a quart-size ziplock bag. Not happening. My days of getting by with a travel-size tube of toothpaste and the hotel shampoo are long gone.

6. I turned 57 last week. For some reason the difference between 56 and 57 feels much bigger to me than turning 56 last year. Maybe because now I'm unequivocally in my late 50s. But this transition isn't nearly as hard for me as turning 50. I think when when I was in my late 40s I had this self-delusion that I was still young, but turning 50 sort of ruins that dream. Now that I'm more comfortable with being older, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Of course my internal age still feels much younger than my actual age (I feel like I'm 38, or maybe 42, how about you?), but that's universal. I don't think anyone in our age range feels as old as they actually are.

7. As I've told you about a dozen times before, the 40-year-old house we live in isn't air conditioned. Most of the year this isn't a problem, but for the last couple of years, mid-July through August has been pretty miserable. I broke down this week and went and bought a couple of those free standing room-size A/C units. It took a couple of days of fiddling to get them figured out, but I think they are going to help.

Currently reading: Love Walked In (fiction) by Maria de los Santos, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done (non-fiction) by Laura Vanderkam, The Tenth Island (memoir) by Diana Marcum.
Movie we watched this week: Ant Man on DVD, because I heard the sequel was fun and we might go see it. The first one was OK but not great.

Listening: Jimmy Buffett, since I'm learning to play "Margaritaville" on my bells.

And that's all the news from here. PellMel and her boyfriend are coming next week for their vacation, but I think I will still have time to write. (If nothing shows up, you'll know what happened.) Have a great weekend.

7ToF: This one really is short. Sort of.

1. If you see me going into an office supply store or turning down the office supply aisle at Target, could you please just go ahead and whomp me with one of those Loony Tunes baseball bats? Every time I open another drawer there are more pens and markers and tape and post-it notes and pads of paper. It’s a disease.

A small selection of the pens available at our house. Want some?

2. I spent twenty minutes today trying track down the Summer Off Right reading challenge on Instagram before I figured out that it was actually the Summer of Fright reading challenge (hard to tell when the hashtag is #summeroffright) and therefore not something I am interested in. Horror is the one type of book (and movie) that holds no interest for me. I value my sleep, thank you very much.

3. I really do try to support independent booksellers as much as I can. Just last week I had a shopping accident in UTown at one of their two indies. I make a point of seeking out independent bookstores and buying books from them when we travel, too.

4. But they can be so annoying. Not long ago I went to the indie that is in the next town north of us, about 12 miles away, and asked if they had Strange the Dreamer. The woman got a smirk on her face and said, "I'm sorry, we don't carry that kind of book." I realized that a) she had never heard of the book, in spite of it being a prizewinner and NYT bestseller, and b) she thought I was asking for a romance novel.

But isn't a romance novel (although as I told you last week, I haven't finished it yet, so maybe it turns into one, but it sure didn't seem like it at the place where I stopped). The main character's last name is Strange, and he is a dreamer. And anyway, would it be so hard to carry it even if it was a romance novel? If you're the only bookstore local people have, can't you carry what they want to read? Apparently not. So in spite of it being the only retail bookstore in a hundred mile radius of my house, I haven't been able to bring myself to go back. Snobs.

5. All of that was in preparation for telling you that I had a major book shopping accident on Prime Day at Amazon. Oh, my. As if I didn't already have a stack of forty books to read. At least. But I am such a sucker for a bargain, and they had all kinds of buy this book and get a credit toward another book deals going and so even though I bought about eight books (several of them for kindle), I think it ended up being less than $40. Speaking of sicknesses. Books and office supplies.

6. So tonight I get to do every reader's favorite part of planning for vacation: figuring out what books to bring. Because yes, next week we are on our way to Southern California for Dean's big family reunion. We get together with his immediate family (siblings and dad) every year, but we haven't been to the big aunts-uncles-and-cousins version in a long time. None of us are big fans of Southern California, but it is supposed to be gorgeous next week and the kids are all old enough that no one will expect to go to the (hot, crowded, expensive) theme parks, so maybe it will be OK.

7. Next week was the week I was planning to re-post a bunch of old posts in preparation for new discussions, but I'm not exactly sure I'll have time to get it set up before I leave. If posts start appearing next week, you'll know I got it worked out. If not, I'll be back again soon.

