Bravely Obey

Taking the Stress Train to Crazy Town

2012-01-22T17:16:00.000-06:00

I was running late on Friday. Meeting my dad for lunch, a lunch I had nearly cancelled because I was so swamped at work and was certain I shouldn't leave, but changed my mind when I realized that the only thing that was going to help me finish the busy, pressure filled day without screaming or sitting hunched over my desk with a grimace of pure anxious frustration on my face, was actually stopping for an hour of food and conversation with one of my touchstones. I can tell my dad nearly anything and he knows me well enough to know exactly what I want to hear and better yet what I need to hear, with minimal sugar coating.

So picture me in my car, filled with frustration and minor road rage, just that day the stress of the last few months/weeks had settled nicely into a viscous knot in my right shoulder blade, determined to creep up the side of my neck. (This has happened before when I'm stressed, but it's been years. It's always been my body's subtle way of saying "Slow down, crazy.") So I'm hollering in my car at the "stupid, slow mother f%*&er" in front of me. I finally pull into the restaurant parking lot, find a space in the packed lot somewhere near the very back, what feels like a mile away from the restaurant, and then as I'm hustling down the sidewalk to get to the front door, certain that I'm quite late (a whole 7 minutes,) certain that I'm going to be late getting back to the office, certain that the deadlines and urgent needs awaiting me back at the office will catch afire while I'm off eating a turkey sandwich, when smack dab in front of me, blocking the entire sidewalk and entrance to the restaurant is a very old woman using one of those walker canes and being escorted by, who I can only assume is, her doting son.

He holds her arm gently crooked over his and keeps taking tiny baby steps next to her as they make their very slow procession to the front doors. They smile and chat amiably, she is wrapped in a huge down coat and fluffy scarf. And my immediate thought is "Damn it, these people are in my way, why are they so friggin slow?" Except I didn't say friggin. I didn't say anything out loud. It's the nasty voice in my head shouting "Why, why, why? Don't they know I'm in a hurry? F*ck!" And then I heard myself and felt how tightly I was gritting my teeth and holding my mouth in this thin lipped scowl. I was scowling and internally cursing this sweet old lady and her kind son. (Let's assume he is kind for this story, he could be a total douche most days, no idea) But here in my head I cursed them and I suddenly felt like a fool. In the ten seconds that these cursing, idiotic thoughts flitted through my brain I caught myself. I stopped myself. I realized that in two months or two years or two decades, nothing that I'm stressed about today will even matter. Being seven minutes late for lunch is minor. No one cares. And nothing is worth cursing old ladies. This is what old ladies do, they are slow. They can take their time. They need to protect their hips. They've earned it. I hope to have someone kind enough to walk me to lunch when I'm ninety. What is the hurry anyway? I think if you live to see your nineties you must realize that there is no hurry anymore. And there never really should have been in the first place.

I stopped in my tracks, in my foul mouthed, aggressively hurried tracks. I stopped cold. I stood there. I waited behind this sweet little pair until the son ushered his mother into the front doors and out of the frigid temperatures. He held the door for me after she walked in. We smiled at each other and at his mother and I said thank you. And the whole time I felt like an ashamed moron. I wanted to hug them both and apologize. Which would have looked insane. But I caught myself, right? That counts for something? This old lady and her cane gave me the exact attitude shift that I needed. The entire day turned around in that moment.

I was seated at a table, my dad wasn't even there yet ironically, and I thought about the rushing, the hurry. What's the rush? Where am I rushing to? What am I hurrying for? Where is it getting me? I'm not talking about skipping important deadlines or dissatisfied clients, but what's the hurry? Half of my stress comes from deadline expectations that I've trained my clients to expect. Maybe I need to retrain them, and myself, for a little while until some projects are finished. Maybe I need to slow down at home too. I'm rushing through books, anxious to get to the end. I want to consume all the wonderful movies and books and tv shows and everything excellent on the internet and Pinterest and blogs and magazines and I want to see it all. What if I miss something? And that's insane. That's Crazy Town. It's impossible. I will never read all the good books. I will never see all the good movies. I will never finish all of my work projects. I'm not supposed to. That's not how it works. So I'm going to slow it down. I'm going to put the brakes on the rush. I'm going to try to catch myself before I begin cursing old ladies, even in my head. My shoulder blade is starting to loosen up already.

I don't think I can actually change my desire to yell and scream at slow drivers or slow walkers or slow slow slow anyone when I'm in a hurry, but I can stop myself and catch myself before I snarl while shopping behind your grandmother as she feels each peach in the produce section, or while trying to order a sandwich behind your dad as he asks how thin the pastrami is sliced today. I think I will still want to call everyone who irritates me a "stupid mother f^$ker" at least in the car, but I think I can cut back on that as my first response. I think if I'm in less of a hurry to get there, I might not curse everyone who's slowing me down and instead walk along next to them, if consciously having to slow myself down to baby steps now and then.

I've been slowly writing this post in my head since Friday. Planning to do some online research to find a little "no rushing primer" to help guide me as I try to slow my roll, and again, synchronicity, my friend Brenda posted a link to this article called "How Not to Hurry" on Facebook this morning. It was exactly what I needed. I'm not alone. I'm not the only person who probably curses old ladies in my head. And I'm not the only one seeking a change and a different pace for fulfillment. So thanks, Brenda, for posting this when you didn't even know I needed to read it today. I"m going to use this as a little bit of a guide. I'm going to stop trying to compare my level of busy to your level of busy as some kind of success measurement tool. I'm going to find the right level of busy for myself. And I'm going to live my life being as productive and helpful and relaxed and engaged as I can be, and utilizing the least usage of mother f&^ker as possible. At least when aimed at grandmothers.

Bravely Obey Cribs Edition: The Center Ring

2012-01-18T12:12:00.000-06:00

Well, hello there. It's been about a year and a half since I started this little Bravely Obey Cribs tour of our house. Go here, here and here for other rooms, and the exterior. And I've saved the biggest and probably best rooms for today. Our modest 1960's ranch house has some lovely features. The open living space is probably my favorite actually. Since the entry way, living room, kitchen and dining area are all essentially one space with just one dividing wall, a ton of bright windows and a huge pass through separating any of the rooms, it seemed best to just show them all. And since they aren't that big to begin with, I asked Joe for the WIDE angle lens so everything looks extra stretchy and spacious!

This house is the perfect size for two people and maybe one small person with minimal toys. Or the occasional overnight guest. Just call ahead for the guest room. Boy, do we like color. I think that's an understatement. The room is mostly painted a very light grey with white trim, but the one main south wall that runs through the living room into the kitchen/dining area is painted a bright vivid blue, actually called Jazz, after the Matisse cut out painting that uses the same color. And then there's zebra print, and a red couch, and a green chair and some more sedate accessories, like our black leather ottoman for storage or the small side table in black and glass. But mostly it's a heck of a lot of color.

This little candy colored glass mirror is in our entry way, right after you walk in the front door. We bought it while in Florida several years ago, attending our friends Kristen and Sean's wedding, and it's one of my absolute favorite things in the house. I like to think of it as giving visitors a taste of the colors in the rest of the house before they've even walked in the door. But please don't lick it. It looks like glossy hard candy, but I promise you it does not taste like watermelon or green apple. Believe me, I wish.

Then before you can get too far in the house, we have this great antique ice chest that Joe's dad refinished. It's filled with our booze and dog brushes and chew bones and extra candles and flashlights and all that stuff that you don't need everyday, but that you definitely need access to. And of course it holds the mail and a tiny ceramic bowl I bought for Joe when I was in Africa in the 1990's and photos of our nephews and more mail and mail and still more mail.

And there's that massive photo wall I was just talking about the other day. I love this wall. It's got everything important on it. Weddings, babies, cousins, friends, family, vacations. In fact we are reworking it today, taking down some old pictures and adding some new ones. Including a huge collage of photos we took on our San Francisco trip that Joe put together and framed for a Christmas present for us. It will all look a little different than this picture in just a few short days. And that's what I love about this wall. Much like our lives, it's always evolving. Getting better and bigger and fuller, until it creeps all the way down the hall.

I love this Matisse triptych that my dad bought for me when I was in college. It's still makes me smile and I think it looks like it was made to fit here on our wall, perfectly balanced between the two windows. Yeah, Joe took a couple of hours to hang it just right eight years ago and I don't think we'll move it until we sell this house someday. He would not have trusted me to hang it, eyeballing three framed pieces and hoping they are even and level, which is my method, not a good move.

This chair belonged to Joe's grandfather Jay. When Jay remarried and moved into his wife Fritzie's house, he got rid of many pieces from his old house and Joe vividly remembered this chair from what they called Jay's "duck room" when he was little. It's long and green and has huge arms for resting your drink on and I love it.

One of the best little practical pieces in the room is our ottoman. Flip up the top and fill it with fleece blankets and dust bunnies or close it and cover it with a constantly growing pile of magazines and books on top. Thank you for coming to visit because it forced me to clean up that pile of magazines. We are in these rooms more than any other and they tend to get cluttered and messy faster than I can imagine. Our kitchen table doubles as an office, craft center, mail review spot, and rare dinner consumption location. It's shockingly clean right now and that will last about an hour after these photos are taken.

Yeah, we like to read. There are books everywhere. They make me happy. I will always have books. I love e-books but they are not the same no matter what anyone tells you. We just got this rainbow vase for Christmas and filled it with random sticks and finally hung these floating books shelves that we've had for a couple of years. It looks like adults live here. Almost.

Yes, that's a stereo and cable box shelf in our fireplace. We never used the fireplace so we filled it up with things that we actually use everyday. Is that weird? Maybe. Do we care? Nope.

How about the dining room? Are you hungry? Have a seat on these completely randomly awesome chairs that we got from Joe's stepdad. They were chairs in his dental office waiting room and somehow they work perfectly with all of our modern eclectic stuff. Joe made the table in college and while it's a little unstable it's huge and perfect for small dinner parties or wrapping presents or anything where you need a big flat surface. And it's actually clean right now. Oops, not anymore, I'm looking at it a day after I took these shots and it's covered in picture frames and bubble wrap.

And then there's the mask wall. All African, mostly West African, some Baule, Senufo, Punu, and pieces from Ghana and tourist pieces I bought while there or just found and loved in the States. I bought my first mask on a trip to Washington DC in college and I just keep collecting. It's been awhile since I've bought a new one. I've gotten picky and I want the perfect piece. Maybe some spears next?

So that's our living room/dining room/entry way. It's bright, it's casual, it's cozy and open but not big. It's the perfect place to read a book and drink a cup of tea. Share a meal with friends, watch a movie on the couch under a warm blanket, or just lay on the floor with the dog while painting my toenails. We do most of our living in this room and it's served us well. I feel happy in here. I think you might too. Call us and come visit. Mac's watching for you out the window right now.

