I've had an idea for about a year now for a series of posts on depression. I went so far as to create a site on WordPress and come up with a pseudonym, a blog title, and a tagline. There were a couple of reasons I wanted to do it anonymously, but being embarrassed about depression was not one of them.
I suspect that among women in their 50s, the number of us who have never experienced depression is pretty small. There's post-partum depression and grieving over the death of a loved one depression and empty nest/life transition depression and this job sucks but I can't quit right now depression and the world is a horrible place and I can't fix it depression. Just to name a few.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
7ToF: Cruisin'
1. When I was in high school, I went on a cruise with the family of a friend--she had two brothers who were sharing a cabin, but no one to share her cabin. I loved that cruise. We were in the Caribbean and I had never seen water that blue or felt that magical, soft midnight air. We had to dress up every night--if I remember right, we even wore long dresses one night-- and we had an assigned time to eat and a reserved place to sit. And we had a great time.
2. The Alaska cruise I went on last week with my mom, almost 40 years later, was also great, but in an entirely different way. It was a "freestyle" cruise, meaning there was no dress code beyond the obvious no-shoes-no-shirt-no-service type thing, and you could eat whenever you wanted and sit wherever you wanted. I was expecting that the other cruisers would be elderly retired types, and there were quite a few of those. But there was also a huge population of internationals--lots of Europeans, lots of Asians. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that US citizens were in the minority. And there were also plenty of younger people. Not very many families since school is in session, but lots of people younger than me, and a handful of preschoolers.
3. Alaska is beautiful. Gorgeous. No surprise there. The air and the water are clear and cold in a way that they just aren't elsewhere. We had a couple of sunny days at the beginning of the trip, but even when it was gray and cool, there was endless beautiful scenery to watch-- forests and waterfalls, and mountains in the distance. On our excursions, we saw whales and sea lions and bald eagles.
Maybe my favorite moment of the trip (well, besides the opportunity to spend so much time with my mom) was seeing Sawyer Glacier. We cruised into the Tracy Arm Fjord until we reached Sawyer, which spills into the fjord at the end. We live about half an hour from Glacier National Park, so I was not expecting to be awed by a glacier. I've seen them before. But I was. Awed, I mean. The glaciers in GNP are nothing like this-- even though it was overcast, it looked like it was lit from within. It was practically glowing with blue light. Very cool.
4. However, I didn't get to see the Northern lights. I guess I'll just have to go back. Every night was cloudy verging on foggy, even when the day had been sunny. I don't think I even saw any stars all week.
5. I read at least three books of the "What to know before you go on your first cruise" variety before we left, but I didn't learn much from them that turned out to be useful. Here are a few other things I didn't know, though. For one thing, if you like soft drinks--which are very expensive on board ship--before you buy one of the unlimited drink plans, check and see what drinks they're talking about. Our ship only had Pepsi products, which I don't drink. I was very glad I hadn't bought a drink plan--I don't drink enough to make it worth it--because if I had, I would have been pissed. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't have Coke products. Fortunately, although you can't bring alcohol on board, you can bring soft drinks, so I picked up a couple of Diet Dr Peppers along the way. I can live without them (really! I can stop any time!), but one or two afternoons a week, I just want one.
6. I had way more stuff than I needed. I tend to do that anyway, but it's good to be reminded. Pack all the things you think you'll need and then take about 20% of it out. I tend to pack for every contingency, but the truth is you can make do pretty well without a full complement of clothing choices. You can always buy a t-shirt along the way if you need to. Also, much to my surprise, it ended up being hard to do much in-depth reading, especially since I was often sitting and chatting with my mom. I ended up wishing I'd packed a stack of magazines to flip through.
7. So I've knocked another state off my list of STATES I'VE VISITED. All I have left now are Maine and West Virginia. That's depending on what you count-- I've only driven briefly through a corner of each of Nebraska and Kentucky, without stopping, so those should probably still be on the list, too.
Hope you had a great week. Being on a cruise is like entering an alternate dimension. It took several days when I got back to switch gears back to "real" life. Which isn't so bad--we're having a gorgeous fall.
2. The Alaska cruise I went on last week with my mom, almost 40 years later, was also great, but in an entirely different way. It was a "freestyle" cruise, meaning there was no dress code beyond the obvious no-shoes-no-shirt-no-service type thing, and you could eat whenever you wanted and sit wherever you wanted. I was expecting that the other cruisers would be elderly retired types, and there were quite a few of those. But there was also a huge population of internationals--lots of Europeans, lots of Asians. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that US citizens were in the minority. And there were also plenty of younger people. Not very many families since school is in session, but lots of people younger than me, and a handful of preschoolers.
3. Alaska is beautiful. Gorgeous. No surprise there. The air and the water are clear and cold in a way that they just aren't elsewhere. We had a couple of sunny days at the beginning of the trip, but even when it was gray and cool, there was endless beautiful scenery to watch-- forests and waterfalls, and mountains in the distance. On our excursions, we saw whales and sea lions and bald eagles.