Have a great week, and think of us sweltering on 12-lane highways. Or alternatively, hanging out with a good book at the beach. :-)

7ToF: Mexico, WiFi, and our pitiful NCAA Bracket

1. Mexico was great. Just in case you had any doubts. We stayed at a little place about an hour north of the Los Cabos airport. Apparently, it is their shoulder season because we were practically the only people there midweek. When the weekenders started rolling in on Thursday, we were a little bit pissed that they were taking over our private pool.

imagine James Taylor singing "Mexico"

2. One of my favorite things about it was the way they had their wireless set up. The hotel units circled the pool, and then there was a beachfront restaurant. You could only connect to their wireless if you were at the restaurant (or sitting on one of the benches outside). It was perfect--no problem to go and check your email or text messages if you wanted to, but no internet in the rooms or by the pool. It made me wonder if we could figure out a way to restrict the wireless at our house to a single room--easy to access when you need it, but not too easy.

3. I think I'm coming to the end of experimenting with online access (see relevant posts back in January). I'm glad I took a break for awhile, because it let me see how my brain feels when I'm relatively disconnected vs. how I feel when I'm "always-on." Honestly, there are some times when "always-on" is what I want. But usually, I feel better if I'm only accessing the internet when I actually consciously want to use it, as opposed to just automatically reaching for my phone every few minutes. Of course, I'm not always perfect at doing this. But I'm better at it than I was before.

4. One of the things I've had to adjust is being an information junkie. I love trivia. If you're a trivia nut, Google is the most amazing, terrific, sublime thing ever. You can find out any little thing you ever wanted to know from Google. You can track down the name of that British mystery series you read ten years ago. You can figure out where you've seen Sally Hawkins before (she was Anne Elliott in the BBC version of Persuasion). It's become second nature to me, anytime I don't know something, to grab my phone and look it up. It's hard to even remember what it felt like back in the day when you had to wait till you got home to look something up in a dictionary or an encyclopedia. But when I grab my phone while having lunch with friends, it doesn't matter if I'm googling movie trivia or checking text messages, it's rude. I'm trying to stop.

5. And just to prove how imperfectly I am accomplishing this: I downloaded a new game this week, which both reminded me how much fun games can be, and also how quickly I get sucked into spending 2-3 hours a day on them. This week, it was fun and relaxing. But I think I will probably delete the game in another day or two. For one thing, I've reached the point where you have to start buying things to keep going. They get you hooked on the levels that you can win for free, and then gradually amp up the difficulty until you can't progress without paying for extra tools or boosters or whatever. Really irritating, but since I'm so cheap, it also acts as a natural deterrent-- I'm OK with spending $5-ish on a game that I'm enjoying, but past that point, there are other things I'd rather spend my money on. About a million other things.

6. Like everybody, our March Madness bracket got trashed. I used the CBSSports app, which allows you to create three brackets for free. We picked Virginia to win it all in the first one (they lost in the first round), Cincy to win it all in the second one (they lost in the second round), and for the third one we used the "auto fill" option for random selections, which gave us Villanova as national champion (still possible). Pretty sad when the random auto fill is smarter than you are.

7. You remember about a month ago when we were discussing how to weed out books when you have too many of them? I complained that all those "clear your clutter" advice people are not much help when it comes to books, because they (apparently) don't like books. They generally think you should get rid of them. But not long after I wrote that, I read somewhere (apologies for not remembering where) a comment that said, "Seriously, if you've had a book for five years and you haven't read it yet, are you ever going to?"

My first reaction was dismissive. I have stacks of books that of course I'm going to read some day. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe they're right. I could go through my as-yet-unread books with that thought in mind-- am I really going to read this someday? and I bet I could get rid of a bunch more. Because we are still in need of major decluttering around here and I could use the shelf space. Hmmmmm. I am thinking about  this. (The house-wide decluttering project is #1 on my list once I finish my job.)

Part Two of the Obliger Life post is coming, I just couldn't get it done in time for Friday. Have a great weekend.

7ToF: Two in a row, but there's lots to catch up on

1. I really did mean to post this earlier in the week, but I'm in my biannual Olympics coma and only the bare basics are getting done around here. and oh my word: they cry, I cry. Ally at the end of her floor routine, Simone when she finally got her winning score, Michael Phelps during the national anthem for his TWENTY-SIXTH medal, I feel like I've spent the last several days wiping away tears.

2. You know how the women gymnasts used to be these cute, pony-tailed little things bopping around the events? I loved to watch them, but they were mainly just cute. Not any more. Did you see them? They were incredible! Those are some formidable athletes. They do things that make my jaw drop. Wow. Even the jaded boys at my house have been impressed.