Something Fishy is Going On Over Here

2012-01-16T13:37:00.004-06:00

I made this.
We ate it for dinner Saturday night, with sweet potato fries out of the bag and baked in the oven (I thought it important to specify that I took them out of the bag first, otherwise melty plastic fries) and a salad with feta and tomatoes and a Raspberry vinagrette.
It was good.
If you like fish, you should maybe consider making it.
Unless you hate mustard, then don't. Or shallots.
Or creamy sauces, or capers. Then skip this and go ahead and make tacos like you planned.
Tacos are excellent.
But if you like these things, and fish, then here is the recipe.
Tips to not do with this recipe. Do not swap out sour cream for the creme fraiche. It gets watery. And maybe cut back the mustard a bit. I don't believe humans are supposed to consume this much creamy mustard in one sitting.
Capers also could be cut in half if you have a tiny knife and patience, otherwise, just use a bit less. They are so salty and capery that fewer of their numbers would make me happier with this recipe.
But it was good.
We ate it and smiled and chatted amiably about how tasty it was. I plan to cook it and eat it again someday. We used tilapia, but only because that's what we had on hand.
You could probably use any fish you wanted, as long as it's not still scaly or whole.
Because I don't deal with fish heads. I like my fish beheaded. I don't like the eye staring at me accusingly.
But any beheaded fish would do.
Buy creme fraiche though or buy that knock off Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cooking Creme, if you can't find creme fraiche. I'm no snob. I hear that stuff is tasty.
Also get whoever you are feeding to do the dishes. That seems only fair. You deserve to put your feet up after making this fancy-pants meal.
Relax and let them deal with smelly fish residue and cooked mustard bits.
They should be grateful and willingly subservient to you at this point.
Otherwise, stop feeding them.
Bellow, "It's just cereal for you next time, ingrate!" And see how quickly they get their hands dirty.
(Let me know how this advice works, I haven't tried it yet.)

I Might Prefer Spiders in My Dreams

2012-01-15T11:49:00.003-06:00

I woke up sweating and sad and chagrined at 4am on Thursday morning. This is unusual, thankfully. My dreams usually include silly farces or nonsensical surreal madcap adventures, running through empty houses or city streets, rarely anything that effects me beyond waking up, and in a half-asleep mumble telling Joe about the shenanigans that our alter-egos were perpetrating in my dreams. But being shaken awake by the resonance of a dream so realistic and depressing that it most certainly qualified as a nightmare was kind of disconcerting. Not in the childhood fear of monsters in the closet or huge spiders slowing making their way up the bedspread from the foot of the bed type of nightmare, but in that adult nightmare way. That fear of loss and pain and grief that sometimes sweeps over you without your knowledge. I feel really good on a daily basis, let's make this clear up front. I'm happy, healthy, busy. But there's a lot of change going on at my work, lots of projects, and lots of change in my mind and my habits. Good changes, all. But change all the same and I suspect a combination of the stress of that change, the reading/editing of my draft of a novel that is somewhat autobiographical in nature, and several conversations with friends lately, put this nightmare into my head, and it was the very realistic nightmare that Joe and I were getting divorced.

I have a serious and deserved phobia about divorce. The idea of it shakes me to my core. When I hear my friends mention it or even hear of inane celebrities getting divorced I feel a strong sadness for them. My parents divorced when I was 13 and as I've written about here briefly in the past, it tore my family apart for more than five years. I think the repercussions of it, both good and bad, will always color the relationships within my immediate family. So dreams about divorce hurt. I don't like them. I don't like dreaming of walking in my front door and seeing the wall of photos covering our hallway simply gone. I think that's what resonated with me from the dream. We have an enormous long wall covered in black frames filled with pictures of our childhoods, our family and the life we've shared for the last twelve years. To see that in such a visual way, suddenly vanished and blank, with just the nail holes left, hurt me in the dream so much that I sank to my knees in front of it. I woke up just then.

Swimming in emotions and layers of grief and that immediate feeling of loss and sadness that only lasted a few minutes. But it took me back to being 13, hearing that my dad was moving out. But it was worse. Worse because I was an adult in this dream and I had that sudden drowning knowledge that the last twelve years of shared words and intimacy and dreams and travels and growth was suddenly swept away. Gone. But then I was fully awake. I felt the emotions dissipate like fog as the sun heats the day. I reached over and my husband, my very present, wonderful husband, was snoring away right next to me. I cozied up behind him, clinging to our happiness and letting the reassuring rhythm of our joint breath lull me back to a peaceful sleep.

It stuck with me a bit all day Thursday. But instead of negatively effecting my mood, it made me more conscious somehow. It made me more aware of how lucky and joyful I should be, how I should give Joe more of my undivided attention, and how I need to give more acknowledgment to the way change effects me. I need to journal more when stressful things are going on and maybe talk about it instead of keeping it in my head too much. And so that fleeting drowsy pain served a purpose. I think we dream for a reason sometimes. Working out our reactions to experiences or events in a safer place, where it's cushioned, and ephemeral and floaty, in there where we can't get hurt for long, in there where we can say things to ourselves that we would never say while awake. So I'm paying attention. I'm more aware and I'm ok. And I'm riding along with the change, the ebb and flow of it, and I'm not drowning. Not even in my dreams.

Talking 'bout a Resolution

2012-01-10T10:43:00.000-06:00

So a full week and a half into the New Year and 2012 resolutions are hanging in there. Since I haven't made actual resolutions in several years I felt a little skeptical about my own ability to commit, I mean how cliched are resolutions at this point. But I feel really great. I mean great. Lighter, peppy, gung ho, focused, determined. I dropped 6 pounds in a week and a half, worked out fairly consistently, certainly ate much better than around the holidays or before. I'm using My Fitness Pal online and on my phone, thanks to Amy's suggestion and I can't recommend it enough if you have weight loss or nutrition goals. And I think the gang of friends thing is what has really helped so far. Joe's focused along with me in getting healthier and I feel like I've got partners and friends in this weight loss challege with similar goals and determination. And that makes it easier and more fun and more motivating. My gang of friends are working on a goal together, and My Fitness Pal is an ideal tool, the interface is intuitive and it's free and has a large database of foods already loaded, lots of name brands and restaurants too. Plus when you see a long list of all of your friends who've burned 500+ calories running, you feel guilty sitting on the couch eating ice cream.

I made a fool of myself in our basement trying to dance along to the Zumba Wii instructor whose perfectly coiffed spiky hair and washboard digital abs are silly and yet far more coordinated than I am. I've read four books, three excellent and one mediocre. Read 40 pages of my novel-draft-work-in-progress and probably need to hunker down and finish so I can get to the actual editing process. And our basement is straightened up and on schedule for a full makeover and paint job along with our office this spring.

So first week of January, so far you are much less depressing, post holiday let downish than I usually feel or expect. The awesome weather and work out endorphins probably deserve some credit for this. But I'm staying focused and trying to hang on to this feeling. I know it may pass.

30 Second Book Reviews: 2011 Wrap Up and 2012 Gems

2012-01-07T16:00:00.000-06:00

Here's my last book review post for 2011 and a little entry into 2012. I expect 2012 to be a little lighter on the reading. I'm focusing on editing that novel draft that I wrote in late 2010, instead of trying to read everything ever written, so I don't know how many reviews I'll be posting this year. On a side note, I started editing the draft of that novel a couple of nights ago, which for these first few days just means actually reading the draft all the way through for the first time, and I have to say after reading 25 or 30 pages I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. Oh, it's a little boring, not as funny as I'd hoped. The dialogue is a bit stilted and I have a very extended probably totally unneccesary flashback that probably needs to be exised entirely, but it didn't make me weep or vomit to read it. That's a good sign, right? But back to the book reviews!

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - I stayed up very late finishing this book. Set in both present day and early 1700's Scotland, I loved the main characters, the history, the politics, the twists and turns, the romance and the windy, rocky seaside atmosphere. A really great novel.

Sea Change by Jeremy Page- This book is also set on the sea, but it couldn't be more different. It is a lonely, beautiful poetic novel of loss and grief. Head over here if you want to read my longer review about it for Blogher, but I loved it.

Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman - Ok, what's with the water theme? This book terrified me. It's set in the South in the 1930's when a young author and his new wife move into his old family home. Mysterious deaths, un-friendly small town locals and things that growl and go bump in the night. If you like Stephen King or Joe Hill, I highly recommend this one. But don't read it alone late a night. Just don't.

Three Cups of Deceit by John Krakauer- This book, tearing down the myth of the Three Cups of Tea nonprofit empire infuriated and frustrated me. John Krakauer is known for his thorough and detailed nonfiction accounts and this book takes careful steps to research and pull apart the stories told by Greg Mortenson about building schools in the Middle East. This expose of financial shenanigans, poor leadership and flat out lies should be read by anyone who has read Three Cups of Tea. Don't give to this organization. There are many other worthwhile nonprofits out there, this isn't one of them right now.

Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky - Oh that Marie, she is bad. This was another 3.5 stars for me. The writing is deceptively simple and the story a bit convoluted, but I found myself along for the ride. Marie is fascinating, morally flexible and deeply selfish and all of this makes her a horrible person and an excellent character. I loved the sudden ending and Marie's wild luck. Quick crazy little read.

Leaving Paradise and Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles -These were light, silly, but of course intensely dramatic young adult romances. The first one was decently written with an compelling story line. The second, not so much. An amusing read over Thanksgiving.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen - I like Rhoda Janzen. She is hilarious and this book is filled with bright moments of honesty and humor and insight. But it got a little long and I lost momentum after the first half. Worth a read.

Petty Magic by Camille DeAngelis - This was my jury duty book that I devoured the first day that I had to sit around waiting to be selected. This follows the witching family of the Harbingers and specifically Evelyn Harbinger, who though she is an old women, slips into the looks of a young woman to slut it up around town. Her adventures, friends and family, boyfriends and the whole setting of the book are delightful and fun. A little romp to distract me from the horrible chairs in the jury room.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn - Clearly I read nothing of substance while waiting, this is the book I read the second day of jury duty. A total fluffy tart of a book, historical romance, heated arguments, illicit kisses and misunderstandings abound. I liked it a lot.

The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason - I wanted to like this book that follows the story of a WWII pilot but it bored me. The characters were rather flat and unlikeable and I just could never care about where the story was going. It had a happy ending. I guess that's a plus.

The Devil in Pew Number 7 by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo - This is a memoir. I like memoirs usually, but written by a very religious preacher's daughter with a tendency toward over the top, flowery and dramatic language, plus a lot of religious references, I just couldn't recommend it. Her family was essentially terrorized by one crazy powerful neighbor in a small Southern town in the 1970's, tragedy and loss followed. I read it because I wanted to see what happened, but I didn't like it.

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow - I loved this book. It's told in the form of an epic poem and it follows a werewolf pack through street battles, love, death and chaos of present day Los Angeles. Does that sound odd? It is, and it's also a fantastic, violent sexy dark noir adventure.

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan - Another unique format, this novel, the story of an unnamed couple's romance, is told through dictionary entries. Each entry or word definition describing a scene or emotion or event in their romance. It's introspective and serious and melancholy and it rings true. It's a lovely piece of writing. Smart, small and a bit morose, but in that sweet way like The Cure can make you feel morose.

And on to the few that I've read so far this year! Though Bloodroot took much longer since it was a 13 hour audio book and spanned December and January.