Maybe my favorite moment of the trip (well, besides the opportunity to spend so much time with my mom) was seeing Sawyer Glacier. We cruised into the Tracy Arm Fjord until we reached Sawyer, which spills into the fjord at the end. We live about half an hour from Glacier National Park, so I was not expecting to be awed by a glacier. I've seen them before. But I was. Awed, I mean. The glaciers in GNP are nothing like this-- even though it was overcast, it looked like it was lit from within. It was practically glowing with blue light. Very cool.
 |
| these don't nearly do it justice. you'll just have to go see it someday. |
4. However, I didn't get to see the Northern lights. I guess I'll just have to go back. Every night was cloudy verging on foggy, even when the day had been sunny. I don't think I even saw any stars all week.
5. I read at least three books of the "What to know before you go on your first cruise" variety before we left, but I didn't learn much from them that turned out to be useful. Here are a few other things I didn't know, though. For one thing, if you like soft drinks--which are very expensive on board ship--before you buy one of the unlimited drink plans, check and see what drinks they're talking about. Our ship only had Pepsi products, which I don't drink. I was very glad I hadn't bought a drink plan--I don't drink enough to make it worth it--because if I had, I would have been pissed. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't have Coke products. Fortunately, although you can't bring alcohol on board, you can bring soft drinks, so I picked up a couple of Diet Dr Peppers along the way. I can live without them (really! I can stop any time!), but one or two afternoons a week, I just want one.
6. I had way more stuff than I needed. I tend to do that anyway, but it's good to be reminded. Pack all the things you think you'll need and then take about 20% of it out. I tend to pack for every contingency, but the truth is you can make do pretty well without a full complement of clothing choices. You can always buy a t-shirt along the way if you need to. Also, much to my surprise, it ended up being hard to do much in-depth reading, especially since I was often sitting and chatting with my mom. I ended up wishing I'd packed a stack of magazines to flip through.
7. So I've knocked another state off my list of STATES I'VE VISITED. All I have left now are Maine and West Virginia. That's depending on what you count-- I've only driven briefly through a corner of each of Nebraska and Kentucky, without stopping, so those should probably still be on the list, too.
Hope you had a great week. Being on a cruise is like entering an alternate dimension. It took several days when I got back to switch gears back to "real" life. Which isn't so bad--we're having a gorgeous fall.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
the case of the disputed sofa. or couch. whichever.
About twenty years ago Doug and I decided we needed new living room furniture. We'd been making do for years with a sofa and loveseat that we'd inherited from my parents. I really loved the look of it, but it was literally falling apart. If you put any pressure on the arm of the sofa, it came off.
One thing I learned early on with Doug is that although he is not as opposed to shopping as some people, he does not want to go to every furniture store in town to make sure that the furniture we end up with is the absolute best option in our price range. That's my style of shopping. I shop fast--I can tell within five minutes of walking in a store whether or not I need to stay and look harder--but for a major purchase, I need to be sure we're getting The Right One.
So I pre-shopped. I spent a couple of afternoons going around to every furniture store within reach (which involved a fair amount of driving, because furniture stores aren't exactly thick on the ground around here). I narrowed it down to two choices and took Doug with me to decide. The two choices just happened to be at a store in another town, so it was a bit of a production to find an afternoon he was free, make the drive, entertain our five-year-old, etc etc.
We arrived at the store, and --in a move that would not surprise me now, after thirty years of marriage, but did at that point-- Doug didn't like either one of the sofas I had picked. The sofa he wanted was that one, over there. Which I didn't really like.
We whispered and hissed at each other and made no progress. We decided to take a break and go get something to eat, then returned to the store still without a decision. I finally agreed that we could go with that sofa if we could get different fabric. But that was a special order and a special order was going to cost a bunch more and take six weeks. And we had come all that way, and for some reason I felt like we needed to buy something that day.
So I caved. We bought the sofa I didn't like. I was pissed about that sofa for years. I am not exaggerating. We ended up in marriage counseling a few years later and it was one of the first things I brought up.
The counselor said something that seems so obvious in retrospect that I can't believe I didn't know this, but I didn't: if you're at loggerheads, keep going. If we couldn't find a sofa we both liked at that store, it was time to go to another store. Sometimes you have to make a decision right that minute, but usually decisions aren't that urgent.
The other thing I learned from that marriage counselor is that caving in is never a good idea if you can't do it gracefully. If you're going to be angry and smoldering with resentment--and I was; I'm embarrassed to admit I could be that petty over a piece of furniture, but believe me, I was-- it's not worth it. Better to keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing) than to give in and seethe.
That was complete and utter news to me. I had been raised to keep the peace, and I'm a middle child, so if there's any truth to the birth order stuff, I'm a peacemaker by nature. It had never occurred to me that sometimes you should keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing). Never crossed my mind. Of course you have to argue/discuss/fight fairly and use good communication techniques, but still: you keep disagreeing until you figure out a way to resolve the disagreement. Or else you just keep disagreeing without pretending you agree.
