…you want to do what the big boys do.
Play outside in the rain
Play cool games like badminton
But, if you are very lucky…
Sometimes…
You might get invited into something you really want to do.
Like making a couch fort
And then you know how cool you are.
(If you are wondering why the big boys aren’t wearing shirts, it’s because, apparently, “we don’t wear shirts in the summer.” Good to know. Good to know.)
I love this.
I love it so much.
I come back to it again and again and again.
Please go see the 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.
If it doesn’t make you smile and tear, at least a little, I’d be surprised.
I’m still clearing out, around here.
Today I have someone coming to pick up an old printer, and in the past few days we’ve gotten rid of (forgive me if I’ve already told you this) two bins of books, the exersaucer, infant car seat, bag of baby clothes, a bag of trash and broken toys from the basement and a bag of trash from the office, which I continue to plow through. Cleaning out the junk drawer and the junk basket, both in the kitchen, also yielded an entire bag, and I smile when I open the drawer now.
It feels good to get some of this stuff out.
I’m a constant declutterer, but this is the hidden stuff or the big stuff, now. Things that lived in drawers, out of sight and unbeknownst to visitors, but known to us. The secret clutter.
My plan for today is to freecycle, along with the printer, the baby walker toy, because clearly, he doesn’t need it. When I think back, it was one of those purchases we could have done without. I bought it, thinking it would help him learn to walk. He played with the musical buttons on the front, but didn’t learn to walk with it. No, he did that all on his own. I’m upset with myself that I fell into that trap.
Anyway, I’ll also see what else can go, today, and perhaps list a few items on eBay. The boys will be in rec for the morning, so it will just be me, Tiny and Monkey Girl. I know she’d like to help, and Tiny…well, he’s just inspiring, because the less “stuff” laying around, the less “stuff” for him to get his hands on.
What have you recently gotten rid of, whether through donation, sale, freecycle, or just plain trash?
So, I was on Facebook the other night (the other morning, the other afternoon, the other 3 hours a day I spend there) and I came across a picture posted by someone I am not Facebook friends with, but that tagged my friend, Shane.
It was a Little League picture from our childhood, (1984 National All-Star Team) and I smiled, looking at all the faces and remembering all the boys, now men, on the team.
What struck me most, though, were the comments.
The guys on the team started commenting about how many games they had won, who they defeated, who defeated them, certain players on other teams, from other towns, remember who kids were on the team, etc.
Each man had a different piece of the puzzle, and from reading all of the comments, you got a true feeling for the whole season.
I know that there are pits and traps with Facebook.
Particularly for younger people who don’t think before they post.
However, I think that Facebook can also serve as a collective memory for us all.
If the man who had posted the picture had simply found the picture in a drawer and looked at it, he may have remembered some of the kids on the team, and some of the info, but by posting it, he now gets to remember all of it, and everyone else who was tagged also gets to remember it, as well.
That’s what I love about Facebook.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the silly and the mundane stuff, as well, but this…this remembering…this sharing of lives…this collective memory…that’s what gets me.
Right. Here.
People who don’t really know me think I’m a tough nut to crack.
I’m hard to get close to.
I’m a little cold.
A little unfriendly.
People who take time to really get to know me know that none of that is true.
I’m efficient, a task-master, goal-oriented, and I get the job done.
However, I’m also a big, huge smush-ball of emotion.
And…
I’m a sucker for love.
Which is why, years ago, when I found this book in the Columbia book club catalog (because, before we were married, I used to have a serious issue with book clubs, movie clubs, cd clubs, and I don’t want to talk about it right now) I had to order it immediately.
And when it came, I sat on my bed and soaked in every word and cried and cried and cried and cried.
Because, again…
I’m a sucker for love.
The book is called “Love Letters.”
(and again, I apologize for using Photo Booth for recent blog photos…I am honestly too tired this week to take a picture and later have to download it, so this will have to do)
Love Letters is a collection of actual love letters from famous people.
They are replicas of said letters, many times, in envelopes, folded up, sealed with wax, as they were found.
These are the true words of these people, written to the objects of their affection, desire, lust, love.
The cover of the book has a little envelope on it, and if you open it, there is a little card which reads “It is not only necessary to love, It is necessary to say so.”
And from there, I was hooked.