Bloodroot by Amy Greene - I adored this novel. I listened to the audio version which was superbly done, like sitting in the audience of a small Broadway play while driving to work everyday. It's set in the 1930's through present day in Tennessee, specifically on Bloodroot Mountain and follows the story of the Lamb family: Birdie the grandmother, Cleo her daughter, and most importantly, the center of the story Myra Lamb, her granddaughter, and Myra's children. The six actors on the audio book were impeccable and their accents, tone of voice and emotion so clearly portrayed the poverty, the experience of living close to nature, the way people can be so cruel and yet so kind to those we love, and the deep connections of blood. The way that each section is told by a different member of the family and the masterful way that Greene ties the book together in the epilogue helped make this book one of my favorites.

In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard - I loved this book. It was the first book that I bought to read on my new Kindle and both were Christmas presents from Joe. Nancy Pearl, the librarian and book critic over at NPR, highly recommended it and she was dead on. Set in the late 1970's in Illinois, it is told from the perspective of a fourteen year old girl and took me so clearly back to that age that it was uncanny. Beard is a wonderful writer and manages to capture the innocence, selfishness, hormonal intrigue and social politics of suburban teens in a painful and hilarious manner. Just gorgeous.

The Giver by Lois Lowry - Rather like the less action packed, less violent, less flashy and war prone version of The Hunger Games series, The Giver is set in a Dystopian world were everyone gets along, everyone has polite manners, follows the rules and behaves themselves or they are sent Elsewhere. This was a perfect world until for Jonas, our twelve year old protagonist until we watch his journey from naive child into wise teen, shouldering more of a burden than I could imagine. His discoveries, fury, frustration and ultimate heroic effort made me stop and think, and give greater thought to our culture and the risks that authority with too much control can have on the diverse, insane, beautiful, maddening world that we live in now.

Next up The Lake of Dreams which I'm stuck on at page 35 and not sucked into quite yet, I'll keep trying and then a very short nonfiction about the Catholic saint selection process and then a library book that just came available, The Tiger's Wife and finally, the one I've been waiting for that I just bought and am anticipating greatly, The Night Circus. I cannot wait to begin that one, which is sort of why I'm delaying gratification. It will be all the sweeter when I do read it later this month.

So what are you reading now? Any recommendations?

December 31: A Big Number and a Big Edit

2012-01-01T21:30:00.000-06:00

December 31, 2011
What is your "one word"? One word for this year, one word for next year.
Amy

My word for 2011 was actually a number, the number 52. January of last year I didn't make any New Year's resolutions so much as I set out to do these 52 things: cook 52 new recipes, read 52 books and do 52 creative things. And I did it. I read 95 books and reviewed most of them, cooked roughly 54 new recipes often with Joe's help (I'm working on a full list and links to follow shortly, mostly for myself since I failed to actually print out and save most of the recipes, yikes) and while I don't know that I did 52 separate creative things I did enough big creative things that on my terms, I accomplished my goal.

And the results are more than just being able to cross that goal off of some imaginary list: I'm a better, more flexible cook. I accomplished part of #37 on my life list. I can roast a chicken and whip up pan-fried fish without the breading all falling off and know the nutty perfection of browned butter and bake bread and mix a salad dressing and I can tinker and adjust and don't have to rely so heavily on the recipe. I read some amazing books and bonded with new friends over them, books that opened my eyes and touched my heart and taught me lessons, and entertained.

And I learned to knit. After 6 months I've almost finished my first scarf. Yeah, it's really long and I'm really slow. I've nearly finished a huge scrapbook of the last ten years of our life. I wrote 186 blog posts. I took thousands of photographs, all over California and Kansas City and places in between and north and south.

I made new jewelry out of vintage brooches and beads. I made Christmas presents, turning t-shirts into chic little necklace/scarves. I baked and candied and sent treats to friends and family all over. I made a version of one of these for 2012. And I had a blast doing it all. So those were the fun things. I did those. I do those well.

There are always those things that are harder to accomplish though. Not blogged about. Not photogenic and festive and easy to share. They involve much harder work. I ignored some of those things a bit in 2011. With my head in the sand on some more personal issues, sort of frozen and in limbo a bit, I'm trying to find a way to consider this stagnant behavior as more of a coping mechanism that it's time to outgrow. Because it's easier to just label myself as lazy or weak willed. It's easier to beat myself up and be judgmental instead of examining the reasons for my hiding. I'm not weak-willed or lazy. There are reasons that I froze. They may not be logical or right, but there were and are reasons. Based in fear and uncertainty and old habits. But I'm getting unstuck.

So when I initially thought about 2011 I felt like I hadn't accomplished much this year. I thought maybe I'd wasted time in getting to where I'm supposed to be. My fixation on the things I was trying to ignore actually blinded me to all of the things that I'm proud or happy about having accomplished this year. When I stopped looking at the things I wish I had done, turns out, it was a pretty wonderful year regardless.

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and took a fabulous trip to San Francisco in honor of that little milestone. I completed my certificate in professional fundraising through the University of Missouri Kansas City. I got a promotion/job title change and a raise. I increased my billable hours and worked with some great new clients. I volunteered again with Literacy Kansas City and had to chance to tutor two new students. I served on a board for a young nonprofit professional organization. We traveled a lot. I wrote ten book reviews for Blogher's Book Club and had two of my reviews chosen as featured reviews. I was published on other blogs, The Gloss, with my horribly embarrassing prom story and Can I Sit By You?, again mining the perils of teenage melodrama for writing material. And I had a post about growing up at Royals Stadium chosen for promotion on Blogher's new Sports Page. These things made me giddy. Because it meant that someone impartial read what I wrote and liked it, liked it enough to publish it online.

I helped kick start the Reverb Broads with Kristen, joining a cadre of smart, insightful and funny writers. I made new friends, through the power of the interwebs and in person. I spent so much time with my family and nephews, and we welcomed our new baby niece to the family and I get to be her fairy godmother. New babies, new friends, some sad losses in the family too, but it was a full year. It's easy and rather selfish to focus on the negative when my life is delightfully lush and full and blessed and abundant. So that brings us to this new year.

For 2012, instead of focusing on a number, I'm going to choose the word "edit." I want to edit four main things. I will edit the draft of my first novel that I wrote part of for NaNoWriMo in late 2010 and promptly ignored all last year. I will edit my food choices and add in healthier options and rewrite my exercise routine so that it is more fun and less rigid, which always leads me to failure anyway once I miss a workout. I want to edit our house and clear out some of the clutter and wrap up some projects. And I want to edit the way that I've spent some of my volunteer time. I want to find a new organization to support and make sure that I'm sharing the abundance in my life with others. I've created a pretty fantastic life for myself over here, now it just needs a little editing.

What's your word for 2012? Do you focus on the negative as easily as I do? Are New Year's resolutions just a load of hooey? Did I just use the word hooey?

December 29 and 30: Stacking My Records and The Nile

2011-12-31T09:40:00.000-06:00

December 30, 2011

If you could go on a trip regardless of cost, where would you go and what would you see?
Dana

Egypt. Everything.
And all over Europe. Or all over the World. Go everywhere, try everything. I want to devour it all with my eyes and a camera and my best travel companion, and a sharp thin ink pen and a fat lined journal and be away for a year. A long year, light on belongings and responsibilities, and heavy on experiences and emotions and all things new and strange.

December 29, 2011

What was the soundtrack of your year? Of your life? Which songs most strongly represent the various eras of your life? What songs were playing for the most crucial, formative moments of your life? Or, if the chronological approach doesn't work for you, which songs best capture the different facets of your life? (Childhood, Love Life, Adulthood, Loss, Growth, Career, Happiness, Sadness, etc.) Please elaborate.
Bethany/Katie

Oh, for a music lover this puppy is difficult to answer. To go with a chronological look? With a facet approach? Or Rob Gordon's way, "autobiographical"? How can I write this and not take three hours, pausing frequently for music breaks? I'm diving right in, stream of consciousness style and just writing down what pops into my head:

It starts with The Beatles White Album and the goofy charm of Rocky Raccoon.

My dad singing Blackbird to my brother and I. (Which coincidentally started playing as I type this.)

Singing along with my mom's favorite Frankie Avalon tape in her tiny black Sunbird with vinyl seats that heated up to thigh scalding temperatures in the summer. But the minute when that ice cold air conditioning began blowing on my face and Frankie Avalon's high falsetto started I didn't notice my legs burning.

They Call the Wind Mariah from Paint your Wagon in my mom's sweet alto.

Listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller in the car with my parents and they would drive down the scariest road in Kansas City just to freak us out. It was dark and lined with huge oak trees on both sides and we were certain that zombies were around every corner. It was the best three minutes of the night.

Dancing to PYT on the big dance floor at Fun House Pizza with my little brother, while my parents and grandparents chatted on a Sunday afternoon over a pitcher of beer and thin crust pizza. Dropping quarters in the juke box and knowing that whatever happened next was totally up to me.

Then learning to play the piano and falling in love with music, but hating playing it myself.

All things Van Morrison and Paul Simon's Graceland and The Police Synchronicity and stealing my dad's cassette tapes.

Then friends started to heavily influence my music choices. Friends with older siblings. Friends who listened to Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, Madonna, Guns N'Roses, Queen, and classic rock. And then high school.

Hiding the Guns N'Roses cassette that I had borrowed from a friend inside of a Paul McCartney Pipes of Peace cover because my mother had specifically banned all GNR from our house.

Listening to Pretty Hate Machine so much that the tape warped.

My dad taking me to see Sting on his Nothing Like the Sun tour, one of my all time favorite albums.

Feeling like Tori Amos wrote Little Earthquakes just for me to listen to while driving home from work in my white Camry with the windows down, screaming along with teenage angst, not knowing exactly what each lyric meant but feeling them with painful clarity.

Making out in my boyfriend's dark bedroom to the melodramatic AM radio strains of Dust in the Wind.

Receiving my first mix tape from a boy, filled with Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel and Kansas and thinking how amazing it was that someone created something like that just for me. Listening to it everywhere. Except only alone, never with other people in the room or the car. It was private. Just for my ears. Like no one else had ever heard these songs before.

My first heartbreak, soundtrack provided by U2's Joshua Tree, and embarrassingly Lisa Loeb's Stay and Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, until I found the Dolly Parton version and fell back in love.

College was a Lawrence, Kansas music wonderland. My music collection exploded with easy access to used CD's and new friends with fabulously varied taste. Years filled with Soul Coughing and Alanis Morrisette and REM and Beck and the Pixies and the Beastie Boys and Ben Folds and concerts and still Sting and They Might Be Giants and The Clash and it was as if the music world opened to me.

Billie Holiday and Jeff Buckley and Robert Johnson and Squirrel Nut Zippers, it was all right there, blending and melding together into this soundtrack of joy and pain expressed in a way I couldn't have comprehended earlier. John Coltrane, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Nina Simone and somehow Shaggy and Nelly and Dr. Dre and Eminem and whatever Joe was blaring in his red Escort with the assymetrical grill.

