7ToF: Christmas Edition, so really there's only one thing.

1. The miracle of Christmas is that God chooses to dwell among us. There are myriad ways to interpret that statement, even among my small group of readers. So maybe I will just stop there. That truth has struck me to the point of tears today (Christmas Eve). Whatever joy and meaning you take from the light that always returns--even in the midst of great darkness--I hope you have a lovely holiday.

The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light
Isaiah 9:2

self-care, part 2

Karen pointed out in the comments to that self-care post that there is some overlap between self-care and self-indulgence when you've been through a difficult or stressful time, which is an excellent point. Since I know some of you read this on RSS where you can't see the comments, I'll copy a slightly edited version of my reply below (since I don't seem to have anything else to say today).

I don't think I'll be posting on a regular schedule until after the new year. I'm feeling singularly uninspired. I don't seem to be able to find the middle ground between writing what I hope are thought-provoking posts but make me sound like I'm preaching at you, and the posts where I'm more honest about my bad days, which no one wants to read. At least, I wouldn't want to read them if I were you! Advice and/or feedback welcome. Have a great week, and I hope you are finding ways to enjoy the holiday rush.

7ToF: Christmas preparations and a hat trick of faults

1. I've had a really bad attitude about Christmas the past couple of years. It wasn't always that way--I used to look forward to Christmas all year. I have more boxes of Christmas decorations than I am willing to admit, and I'm more sentimentally attached to most of them than I am to many items that decorate our house all year long.

Then the kids grew up and I got grumpier and Christmas took a left turn into something that was more obligation than joy. But for some reason this year I'm looking forward to it again. I voluntarily put Christmas music on a couple of days ago. Ding a ling.

re-thinking self-care

I've been thinking quite a bit the past few weeks about what it means to take care of myself. As I explained in this post, I'm convinced that self-care is not the same thing as self-indulgence. But I'm still figuring out exactly how it works.

DAY 30!!!! Grace and Gratitude, Part Two

I want to have some elegant, graceful way to say this, but I spent two hours traipsing around the very wonderful Western Washington campus today, then drove six hours to Spokane where I am now on a touch-and-go internet connection at a hotel, and my brain is not functioning. I thought about posting something else just to get my 30th day in, but I decided to get this one done instead. Possibly it's better to be brief anyway.

No one has vehemently disagreed with my attempt to define grace yesterday, so I'm provisionally defining it as a sense of abundant acceptance that overflows into the ability to be personally generous.  In other words, we feel not just accepted as we are, but abundantly accepted--we're not just scraping by, but we are more than enough, exactly as we are.

Day 29: Grace and Gratitude, part one

I've been listening to a meditation series by Oprah and Deepak Chopra called "Manifesting Grace through Gratitude." You can be as skeptical as you want about Oprah's genuineness, given her enormous money making prowess, and you can be as cynical as you want about Deepak. And sometimes I'd agree. But I'm enjoying this series.

I still occasionally have grad-school-brain, though, and it bugs me a little that they never really define their terms (or at least, not so far, in the ones I've heard). What exactly do they mean by grace? How do you manifest grace? Why is gratitude the key? They seem to hold these truths to be self-evident, but they're not all that obvious to me.

Day 28: pain and its relief

A couple of weeks ago I was flipping channels on Sunday night and I ran across an episode of 60 Minutes that was about teenagers who have died from heroin overdose after getting hooked on painkillers. Astoundingly, heroin is cheaper and easier to get than prescription painkillers.

The five minutes of the show that I saw showed a group of parents, probably a dozen of them, who were dealing with the unimaginable pain of losing a child to heroin overdose--something that anyone our age associates with inner city, ghetto crime, not life as we know it. I found myself tearing up as I listened to their grief and pain.

7ToF: Black Friday edition

1. We don't usually shop on Black Friday, not because of any moral high ground, but because I can't stand crowds. But since we'll be in Seattle this year, we may have to make an exception. We haven't exactly figured out what we're doing yet. We've got the weekend with Mel and our friends Kami and Laurel, and then Monday and Tuesday Sam and I are doing a couple of college tours. Should be a fun trip. Shopping may occur.

2. I do, however, have moral high ground feelings about shopping on Thanksgiving day. I'm not religious about Thanksgiving, but can't some things be exempt from consumerism? Can't we wait one full day to start the shopping extravaganza? Although I don't usually shop on Black Friday, I get that a lot of people think it's fun--sort of like a safari. I can understand that, and after all, most of us do have shopping we need to do for Christmas. I concede Black Friday. But to me, shopping on Thanksgiving day is just wrong. And if nobody went, they wouldn't do it. This is something we bring on ourselves.

3. But on the other hand, why worry about it? I mostly ignore it. If somebody else thinks it's a good idea, why do I care? I can imagine someone who has no one to spend Thanksgiving with, who has whiled away the day while everything is closed watching football or poking around online, who might be overjoyed at the chance to get out of the house and go somewhere Thanksgiving night. So maybe I should just get over my moral outrage and leave it alone.

Actually, now that I think about it, when I was in my late teens/early twenties, we used to load up the family and all go see a movie on Thanksgiving night. It's not shopping, but it's still an activity that requires employees to cut short their holiday. Hmmmm. I am reconsidering my Thanksgiving shopping aversion.

4. I truly, truly need a break from Facebook. Intellectually I know that if someone does or doesn't respond to something I say on Facebook, it most likely has nothing to do with me. But knowing that intellectually and dealing with in reality are two different things. Whenever I start getting paranoid about things that people are or aren't saying to me on FB, I know it's time for a break for at least a couple of weeks. Let me know if I miss anything exciting. (in all the times I've taken FB breaks, I don't think I've ever missed anything exciting.)