“You soothe my soul, you fill it with so tender a sentiment that it is sweet to live during the time that I see you.” Julie de L’Espinasse to Comte Hippolyte de Guibert 1774
“All my soul follows you, love-encircles you-and I live in being yours.” Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett 1846
“Sometimes I have a rush of feeling, that seems like the passage of a spirit through me, and ought to flow to you like a blessing. This is the most beautiful feeling I ever experienced; it is indeed divine, and too much for mortal force: there is no music for it; it can never, I fear me, be expressed…Like sunset it cannot be remembered. Margaret Fuller to James Nathan 1845
“…you can’t come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don’t speak, it’s because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses…” Edit Wharton to W. Morton Fullerton 1908
Call me soft, call me a girl, call me what you will, but I am now and always shall be a sucker for love.
1. What do you keep a stock pile of?
Toilet paper.
6 people in the house, 4 of them kids, 3 of them boys, 1 of them 6 years old.
The answer?
Toilet paper.
2. If Ben & Jerry asked you to invent an ice cream, what would it be?
Either something fruity and sherbet-y or something like a big container of frozen peanut butter with little bits of chocolate thrown in.
You’d need a chisel to get it out of the carton, but it would be worth it, because you’d have huge chunks of peanut butter in which to sink your teeth!
Heaven.
3. How do you blow off steam?
Dancing.
You’ll know if I’m in an incredibly good mood, or if I’ve had an incredibly stressful day by the music emanating from the kitchen.
Rockin’ dance parties in the kitchen, while I cook dinner, help to eliminate huge amounts of stress.
Take me OUT to go dancing?
I’m relaxed for a week.
I love to go out dancing, but haven’t been in forever.
Except for Mark’s wedding, and that was awesome.
4. What would you do if you had an hour to yourself anywhere within a ten mile radius of your home…no kids, no hubby, just you?
I’d probably wind up going hiking.
There’s a little trail with BIG rocks to climb up, in the town in which we used to live, which isn’t too far away.
There are other, more challenging trails that I enjoy, but not within a 10-mile radius.
I love that trail, because I love the rock climbing.
It’s physically exerting
Monkey Girl loves to go on that trail with me, but if I had the hour to myself, I’d go alone because there is something to be said for being able to go at your own pace, and being able to listen to the ground under your feet and the animals around you. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to be in my own head, without having to actively listen to someone else, as my career and my life at home seriously revolves around active listening. I’m good at it. But sometimes…I just like to be in my head, with my thoughts.
5. When you were 16, what was your curfew in the summertime?
Um…I have no idea.
I think, maybe 11 or 12?
I wasn’t doing anything that would cause my parents to need me to come home early, so I’m not really sure.
Kim? Erin? Michaela?
A little help?
1. Me: Larry Hagman is really creepy looking these days.
Real Man: Yeah…being dead will do that to you.
2. We’re embroiled in a years-long debate, over here.
I believe that the first day of the week is Sunday.
Real Man believes that the first day of the week is Monday.
My thought is that calendars start on Sunday and I have always thought of Sunday as the start of my new week. Saturday night was the end and you could leave the old week behind.
Real Man does things like quote the Bible, “and he rested on the 7th day” and calls it Sunday, and talks about Saturday AND Sunday being the week end .
Thoughts?
3. I love my children.
You know I do.
But once…just once…I’d like to be able to hear a favorite song on the radio all the way through without having to turn it down twenty times because someone needs to tell me something.
Just. Once.
4. I fell out of bed on Tuesday.
Our bed is kinda high and I was climbing in and reaching for something, and when I sat back, I misjudged just how “on” the bed I was.
Turns out, I wasn’t really on the bed at all.
I fell backwards and sideways, crashing and then scraping my back into and along the edge of my nightstand.
It hurt.
Monkey Girl and Baby Monkey came running saying “We heard a bad word and a thump and knew something bad had happened!”
Fantastic.
I thought for sure I’d be aching the next day.
However, I’m surprisingly resilient for 40.
Yeah, me!
5. Graduation was Wednesday night.
It was awesome.
The kids did great and now they are gone and now I am sad and now I am missing them.
However, they are on to bigger and better things and I’m so excited for all that lies ahead of them!
The bad news is…
I think I have to retire my “graduation dress.”
I’ve worn this dress to every single graduation I have run since coming to the school, 8 years ago.
Except last year, because I was still carrying a lot of Tiny on my body, despite the fact he’d been OUT of my body for four months.
I’m back down to my fighting weight, but I think it’s safe to say that some parts of me will never be where they once were.