Then work and marriage and moving and buying a house, our first dance to Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares for Me, and renovating our house to the subtle strains of R Kelly's Ignition (Remix.) Realizing that I might love The Rolling Stones more than the Beatles.

And then the indie sad bastard, via Jon Sands, started to infiltrate and hasn't let go. The White Stripes, my current obsession The Avett Brothers, Rilo Kiley, Arcade Fire, The National, Mumford and Sons, Modest Mouse, MGMT, Girl Talk, Cake, Florence and the Machine. These are who I listen to almost everyday. Everyday there is music. There has to be. I need it. I can't wait to see where my listening goes in the next ten years and where my life goes along with it.

December 28: Romantic? Eh, Not So Much.

2011-12-29T09:30:00.000-06:00

December 28, 2011
Do you consider yourself a romantic person? Do you prefer fancy dinners, roses and chocolate romantic, or are you more non-traditional? What's the most romantic thing you have ever done for a loved one or had done for you?
Kassie

Oops, I'm a day late, but if I tell you I wrote most of this last night, that almost counts as being on time, doesn't it? Alright, thank you.

Geez, this is embarrassing. I'm a girl. Aren't we supposed to love the grand gesture filled with elegant dinners, horses pulling sparkling carriages, beds festooned with rose petals and boxes of rich indulgent chocolates? I feel like I'm betraying my sex by admitting that all that stuff? That's just not me. I would rather get a really nice chapstick than roses. I would rather go out for a nice dinner and a movie, nix the chocolates and end the evening at home in our pj's watching The Daily Show. I find romance in dinner I don't have to cook and dishes I don't have to do. I find romance in the trash and recycling that I rarely have to put out or the oil change/tire rotation duties that never fall to me. How many times have I mowed our lawn? Once. And that fact, that fact is the super romantic. I'm feeling all amorous just thinking about it. One time I've mowed in eight years. I love my husband. But there is one super stand-out ultra-romantic surprise event that even a practical girl like me gets weepy just thinking about.

Joe and I moved to Philadelphia back in 1999 and lived in sin together. It was a forgone conclusion that one day we would get married. We were best friends, we laughed constantly, we were really really in love and it was going to happen. We picked out and bought a vintage engagement ring, on Ebay in fact. It was all pretty non-traditional. Except Joe wanted the proposal to be a romantic surprise. And how do you do that when you live together and the lady already knows that the ring has been purchased? Well, if you are Joe Sands anything is possible.

After a year we had made the decision to move to Kansas City and I traveled back to KC to look for an apartment and attend several interviews for a new job one week that summer. Joe stayed back in Philly to help his aunt clean out her garage, which probably needed a month's worth of effort (sorry, Suzy!) and so I apartment-hunted and interviewed and had a girls' night slumber party at my parents' house with some friends that I hadn't seen in ages. One of my best friends, Tara, convinced me to go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art the next morning for lunch and an exhibit that she'd gotten tickets for. The Nelson has been one of my absolute favorite places since I was a kid and their Rozelle Court restaurant looks just like an Italian courtyard, complete with fountain, gorgeous brick work and an open air feel. It's spectacular and one of my favorite spots in the world. I wanted to get married there, but the $10,000 rental alone was out of our price range. So I'd tabled that notion and moved on.

I was grumbly about going to the museum that early after a very late evening of drinking and chatting with friends, but she picked me up and we headed over. Tara suggested we have lunch first, which with a small hangover, seemed like an excellent idea. We walked into Rozelle Court, picked out our lunch and then went to find a table. Tara walked right over to a small table with a reserved sign on it and an enormous, colorful gorgeous flower arrangement. In a rather snide tone, I said, "Tara, that's reserved, we can't sit there." I rolled my eyes and scouted out other table options. She insisted. I still didn't get it and said fine, whatever and sat down. She smiled at me knowingly and I still didn't get it. "Look at the card on the flowers," she said. I picked up the card and read it, they were from Joe and said something to the effect of "I love you and so...." But I still didn't get it. Then from around the corner, he came out, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I started crying. I was shocked. He started crying. He was not at his aunt's cleaning her garage. He was here. And he was amazing.

This is from our 10th anniversary trip to San Francisco in June.

Of course I said yes. All three of us, Tara was crying like a little girl too by this point, wiped off our tears, sat down for an amazing lunch and couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day, ok, the rest of the week. It was and will probably remain the single most romantic thing that anyone could ever do for me. It was perfect. I love him. And he mows the lawn.

(I should also toss in this bonus note: my engagement ring is a vintage setting with a sapphire for the main stone, this awesome husband of mine went out and found a vintage ring box and re-lined it in blue silk from a blouse he purchased at a thrift store so he could present it in all it's vintage glory. He is crafty and excessively romantic. Stay away, ladies, he's mine!)

December 26 and 27: Books, Brooches and Things Made of Wood

2011-12-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

December 26, 2011
Write about the things you collect, include photos, tell why these items are cherished by you.
Catie

I love collecting. When I was a girl it was Barbies, and stuffed animals, and those Madam Alexander storybook themed dolls, and rocks, and books and books and books. As a woman I'm still a bit of a collector.

My favorite collection is probably my African art. In college, I minored in African Art and I became a little obsessed with it. So obsessed in fact that I spent a month traveling in West Africa, through Cote d'Ivoire, with an Art History class. We visited several cities and different villages that each had a different artistic focus. Villages that specialized in wood carving, lost wax bronze casting, batik and stamped textiles, woven textiles and pottery. Spending a month traveling from village to village, studying each medium, and actually getting to try my hand at all of them was one of the most amazing things I've ever had the chance to do. Molding my own wax cast mask and then watching the expert artists pour the hot bronze in, waiting until it cooled and then polishing it with lemon juice to bring out the shiny yellow. Watching the wrinkled strong hands of a 75 year old potter forming a slab of clay into a tall intricate water vessel, and seeing five year old boys wield machetes to carve small simple wooden masks. I had to start collecting.

The art was all around me and suddenly I had such a tangible understanding and curiosity at seeing how difficult it is to take these raw materials and elevate them into things of beauty and grace. So I bought and bought. Even for a college student on a budget the prices were reasonable. I bought Kente cloth in bright blues and reds. I bought my very own spirit spouse, see above, named Kofi Swank. I added some gorgeous Senufo and Baule masks, and many many gifts for friends and family. And I just can't stop still. I have a wall full of masks. I have a nail figure Nkisi sculpture. These aren't necessarily museum quality pieces, they are made for sale to people like me, they aren't actual pieces of art that were used in village ceremonies or dances, but they are equally beautiful. Some are wild, some in graphic in black and white, some are covered in intricate beading, but they all have a special place in my home and my heart.

Though I have to say that anytime I start talking about African art I have this flashback to a visit I made to see an old friend in New York City about twelve years ago. I was staying with her and her then husband, who was a very modern industrial designer from Poland, and when I expressed the very giddy desire to visit an African art exhibit at the Met, he launched into a heated argument with me about how stupid African art is, "Why would you want to go there and see that? It is crap. It's made of wood. It will fall apart. It won't last." So in my head, and in my very horrible fake Polish accent, I just have to say, "It's crap. It's made of wood." I love it, sir, and I disagree.

I also collect vintage brooches, books, books and more books still, though many are now the e-variety, and photographs. We have a wall of photographs that starts in our living room and entry way and is slowing creeping down the hall.

Photo above courtesy of Joe Sands

Photo above courtesy of Bethany (thank you!)

December 27, 2011
What does your office/home/bedroom tell others about you?
Kristen

I love this question and I love my house and instead of writing another post here on this topic, I'll just link to the series of Bravely Obey Cribs edition posts I did earlier this year and last year. In fact, thanks to Kristen, this reminds me that I still wanted to do posts on our living room, dining area and bathroom. Cool. So click on the following for our master bedroom, our kitchen, my office, and the exterior of our house. I think these spaces tell others that we are colorful, warm, funny, friendly, and that we care deeply about how our surrounding and belongings make us feel everyday. And that I hide all the ugly clutter before I take photos. It's there, I promise.

These prompts are a part of our Reverb Broads December blogging project. Learn more here!

December 25: Santa Claus and Lobster Claws

2011-12-25T20:21:00.001-06:00

Today's Reverb Broads Prompt:

Silent Sunday, post a picture that represents your day.

First collage photos courtesy of Joe Sands, the rest, me.

December 24: Pretty in Pink and PUPPIES!

2011-12-24T09:30:00.001-06:00

December 24 Reverb Broads prompt:

Name your top 5 best holiday gifts given or received. Who gave it to you? Who were you giving to? Why was it memorable? via me

Two glasses of wine and a cup of creamy seafood bisque are making writing this prompt rather challenging tonight. The combination of cream and booze is drowsy-making. I'm going to attempt to push through, you know, because it's Christmas Eve and I would feel guilty for skipping a writing day again and no one wants to feel guilty at the holidays.

So many of my most memorable gifts are from childhood. Those long childhood weeks before Christmas when all you can think is whether Santa will bring you what you've dreamt of, the anticipation, the hope, the magic, it's all so intense and exciting and thrilling.

In 1981 I had dreams of Pretty in Pink Barbie, in her more than twenty glamourous outfits, pink, sparkly, fur lined, complete with shiny jewelry and high heels. I was desperate for that doll and when I finally received her from Santa that year I was giddy with joy. I slept with her every night. She was perfect and blonde and shiny until I made the mistake of washing and then styling her long ponytail with some very sharp scissors. Her reign of beauty ended that day in the downward spiral of a botched haircut. I hid her away in shame after that and she still lives in my basement, locked up in her case, waiting for the day when she can be played with again. A sad ending for Pretty in Pink. But when we were together it was perfect.

Another favorite childhood gift was the lovely wooden dollhouse that my parents built and decorated for me, complete with carpet, wallpaper, furniture and a porcelain family with painted rosy cheeks. It was sunny yellow, with white gingerbread trim and a shingled roof. It is also in the basement just waiting for some little kids to make up elaborate stories inside its cozy wooden walls.

But the best gift I've received so far has been my little Scotty dog, MacDonald Wuffer Sands. Joe surprised me at Thanksgiving eight years ago with an early Christmas present, a cuddly tiny black wriggling puppy, pink nosed, little lapping tongue. He's wonderful and stubborn and adds so much fun and barking to our lives.

Joe is an excellent gift giver like his mother. He takes a sincere pleasure in buying gifts with the recipient in mind, not just gifts that he likes. He is so good at it that I can easily think of many thoughtful creative gifts he's given me. But I'm not as good at it. Part of it is that Joe is just harder to shop for, but I think one of the best gifts I've ever given him was for his thirtieth birthday, not Christmas. I emailed our closest friends and family, asking for their all time favorite or current favorite songs, two from each person, and then compiled them into CD and a book with photos and quotes from each person. It's a great list and we both still love to listen to it, and I managed to surprise Joe. This rarely happens. I think he liked it. Every year I strive to come up with something equally good. Six years later still not there yet, but I'm working on it.