5. We've had Sam's best buds here a couple of evenings this week, including a sleepover last night. They're great guys. You know and expect that you'll miss your kid when they move out, but I think the fact that you'll miss their friends gets less press. It's going to be awfully quiet around here next year.

6. I've had several conversations with people recently about food fads, and how the food(s) that everyone is avoiding today will be the ones you should prioritize in a couple of years (think eggs, or coconut oil, or red meat). But you know what food advice never, ever changes? Eat your vegetables. That has never changed from childhood until now. We should swap our favorite ways to fix veggies.

7. This was going to be its own entire post, but I think I'll just say it briefly instead. The post title would have been "Hold on Loosely" and I was going to riff on Julie's statement that we're all wrong, constantly. We get so attached to our own opinions, our own interpretations of events, our sure "knowledge" of what is capital-R Right. But we're still limited by our backgrounds, our inability to know the future, our penchant for simplifying complex problems down to the bits of them we want to see. There's just not much point in getting attached to our opinions. If we're willing to stay open, sometimes we get new, unexpected insights.

Have a great weekend. Hold on loosely.

Day 26: dealing with my beloved, stressful dad, aka how to survive family visits

Happy Thanksgiving! Whether you're with loved ones or not, whether that makes you happy or sad, I hope you have a nice day off from your usual routine. And Happy Thursday to my non-US readers.

In honor of the family time that usually happens at Thanksgiving, today's post is about dealing with difficult family visits. We live about 2,000 miles from either of our families, so going to visit them is a big deal that doesn't happen more than once a year. Twenty years ago, when I was in my early thirties and not getting along with my dad at all, visits to family would cause such major stress that it would take me a month or more to recover when we returned home.

Day 25: oh the weather outside is frightful

We had our first real winter storm today. It was a typical winter storm for us, the kind we get 2-3 times a year: half a foot of snow coming down sideways. (Hmmm, is it coming down if it's blowing sideways?) Of course, there are the ones that are considerably worse, which we only get once a year, or maybe twice.

And although I never like it when this happens in November, it's not like it's the first time we've had one this early. The worst experience I had during the three years I drove back and forth to Missoula for grad school was in November.

We lived through this one. A friend ended up in a ditch, I saw three fender benders, and traffic was a bear, but the house is warm and we didn't lose power, so it's all good. And the boys are thrilled because skiing.

Day 24: seven things worth clicking on

Does it count as a post for NaBloPoMo if I do something lame like a list of links? hope so. I pre-wrote this for Friday since we'll be in Seattle, but then I didn't have time to write something for tomorrow. I'm confusing myself.

Day 23: the post of shame

OK, I'm not really ashamed, that was just to make you laugh. But I am a bit embarrassed, and I was going to tack this on to the end of last night's post in just a sentence or two so maybe no one would notice. But then I decided it would be better as an entire post on its own, because it might work better to motivate me to change my ways if I put up here front and center on Monday morning.

Friday my spouse and I went in to our local athletic facility for our healthy lifestyles checkup, the one I told you about in this post that we did a year ago. Last year we passed easily, which meant we got a reduction in our deductible. This year, we passed again, but I didn't do nearly as well.

Day 22: I gotta post something

I really don't want to stay up until midnight tonight hoping inspiration will strike, so I'm trying to think of something to tell you for today's post. Because tick tock, Sunday is fast fading away.

OK, here is something quick. I almost never do short posts, so I am giving myself a pass this time. Gentle reader Muriel e-mailed me asked why I avoid Wal-Mart, as I stated in Friday's post.

Day 21: Last Saturday was skin, so this Saturday will be hair. har.

I was planning something else for today, but we ended up deciding to get out of town this weekend and we will be out of internet range, so it has to be something I can type out in fifteen minutes. Hence, hair.

I first heard about the "no-poo" (no shampoo) idea several years ago--in fact, I wrote about my experiment with it in #4 of this post. The idea is that when you wash your hair, you strip off all the natural oil and create the need for a bunch of hair products that you otherwise wouldn't need.

7ToF: the dishes rattle in the cupboard when the elephants arrive

1. We were supposed to get our first real snow this week, but although some flakes fell, it was mainly sleety rain. I'm only a marginal skiier myself, but the avid skiiers in the family are avidly looking forward to some major dumps.

2. We had a great time in Colorado at my nephew's wedding. It's wonderful to attend a wedding where the couple looks so radiantly happy. Also spent some good time with my mom, my sisters and their families and one of my favorite cousins. But weddings tend to be about the wedding (funny thing, that), and there's never as much time to talk as you wish there would be. Fortunately it's time for the next triennial family reunion next summer so I will see them all again soon (and Cheery-o, too).

TBT: The Feel Bad post

This is the post from my old blog that has almost twice as many pageviews as any other post I've written. I edited it quite a bit to shorten it. Originally published January 2012. It's a bit of a rant so avoid if you're not in the mood to be ranted at.

Day 18: an excess of books and my scariest midlife fear

Blogger picks up the first photo in a post and uses it in the RSS feed, so I'm putting this photo here as a placeholder, and also because I knew some of you would be as fascinated as I was. The rehearsal dinner for my nephew's wedding was held in the home of some friends of his. In their basement, they had thousands, I mean thousands, of books. There were so many crammed into the "library" that there was no good way to take a picture. So here is one row (there were four? five?) just to give you the idea. I've never been anywhere that made me feel better about my own obsessive book buying.

Day 17: object lessons from our animals

I.

By the time puppy Sadie arrived at our house, our elderly mutt Jazz was way too decrepit to jump into the car without help. So Sadie somehow decided that dogs must always need help to get into the backseat of a car. She can do spectacular flying leaps to catch her tennis ball in mid-air, she can hurdle a four foot retaining wall with ease. But she absolutely will not jump eighteen inches to get into the car.

Day 16: You look like the sort of angel I'd get. Sort of a fallen angel. What happened to your wings?