3. The other reason I didn't get this post done earlier is that I tweaked my neck, and that means migraines. I was doing so much better-- I filled my monthly Maxalt prescription in January, and then didn't fill it again until right before we left on our trip in June-- which (was) astonishingly, amazingly wonderful. Now I've had six migraines in the last ten days. Thank God for excellent pharmaceuticals. (It's better already.)

4. Remember I told you how miraculous it was that we had seven free-range chickens and a fox living practically next door? Yeah. Well, we now have six chickens and the miracle is over. If it hadn't been for our brave neighbor who came over and intervened, we'd be down a lot more than one chicken. The remaining ladies are already back to free-ranging. They seemed content to be shut in the coop for a day or two, but after that, they quite emphatically wanted to roam free again. It's been about a month and we're still holding at six chickens. We'll see.

5. Favorite website of the week: reuseit.com.  If you haven't been to Reuseit yet, it has everything you can think of that is reusable-- shopping bags, lunch boxes, dust cloths, paper towel replacements, water bottles, bento boxes, everything. I've mainly used it for their tan canvas shopping bags, which hold about as much as four of those plastic grocery store bags and last forever. I've had my original set for years now and I just keep buying more. Also love Baggu bags, which roll up small enough to keep in my purse, and come in great designs.

6. The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Debate: are you a chocolate chocolate chip cookie lover? or a cookie chocolate chip cookie lover? (or neither, I suppose, but if that's the case you can go on to the next Thing.) Some people think that the cookie part of a chocolate chip cookie is just there to convey as much chocolate as possible to your mouth. I personally like lots of cookie and not so much chocolate. I think I'm in the minority, because most current recipes are designed around getting more chips and bigger chips into your cookie, but I quickly get to chocolate overload in a cookie. I've started making mine with mini- chips so they don't overwhelm the dough, but that's not quite right either. I suppose I'll have to take one for the team and continue to experiment until I get the perfect recipe. And then I will let you know.

See, these are the things I can lose sleep over. And you wondered why I haven't been posting.

7. We had VBS at our church this week, so I (don't laugh) signed up to help with crafts. Which is like those Lindsey Vonn commercials where a winter Olympian is trying to do the summer sports. I am not crafty. But no one else had volunteered, and I can organize and buy things at Michael's, so I figured it would work out. And it did. Oh my Lord, we had the greatest group of kids. They took our half-assed craft ideas and ran with them. Yesterday we had a competition to see which group of kids could create the longest paper chain-- you know, those loops of paper connected together, like pre-schoolers make at Christmas (it was loosely connected to that day's story). I thought they were going to be bored to death, but they were ALL IN. One of the leaders was counting down the time at the end and you would have thought they were racing to build the ark before the rain started. It was so much fun. The winning chain was about 40 feet long.

7a. Excellent lyric from new Miranda Lambert song: If you need me, I'll be where my reputation don't precede me.... Hmmmm, maybe you have to hear the song. That didn't translate so well.

7b. And I haven't even told you about going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter yet!! The downside of not posting all summer is that there's too much to tell you. Bottom line: if you love Harry Potter, you really should go sometime, it was fabulous and butter beer (non-alcoholic) is just as good as you hoped it would be. This could be an entire post, but I'm not sure if anyone's interested. Let me know. One thing: we bought the "front of the line pass" so we could cut to the front of the line, which was obscenely expensive and --I'm telling you-- not worth the money. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.) If you get your ticket online, you can enter the park an hour early, and since HP is only a small part of the park, you can be done and out of there before it gets crowded. Before 11 a.m., there were no lines longer than about 15 minutes. I loved it, but I did not love the crowds in the afternoon. Go early and leave early.

And there's more. But this is already far too long and I suspect you have other things to do than sit and read my drivel. Eventually I will get caught up (summer reading report next week) and then I do have some interesting things to discuss. That part might not start until after we get MadMax off and we are officially empty nesters. Have a great weekend.

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.

7ToF: in which I restrain myself from using very bad words.

I started this week's Seven-Things-on-Friday days ago because I knew I would be busy getting ready for vacation. Instead of making it quicker to write, though, I ended up spending at least three times as much time on it as I normally would. Then I accidentally freaking DELETED IT. I am saying ALL THE BAD WORDS.

Even after I googled how to recover a deleted blog post and tried a dozen different things, I couldn't get it back. I spent so much time on it that I'm sick of it and I have no desire to re-write it. So here is the abridged version.