So there's my bit of marital wisdom for today. I only have two further things to say about this story. One, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because just about everyone I know who reads here has been married or together as long as we have and you probably learned this a long time ago. It's just what came to mind when I was thinking of a topic this morning.
Two, what is the difference between a couch and a sofa? I thought maybe it was regional--I've lived enough different places that I can no longer keep track of who says what where. But according to everything I found, sofa and couch are exactly interchangeable everywhere in the US, although I did find one article that argued that a sofa is slightly more formal than a couch. Arbitrarily I went with sofa, although there's nothing formal about our house.
That's all. The cruise was fun, and I had a great time with my mom. I'll tell you more about it on Friday.
One thing I learned early on with Doug is that although he is not as opposed to shopping as some people, he does not want to go to every furniture store in town to make sure that the furniture we end up with is the absolute best option in our price range. That's my style of shopping. I shop fast--I can tell within five minutes of walking in a store whether or not I need to stay and look harder--but for a major purchase, I need to be sure we're getting The Right One.
So I pre-shopped. I spent a couple of afternoons going around to every furniture store within reach (which involved a fair amount of driving, because furniture stores aren't exactly thick on the ground around here). I narrowed it down to two choices and took Doug with me to decide. The two choices just happened to be at a store in another town, so it was a bit of a production to find an afternoon he was free, make the drive, entertain our five-year-old, etc etc.
We arrived at the store, and --in a move that would not surprise me now, after thirty years of marriage, but did at that point-- Doug didn't like either one of the sofas I had picked. The sofa he wanted was that one, over there. Which I didn't really like.
We whispered and hissed at each other and made no progress. We decided to take a break and go get something to eat, then returned to the store still without a decision. I finally agreed that we could go with that sofa if we could get different fabric. But that was a special order and a special order was going to cost a bunch more and take six weeks. And we had come all that way, and for some reason I felt like we needed to buy something that day.
So I caved. We bought the sofa I didn't like. I was pissed about that sofa for years. I am not exaggerating. We ended up in marriage counseling a few years later and it was one of the first things I brought up.
The counselor said something that seems so obvious in retrospect that I can't believe I didn't know this, but I didn't: if you're at loggerheads, keep going. If we couldn't find a sofa we both liked at that store, it was time to go to another store. Sometimes you have to make a decision right that minute, but usually decisions aren't that urgent.
The other thing I learned from that marriage counselor is that caving in is never a good idea if you can't do it gracefully. If you're going to be angry and smoldering with resentment--and I was; I'm embarrassed to admit I could be that petty over a piece of furniture, but believe me, I was-- it's not worth it. Better to keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing) than to give in and seethe.
That was complete and utter news to me. I had been raised to keep the peace, and I'm a middle child, so if there's any truth to the birth order stuff, I'm a peacemaker by nature. It had never occurred to me that sometimes you should keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing). Never crossed my mind. Of course you have to argue/discuss/fight fairly and use good communication techniques, but still: you keep disagreeing until you figure out a way to resolve the disagreement. Or else you just keep disagreeing without pretending you agree.
So there's my bit of marital wisdom for today. I only have two further things to say about this story. One, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because just about everyone I know who reads here has been married or together as long as we have and you probably learned this a long time ago. It's just what came to mind when I was thinking of a topic this morning.
Two, what is the difference between a couch and a sofa? I thought maybe it was regional--I've lived enough different places that I can no longer keep track of who says what where. But according to everything I found, sofa and couch are exactly interchangeable everywhere in the US, although I did find one article that argued that a sofa is slightly more formal than a couch. Arbitrarily I went with sofa, although there's nothing formal about our house.
That's all. The cruise was fun, and I had a great time with my mom. I'll tell you more about it on Friday.
Friday, September 11, 2015
7ToF: North to the Future
1. Remember I told you I had one more trip planned? It starts today. I'm flying to Seattle this afternoon and, after spending the evening with my beloved Seattle friends (Hi Laurel and Kami!), I'll be joining up with my mom for .... are you ready for this? ... a week-long cruise to Alaska. With my mom's seniors' group. From her Southern Baptist church. Oh, lordy. It should be quite a week.
My mom attends the same church we attended when I was in high school, but it's so huge now (eight thousand-ish members) it doesn't really seem like the same place. When she first asked me if I wanted to go (it took me about six minutes to say OF COURSE I DO), I assumed it was a huge group going. I was fascinated by the idea of a cruise ship full of Southern Baptists, because they're supposed to be teetotalers. Is it possible to cruise with no alcohol?
But it turns out there are only about 35 of them, so I suspect no one will care how much alcohol is consumed. Mom went to their first meeting last week and she says she's the youngest one. Again I say: oh, lordy. But at the very least I will get to spend a week sitting on the deck, watching gorgeous scenery, and reading a stack of books, so I think it's a no-lose proposition. Stay tuned for the post trip report from Mom and me, the Party Girls.