Does anyone make it to their mid-fifties without having a few doubts about what the heck they've been doing for the past fifty years? Maybe, but apparently not me. I've even written about this before, but apparently I'm not over it yet.

TBT why I still go to church

This is a slightly edited version of the second half of this post. The first half was about what I believed back in 2005, this part is about why I still go to church, a different question. I used to think that since I had my own special relationship with God, I didn't really need church. Now I feel almost the opposite--church serves its own purpose in my life, regardless of how I'm feeling about God on any given day.

Day 14: OK, this is how low we've sunk. Another makeup post.

Back when I wrote that "favorite cheap things" list, I said I'd do another one on cheap beauty stuff. Here you go.

7ToF: Friday the 13th edition. And by the way, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

1. I wouldn't exactly describe myself as superstitious, but I'm aware of it enough that I can't walk under a ladder, or break a mirror, or see the date on Friday the 13th, without knowing that it's supposed to be unlucky. I even notice if I step on a sidewalk crack--I don't worry about my poor mom's back, but I do notice. Wait a  minute, she has been having some back pain recently.... OK, kidding. I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that kids today (those elusive Kids Today) are no longer superstitious at all. As confirmation of this rumor, I offer my nephew, who is getting married today. I don't believe there's anything to the whole Friday the 13th thing, but I don't think I would be able to get married on Friday the 13th.

TBT: What I believed, ten years later

I wrote this back in 2005, when my blog was specifically about my religious beliefs. In some ways, nothing has changed, although I think I used to be more sincere. I might not word things quite the same now. Also, I've become a bit more conventional over time, a bit less afraid of letting myself follow a particular tradition. (AuntBeaN was my blog name in my old blog.)
-----------------------------
In Which Aunt BeaN Attempts to Make Sense of Various Things Which Are Too Big for a BeaN of Little Brain.

So the purported subject of this particular post is supposed to be what I believe now. And why I still go to church, and believe me, I'm not sure I have the answer to that one sometimes myself. I've been putting this off for ages because it's hard to figure out how to say some things, and also because it sounds so pompous and self-important to announce What I Believe, as if you are sure everyone wants to know. So I just want to say in advance that if this sounds pretentious, at least I know I sound pretentious and I feel bad about it. OK?

Day 11: Betty Neels, part two

(edited 12/21/15)
So if they're so predictable, why do I enjoy them so much? Lord knows, but I'll try explain. Part of it is because they're like a security blanket, you know what you're getting. Pure comfort read. Part of it is because given Neels' background and her generation--and that's a caveat that must always be remembered when reading Neels--her heroines are strong, interesting people. Part of it is to see what she does with her standard format--she gets a surprising amount of variety out of her strict formula. Neels is the master of the great hook--the setup that sucks you into the story. Some of her first chapters are like mini master classes in how to reel in the reader. She's amazingly inventive (again, within the constraints of her formula).

Day 10: Betty Neels, part one

(Edited 1/3/2016 to fix errors pointed out by Betty Anonymous in the comments. Thanks, Betty!)

This post kept getting longer and longer, so I divided it into two. Don't judge. I know there are some of you who are never going to read Betty Neels, but I needed more posts this week and it was already 1500 words and I wasn't even done yet. Eeesh.

I told you I've been reading Betty Neels, prolific author of cookie cutter British romance novels, for months now. I got my original stash when I needed to use up my credits at paperbackswap.com, but they're also available on kindle. There are well over a hundred of them, and I've "only" read about a third. Based on Goodreads reviews, I've read all the good ones, though, so it's probably time to stop.

Day 9: this one is going up late, but it is done

Now that I'm nine days into NaBloPoMo, it occurs to me that the exact same thing happened the last two times I did this. Ahead of time, it sounds like a great idea. I come up with lists of topics to write about, I confidently suppose that other ideas will occur to me as the month goes on.

Then the damn thing actually starts, all my ideas evaporate, and I'm left with a dilemma: bail, or keep writing drivel. I think you know me well enough by now to know that drivel is about to ensue, so bear with me. Since we'll be out of town for four days this week, I need to write six posts in the next two days.

Oh you poor dears.

Day 8: and we lived happily ever after

The post that goes with the previous one is definitely not ready, so on a different topic.... Let's talk about happy endings. Books, stories, movies. I love them. I loved them as a child. I loved them as a teenager.

Then I got to college and learned that happy endings are bad. They're unrealistic. They're sappy and sentimental. They're stupid. The intellectuals surrounding me had nothing but disdain--sneering disdain--for any thing that ended with me smiling and feeling warmly about the human race. Is there any influence that's harder to deflect than sneering disdain?

defining terms

Before I go off on my next idea, I've got some explaining to do. I want to be able to use the word "God," but of course, when I use that word it may mean something entirely different to me than what it means to you, leading to some confusion.

a moment of silence for Jazz

Jazz, our elderly mutt, passed peacefully in her sleep this afternoon. She was so frail and unsteady on her feet for so long that we are equally relieved and sad. She led a good life and we will miss her.

And that's all I've got today.

TBT: I have con-fi-dence in con-fi-dence alooooone

(for throwback Thursday, here is a slightly edited post from October 2011, when I had been through a huge, paralyzing crisis of confidence after going back to grad school in my late forties)

Day 4: in which I explain an off-hand comment in yesterday's post that is bugging me

In yesterday's post, I said something about "when I was in my feminist phase" as if I weren't a feminist anymore. I went back this morning to re-word it--change it to something like "when I was in my enraged feminist phase, as opposed to my current merely irritated feminist phase" (kidding) but it seemed a bit excessive for a list item about toenail polish, and I didn't want to re-publish the post, etc. I know, you're yawning.

Day 3: in which I realize that none of my 14 ideas for posts is any good

I have a list of possible posts for this month. I started it back in September, because I already knew I would do this. I skipped last year because I wasn't blogging at all, but I've done it (NaBloPoMo in November) twice before.