The last gift that I think of most often around Christmas isn't so much about the gift itself, but the hunt to find the gift. When I was seven my parents bought me the record of the movie soundtrack to Annie. I loved those songs and sang them all the time after seeing the movie, but instead of just picking it up from under the tree and unwrapping it, I had to find it first. Elaborate clues and a race around the house to finally track down that elusive record made the whole thing so much more exciting and playful than any old plain gift. That hunt all through the rooms, looking in closets, under beds, in cabinets, and finally finding Daddy Warbucks and Annie and her friends waiting for me at the end of my search was kind of magical. I think my parents did a bang up job of not only spoiling my brother and I with generous gifts, but they made it extra fun too. I think I could have received a pack of tube socks at the end of that scavenger hunt and I would have been equally happy. And that's the whole point of gift giving for me. Finding things that will put a smile on someone else's face and making little kids work for their toys!

Most photos courtesy of Joe Sands, except for the one of Joe, courtesy of the lovely Bethany and Pretty in Pink's glamour shot via sprinklesandpuffballs.blogspot.com, who also reminded me of Sea Wees dolls that I loved to play with in the bathtub as a little kid. Baby mermaids for the win.

December 23: A Group Effort (Cheating a Little)

2011-12-23T15:02:00.001-06:00

If you could have any job, what would it be?

Courtesy of the elegant Dana

I'm so thoroughly enjoying our first day of holiday vacation and I happen to be surrounded by some of my favorite people, so I thought we would make this a group effort.

I polled the gang, including my four year old nephew, Connor, who happened to be wearing the perfect t-shirt for our prompt. "When i grow up i will be a hero!" So here's what we all want to be when we grow up:

Joe would like to be a very successful travel photographer. Jet setting around the world, photographing the most spectacular places and in his words "with an unlimited allowance for new gear." I would happily be his assistant.

Jim, my brother in law, who owns his own dental kingdom (Associated Dentists in Madison, WI) would like to own several dental implant clinics. Really he just wants to be a dentist, and he is. So score, Dr. Sands.

Katy, my sister in law, is a teacher and energetic, excellent mom of three. When she grows up she wants to be a mom (check) or a nurse (I think being a mom qualifies here) or a UPS delivery woman because "the people I would deliver packages to would be so happy to get them."

Jon, my other brother in law, who is cooler than all of us combined, would like to be a movie and music critic/ninja. Clearly his all black wardrobe would work for both.

Sherry, my mother in law, would like to be a park ranger in Colorado. Really she wants to give tours and chat with park guests and walk along the trails whenever she wants. Actually she'd rather be a retired park ranger who only works part time, because as she says "retirement is the best job."

John, my stepfather in law, who is retiring from his dental practice next month, (yes we are super lucky to have two dentists in the family, we have very clean healthy teeth over here.) John is contemplating a Walmart greeter job, mostly I think he wants the snazzy vest.

Connor would like to be "a moving guy" and "a building construction guy" and "a train driver." He carefully explained that each week he would work at each job for three days and then three days and then three days and then on the last day he would sleep. Pretty reasonable work schedule for a four year old.

Jackson, Connor's younger brother who is two and had just woken up from a nap had zero interest in our questions. He ate his fruit snacks and smiled and his cheeks were all pink from his nap. Jim suggested he consider dentistry.

And finally, I would love to start and run a nonprofit working with kids of all ages, focused on developing creative writing, reading and general business and life skills. Combining three of my favorite things into one. And still maintaining my lavish nonprofit salary.

So the dentist, the UPS driver, the critic, the photographer and I are off to celebrate Christmas Eve Eve in our traditional way: sushi and a movie, probably the very festive The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It has a happy ending, right?

December 20 - 22: Sweetly Scattered

2011-12-22T21:08:00.001-06:00

I knew this would happen. I knew that December would creep along leisurely for the first couple of days and then I would suddenly turn around and it would be Christmas already. And here it is, right around the corner. We're almost there: our packages are all wrapped, our treats all baked and now all that awaits is packing our bags, packing our car, and making a little road trip soon toward our celebrations. So in the midst of all of that, plus an insanely full work load, I'm trying to catch up on Reverb prompts. So I apologize for the three in one deal you've got here, it's scattered and brief, but pretty dang sweet. So I'll see you tomorrow, I've got to get packing!

December 20, 2011
Life is a work of art, or so they say. What beauty do you regularly appreciate/revere in your life?
Neha

I love this question. Appreciating the beauty around me is actually something I'm quite good at. I see it everywhere. I see it in our house: full of photography, color, art, and things that bring beauty and pleasure to my life. I see it in the enormous old trees that line our quiet street. I see it in my drive to work, while gazing at the adorable little houses that I pass, or the line of children holding hands and wearing knitted hats walking to school together. I see it in the leafy woods behind my house.

I see it in the jewelry or shoes I wear everyday. I see it in the face of my husband, the smiles of my coworkers, the way the dog stretches out in the sun. The lights of my Christmas tree with wild little streams of bubbles rushing upward inside each light, the circle of Christmas cards hanging on the wall, and in piles of presents carefully wrapped and beribboned.

Even on a horrid day I can see the beauty in the little things. It lightens any struggle, brightens any grief and brings joy in sometimes the tiniest packages.

December 21, 2011
If you returned (or went, if you've never been) to college to study anything you want, what would you major in, and why?
Matt

Art history, African art, psychology, sociology, anthropology, chemistry (though very intro level, because while it fascinates me, I have zero education in this area), social welfare, public administration, English literature, theatre, women's studies, music history. These are all subjects that I loved in college and would love to dive into again and gain some expertise around, or in the case of chemistry, sociology and music history, subjects I never studied but have always been interested in delving into a bit. Though chemistry, yikes, just not my strong suit. If money was no object I would take any and every class I could imagine, with no degree goal in sight, just improving my knowledge on a huge range of subjects. And with a brilliant chemistry tutor.

Realistically, I'll probably go back to get my Master's degree in Public Administration at some point. I'd love to become an executive director for a nonprofit at some point in my career and the MPA would be very helpful for that. But after completing my certificate in professional fundraising earlier this year I realized, I don't want to get my Masters right now. I just don't want to be in school or spend the thousands of dollars either. So I'm just reading and educating myself as I go, attending conferences, becoming more involved in the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and reading about all these other wonderful subjects on the side. Unless someone wants to offer me a scholarship, then I'd be happy to get registered for classes next semester!

December 22, 2011
If someone made a board game of your life, what would it look like? What pieces would you need to play?
Jessica

Two words: Candy Land!

Bright colors! Ridiculous amounts of sweets! Four happy kids wandering along the colorful twisting trail through Gum Drop Pass, Gingerbread Plum Trees, Lollipop Woods, and the Molasses Swamp. Nothing too bad can happen to you in Candy Land, maybe an upset stomach or a skipped turn. It's the first game I can remember playing and the first time I remember winning.

Candy Land is a little kid's game. It's simple. It doesn't require any real skill, but it's cheerful, fun, silly and sweet. No, my life isn't like Candy Land. It isn't that simple. I'm an adult, so mixed in with all of the wonderful friends and family and things I love to do, my life is filled with work and mortgage payments and deadlines and stress and anxiety and analysis and sincere adult concerns. I want to capture a few moments that make me feel like that first time I played Candy Land, restoring that childlike exuberance, reliving that first jolt of joy at my own success, quieting the daily stresses and the busy busy mature thoughts always running through my head. Candy Land shuts that all away. A trip to Candy Land is a brief return to childhood. Before Monopoly or checkers, before even Chutes and Ladders, there was the simple treat of Candy Land. So I want to work on recapturing that feeling, plus I really, really like candy. (Bonus treat discovered while googling Candy Land images: this spectacular nursery with a Candy Land theme. I might have to have a kiddo just to decorate our guest room like this!)

December 19: 7 Days of Jolly Narcissism

2011-12-19T09:10:00.000-06:00

December 19 Reverb Broads Prompt:
Self-Portrait: Post a picture of you that you like, write about yourself, post a video - what do you want your self-portrait to say about you?
Kristen

This prompt is timely since 7 Days, the quarterly self portrait photo group on Flickr that I adore participating in, starts up again this Wednesday. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to participate this time around. The chaos of Christmas, interstate travel, seeing lots of friends and family, cramming in as much playtime with my nephews and niece as possible, trying to finish shopping, baking, wrapping presents, working all this week, and then staying up with these Reverb prompts makes me think that something has to give.
It's probably going to be 7 Days.

The project only lasts a week and the daily self portraits take some time, but it's mostly the commenting and staying caught up with everyone's photos, more than 200 participants in the group now, that takes the most energy and effort. I love it. But I felt a serious lack of creative energy when I shot over the summer. So maybe it's break time? In an effort to decide, I thought I would grab a couple of my favorite self portraits from that group that represent the most realistic, unvarnished version of me. Mouth probably wide open, possibly no make up, and looking as goofy as possible in the most public of settings, as I usually do.

I took this shot at Christmas in 2009 during a ridiculously fun blizzard in Omaha. It snowed and snowed and snowed and because we had nowhere we had to be, it was great fun. No traffic, just quiet streets and so much snow. It made everything more exciting and intense and childlike, and you could ignore the traffic signals, snowy anarchy. And of course my mouth is open.

This is one of my favorite places in the world. Jackson Street Books is a dusty, crowded, wonderful mecca that I could spend weeks browsing or curled up in a musty chair just reading. This is a visual of the crazy eyed book love that I've suffered from since I was a kid. Book fever, the book worms, book nerd-itis, whatever it is you want to diagnose me with, I've got a chronic, serious, and permanent case of the book love.

Another common occurrence in 7 Days, perhaps it's the quarterly nature of the project, but I always seem to have a haircut scheduled when it rolls around. And since the lady washing my hair was a good sport, and there were only five other women in the salon, why not take a picture while I'm getting my hair shampooed? Having my hair shampooed is the next best thing to a massage. It's decadent and luxurious. So this is a look of pure joy and a slight bit of embarrassment since everyone was starring at me. See, my neck is turning red and splotchy from all the starring. This is what happens when fair skin and public photography mix.

This photo was the last shot I took on the fall round of 7 Days this year and it was totally inspired by the lovely Mandy. She took a gorgeous self portrait with no makeup and it was angelic. Click here to see her photo. I thought if she could be that brave, so could I. No makeup, no photoshop and there I am.

7 Days is exactly the kind of group that inspires me. A collection of diverse, interesting, creative people who join each other for a short time each year to discuss, tease, and talk about our lives and photography. I think that's what this whole Reverb Broads group has been about for me too so far. Getting inspired by you all, sticking with the daily writing thanks to you all and having such a great time because this month is a group effort. I'll think I'll skip 7 Days this time around though. Because Reverb Broads is 31 days and I don't have to show my face everyday. I'll spare you the open mouthed laughing with all my teeth showing like I'm about to get a dental exam, or the embarrassing public photography and the quest for shiny self portrait worthy surfaces and I'm just going to try to keep up with the writing this month. Just the writing. And probably some super adorable photos of niece and nephews over the holidays. Those photos I can guarantee.