2. My original plan was to pre-write a couple of posts for next week--trying to avoid taking another blog break so soon after the last one--but I ran out of time. This week has been a bit crazy. So no posts from me next week. Sorry about that. There's an outside chance that I'll be able to post along the way, but I've gone on vacation before thinking I would write blog posts while traveling, and it never happens. So probably not.
3. I really, really want to see the Northern Lights. Sadly, the weather forecast looks like it is going to be gray and rainy the entire week, so it may not happen. If you think about it, send up a small northern lights prayer for me.
4. A couple of nights ago on a recommendation from a FB friend, we watched an old Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn movie called Charade. I'd never even heard of it, but it was pretty fun. A romantic mystery story that manages to be both silly and (slightly) suspenseful. Recommended if you can keep a sense of humor about the sexist stereotypes. And while I'm collecting movies for my Netflix queue, let me know if you have any good ones to add.
5. Did I tell you I missed the deadline for submitting continuing ed courses to teach this fall? I was having a really hard time thinking of something new and interesting to teach, and the courses that the CE people wanted me to teach weren't really all that interesting to me. And then suddenly I realized that the deadline had been the day before. So I'm taking a semester off. But I decided that I could still take classes, so I signed up for a knitting class. Yup. Go ahead and laugh. It started this week, and I survived the first meeting. I'll let you know if I manage to actually knit something.
6. I wrote and wrote and wrote in my last blog about how I am a Christian AND a supporter of gay rights. This is not an issue for me--in my theology, those two beliefs are not even slightly in conflict. I've avoided commenting on any of the recent flap about same-sex marriage not because I don't strongly support it (I do), but because I know many of you disagree, and if you'll forgive the overly complicated grammar, I know you know what I think and you know I know what you think. I just don't get the point of alienating each other over it. Sadly (to me), in some circles opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage has become equated with being a true Christian, when--at least in my opinion--at most it is one of the side, peripheral issues. They'll know we are Christians by our love, not by our moral code.
7. So although I've considered doing a detailed description of what I think about the few verses in the Bible that address homosexuality, I've always ended up deciding not to, because there's no point--I'm not going to change any Evangelical's mind because I read the Bible in a way that would be irrelevant to what an Evangelical reader believes. I read the Bible as a historical document, the seriously important founding document of my faith, but not as the perfect, inspired word of God that requires obedience in every particular from contemporary readers. Some of you disagree.
However--finally I'm getting around to the point, and the reason why I'm bringing this up in a 7ToF post--this week I found a fairly long analysis of what the Bible says about homosexuality by John Shore, a popular progressive Christian author and blogger whom I've mentioned before. He does read the Bible as the inspired word of God, so he argues differently than I would, but we end up in the same place. It may not change your mind, but if you're curious what at least one progressive Christian thinks about the Bible and homosexuality, it's worth a read. I have some reservations about recommending that article because I know back in the day when I believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, his arguments would not have convinced me. But I still find him interesting. Caveat lector.
OK, that was kind of scratching for seven things, but there you go, seven things. Have a great week!
My mom attends the same church we attended when I was in high school, but it's so huge now (eight thousand-ish members) it doesn't really seem like the same place. When she first asked me if I wanted to go (it took me about six minutes to say OF COURSE I DO), I assumed it was a huge group going. I was fascinated by the idea of a cruise ship full of Southern Baptists, because they're supposed to be teetotalers. Is it possible to cruise with no alcohol?
But it turns out there are only about 35 of them, so I suspect no one will care how much alcohol is consumed. Mom went to their first meeting last week and she says she's the youngest one. Again I say: oh, lordy. But at the very least I will get to spend a week sitting on the deck, watching gorgeous scenery, and reading a stack of books, so I think it's a no-lose proposition. Stay tuned for the post trip report from Mom and me, the Party Girls.
2. My original plan was to pre-write a couple of posts for next week--trying to avoid taking another blog break so soon after the last one--but I ran out of time. This week has been a bit crazy. So no posts from me next week. Sorry about that. There's an outside chance that I'll be able to post along the way, but I've gone on vacation before thinking I would write blog posts while traveling, and it never happens. So probably not.
3. I really, really want to see the Northern Lights. Sadly, the weather forecast looks like it is going to be gray and rainy the entire week, so it may not happen. If you think about it, send up a small northern lights prayer for me.
4. A couple of nights ago on a recommendation from a FB friend, we watched an old Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn movie called Charade. I'd never even heard of it, but it was pretty fun. A romantic mystery story that manages to be both silly and (slightly) suspenseful. Recommended if you can keep a sense of humor about the sexist stereotypes. And while I'm collecting movies for my Netflix queue, let me know if you have any good ones to add.