But the problem, as I read over the list, is that they're all serious. There's not a single one that's going to make me smile, let alone you. And we just got done re-watching The Hunger Games and I need to lighten up so I can go to sleep. I hate tense movies, but I got out-voted on what movie to watch tonight, and even though it's tense and sometimes awful to watch, I have to confess that Hunger Games is a good story.

*goes away and thinks for awhile*

OK, I have an idea: a list.

SEVEN THINGS I DO THAT I SWORE I'D NEVER DO:

Mid-Life: the Empty Nest

All around me, friends far and near are sending their kids off to college. We did it with our daughter seven years ago, and we'll be doing it again next year--our son is a senior in high school this year. It's a well-known stage of parenting, just like potty-training, PTA, and surviving The Talk (the birds and the bees one).

It's not an easy thing to do, even if you're ready--and we were; there's nothing like spending a year with a 17-year-old girl to convince you that you're ready for her to move out.  And she was more than ready. We have plenty of other things in our lives to keep us busy and happy and entertained. But it was still like lopping off my left arm and driving away.

Square what circle?

Months ago, not long after I started this blog, I wrote a post about how my wacky midlife hormones had left me angry all the time. Not just vaguely irritated, but spitting-nails-run-for-cover-don't-bother-mom pissed. In fact, when I was trying to figure out a name for the new blog, that was what I started with-- I wanted a title that reflected how downright mad I was about life. My favorite possible title was "Flying the Bird." Because... well, *clears throat* because.

Fortunately, everyone I checked with told me that was a dumb title. Wait, one person said. Do you mean "flying the bird" like "extending your middle finger"? She was a bit unsettled by the idea, but yep, that's what I meant. I'm really glad I didn't go with that, because like all hormonal moments, the constant anger passed, and I would probably be embarrassed now if my blog was called Flying the Bird.

Probably.

So anyway. I had to think of something else, and it occurred to me that Dante's Divine Comedy is really the story of a midlife crisis. Midway through life, he loses his way in a wood, and before you know it there are the gates of Hell before him: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." I spent a really wonderful semester a few years ago studying Dante, so it was fairly fresh in my mind.

My favorite moment in that long poem cycle is when Dante and his guide Virgil emerge from hell. After long hours of slogging through ever more horrifying scenes of torment, weighed down by the stinking, putrid air, the screams and howls of the damned ringing in their ears, they emerge into fresh, cool night air and the sight of stars twinkling above them.

I wanted a line that reflected that moment, but the actual words "then we came forth, to see again the stars" didn't make much of a title. To See Again the Stars sounds like a cheesy romance novel. Not that I have anything against cheesy romance novels.

So I flipped over to the very end, after Dante has continued his journey through Purgatory and the lower levels of Paradise, until he finally reaches the heavens in all their splendor, a sight so spectacularly gorgeous that words cannot describe it. He likens the dilemma of trying to explain what he sees to the ancient mathematical conundrum of how to square a circle--in other words, an impossible task.

I haven't had any visions of glory (if I do, you'll be the first to know), but I liked the idea-- at midlife, I'm pretty thoroughly aware that trying to get a handle on my experience is beyond me. Way beyond.

But I still try. Hence "To Square a Circle." And then, when I was reading Ulysses last spring, I found the line there, too. And that clinched it. 

I told you in the very first post in this blog that someday I would explain the title, so there you go.

(And p.s. I know I told you we would be out of range today, but the weather turned wet and windy so we ended up staying home.)

7ToF: baseball, country music, and (Apple) FaceTime

1. A friend's car ended up in our driveway Wednesday with a flatter-than-flat tire. I facetimed Doug at work, switched the camera so he could guide us through turning on the air compressor and attaching the tire gizmo, and she was good to go in less than ten minutes. (The flat wasn't fixed, but it was good enough to get her to a service station.) There are days when technology drives me nuts, but I'm feeling very fond of it at the moment. I am theoretically capable of changing a tire, but I'm so glad I didn't have to.

the midlife middle

I've been watching us, those of us who are in our fifties. For the past several months, every time we've been in a social situation with our peers, I've observed the fifty-somethings. We're a pretty great bunch of people: experienced, interesting, a bit older and wiser, but still capable of surprises, still dreaming--even if they're retirement dreams these days.

But let's face it: very few of us have made it to this age without collecting some pounds around the middle. And it's true of men and women. I started this observation experiment at the beginning of the summer mostly watching women, but I quickly realized that men are experiencing the same thing. Maybe it's distributed a bit differently, but with the odd exception (like my spouse), none of us can wear the same pants we wore twenty years ago.

fall colors

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I don't think that's true when it comes to blog posts. Either way, this is all I've got today.

7ToF except it's Tuesday

1. I got waylaid with a massive migraine yesterday, so today's post (which I usually write on Monday) didn't happen. In fact, at the moment I can't even remember what it was going to be about. I'm feeling much better today, though, which is a good thing because the kid's senior portraits are this afternoon and it would be helpful if I were coherent for that. My brain isn't capable of a regular post today but I thought maybe I could manage a "7 Things" post and I'll do what was going to be today's post on Friday. If I can remember what it was going to be about.

7ToF: typing on my phone makes me nuts

1. Ok let's see if I can do this.  I'm sitting in the women's showers at the KOA in Bozeman MT typing this ON MY PHONE. My boys kicked me out of the camper because they wanted to turn out the lights. That's how obsessive I am because I'm supposed to have a Friday blog post so dammit I'm doing one. If you've ever tried to type more than a few words on a phone you will understand why there may be typos in this one (apologies in advance).

Gratitude Schmatitude

By now, probably everyone on the planet has heard that an Attitude of Gratitude will fix all your problems, make you feel better, change your life, and help you lose 40 pounds. OK, maybe not the weight loss, but the rest of it. It's everywhere these days.