1. We are going on vacation for two weeks, leaving on Saturday: two Souths (Carolina and Dakota) for back-to-back family reunions.

2. I'm feeling guilty again about having too much crap after seeing a TV ad this week about how charities don't want your stuff, they want your cash. Since I'm still clearing clutter, what the heck am I going to do with all this stuff?

3. So I'm having a hard time justifying buying a new comforter, even though our current one is ten years old and I'm sick of it, because I don't know what to do with the old one.

4. But I'm overcoming that guilt and buying one anyway because I'm not all that virtuous and I wants one.

5. Continuing my rampant consumer theme, I went on a (noble) quest to find good beer mugs. ha. I'm buying microbrews in cans now (we can't recycle glass locally), but I don't want to drink it from a can. So here is a picture of our new beer mugs, which I got at TJMaxx. Dishwasher safe, sturdy, and with a handle.

Check me out, stylin' a photo. Don't laugh.

6. I have a household hint. I may be a rotten housekeeper, but I'm good at finding things that work like a charm and save me a lot of work. To remove coffee and tea stains from ceramic mugs, put a tablespoon or so of baking soda in a mug, add a bit of water to make a paste, scrub around with your fingers. It's like magic. I'm so smugly pleased with myself I almost posted a before and after picture.

7. Originally I had planned to re-post some stuff from my old blog while we're gone, but at the moment, I'm so done with the whole blogging schtick that I'm taking a break instead. I guess accidentally deleting all that work struck a nerve. I'll probably be back at the end of the summer, but who knows.

And there you go. I'll be over being pissed (probably) by the time you read this. The good news is that it's WAY shorter than the original. Have a great weekend and a great summer.

you wouldn't know me with this golden glow, soakin' up sun in Mexico

We returned from Mexico on Sunday. We don't usually do major vacations for spring break, but it's our last one with our last kid, so we decided to go big. We went in with two other families and rented a condo in Puerto Peñasco (sometimes called Rocky Point).

We flew Allegiant (a bargain basement airline) to Mesa, AZ, then drove four hours to PP. Allegiant charges for every little thing-- you want a reserved seat? $10. you want a carry-on? $25. you want a coke? $2. But even after we paid all the fees, our airfare was still less than half of what we would have paid on a traditional airline. In spite of a few things we'd heard, they were actually pretty pleasant to deal with. I'm a fan.

Puerto Peñasco is still fairly undeveloped. There is a ring of hotels and condos along the beach, a small "downtown" area, and practically nothing else. It wasn't fancy. There are a few decent restaurants, and a couple of shopping areas with typical Mexican souvenir stuff. There are jet skis and ATVs you can rent (some in our group did, we didn't). The weekend was a bit noisy, but it was blissfully quiet on the weekdays. The water is that gorgeous turquoise color that you see in postcards. For our purposes--getting out of cool, overcast Montana without paying a fortune-- it was perfect and we had a great time.

You can, and we did, feel some discomfort at the contrast between the beautiful resorts and the poverty surrounding, but two things helped with that. First of all, tourists from the U.S. were far outnumbered by vacationing Mexicans. And secondly, their economy is decidedly improved by the tourist industry. There are jobs. I know you could argue about this. We decided to enjoy our vacation.

~~~

I've had plenty of time over the weeks since I last posted to think about blogging. I've had some pretty demoralizing things happen in the past few months, and I'm afraid I let "not a famous blogger yet" contribute to my feelings of failure. One or two fails you can chalk up to experience, but several spread out over a year and a half start to feel indicative of your worth as a person.

But at least as far as the blog is concerned, I had to remind myself that I don't really want to be a famous blogger. Every time my number of pageviews starts to tick upward, I panic and quit posting. So here's that.

I also had time to realize that I was occasionally trying to do something with this blog that I'm not good at. Instead of just writing about my own experience, at least in my head I was trying to speak for all women at my stage of life. Which is ridiculous. I don't think I even realized I was doing it until I had an a-ha moment while reading another blog.

I can't write for anybody else, I can only write for myself. So it's entirely possible that this blog will become tediously boring from here on out--I'm not exactly doing anything thrilling these days-- but I suspect it has already been that, at least sometimes.

So, with that said, on we go. I did not come to the conclusion that I need to quit, which is what I was thinking back when I said I was taking a break. For the time being, I'm planning on sticking with my original schedule--posts on Tuesday and Friday, with the occasional TBT (throwback Thursday) re-post of stuff from my old blog. Thanks for hanging in there with me.