5. Did I tell you I missed the deadline for submitting continuing ed courses to teach this fall? I was having a really hard time thinking of something new and interesting to teach, and the courses that the CE people wanted me to teach weren't really all that interesting to me. And then suddenly I realized that the deadline had been the day before. So I'm taking a semester off. But I decided that I could still take classes, so I signed up for a knitting class. Yup. Go ahead and laugh. It started this week, and I survived the first meeting. I'll let you know if I manage to actually knit something.
 |
| My entire output from a TWO HOUR knitting class. Yup. I have no idea where the hole came from. |
6. I wrote and wrote and wrote in my last blog about how I am a Christian AND a supporter of gay rights. This is not an issue for me--in my theology, those two beliefs are not even slightly in conflict. I've avoided commenting on any of the recent flap about same-sex marriage not because I don't strongly support it (I do), but because I know many of you disagree, and if you'll forgive the overly complicated grammar, I know you know what I think and you know I know what you think. I just don't get the point of alienating each other over it. Sadly (to me), in some circles opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage has become equated with being a true Christian, when--at least in my opinion--at most it is one of the side, peripheral issues. They'll know we are Christians by our love, not by our moral code.
7. So although I've considered doing a detailed description of what I think about the few verses in the Bible that address homosexuality, I've always ended up deciding not to, because there's no point--I'm not going to change any Evangelical's mind because I read the Bible in a way that would be irrelevant to what an Evangelical reader believes. I read the Bible as a historical document, the seriously important founding document of my faith, but not as the perfect, inspired word of God that requires obedience in every particular from contemporary readers. Some of you disagree.
However--finally I'm getting around to the point, and the reason why I'm bringing this up in a 7ToF post--this week I found a fairly long analysis of what the Bible says about homosexuality by John Shore, a popular progressive Christian author and blogger whom I've mentioned before. He does read the Bible as the inspired word of God, so he argues differently than I would, but we end up in the same place. It may not change your mind, but if you're curious what at least one progressive Christian thinks about the Bible and homosexuality, it's worth a read. I have some reservations about recommending that article because I know back in the day when I believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, his arguments would not have convinced me. But I still find him interesting. Caveat lector.
OK, that was kind of scratching for seven things, but there you go, seven things. Have a great week!
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
and sometimes we're as dumb as a box of rocks
One of my trips this summer was to a wedding attended by many of my beloved cousins, the children of my dad's siblings (the cousins on my mom's side are also great, but I don't see them very often anymore). We spent lots of time together growing up, and they are some of the dearest people in my life.
With some notable exceptions (like my cousin Anne, with her beautiful dark hair), we all kind of look alike, and we seem to look more alike as we get older. Put us in a row--and we did, for wedding pictures--and we're blond with pale blue or green eyes, horribly near-sighted and endearingly (I hope) nerdy. The most noticeable difference among us is that my dad and his sister generated fairly tall children, but their brother's kids are pretty dang short.
With some notable exceptions (like my cousin Anne, with her beautiful dark hair), we all kind of look alike, and we seem to look more alike as we get older. Put us in a row--and we did, for wedding pictures--and we're blond with pale blue or green eyes, horribly near-sighted and endearingly (I hope) nerdy. The most noticeable difference among us is that my dad and his sister generated fairly tall children, but their brother's kids are pretty dang short.
We have other things in common, too. For the most part, we are introverted, opinionated, intelligent, and a bit on the prickly side, socially speaking. You sometimes have to know us pretty well before you find the soft underbelly beneath the porcupine quills. And oh yeah, we're socially inept. We want to be part of a group, but we don't really know how.
It's not true of all of us-- my younger sister and at least a couple of my cousins are highly social and move gracefully in and out of various groups in a way that make the rest of us envious. But for the most part, we're a pretty introverted, socially awkward group.
We know that from life experience, though, not from hanging out with each other. Because when we're together, we act like extroverts. We talk and talk and talk. Often loudly. We tease each other--mercilessly--we argue, we tell stories. Our spouses refuse to play when we start Rook, the card game we played endlessly as children (double deck, call your partner, in case you were wondering). It can get a little fierce.
It doesn't feel introverted. I didn't know I was an introvert until I was in my twenties--partly because I'd never heard the term, at least not in any way that seemed relevant to me. It wasn't something we talked about back then. But also because when I'm with a group of people I know well, I function just fine.
It's not until I'm thrown into a new group or a social situation that requires schmoozing that I suddenly remember that I'd rather stick needles under my fingernails than stand around and chat with people I barely know. One or two social functions a month are about as many as I can handle. I need to get out so I don't get stir crazy, but most of the time I'd rather be at home.
Wow, I am so far off track. This post was going to be about something else entirely. OK, so the original idea that I was going to discuss is different kinds of intelligence, what is now called multiple intelligences.
My cousins and I are smart. We are really smart. But we're a particular kind of smart, the kind that is good at school and does well on standardized tests. We're the kind of smart that can memorize facts and read teachers and play the game of school. The kind of smart that heads into a test thinking bring it on.