I told you I was a cynic, and situations like this bring cynicism to the fore. Like everything that works, the 'gratitude attitude' movement has been taken up by people who see an opportunity to make a little money. You can buy gratitude journals and workbooks, mugs and t-shirts, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets and yoga pants. You can go to pricey weekend workshops on how to feel gratitude. You can barely move these days without someone getting in your face and telling you to BE GRATEFUL, DAMMIT.

7ToF: I got nothin

I've already written two posts this week, and I've been sick, and whine. I'm not very confident that I'm going to actually think of seven things to talk about. But here goes.

1. I called back in July to get an appointment for Sam's senior portraits. The first opening she had was October 20. So, yup, have to figure out what we're doing pretty soon. But in an unusual moment of thinking ahead, I remembered that he needed to get a haircut early. This was not an easy sell. Sam doesn't like haircuts, and long hair is in right now. It took a bit of negotiating, but the deed is done. Haircut accomplished this afternoon. Part of the deal is that I will never in his life make him get another haircut. I figure that's pretty easy, though, because he's 18 now and his hair is now adult hair on an adult head. Go, my son, and groweth thy hair at thy pleasure.

DwD Depression's antidotes part 2

On top of everything, I got a nasty cold this week and between the achy muscles and the head-full-of-wool feeling, I mainly just sat on the couch and read Betty Neels. Who, if you are unfamiliar with the name, is the author of cookie cutter British romance novels that I adore, sexist stereotypes and all. They are the book equivalent of frosted strawberry pop-tarts.

Now that I'm coming out of it, I'm so happy to be feeling better that I'm having a hard time remembering why I need to finish this series of posts. But I said I would, so here you go.

DwD: Depression's Antidotes, part one

When you're depressed, there are plenty of days when getting out of bed in the morning is a statement of faith, and accomplishing the basic tasks of life is as courageous as scaling a mountain. But when you come out of the worst of it, there start to be days when you can figure out how you're going to handle yourself.

And then, of course, there are days you can't. But this post is about the days when you're still depressed but you're capable of thinking about an approach, a way to deal with yourself. The answers, as we've already said, are as individual as the people who experience depression, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about some of them.

7ToF: seven things about depression

(apologies to those of you who are uninterested in this topic, I will be done with this series of posts before next Friday, promise.)

1. If you've stumbled on this through Google or whatever, and you're really seriously depressed, and especially if you're suicidal, please get help. You're worth it. Depression fools you into thinking that the world would be better off without you, but it isn't true. If you need a place to start, look in your phone book for your local helpline, or you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is staffed 24 hours a day, at (800) 273-8255.

DwD: depression's useful side

I think the first and most important thing I've learned, and I can't stress this enough, is that depression isn't a bad thing. The first time a therapist said this to me, it was a complete mind-blower. There are things that are worth being depressed about, she said. I'm sure I stared at her with my jaw hanging open.

DwD #0: dealing with depression

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

later (updated)

EDITED TO ADD: I might as well just go ahead and announce it will be a couple of weeks before I post again. I have half a dozen half-written posts but I've been travelling too much to finish any of them. It's all I can do to get the laundry done, because SUMMER. For those of you who are following my mom's story, she's doing great (I went and stayed with her last week after her knee replacement). We're headed off to visit PellMel this weekend, then a 4-day camping trip the following weekend, etc. Happy August. I'll probably be back the last week in August or the first week in Sept--MadMax starts his senior year on the 31st.

Greetings and Salutations. We got back from the airport about 2 a.m. last night and have spent the day catching up on laundry, grocery shopping, etc etc. The half-written posts I have in my drafts folder aren't anywhere close to being ready. So I'm bagging on you. And since I'm leaving on Saturday to go stay with my mom who is recovering from a knee replacement, I probably won't post again until the week of August 10th. Hope you are having a great summer!

7ToF: These are a Few of My Favorite Cheap Things

I'm writing this several days in advance since I'll be out of town the rest of the week and I have no idea what will be happening with us by the time you read this. This is a post I've had in the back of my head for several months. We so often gripe about how expensive things are ($30 for a hardback book! $5 for a loaf of bread!), I thought maybe I'd pay homage to a few things I love that are under $10.

blonde and proud

After not writing a new "real" post in almost a month, I had several ideas for this week's Tuesday blog post. But they were all about ISSUES, and I'm sure that you (like me) are sick of hearing about ISSUES. So I will tell you a story instead.

A couple of times a year, I round up various tchotchkes and run them through the dishwasher--the green glass bottles I use as bookends, a cup and saucer from my grandmother's dishes, a decorative plate my mother-in-law brought us from France, etc. They get cleaned up shiny and new without me having to dust. Because HOUSEWORK. 

So this afternoon I decided to do that and breezed around the house gathering stuff. Loaded it all in the dishwasher and fired it up. A couple of hours later, I came back to unload and saw this when I opened the door: 

ewwwww! what is that???

I had no idea why a sticky, semi-solid brown substance was coating the floor of the dishwasher. It was nasty, though.

Then I started pulling things out of the dishwasher and they were all coated with this weird, gummy substance. I was starting to get seriously grossed out because it was icky and it was all over everything.  

Had there been some weird food thing still stuck to one of the dishes?? had the coating melted off the brown utensil holder I almost never wash?? what in the world would do this??

Then I found this:

Seriously, HOW DID ONE OF THE DOGS CRAP IN THE DISHWASHER? I was so grossed out I could hardly bring myself to touch it.

Except then I noticed IT HAD A LABEL. A Crate and Barrel label. And it was suspiciously solid. And then it dawned on me that I had PUT A CANDLE in the dishwasher. 