My graduation dress was actually purchased 13 years and four children ago, and I’ve got a different shape, these days.
Oh, I wore it, and I wore it well.
However, I couldn’t really make any large movements and stairs were a bit of an issue.
And, putting on my shoes?
Almost wore flip-flops.
So, I’m not giving it away or selling it, and if my hips finally realize I’m not birthin’ any more babies and decide to go back from whence they came, maybe I’ll bust it out again, but for now…into the back of the closet with you, my friend.
We had some good times.
6. I’d like to ask you to help my Real Man out and go vote for him in the “Mr. Wonderful-est” contest at My Little Life, a blog that I read frequently.
Please click this link, then find the link to “My Real Life” (that’s this blog, folks) and click on the “like” button (it’s link #9).
He’s totally Mr. Wonderful and I’d love for the rest of the world to know it, too!
(And to win him a $100 Visa gift card)
I’d surely appreciate it!
Sometimes, if you ask a man to try that picture one more time, after the thirtieth time of taking the photo, he may get fed up.
And make this face:
Or this one:
And when you switch position and say “This one will be perfect,” but it’s not, and you ask him to take “just one more,” he may make this face:
But, if the guy loves you, then he’ll make this face:
And all will be well.
This past weekend, Real Man and I left the monkeys with their grandparents (who did an amazing job, with the rest of the extended family, tag-teaming so we could go) and headed to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to witness my brother-from-another-mother, Mark, marry the love of his life, Rob.
Here’s Mark in 1998.
So yummy.
Here’s Mark today:
Yummy still.
Doesn’t age.
The wedding was beautiful.
It was held on a rooftop, so it was a bit windy:
But, truly, no one seemed to care.
It was so evident that we were in the presence of a deep, abiding love, the wind was forgotten.
Rob’s brother is a minister and performed the ceremony and had such beautiful words about them both and about marriage, on the whole, and how they embody what it should be.
And they do.
Then, the reception:
Who could have a bad time in a room that looked like this???
Not us!
There was a touching wedding video where they were both interviewed about how they met and about their relationship and the proposal and everything in between. It was awesome.
There was a photo booth and the photos that were being taken inside were being displayed on the big screen outside.
Hours of entertainment.
There were props and rockin’ music and just really great people and really great times.
There were also presents.
Oh, you think I mean presents for the grooms.
No.
I meant presents for me.
Because, apparently, my brother-from-another-mother decided that the middle of his wedding reception would be a perfect time to give ME gifts.
He walked over with an armful of wrapped boxes and said, “These are for you! Let’s go open them.”
What was inside?
Seasons 8-9 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Comics and Angel and Faith Comics.
Be still my heart (but not really still, cuz then I’d actually BE a vampire).
I want to lock myself in my room and not come out until I’m done with them.
But, I won’t.
Because I’m responsible and all that.
AND…
An “Eat, Sleep, Write” mug.
Because he reads my blog every day and found a mug that meets my criteria.
And, because he loves me. 🙂
Such good stuff.
So, it was a beautiful, fun night celebrating Mark and Rob.
The next day, Mark and Rob were off on a cruise with Mark’s parents and his sister and her family, so Real Man and I slept in, went for a long walk, took a long nap, went to the beach, and went out to dinner.
Our dinner companion?
Can’t figure it out?
Let me zoom in.
It was Barack Obama.
Okay, technically, it wasn’t Obama, but let me tell you, this guy was a dead ringer for Obama!
And, he didn’t seem to appreciate my taking pictures of him, despite the fact that I tried to disguise it by pretending to show Real Man pictures from my phone.
Tip: If you ever go to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, you must eat lunch at the Casablanca Cafe. And when you do, you must order the chicken quesadilla. And, then you must go back there for dinner (we find something we like, we stick with it) and you must have the Angus Burger with cheddar cheese, and you must put their special mango-chile aioli sauce on said burger, and then just enjoy. Seriously. That place rocks our socks.
I took shots of us, throughout the two days, also.
Oh, and I was totally channeling Vanilla Ice when I saw this sign, and poor Real Man had to listen to me sing “Ice, Ice Baby” for the rest of the weekend.
It was a truly wonderful weekend, but, by the end, we were both ready to fill our empty, aching arms with our monkeys, and homecoming was oh-so-sweet.
Congratulations to Mark and Rob.
We love you both!
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for my next post. Right now I’m enjoying the view and will be coming home tonight. Ft. Lauderdale, it was fun!
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