But we're pretty dang dumb when it comes to social situations and dealing with emotions--what is now known as social intelligence and emotional intelligence. When my generation was young, and for the two or three centuries before that, the kind of smart that I am--school smart--was the only kind of smart. If you were good at school, it was supposed to be a guarantee of success. If you made bad grades, you were dumb and your future was dim.
It's pretty clear these days that that isn't true. The idea of multiple different types of intelligence just makes sense, because there are plenty of people who may or may not have been good at school who are geniuses at throwing a party, or hitting a golf ball, or taking a failing business and turning it around. Or making millions of dollars.
I am really having a hard time getting back into the swing of writing blog posts, because this one is all over the place. The reason for this post is primarily as background for another one sitting in my drafts folder, about being smart--I didn't want you to think I'm bragging. I may have been good at school, but I'm dumb as a post at a whole bunch of other things. In the grand scheme of things, being good at school is a pretty pointless superpower--I'd much rather be able to fly. As I was explaining that, it turned into its own post.
The other thing I wanted to tell you is along the lines of celebrating midlife, because at least in some ways, my cousins and I have aged well. We're a whole lot more patient and understanding than we used to be. Those analytical brains mean we can be pretty hyper-critical and sharp-tongued, and in our younger days, we really were.
But I noticed at this wedding that we seem to have moved past that phase. We've all been through difficult times. Few of us are where we thought we would be if you had asked us 30 years ago. Time has softened us, made us more sympathetic, more supportive of each other.
Maybe we're learning a little social intelligence after all.
It's pretty clear these days that that isn't true. The idea of multiple different types of intelligence just makes sense, because there are plenty of people who may or may not have been good at school who are geniuses at throwing a party, or hitting a golf ball, or taking a failing business and turning it around. Or making millions of dollars.
I am really having a hard time getting back into the swing of writing blog posts, because this one is all over the place. The reason for this post is primarily as background for another one sitting in my drafts folder, about being smart--I didn't want you to think I'm bragging. I may have been good at school, but I'm dumb as a post at a whole bunch of other things. In the grand scheme of things, being good at school is a pretty pointless superpower--I'd much rather be able to fly. As I was explaining that, it turned into its own post.
The other thing I wanted to tell you is along the lines of celebrating midlife, because at least in some ways, my cousins and I have aged well. We're a whole lot more patient and understanding than we used to be. Those analytical brains mean we can be pretty hyper-critical and sharp-tongued, and in our younger days, we really were.
But I noticed at this wedding that we seem to have moved past that phase. We've all been through difficult times. Few of us are where we thought we would be if you had asked us 30 years ago. Time has softened us, made us more sympathetic, more supportive of each other.
Maybe we're learning a little social intelligence after all.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
blog names and why I'm dumping them (plus a note about my posting schedule at the very end)
I've decided to stop using blog names for my family members. Here you go: PellMel is really Melanie (Mel), MadMax is Sam, and Dean is, and always has been, Doug. You already know that I'm Barb. If you're curious why this is happening, keep reading, but if that's all you need to know, off you go to your next activity.
When I started blogging a dozen years ago, I was freaked out about publicly over-sharing. My first couple of blogs were shrouded in secrecy. Other than Doug, I don't think anyone in my "real" life even knew about my first blog. So I came up with cute blog names for my people to shield them from Internet Notoriety.
But times have changed. For one thing, I don't think any of us believes in the illusion of internet privacy anymore. It would take you two minutes of digging, if you even cared, to find out more about me and my family than I've ever shared in a blog post.
For another thing, my blogs have never generated much traffic. Everyone who blogs both fears and longs for their blog to go viral, but twelve years later (I wrote my first post in October of 2003), that's never happened to me. A couple of posts on my old blog have over a thousand page views, but that's the most traffic I've ever had. Most of my readers (you) are people I actually know, either in real life or because we've met in some internet forum. I think I can stop worrying about exposing my kids to the glare of the paparazzi.
And also, they--my family--don't really care. I'm a privacy freak, but none of them are. Sam, who is a bit on the introverted side, might care if he hadn't grown up in the internet age where everything any of his friends does immediately shows up on Instagram. But Doug and Mel have always thought it was a little odd that I didn't just use our real names. So now I am.
Coincidentally, and a little off topic, just last week I was reading a book (One Plus One by JoJo Moyes) which has a teen character who starts a blog. By and large the book is down-to-earth and relatively realistic (given that it's a fictional work with a plot and a number of common tropes of current fiction), but one thing was absurdly not real. This kid starts a blog, writes a few posts, and without doing any promotion at all--as far as the reader knows, he's never even told anyone he was blogging-- suddenly he has hundreds of readers and dozens of comments.
Right. Not happening. My times of highest reader traffic have all been when I was telling people I had something for them to read. Speaking of, thanks for reading this one.