A brown candle. A candle shaped like a pine cone that had dust in between the pine cone bits, because how in the world was I going to get it clean? why, put it in the dishwasher, of course. LIGHT BULB! I even remembered to put it on the top shelf! Because if I put it in the bottom rack, it would MELT!

Seriously, y'all. Dumbest blonde moment ever. I pulled out the, um, turd-like object and ran the dishwasher again just to see if the mess would disappear so I could pretend this never happened. The wax does seem to have melted off all the dishes, but that waxy brown coating on the floor of the machine? Apparently that's going to have to be scrubbed off by hand.

Oh, yeah. A frickin' genius, that's me.

7ToF: it ain't all good baby but it's all right

1. Hilton Head report: We'd never been there before. It's a nice place, but the week of the fourth of July it is really, really crowded. Maybe it's like that all the time, not sure. We had a great time with Dean's family, though-- we always do. It was hot and humid, but that was no surprise. Here's a beach shot for you, and I will spoil the effect by telling you that in order to get a deserted beach shot, I had to a) aim the camera veeeery carefully and b) wait for a timely wave to come along and cover up the people who were out in the water.

2. Next week I'm flying to Detroit for Cheery-o's son's wedding. Then the week after that, I'm off to Texas to help out with my mom who recently had a knee replacement. I'm just a travelin' fool these days. That means lots of time in airports and on planes, so if you have any good, non-depressing books to suggest, I'm in need. I underestimated on my summer reading list-- I've already read all of them except two, and one of those I decided not to read and the other one (Kavalier and Clay) I'm saving up until after I get back from my trips.

3. Cute things around the internet: Oddly, the first time I saw this commercial, I'm pretty sure different music was playing (Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein"), but it's cute no matter what the music is.

4. Remember I told you that MadMax was in the midst of his summer obsession with golf, and we were totally sucked into watching the U.S.Open? It turned out to be well worth it--the finish on Sunday was a nail-biter that came down to the very last putt.  Even the world's worst golfer (me) was sitting on the edge of her seat.

Now we've moved on to the British Open, which I've learned this week is just called THE OPEN. Apparently no other designation is needed when you are playing in the home of golf. MadMax has had lots of time on his hands this week, which has meant the Golf Channel has been on more than I care to admit, and even just being in the same house without really watching I feel like I know more about THE OPEN than can possibly be good for my brain. Anyway, we're sucked in again. Thank god it finally started today so they could quit talking about it and actually play some golf.

5. We finally made it to see Inside Out last night. It's cute, and it goes off in a more intelligent direction than you expect based on the way it starts. Well worth seeing, even if you don't have kids to see it with. It's pretty funny, but there's a two-hanky moment at the end--you've been warned.

6. Laurel sent me a link to this great 21-day meditation series from Deepak Chopra and Oprah, which started this week. I've only done the first one so far but it was really interesting, and will possibly be the topic of a future blog post. You have to register, but each day's recording is free for five days. Check it out: Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude.

7. Both our kids have had milestone birthdays this summer--PellMel turned a quarter century, and MadMax turned 18. Which has made me horribly nostalgic. They really were adorable. So I'm subjecting you to pictures. I would apologize, but I'm not really sorry. :-)

I need to take more pictures--
this is the most recent one I could find
of the two of them. Summer 2014.

p.s. the lyrics in the post title are from my new favorite C&W song, "Real Life" by Jake Owen, here's the video: Real Life music video. For the record, I used to love to eat at Waffle House (I probably still would but there's not one around here). I wonder how many takes it took to get the shot where the waffle drops on his plate? 

further thoughts on marriage at midlife

We had a really nice vacation last week, so of course I'm having a bit of trouble getting back into the normal routine. I thought about skipping yet another post, but I have this one that I wrote a long time ago--before the first one on long-term marriages, as you'll be able to tell. I've had second thoughts (and third and fourth) about posting this (that's why it's been sitting in my drafts folder so long), but I'm sure I've told you worse before, so here you go.

This is a story I'm a little embarrassed to tell you: about a year ago, I discovered what I thought was incontrovertible evidence that Dean was having an affair. Actually, I had discovered it several months previously, but Dean is such a solid guy that it took me that long to suddenly realize, OHMYGOD, what is going on here?

So, I won't keep you in suspense--he wasn't, it was just a remarkably odd series of coincidences. But I didn't know that at first.

I had to figure out what to do, and that took awhile. In fact, it was several months before I said anything to him. Which surprised me. If you had asked me ahead of time, I would have told you in no uncertain terms that if my spouse had an affair, that would be the end of our marriage right then and there.

But when it happened to me (leaving aside for the moment that it really didn't), I had remarkably mixed feelings. A long marriage is a complicated thing. It's being tangled up with each other's families, knowing what it was like when you got your first real job, house-hunting together, inside jokes, taking vacations, changing diapers and going to seventh grade band concerts, making mutual friends, and a million other little ways that your lives get tied up together.

It seriously occurred to me that maybe I should just let it go. If I'd been that much in the dark about how he felt about me, and I didn't really want our marriage to end, maybe I'd be better off just continuing to act like I didn't know. It turns out I wasn't quite as adamant about monogamy as I thought I would be. Once I finally talked to Dean, and realized he wasn't having an affair, I still had a lot to think about.

It was after all that had happened that I read Dan Savage's book American Savage several months ago. The first chapter, it just so happens, is about monogamy, about how much our culture prizes it even though human beings aren't very good at it.

It's a very complicated topic, and Savage does a great job detailing all the ways that we are hypocritical about our ideas of what marriage "should" be like. It's thought-provoking reading, and if it's a topic that interests you, I highly recommend it.

Unusually for Savage, he comes down on the side of conservatives in this one area--he thinks marriage is really important, and that preserving marriages, preserving families, is worth doing, even if it is at the expense of strict monogamy. Is someone who has had one brief affair in 30 years of marriage bad at monogamy? Maybe not. Maybe letting that go is better than tearing a family apart.

