I did a thing, as the kids say these days.
Category: career
This is 54.
I turned 54 yesterday. Birthdays seem like the perfect time to take stock of your life, for no matter when they fall in the year, they are the start of your personal new year. It’s a time to stop and celebrate being you. Only this year, I didn’t much feel like celebrating me. I’ve spent most of the last year spinning in a mid-life crisis, not at all sure what my place in the world is anymore. I’ve had a huge lapse in my self-confidence, the likes of which I’m pretty sure I haven’t gone through since high school and my teen angst days. It’s unnerving to say the least. It’s not *just* this empty nesting and menopause business that’s had me spinning, although they are both still factors. It’s been three years since Edie girl went off to college. You’d think I’d have figured out by now what I want to do with myself now that I don’t have to focus on being a mom all the time and yet here I am.
Gardening and lessons learned.
It’s been a weird gardening year. Winter was so non-existent that I went ahead and started putting my spring peas and lettuces in the ground in early February. Then after a warm, dry March and April, May was so cool that my summer garden went in late, with my cucumbers not going in until mid-June. I didn’t fully transition my spring to summer garden until the last week of July, as I finally ripped out the last of the kale and planted field peas. And since I was out there planting, I went ahead and put some seeds in for a fall garden because, why not? If it’s going to be all topsy turvy, might as well go for broke, right?
My latest reinvention.
It’s been over a year since we started empty nesting. I have spent the better part of that year resisting the urge to ‘blow it all up’ – I’m not really even sure what I mean by that to be honest. It just seemed that if menopause was going to kick into high gear as our one and only child went off to college, shifting the dynamic of everything at home, in the midst of a global pandemic that
has reshuffled numerous norms in the world, why not change as many things as I possibly could?
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
For two years now, I’ve had a heck of a time keeping the days of the week straight. Like, what do you mean it’s only Tuesday? How is this not Thursday? Even starting a new job and my favorite yoga class going back to being in-person hasn’t helped shake that Groundhog Day feeling off that I’ve had since everything shut down and all the days started running together.
Continue readingJumping off a cliff and landing on my feet.
I quit my job last month without a plan. In the time since, there have been some changes, with a number of realizations and some self discovery along the way.
Last March, I had four, no five jobs, three email accounts, too many social media accounts to keep track of, worked at least several hours every day, seven days a week. I was almost never not working and I definitely wasn’t making enough money to justify all the work.
And then Covid shut everything down.
Continue readingThe Pink Notebook
Ten years ago this month, I started this blog. It was more of an experiment to see if I could keep my creative mojo around after one of my more rather alarming dry spells than anything else. The idea was that I’d make it a record of things I made, but somehow, keeping the record became yet another creative outlet for me.
Continue readingOut with the old…
As years go, 2019 wasn’t entirely a bad one. But I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a good one either. Like any year, it had its ups and downs, celebrations and disappointments. We lived through a construction project, I had a milestone birthday and we toured colleges with our not-so-baby girl. We slide into 2020 knowing it’s going to be one filled with changes – change being the one constant you can count on in life. Having spent the last 18 years with my world revolving around being a mom, my every day is clearly about to undergo a vast shift so I’m not going to bother making any sort of sweeping declarations of what I’m going to do in 2020, beyond of course, promise you that I really am not coming back to run the orchestra poinsettia sale, so please, stop asking. Really.
Continue readingMiddle Aged KonMari.
There has been a good bit of life keeping me distracted here lately – nothing terribly worthy of putting out on the internet for everyone to read. Continue reading
Efribbits.
My friend Steve called me up a few weeks ago and asked if he could stay with us while in town for his upcoming college reunion. But of course! Could he bring his college roommates too? It wasn’t the first time he’d brought total strangers to stay at our house, but giving me a heads up was thoughtful – and how could I say no? Continue reading
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 