December 14 - 18: Five Days in Five Minutes

2011-12-18T09:27:00.000-06:00

Ok, because of jury duty and work and Christmas prep, I've let myself get woefully behind in our Reverb Broads prompts. Yes, I'm slapping my own hand. And in order to not torture myself trying to write full posts on each one, and then staying caught up with the upcoming posts, I'm giving myself just five minutes to write on each of the five posts! (That will not count editing time, believe me, you don't want to read an unedited five minute post, so here goes!)

December 14, 2011
Is volunteering something you do regularly? If yes, where do you volunteer? If not, why not?
Kassie

So I'm the one who came up with this stupid prompt and yet I don't even want to write on it now. Crap. Ok,

I like volunteering. I like feeling useful and as if I'm making a difference and utilizing my talents and skills to help other people. My career has been spent working with nonprofits and continues to focus on fundraising and database design for nonprofits. But what gets glossed over, in the pretty non-profit "change the world" talk, is the fact that volunteering is hard.

It's hard because many times the people you are serving don't want your help, don't know they need it and often have many other time commitments, habits and things that block them from taking full advantage of the services being offered to them. I'm speaking specifically of my current volunteer gig, tutoring adult literacy students. I love it. Reading is an incredibly integral and enjoyable part of my day. Frankly my favorite past time. And while I didn't expect to instill that passion for reading in my students, I had high hopes of improving this skill for my students. But do you know how hard that is? Little things that I take for granted like transportation and just calling when you have to cancel or are going to be late, courtesies, aren't standard with many of the students I've worked with. In the last two years I've had about 6 students, and between my work schedule and theirs, or many other issues, I've not tutored one student for more than four months. It's frustrating. It's difficult and it makes me lose my drive and momentum to serve.

I don't want to turn this into the complaint department, but I want to be realistic. I was about to be matched with a new student coming out of the criminal justice system when I realized, hey, I need a break. My crappy attitude about this volunteer process isn't the next student's fault. It's no one's fault really. But it's time for me to take a pause, re-evaluate, and figure out what I want to do next. Because volunteering shouldn't be entirely lacking in fun. And that's how I feel about tutoring right now. And with that outlook I'm not going to be a good tutor for anyone. Wow, that was kind of a downer. Let's go perk this up a bit, FOOD!

December 15, 2011
Did you taste any new flavors this year? Did you love or hate them or something in between? Will you incorporate these new flavors into your life?
Bethany

This was a year chock-a-block full of new flavors. I love cooking and baking but don't cook at home as often as I should. So one of my goals for this year was to cook 52 new recipes, and I'm almost there! This year I mastered roasting a chicken and roasting potatoes. I made Indian and Thai recipes, I discovered the magic of browned butter rice krispie treats, I made seafood, pasta, salads, sun-dried tomato and feta pork chops, it was a year full of mostly delicious, only about five not so great, but mostly delicious new meals.

And then we took a trip to San Francisco in June. That trip was filled with so many spectacular meals, but the two that stand out the most for me were a bowl of seafood cioppino with sour dough bread at Scoma's that I had on our first night, to say it was amazing is an understatement, and then the dim sum lunch we had with some wonderful friends at Yank Sing. It is possibly the best meal I've ever head, rivaled only by some fresh pasta in Italy. The flavors and textures were different, savory and sweet, light and crispy, hot and sour, just scrumptious. So yes, I loved almost all of the new flavors this year. And dim sum is now a permanent part of our lives. Oh, those soft little pork buns, get in my belly.

December 16, 2011
What are your biggest pet peeves?
Em

1. Jeans that are still damp coming out of the dryer when you have no choice but to put them on anyway and get to work.
2. People who don't use turn signals appropriately or ever.
3. Prejudice, bigotry, racism, and the way that we so often ignore and don't call people out when they have offended us. The way a room full of white people will make jokes they would never make in front of someone with a different ethnic/racial background. It's so awkward and I feel like a heel when I don't say something. Joe told me to call this "grandparent racism" and that is sadly so true.
4. Dishes in the sink that are "soaking," which really means they are full of tepid water with bits of food floating in them, that I then have to stick my hands in to wash and pull out the utensils sitting at the bottom. I'm gagging a little bit just sitting here on the couch thinking about this.
5. People asking me what's going on or what's going to happen next while watching a movie, if you don't know maybe just watch and see what happens next. It's a movie, they will show you, that is the point. Really, any talking at all while watching a movie.

December 17, 2011
Instead of a list of your favorite things, write a list of your least favorite things, e.g. Worst book you ever finished, the color you hate, bad songs, bad romances, bad recipes.
Amy

Worst Movie: 8 MM - A movie about a snuff film staring Nicholas Cage. Do I have to say anything more? My girlfriend Tara and I walked out and got our money back. Though for some reason they wouldn't credit us for the popcorn we ate.
Worst Book: My brother in law is a dentist and one of his patients is a writer and has a book for sale on Amazon. He asked me to read it and write a book report for him so he could know what to say to her when she came in next. This book was so horrible I couldn't even finish it. Just awful awful. Poorly written, hideous cover art, and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be gay erotic literature, it just happened to be the least erotic thing I've ever read. It makes Frankenstein seem sexy. It may be symbolic that this was the first e-book I ever purchased.
Worst Bands/Musicians: The Black Eyed Peas, Nickelback, Phil Collins (though This American Life has helped with that) and Tool (mostly because their videos give me nightmares and I'm not on drugs.)

December 18, 2011
Who would you most like to meet and why?
Dana

This is a hard one. Because I read a lot and possibly I'm a little nutty because of this, I often feel like I know fictional characters, celebrities and public figures in real life. No, I'm not deluded into thinking that since I read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt I actually know what she would say to me at a state dinner, but I feel like through biographies and autobiographies you can get a good sense of someone. I don't have any one particular person that I look up to the most as a role model or as someone to emulate. There are a lot of people I admire and respect, people I know and love in my own life, and people that I think are amazing in the public eye.

I deeply admire the people who started Kiva, a nonprofit that provides person to person micro-loans that help men and women in third world countries start their own businesses, I admire Bill and Hillary Clinton, even though they are clearly deeply flawed human beings, for their charitable work and their public service. I admire Michelle Obama for bringing cardigans, belts and brooches into fashion, and for her many other more important qualities, strength, independence and sense of community responsibility and action. I would have loved to meet John Steinbeck. I think that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler would be a hoot to share a bottle of wine with over some cheese puffs though I'm pretty sure more wine would shoot out of my nose than down into my stomach. So I don't know who I most want to meet. How about all of you? I think a Reverb Broads meet up would be pretty fantastic, because this month I feel like I've gotten to know all of you just a little bit, how about some wine?

So that catches me up! I'll do my best to stay up with prompts the rest of this month and I can't wait to start reading your posts and commenting tonight. Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, I'm off to the first of three Christmas celebrations, yeah, presents and cookies!

Doing My Annoyingly Crucial Civic Duty

2011-12-16T13:00:00.003-06:00

I promise to catch up on our Reverb Broads prompts and commenting in the next week or so, but I have a pretty good excuse for not keeping up with it this week!

I just spent the last five days serving jury duty. It was the first time I've been called, and of course I hit the jackpot with a week long trial. After being released this afternoon, my head is kind of reeling still. It was easily the most significant and somehow excruciatingly dull way to spend five days. For five days, I felt a weight that I have never felt before. The weight of someone else's future on my shoulders. The weight of making the "right" decision. The weight of listening and gathering and processing testimony, evidence, statements, demeanor, photos, and taking all this supposed "fact" and somehow coming to a fair and measured decision. In the end, I feel like we did as a jury. But the process had more of an impact on me than I anticipated.

That weight is heavy. And I didn't realize how much it would sit on me. I feel rather exhausted and have felt that way all week. Like my head and heart are both full with the consequences of my decisions and judgements on another person's life. Thankfully this wasn't a criminal trial, because I cannot imagine the responsibility of sitting on a jury for a death penalty case or a murder trial. Instead this was a civil trial against an insurance company, but it was a significant and complex case. A day spent for jury selection, three hours of voir dire or questioning of the potential jurors, then three days of testimony and a day for closing statements, instruction and deliberation. Not the longest or the shortest trial by far. Not the biggest or most important case, just one of thousands heard all over the country, but the weight came not from the significance to the media or the city or our country as a whole, but the significance to one woman and one company.

I had this whole funny post that I was writing in my head about the jury selection process while I waited Monday. I made notes and captured my observations, funny comments and interesting people. Monday was spent waiting and waiting, watching everyone, 200 plus people, packed into that jury processing room for hours, watching a silly juror education video staring George Brett, when all I could think about was this video of him (Thanks, Matt,) listening to people's conversations, looking at things like an enormous homemade plastic tote bag with Garth Brooks' enormous face covering it, or a lady wearing so much matching maroon lipstick, mascara and eyeshadow that I was surprised she could hold her head upright, or the fifty year old woman coloring in a Dora the Explorer coloring book with no child in sight, or the older disgruntled gentleman who kept shouting that this "whole thing is communist horse shit," or the young woman with the tightest jeans I've ever seen in my entire life and a very ample rear end who kept stopping right in front of my seat to have a conversation with the man seated catty-corner to me. Her behind was in my face so often and for so long that I couldn't help starring at the intricate lace and beading pattern winding it's way all across it. She just left it there, occasionally wiggling it or bouncing up and down when her friend said something funny. I cleared my throat a couple of times and finally tapped her carefully on the hip, smiled and asked her if she could scoot over. She started laughing and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, girl, that thing was taking up all of your space wasn't it?" She flipped her long hair and sauntered back to her seat, in her jeans tucked in hot pink fur lined five inch heeled boots, and continued to carry on her conversation from two rows away, shouting back to her friend until someone from the court asked her to keep her voice down. Then she psuedo-whispered until enough glares and coughs made it clear we didn't care that her "grand-mamma was watching Tiara" or that "John was going to be late home because he was working a job in Independence." She was chosen with my jury pool, but thankfully not selected because I can't imagine having been locked up with her and that lacy behind for five days.

But once I got selected late on Monday night, the whole thing became less amusing. It was suddenly real and serious, and for some stupid reason I had assumed I wouldn't be selected. I felt sort of stunned, particularly knowing that the trial would run through Thursday at the earliest. I'm sure we all felt a little stunned after waiting all day, fingers crossed. But we were selected. It's a weird thing to not want to be chosen for something that's so integral to our sense of stability as a country, but that big picture is hard to see when all you can think about is the imposition and interruption of your normal life. No, no one would want to do this by choice.

My fellow jurors numbered fourteen, including two alternates that were actually necessary by the end of the week after we lost two jurors. Our jury represented a wide cross section of the community. Twelve men and two women, we women were the youngest in the room, and everyone else was over forty, and mostly over sixty. African American and Caucasian in equal number. A teacher, an attorney, an engineer, custodians, alarm system installer, automobile factory employee, a police officer, retired business men, a student, a few who were so silent that I have no idea what they do for a living.