Savage goes one step further, though, and says that in some cases, maybe it is OK to cheat if doing so will "save" your marriage. I just can't wrap my head around that. I mean, if both spouses have agreed up front that they're OK with this, I'm not going to argue--everybody gets to set up their marriage the way they want. But like most couples, Dean and I don't have that agreement, and I just can't see that all the lies, deception, and manipulation involved in cheating on your spouse can possibly be a good thing.

It's an argument that's far too complex to deal with in a blog post, but it's an interesting topic to bring up with your spouse. If you're like us, we'd never talked about the basic idea of monogamy, it was just a given in our marriage vows and in the way we thought about our marriage. Neither of us has ever been unfaithful, but it was good to actually talk about it, talk about how hard it has been at times, and how much it means to us that neither of us has ever had sex with anyone else.

So there were two reasons I never posted this--one was because it's probably TMI, and the other was because it didn't really go anywhere. Really it's like shooting fish in a barrel to say that hey, I'm opposed to cheating on your spouse. So, I don't have any wisdom to impart. Just stuff I've been thinking about. I will try to be more interesting next time.

p.s. It's occurring to me a day later that talking to your spouse about monogamy might lead to information you'd rather not know (see above). So, a la Hill Street Blues, be careful out there, people.

7ToF: only worry in the world, is the tide gonna reach my chair

1. Last week was the unplanned vacation, but next week is the planned one. We're headed to the Carolina coast for a week at the beach with Dean's dad and siblings. We do this every year (although the location is new this year) and it's always fun--Dean's family is great. So no posts from me next week.

2. I put myself on the waiting list for several books at our library's ebook site. I've been waiting for some of them for months. Then FOUR of them became available practically all at once (actually, five, but I cancelled one because I do have one or two things I have to do besides sit and read). Since we only get a two week loan on ebooks, I had to read like mad to get through them all.

By the time I was done, I was tired of reading. That has never happened to me before in my life. I've read until I could hardly hold my eyes open and I've read until my hands and arms were numb from holding the book up, but I've never been tired of reading before.

3. Since on average I read a couple of hours a day, it left me with some time to kill. Did I use it wisely, to complete household tasks that have been piling up? Well, maybe a few. But mostly I watched movies: Avengers 2 at the theater one afternoon, Jurassic World one evening with Dean and MadMax, and Monsters University on Amazon Prime while I was folding laundry the next afternoon. All three were fun. By then I was ready to start reading again. :-)

4. A freelance editing job for a local business fell in my lap this week. If I like them and they like me, there's a possibility that it will turn into something long-term. OMG, I might actually earn some money.

5. We inherited more chickens from a friend of a friend of a friend, so now we have eight--the most we've ever had. The new ones are a year old. They've only been here for two days, so they're not laying yet, presumably because they're traumatized from the move. Five of them are black astrolorps, the same kind we've had for awhile now. Then there are two Rhode Island Reds and what we think is a Wyandotte. Here's a picture of some of them hiding behind the coop:

They're beautiful, aren't they?

6. So a couple more thoughts on meditation, which I can tell bores most of you to tears, but it's what I've been thinking about--skip to #7 if you want. I left out a couple of quotations that I meant to put in. "Meditation is a chance to feel what you're feeling": in the name of being polite or socially acceptable or whatever, I often push away emotions I don't want to deal with at the moment. Meditation gives you a chance to process that stuff. Next--believe it or not, Hugh Jackman practices meditation and he said in an interview I read a couple of years ago "Meditation is sitting in the presence of God" or something like that, which reminded me of all the verses in the Old Testament about waiting on God. My soul wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from him (Ps 62.5). They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles (Is 40.31). 

And finally, I wanted to mention that I often don't like meditation while I'm doing it. I get frustrated, or I feel stupid for how bad I am at it, how rarely I am able to maintain that calm distance between my inner self and my monkey mind. It's not until later in the day that I will suddenly realize that I have more inner resources and a better perspective because I took that 3/5/20 minute break. So, that's all. I promise I'm done with that for awhile now.

Random peaceful summer scene

7. The reading report, from all that reading: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (3 stars out of 5): beautifully written story of a book restoration expert who gets the chance of a lifetime to work on an ancient Jewish manuscript. Fascinating stories of the history of the book are mixed in with scenes from the book expert's life. Great read but it fell apart for me in the last third. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (4 stars): I'm late to the party on this one, I think everyone has already read it. Pulitzer Prize-winning book tracing the history of a couple of people who end up living through the siege of St. Malo at the end of WWII. The Liar by Nora Roberts (2 stars): the latest from the grand dame of romance novels. If you're not a Nora fan, this one won't change your mind. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (4 stars). Strange, fantasy/fable about a middle aged man who returns to the home of his youth and recovers a surreal set of memories. Its great value is the reminder that childhood is not always the carefree, innocent time our culture wants to believe--and that is not a bad thing. The stresses and worries of childhood make us who we are. I thought about giving it five stars--it is that beautifully written--but I was pretty sure I wouldn't think about it again after I finished it (one of the signs of a truly great book imo is that you think about it for days afterwards), and that has been true. Do or Die by Suzanne Brockmann (4 stars). Former Navy Seal Ian Dunn is released early from prison (where he is serving time for a crime he didn't commit) to solve a problem the feds are having. Not great literature, but as a summer page-turner, it is just about perfect. There's a baby who is always conveniently asleep--more of a prop than a real baby--and there's way too much dialog (but you can skim over that). Other than that, it is a great read.

There. I did this whole thing without complaining about the weather, are you proud? I've complained about it so much I'm starting to feel a little guilty. Suffice it to say that it has been cooler in the Carolinas than it has been here. Have a great week and I will post pictures when I get back.

how not to meditate part 2

There was somewhere I was going with these meditation posts, and as is often the case, I can no longer remember where it was. Maybe it will come back to me later. But at the moment, I need a post for tomorrow and this one is already half-written, so here you go.