And while we're discussing blog issues, about my posting schedule: I've been keeping a Tuesday-Friday schedule for awhile now and for the most part that works well for me. But I have a couple of multi-part posts coming up that will be posted all in one week, so there will be some in-between posts, too. Scroll down or check over on the calendar to find anything you might've missed. Thanks.
When I started blogging a dozen years ago, I was freaked out about publicly over-sharing. My first couple of blogs were shrouded in secrecy. Other than Doug, I don't think anyone in my "real" life even knew about my first blog. So I came up with cute blog names for my people to shield them from Internet Notoriety.
But times have changed. For one thing, I don't think any of us believes in the illusion of internet privacy anymore. It would take you two minutes of digging, if you even cared, to find out more about me and my family than I've ever shared in a blog post.
For another thing, my blogs have never generated much traffic. Everyone who blogs both fears and longs for their blog to go viral, but twelve years later (I wrote my first post in October of 2003), that's never happened to me. A couple of posts on my old blog have over a thousand page views, but that's the most traffic I've ever had. Most of my readers (you) are people I actually know, either in real life or because we've met in some internet forum. I think I can stop worrying about exposing my kids to the glare of the paparazzi.
And also, they--my family--don't really care. I'm a privacy freak, but none of them are. Sam, who is a bit on the introverted side, might care if he hadn't grown up in the internet age where everything any of his friends does immediately shows up on Instagram. But Doug and Mel have always thought it was a little odd that I didn't just use our real names. So now I am.
Coincidentally, and a little off topic, just last week I was reading a book (One Plus One by JoJo Moyes) which has a teen character who starts a blog. By and large the book is down-to-earth and relatively realistic (given that it's a fictional work with a plot and a number of common tropes of current fiction), but one thing was absurdly not real. This kid starts a blog, writes a few posts, and without doing any promotion at all--as far as the reader knows, he's never even told anyone he was blogging-- suddenly he has hundreds of readers and dozens of comments.
Right. Not happening. My times of highest reader traffic have all been when I was telling people I had something for them to read. Speaking of, thanks for reading this one.
And while we're discussing blog issues, about my posting schedule: I've been keeping a Tuesday-Friday schedule for awhile now and for the most part that works well for me. But I have a couple of multi-part posts coming up that will be posted all in one week, so there will be some in-between posts, too. Scroll down or check over on the calendar to find anything you might've missed. Thanks.
Friday, September 4, 2015
7ToF: The how the heck did it get to be Labor Day end of Summer Update
1. I've been to South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Indiana, Idaho, Washington, and Texas this summer, and I still have one more trip (to Alaska!) scheduled. Lots of traveling, and all of it was fun. But traveling that much always makes the summer seem like it goes by in a flash. Huh. It's already Labor Day Weekend. How the heck did that happen?
2. I know it's boring to discuss the weather, but seriously-- our weather has generated front page headlines all summer. It's been hot and dry, and then hotter and drier, in record breaking ways. We had the least amount of rainfall ever for June-July-August. And you could tell, because the forest fires started weeks ago. The smoke was so bad here a couple of times that we weren't supposed to go outside, and of course for me, like any good migraineur, that means feeling rotten. Ugh. The gorgeous warm, dry weather in June and July almost wasn't worth it. But the good news is that we've had pretty good rain two days out of the last three, so things are getting better.
3. OK, done with the weather report. Several much loved friends and family members have been dealing with serious health issues recently. So here is the obvious: it is impossible to be grateful enough for good health. It's such a crapshoot. I could be in a car accident tomorrow and not be able to walk for the rest of my life (or worse). Or one of the kids (speaking of worse). We're so lucky. I've been thinking about this a lot, there may be a future post on this topic.
4. Jazz, our elderly mutt, continues to deteriorate, but she is amazingly cheerful. She sort of wanders around in her own private sensory deprivation tank, pretty much oblivious to everything except food. At some point over the summer, she stopped going on walks with us--which she could only barely do before. But she's still hanging in there.
5. People ask me fairly frequently if it's difficult to raise chickens. I always say, no, it's easier than any other kind of pet we've owned, as long as nothing goes wrong. You feed and water them every day, clean their coop once a month or so, collect the eggs. Easy. Until one of them gets sick, and then who knows what you're supposed to do? If we had a big flock or a money making venture, it would be worth it to track down a poultry vet, but for our tiny group, it's just not worth it. We had one come down with some kind of dread disease about ten days ago, and in a week she was gone. I have no idea what she had or if there's anything we could have done about it. So we're down to seven again. Still getting lots of eggs, which is both good and bad.
6. Summer Reading Report: I'll spare you the stack of books I read that weren't worth the time and recommend The Martian (especially for science geeks) and One Plus One, JoJo Moyes' latest. Also, just so you know, if you share a Kindle account with family members, apparently you also share a Goodreads account. A couple of books that Dean read and I didn't have showed up in my Goodreads feed. I'm obsessive enough that I had to ask him to stop doing the Goodreads rating that pops up automatically when you finish a book. It's a wonder he puts up with me.