We "lucky" fourteen had either said nothing in voir dire (the potential jury questioning process) or answered in ways that reassured either side that we would be impartial or side with them. The lesson here, if you don't want to be selected just answer as many of the questions that pertain to you as honestly as possible, exaggerate your own prejudices/feelings, throw in a little crazy and you'll probably be dismissed. My approach was more like engaged silence. I simply couldn't act like a high maintenance fool to get released. There were a few of these. I could have postponed my service, but that was a guaranteed return trip in six months and at least another full day. So I took my chances. It was incredibly frustrating and entertaining to watch those few people that were determined to not be selected. Trying to one up each other in the crazy, or the sob story, or their bias against insurance companies or people with mental illnesses. No one seemed to be lying, but I felt like I was sitting in the principal's office listening to excuses and I wasn't about to misbehave.

So we fourteen were chosen, numbered and assigned our seats for the week. We were now a part of the judicial process in action. Or more like inaction. For every hour spent listening to testimony or attorneys, we probably spent two just waiting.

We sat. We did nothing. We read. We chatted. We sat some more. We remained upstairs in the alternately freezing or stifflingly hot jury room. Such close quarters that you could hear everyone peeing in either bathroom. We drank too much caffeine. We ate carb-loaded crappy breakfast food and more pizza than is reasonable. We joked about sleeping in court, ways to get kicked off. We discussed the juror who borrowed money from two fellow jurors and managed to get excused the next day, probably for openly sleeping in court. We talked about quiting smoking, about marriage and women, with lots of polite nods to the two ladies present whenever a sweeping stereotypical statement about how we are "more emotional" or "remember every lie" or "can hold a grudge for 100 years" was mentioned. We tiptoed around the edges of our own very personal stories that linked back to the case in some way. We teased Jeff, the bailiff, about escape routes and hostage demands. We guessed how long we would stay and if we'd have to come back Monday. We (ok, everyone else) talked sports, and weather and military service, kids not being disciplined properly nowadays, the benefits of a good "whupping", our family histories, brief glimpses, at times shockingly personal glimpses, of ourselves and our lives, knowing we wouldn't see each other again after the end of the case. We talked about everything except what we all really wanted to discuss, which was whatever we had just heard in court. We skirted the edges of that, brief talk of judges and bailiffs and the attorneys' quirky habits. The fact that five minutes is really fifteen minutes in "court time" or forty-five minutes that stretches into three hours. The slogs up and down and back up and back down the stairs to the jury room at least 10 times a day while the attorneys and judge discussed matters that were not for our ears.

In other words, we did all the things that I'm sure most juries do, in the same ways that they do, with the same social roles, like mild versions of characters in some John Grisham novel: the joker, the guy that talks too much, the sweet young girl, the wise older grandfather, the Vietnam vet, the blunt talking cop, the silent napper, the man who never looks you in the eye, the analytical note taker, the head in her book girl. And the waiting, the seemingly endless waiting. Some of us with the desire to get back to work, others enjoying the treat of not having work on the factory floor for a week and still getting paid. We talked about the goofy paintings of former judges looming over us in court, and the way that our judge rolled her eyes, and her lack of a poker face. Our straining to hear what the attorneys were discussing in hushed tones at the bench. The fact that the system is nothing like what you see on Law and Order and barely resembles any movie you've ever seen set in a courtroom. It's all more real, more dull, more tedious, less dramatic, more beige. There were no surprises, no shocking cross-exam questions, no sudden revelations that the plaintiff was faking her injuries. The suits are cheaper, the ties are drab. The case isn't black and white. It isn't clear cut, wrong or right, good or bad. The drama was in the little details. In the accident photos, in the emotional testimony of a man who shot and killed his carjacker and hated reliving the event, in the description of flying bricks and flaming tires. But there was no drama in court.

So for a week we ate our crappy meals and sat around the battered drab of a 1930's built jury room, tiny everything, wearing our badges, going through security, being locked upstairs often with no idea of when we would get out, with gurgling radiators and a smelly mini fridge. Regardless of all the inconveniences and irritations, most of us took the duty quite seriously. While we joked to lighten the mood or pass the time, I think most of us, other than Sleeping Beauty who was dismissed, took our duties seriously. We did not sleep. We listened closely. Did we bring our own personal experiences and understandings into that court room and jury room? Absolutely. Could we have done it any other way? No.

This afternoon when the time came to deliberate, we were careful. We were analytical and orderly and fair with each other and with the plaintiff and defendants. We weighed evidence, and reviewed testimony, we read through the instructions closely, carefully, methodically, word for word. We listened to each other with respect, if not agreement. We let the long winded talk, but not too long. We didn't interrupt much. Our jury foreman, a former military JAG attorney, led the group well but was very light handed. We voted with raised hands and no big surprises. Those I anticipated would side with the defense, did. But in the end, a majority, including myself, awarded a fair settlement to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff kindly shook our hands and thanked us afterward. Even thanking those who did not vote for the agreed settlement. It was a nice feeling to receive her thanks and know that we had had some impact in helping to improve her life going forward, in helping to end a nearly six year struggle. The things that stick with me through this process are the waiting, the monotony, the slow way that this process has to move, my strong empathy with the emotional stories of other people both the plaintiff and prospective jurors who are required to share some extremely personal details when asked, the importance of jury service, the care with which the attorneys, though neither was particularly impressive, handled their cases, and the way that the court staff and judge all seemed professional, cordial and thoughtful. We were treated well throughout the trial, as well as possible with the limited parameters and budget of a court.

In general, I would say it was a worthwhile experience. I'm naive. I'm not a lawyer or a judge or a person with much experience in courtrooms, and for that I'm thankful. But based on my experience, I'm glad I was a part of this trial. I'm glad I was able to perform my civic duty and I'm proud for serving. Because the value of jury service is integral to our system of justice, as flawed and tricky and biased and infuriating as it may be. I hope if I have the bad luck to end up in court someday, that I have the type of jury that I participated in this week. I don't know my fellow jurors' names, I sat with them for five days and we never introduced ourselves, but as we left we thanked each other and wished each other happy holidays. I left with a sense of a duty fulfilled and a stronger, tangile belief in our court system. And I'll admit that my experience is only that, my experience, but as flawed and slow and tilted and biased as our judicial system can be, since of course there are humans involved, I think it worked today. At least the weight is off of my shoulders and I'll sleep well tonight with our decision. And I hope at least eight other people will too.

December 13: Three Things, Blunt is One

2011-12-13T20:25:00.001-06:00

December 13 Reverb Broads Prompt: What are three things that you are better at than most people? Courtesy of the charming Catie at catiecake.wordpress.com

Three things I'm pretty damn good at:

1. Observing and reading people, and figuring out quickly when I'm being manipulated.

2. Playing hostess and making social plans for my gang of friends. Though this gets a lot harder as we get older and add kids to the mix.

3. Speaking my mind and sharing my opinions, as carefully and tactfully as possible. (When I read this line to Joe he paused for a very long time, then said, "You're careful and tactful when necessary, but not always. Sometimes you're just direct. And that you're really good at." This is slightly unflattering and probably quite true.)

I want to write more tonight, ok, that's just being tactful. If I really wanted to write more tonight I would. Instead I've got eight Christmas packages to box up and prep for mailing, a chicken to debone, grocery lists to finish and some actual work to do tonight. So I'll see you here tomorrow. Promise.

December 12: If It Please the Court

2011-12-12T20:44:00.001-06:00

After an incredibly long day of jury duty, hours spent waiting and sitting and shuffling around from courtroom to waiting room to courtroom, finally getting out around 6pm, and being one of the lucky chosen 12 for a four day civil trial, I'm beat. So I'm indulging in some guilty pleasures tonight. After securing a literal front row seat for my upcoming week of civic duty, I'm not going to feel guilty about those little pleasures at all. I'm holding my judgement of myself tonight too, just as the court told me to, even if I'm not the defendant.

Tonight I'm eating pizza and molasses cookies, not a vegetable in sight, and laying on the couch watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta and then Beverly Hills right after. And then, skipping any workout or household chores or Christmas tasks, I'm putting my pjs on and reading until I fall asleep. I may not even brush my teeth or wash my face tonight. Lazy? Yes, guilty as charged today. Because the rest of this week will be spent listening to attorneys and experts, focused on someone else's life and making the right decision, and somehow balancing my job in the mix. I'm interested in playing my part in our justice system, but I'm dreading the imposition into my job, my daily responsibilities and my life. But that's the reasonable price we pay for living in the United States. So I'm indulging a bit, guilt free tonight, and maybe tomorrow too. At least this should be a heck of a blog post once my service is done. Ok, leave me alone now, I must get back to my crappy reality TV.

December 11: Is that Your Older Sister?

2011-12-11T13:42:00.001-06:00

December 11 Reverb Broads Prompt: How are you like your mother? And if you're a mother, how is/are your kid(s) like you? Courtesy of Jessica at http://profbanks.com

When I was a teenager and my mother would take me shopping for new school clothes, often in an attempt to find jeans long enough for my insanely leggy growth spurts, I remember being horrified when cashiers or sales ladies would ask "Are you two sisters? You look so much alike." This infuriated me. I rolled my eyes and in a huffy and irritated voice I would mumble, "No, that's my mom, jeez." My mother would giggle and blush, turn to me and say, "She thinks we're sisters!" She'd say thank you and then proceed to engage in a lengthy and personal conversation with the sales lady in question, compounding my irritation into a nearly visible cloud of indignation floating up around my permed bangs. I would sigh deeply and stand there holding my shopping bag, probably filled with slightly too short jeans and some kind of slouchy brightly colored sweater, and wait. Increasing the volume of my sighs sometimes hurried her up, but usually she would wave me off while she finished chatting. I hated this whole thing. Why did she talk to strangers? Why did we have to look alike? Why didn't people realize how old she was?

Now I take it as a compliment that we look alike. She's aged pretty darn well and I hope I do too. Our looks are similar, and while we don't have everything in common, we do have a few key things. We are both fairly tall, I'm quite tall and she's above average. We both have hazel eyes that tend towards the green when we are happy and dark brown when angry, so usually more green. We both freckle instead of tan. We can't hold our liquor. We love people watching and Christmas lights. We both have approachable personalities that somehow draw out the revealing and often strange stories of people we've never met, including the homeless, mentally ill and any customer service staff. We both remain calm and organized under pressure. We both have sweaty palms. We both like make-over shows. We both have good phone voices.

But we are also very different. I'm more forceful and pushy, vocal and demanding. She is certainly nicer and more laid back and easy going. She was raised to be a mother and housewife, and a people pleaser. I was raised to be anything I wanted to be. She tends to be a bit gullible and sweetly naive, while I tend to take advantage of that with a deep level of sarcasm. She likes to be close to home, spending time in warm, familiar spaces with her closest friends. I've been to Africa twice, travel often and love new places, and food she would consider weird. I'm very liberal. She is quite conservative. She is religious. I'm decidedly not. But she's my mom. I love her. So these differences aren't nearly as important as the things we have in common, things that she helped instill in me. And our differences, like my extreme independence, may be things that frustrate her but they are also the things that she wanted for me. So if she takes credit for my positive attributes then she has to for the negative too, right?