- Along the lines of mixing up my meditation practice a little, once or twice a week I do a guided meditation--i.e., someone has recorded meditation instructions, sometimes general, sometimes on a specific topic like reducing stress or dealing with anger, that you can play back while you're meditating. I have a couple I've downloaded from Audible, and there are thousands out there on YouTube (the Honest Guys have a bunch). If you want something specifically Christian, search for Guided Prayer.

- I have an app on my phone (go ahead and laugh) called the Insight Timer. There's a free version that just uses really nice bell/chime tones to start and end your session. I use it enough that I went ahead and paid for the full version, which gives you a wider variety of sounds and also allows sounds that play at an interval--say every two minutes. I like the interval sound, because if my mind has started to wander (and it always does), that reminds me to come back.

- When I first started, I would have a pen and paper next to me. If there was a thought I just couldn't let go of, I'd stop and write it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you hear you're supposed to sit utterly still and not move a muscle, but that's way less important than being able to let go of the hamster wheel. If your nose itches, scratch it. If your foot starts to fall asleep, move it. If there's something you're afraid you'll forget while you're relaxing, write it down.

- The Buddhists say that that the mind is innately spacious. All we need to do to experience that sense of spacious, calm ease is to clear away our thoughts. I'm not sure I agree with that. In my experience, that sense of inner spacious ease is something that has to be cultivated, there's nothing inborn about it. If it were innate, that would mean that there was some pre-ordained reason we should all be meditating to reach this pre-existing state. But if it's something that has to be cultivated, it's just another possible function of the human mind. It deepens and enriches my experience, so I think it's worth doing. But I don't know that there's any pre-existing significance to a meditation practice.

- The mental whirlpool that I sometimes experience--what I've been calling the hamster wheel--sometimes takes on a life of it's own. Sometimes when I get really stressed, the whirlpool starts looking for things to obsess about. There's no longer any connection to something real in my life that I really can do something about, it becomes all about the need to feed the brain spins. In grad school, I'd be frantically worrying about a paper that was due, and when it was finally finished and turned in, instead of getting a break from the mental stress, my brain would just grab onto the next thing it could obsess about. Meditation is the one of the few things I've found that breaks that cycle. (vacation is another, but vacations aren't always an option, darn it.)

I told you last week about one of my analogies for meditation--the blinking, flashing, busy helmet that you remove so that you can spend a few minutes away from all that mental chatter. I have a new analogy. I remember when I was a kid, one time when I was swimming with my sisters I got stuck with one of those plastic inflatable rings under my armpits. It was just a little bit too small, so I was flailing around trying to push myself up out of it and getting a little panicky, because I just kept feeling more and more stuck. My older sister called out to me to put my arms straight up over my head and let myself sink down through the middle. It worked perfectly.

Meditation is sort of like that. Your brain is flailing around with all kinds of pointless activity, but if you just relax and let yourself sink down in, you free yourself from the mental trap of the whatever you're stuck in, and down you go into the cool silence of the water. Nice analogy, right?

So give it try sometime this week, and eventually I'll remember where I was going with these posts. Maybe it will be something interesting.

Unplanned Vacay

I have to stay off the computer for a few days because of the physical therapy treatment I had this morning (I'm typing this on Thursday). I'll be back next week.

how not to meditate

Usually if you're reading a how-to post, you can reasonably expect that the person writing it has some competence in the subject. That would not be the case with me and meditation. I do realize the absurdity of me expecting you to read a post about how to meditate from someone who is terrible at meditation.

However, despite my ineptitude, the older I get the more I get out of meditation, even though I'm terrible at it and even though I don't seem to get any "better" at it as time goes by. So rather than giving you a set of instructions, this is just a series of disconnected thoughts intended to get you to try it. The only rationale I have is that I learned more from a yoga teacher who was genetically inflexible than I ever did from the ones who could already put their foot behind their head before they ever tried yoga.

- Although meditation has been used as a spiritual practice in religious settings for millennia, it isn't inherently religious. Meditation is a mental skill that helps you reduce stress and get a better perspective on whatever burdens you're carrying. If you have a set of religious beliefs for context, that works, too.

- The type of Christianity I was raised in is wary of meditation because it seems vaguely Eastern. I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about it, but it seemed suspicious. But actually there is a long history of Christian meditation going back centuries. For example, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and many others.

- You will hear that meditation works best when you do it at the same time in the same place every day. That's probably true, but it doesn't work for me. I do best at staying with it when I mix it up a little. One day I'll actually sit and meditate the way you're "supposed" to, one day I'll try it while walking. I can't meditate immediately after I wake up because my brain is too foggy, so sometimes I do it after breakfast, sometimes in the afternoon, rarely in the evening. Sometimes I use music designed for meditation, sometimes something else (anything without words), sometimes no music at all. Three minutes, ten minutes, twenty. I have no standard practice.

- How not to meditate: Don't sit there with your jaw clenched trying to CONTROL YOUR THOUGHTS. That will just lead to anger and frustration. Meditation is mental relaxation--a chance to sit and watch your monkey mind jump through all its routines: worry, stress, all the responsibilities you're trying to juggle.

I'm not going to tell you that none of those things are important, because a lot of the things we worry about are important. But as I've practiced meditation, I've come to realize that there's an element of my worry and stress that is just a hamster on a wheel. It's not productive, it's not helping any, it's just my brain whizzing and whirring because it's in the habit of doing that.

Gah. I can't tell you how often I sit down to write a post thinking that it will only be 3-4 paragraphs because I don't have much to say. Then I start typing and I end up going on and on. Believe it or not, I'm only about halfway done. So I guess I'll split this into two. More later.