7. We got a new washing machine. Our old one was only about five years old, but it was becoming increasingly temperamental until finally it just refused to function (less than a month after we'd spent about $135 getting it repaired, the same repair it had needed twice before). The next step was replacing the motherboard, which would cost about half as much as a new machine and I'd still have a machine I never really liked and would have been happy to donate to Mythbusters so they could blow it up. Maybe a sparkler bomb or something.
Anyway. After spending a couple of days researching washing machines online, I came to the realization that there is no perfect machine. All of them had prominent negative reviews. So I just picked the highest rated top-load that was in our price range and went with it. Turns out I love it. At least so far. Who knows about long-term. It is a vast improvement over our old one.
Made it through seven things! Since I haven't really written a blog post in six-ish weeks, it was kind of hard to get this one written. It occurred to me for the millionth time that maybe I should just quit doing this--I guess I had a little too much time to think about blogging. It's an odd thing to do, and in the grand scheme of things it's hard to believe that a small blog like this matters. But between what's in my head and what's sitting in my drafts folder, I do have a pile of half-written posts. So I will slog on. I guess it matters to me. I had to force myself to do this one, maybe the next one will be more interesting. Happy holiday weekend if you're here in the states, and if you're elsewhere, have a great weekend, too.
2. I know it's boring to discuss the weather, but seriously-- our weather has generated front page headlines all summer. It's been hot and dry, and then hotter and drier, in record breaking ways. We had the least amount of rainfall ever for June-July-August. And you could tell, because the forest fires started weeks ago. The smoke was so bad here a couple of times that we weren't supposed to go outside, and of course for me, like any good migraineur, that means feeling rotten. Ugh. The gorgeous warm, dry weather in June and July almost wasn't worth it. But the good news is that we've had pretty good rain two days out of the last three, so things are getting better.
3. OK, done with the weather report. Several much loved friends and family members have been dealing with serious health issues recently. So here is the obvious: it is impossible to be grateful enough for good health. It's such a crapshoot. I could be in a car accident tomorrow and not be able to walk for the rest of my life (or worse). Or one of the kids (speaking of worse). We're so lucky. I've been thinking about this a lot, there may be a future post on this topic.
4. Jazz, our elderly mutt, continues to deteriorate, but she is amazingly cheerful. She sort of wanders around in her own private sensory deprivation tank, pretty much oblivious to everything except food. At some point over the summer, she stopped going on walks with us--which she could only barely do before. But she's still hanging in there.
5. People ask me fairly frequently if it's difficult to raise chickens. I always say, no, it's easier than any other kind of pet we've owned, as long as nothing goes wrong. You feed and water them every day, clean their coop once a month or so, collect the eggs. Easy. Until one of them gets sick, and then who knows what you're supposed to do? If we had a big flock or a money making venture, it would be worth it to track down a poultry vet, but for our tiny group, it's just not worth it. We had one come down with some kind of dread disease about ten days ago, and in a week she was gone. I have no idea what she had or if there's anything we could have done about it. So we're down to seven again. Still getting lots of eggs, which is both good and bad.
6. Summer Reading Report: I'll spare you the stack of books I read that weren't worth the time and recommend The Martian (especially for science geeks) and One Plus One, JoJo Moyes' latest. Also, just so you know, if you share a Kindle account with family members, apparently you also share a Goodreads account. A couple of books that Dean read and I didn't have showed up in my Goodreads feed. I'm obsessive enough that I had to ask him to stop doing the Goodreads rating that pops up automatically when you finish a book. It's a wonder he puts up with me.
7. We got a new washing machine. Our old one was only about five years old, but it was becoming increasingly temperamental until finally it just refused to function (less than a month after we'd spent about $135 getting it repaired, the same repair it had needed twice before). The next step was replacing the motherboard, which would cost about half as much as a new machine and I'd still have a machine I never really liked and would have been happy to donate to Mythbusters so they could blow it up. Maybe a sparkler bomb or something.
Anyway. After spending a couple of days researching washing machines online, I came to the realization that there is no perfect machine. All of them had prominent negative reviews. So I just picked the highest rated top-load that was in our price range and went with it. Turns out I love it. At least so far. Who knows about long-term. It is a vast improvement over our old one.
Made it through seven things! Since I haven't really written a blog post in six-ish weeks, it was kind of hard to get this one written. It occurred to me for the millionth time that maybe I should just quit doing this--I guess I had a little too much time to think about blogging. It's an odd thing to do, and in the grand scheme of things it's hard to believe that a small blog like this matters. But between what's in my head and what's sitting in my drafts folder, I do have a pile of half-written posts. So I will slog on. I guess it matters to me. I had to force myself to do this one, maybe the next one will be more interesting. Happy holiday weekend if you're here in the states, and if you're elsewhere, have a great weekend, too.