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?
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 readingI intended on posting this at the end of the school year, which came very unexpectedly early. This was the backbone of our mornings these last four years and I couldn’t let my girl’s high school career end without one last word on the High School Parking Lot Slow Roll Facebook posts that have been a regular occurrence for the duration.
I’m pretty sure it started with Freebird.
I’ve long been That Mom rolling through the carpool line at school with the music just a little too loud. I’m the sort of person who thinks that life is indeed a musical, that there is a proper soundtrack for everything, that people walking down the street are liable to break into a dance at any moment, that music should always be on in the background and yes, it’s probably a little too loud for some people’s taste.
Continue readingI watched the new Taylor Swift movie, Miss Americana, with my girl recently. I admittedly am not really a fan, but my girl is, so under the guise of quality time, I agreed to watch it with her. Not only did I walk away with a new-found respect for Miss Swift, I found some of what she had to say resonating with me, specifically, her perceived view that women in entertainment have to reinvent themselves regularly to stay relevant. As someone who has reinvented herself a few times over, I’d say that experience isn’t relegated to women in entertainment, I’d argue it’s something all of us as women either have or will go through at some point in our lives.
Continue readingWhen I first told my family they get could a dog as long as I didn’t have to be involved, I failed to fully think that through. Turns out, Betsy beagle has become my mostly companion which somehow wasn’t a surprise to anyone but myself. We even became those people who bring a dog on a college tour this fall and when I expressed surprise at this, I was generally met with ‘uh-huh’, as if we were the only ones who failed to recognize this about us.
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.
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With three (!) busy summer work schedules and a house under construction, an actual, proper vacation was shoved to the back burner this year. Having spent the better part of the last year working 6 & 7 day weeks, I wanted needed a few days off. With school related activities starting just a few days after Edie came home from camp, I knew we needed to make the most of those last free days.
We headed east this weekend- Edie and friends wanted to go to Something In The Water – a music festival being put together by Pharrell in Virginia Beach, which gave me an excellent excuse to visit with one of my college girlfriends, Sheilah and her husband Rob and family. Continue reading
As I attempt to break through the wall of writer’s bloc fortified with real life, here’s a few topics I’ve either threatened to write about, have actually put words down, only to be completely dissatisfied with them OR had it kindly suggested by friends that I should write about. In no particular order: Continue reading
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
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 