December 10: Chocolate Dipped Best

2011-12-10T20:18:00.001-06:00

December 10 Reverb Broads Prompt: What is the best and/or worst thing about your life right now? Courtesy of the beautiful Dana at simply-walking.com

Let's keep this simple. I'm taking "right now" very literally and just looking at today. Because it was pretty much the perfect example of some of the best things in my life. Right now is this: Baking, candy making, wearing an Elvis Christmas apron, spending the whole day with my dad and stepmom, wrapping 210 caramels in perfect white wax paper, dipping peppermint patties in dark chocolate and sprinkling sparkly sugar on top, taste testing Kristy's spritz and Dad's ginger snap cookies, and icing and talking and eating and creating a new tradition, ending the day with BBQ, husband and three straight episodes of Boardwalk Empire.

Worst thing? Slight burn on my knuckles from the steam off of those three batches of caramels. A slight tummy ache, like a four year old, from only eating cookies all day. The fact that I'll have to wait until next year to do this again and I'm sneezy.

There are bigger "best" things and a couple three "worst," but a day like today is just about my favorite way to spend a Saturday. Simple, filled with people I love, spent making delicious treats and goodies that will soon make their way all across the country and into the hands of those we love. So I think that qualifies as the best for me.

December 9: One Favorite Book? Ridiculous.

2011-12-09T10:02:00.001-06:00

December 9 Reverb Broads Prompt: What was your favorite children's book? courtesy of Niki at
http://nikirudolph.com

I love this question and yet I cannot answer it properly. I cannot now, nor have I ever been able to choose a favorite book. There are books for different moods. Different needs, different emotions, different feelings, different subjects, different phases of our lives. I don't want to pick a favorite book. I will not. Kassie at 8 or 10 or 13 or 19 or 21 couldn't pick a favorite book. There have been too many. Too many loved and cherished and shared and re-read and fawned over and memorized.

The poetry of Shel Silverstein taught me the flexibility of words, eliciting laughter and the easy joy that could come from reading aloud. Curled up in my bed in my footie pajamas, wet hair all combed out after my bath, reading with my parents, taking turns letting those words tip toe across our tongues. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who simply would not take the garbage out.

Books read to me by teachers in school. Sitting quietly, intently focused on their soft, careful voices as the story unfolded into the closed air of our classroom. Books with dramatic stories of survival and independence, like Island of the Blue Dolphins, that convinced me that somehow, if all of my family and friends disappeared, I could not only survive in the backyard alone with just the dog, but that it might actually be kind of fun.

Little Women taught me about family and made me long for sisters that I would never have. (I did not force my brother to wear a dress. Ok, just the once, he lost the role because he could never play a convincing Amy anyway. Not enough blonde ringlets.) Little Women taught me the ability to forgive and love others even when they have disappointed me, and to feel the tragedy of a death, even a fictional death, so powerful and unfair and futile that I felt as if Beth had just been resting under a blanket on the sofa in my living room moments before she was taken.

Hiding behind that same sofa in our living room, stretched out in front of the incredibly sunny sliding glass doors and devouring tiny book after tiny book of the fanciful and charming Beatrix Potter series. All those little gems of whimsy and Victorian animals fitting in my hand like beloved dolls.

So no. I can't pick a favorite. Why would I have to? There's no desert island in my future. There are new books to be discovered everyday. And that thought makes every day a little brighter and a little sillier and a little better. And I now have a husband to make sure the garbage gets taken out.

December 8: You Say Whore Like it's a Bad Thing

2011-12-08T18:28:00.001-06:00

December 8 Reverb Broads Prompt: Why blog? Why do you or why do you like to blog (recognizing that these are not always the same thing)? Courtesy of one of the people who inspired me to start blogging, Kristen

I had planned to skip the next couple of days of prompts. I'm just tired. I wrote every day in November. I've written every day so far this month. I worry that people are getting tired of reading me. Work is insane, my stress level each day has maxed out around 9 or 10 for four days in a row now. The idea of coming home and then writing something coherent or witty seems like a tall and painful order. It just sounds ridiculous.

Except on my commute home I started thinking about why I blog. I started thinking that even on a horribly stressful busy day like today, I still want to write when I get home. It lifts my mood. It lightens those things that weigh me down. On a good day it enhances the joy. So here, in no particular order, and with links to some previous posts that I think highlight some of these reasons, here is why I blog:

Because Bethany and Brenda told me too.
To create a community full of fellow writers, seekers, doers, and new friends scattered all over the world.
To see myself better.
To write and write and write and edit and edit and write some more.
Because I'm "hard charging."
To try new things with support and praise and joy and even when I fail I can still remember I tried.
To see new things, take new risks, even if it's just to make sure I have something to write about besides sitting on the couch in my pjs, there's plenty of that.
To capture time, to capture moments, to capture a glimpse into my past and future.
To risk.
To engage you.
To feed my ego.
To check my ego.
To bitch and moan and wail and then move along.
To share the things I love: books, food, art, movies, friends, cities, people, family.
To give voice to my view of the world, in my corner, in my head, in my spot, because it is valid and strong and flexible.
To be accountable.
To celebrate.
To make you laugh.
To remember everything, even if it's the glossy memory of a scrapbook.
To show my love.
Because of you.
Because I want to share this terrifying snowman with you. He will haunt your dreams.

Because as much as I'd like to pretend I don't care what people think, I do. I want you to like me. At least most of you.
Because I'm a whore for praise and attention.

December 7: The Evolution of Funny

2011-12-07T08:48:00.001-06:00

December 7 Reverb Broads Prompt: Who or what makes you laugh so hard that milk shoots out of your nose and why? Slapstick, dry witty comedy, your kids, Monty Python? courtesy of me

I think when we are children our sense of humor keys off of our parents' example. I was raised on the heady comedy combination of a father who repeated lines from Saturday Night Live and had been a radio DJ in a former life, and a mother who loved classics like the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby The Road to Morocco movies, or colorful musicals with dancing girls and Fred Astaire, and anything staring Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn. My love of humor and comedy started with Shel Silverstein books that they read to me in funny, high pitched voices, in figuring out that I could make my brother laugh the same way when reading the Hardy Boys out loud to him. The Hardy Boys alternated from being Southern to British, the only two accents I could manage in middle school. And then something happened.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail happened. When I was a freshman and acting in a very small part in the school play, a group of junior and senior theatre nerds invited some of us over after practice to one of their houses for a viewing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I knew nothing about it. Nothing. Nearly everyone else had seen it a trillion times and could quote every scene. But instead of making me feel bad about having never seen it, they seemed to get as much joy from watching us few Holy Grail virgins watch the movie as they did from watching the actual movie. They would quote the scene perfectly in-sync, en masse, and then turn to smile at us to make sure we got it and were enjoying ourselves. They made us feel a part of the whole experience. Sort of like going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show except in someone's suburban basement, drinking Diet Coke and laughing with 12 people much older and cooler than me.

Maybe it was just the hilarity of Monty Python, maybe it was the whole experience. But I was hooked. I rented every Monty Python movie I could find and forced my younger brother to watch with me. My brother and I watched their show on TV the few times I could find it. And since this was pre-Netflix I really had to try to find their stuff. After consuming all of it, all of it, it was time to make sure my parents knew how fantastic this movie was. Do you see where this is going? Did I telegraph that enough?

I was convinced I would show my parents how wonderfully inventive, absurd and funny these crazy British dudes were. As if I'd discovered Monty Python in some kind of derelict, shadowy club all on my own. As if they hadn't already been around for decades by the time I "found" them. But I tend to take a passionate ownership in the pop culture things that I love. Even very early in my life, evidently.

I slipped the tape into the VHS player, hit play, leaned back and waited for the laughter to explode. I intently watched their faces, which may have helped kill the hilarious mood, no pressure, MOM. They didn't get it. They nodded along, but their eyes didn't light up like mine did. They didn't laugh so hard that milk shot out of their nose when the Frenchman taunts King Arthur and his men. They smiled when the Knights who say "Nee" demanded a shrubbery, but they weren't into it. The political humor that I barely understood, "Help, help, I'm being oppressed!" Oh, they gave a placating chuckle here or there. But I knew. I could tell. It just wasn't their sense of humor. (Now my father will claim that he's always loved Monty Python and that he introduced it to me. But that is a calculated lie that he is notorious for perpetrating. Even now he'll take a show or movie or music recommendation from Joe or I, and then two weeks later bring it up in conversation like we weren't the ones who told him. "Have you seen this Big Bang show? Bazinga! I think you guys would like it." He is also notorious for watching a movie/TV show alone and not enjoying it, in fact complaining about how crappy it is, and then when watching with the rest of the family, he suddenly gets the funny. He's going to hate that I've revealed this. But it's true. And as a side note, he is also quite funny. Or as my stepmother would warn, "Don't encourage him.")

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the turning point where I realized that there were many, many things I was going to find funny that my parents simply wouldn't get. And that instead of making me sad that they wouldn't get it, (rather like it does now when they don't like movies/shows that I do,) it made me feel superior and giddy and kind of cool. This must be how girls obsessed with Elvis felt in the 1950's. So while Monty Python is decidedly less sexy and pelvisy than Elvis, it felt like rebellion. Absurb, ridiculous rebellion and I haven't looked back since.

I don't like pratfalls and slapstick much. Weekend at Bernie's was stupid, the Farrelly brother's movies are not for me. But give me Monty Python, give me all Christopher Guest movies except maybe For Your Consideration (what happened there? yikes,) give me Saturday Night Live even on an off season, give me David Sedaris and Christopher Moore, give me Parks and Rec and 30 Rock and The Office. Give me the witty, the verbal sparring, the absurdity mixed with heart and you will own me and you will get to take full credit for the milk spewing out of my nose. That doesn't mean I don't laugh at the 3 Stooges occasionally. They can be a bit irresistible even to me. But male ejaculate as hair gel will never be as funny to me as Will Farrell's pompous Anchor Man or a little more cowbell. So if you hit just that right mix of smart, witty and absurd, you'll end up with yet another picture of me with my mouth wide open. This seems to happen a lot.

December 6: Trying Not to Eat My Words

2011-12-06T14:40:00.001-06:00

December 6 Reverb Broads Prompt: List 10 things you would never do.

Courtesy of the lovely Katrina of katrinatripled.blogspot.com.

But "never" is so certain and final. So I'm going to go with, "to the very best of my ability and with all good intentions I plan to:"

1. Never get rid of Monk Monk, the slightly matted, well-loved 3 foot tall blonde stuffed monkey that my Uncle Herb gave me for Christmas in 1977. He keeps me young, and cozy when Joe is out of town.

2. Never eat liver and onions cooked by my mother, and probably not cooked by anyone else. This is the only meal I can remember deploring as a child. I can still smell it grilling in our kitchen and dreading dinner, slimy liver covered in all those brown stringy onions. Ahck.

3. Never get a perm again. I desperately wanted Jennifer Grey's hair from Dirty Dancing. I did not receive it. Instead I received a triangle head in 1991. (I probably should add I will never wear eyeliner only on the bottom of my eyelid, but that could come back into fashion at any moment.)

4. Never like the words: salve, moist, ointment or engorged.

5. Never not miss my grandmother and wish we could play another game of Farkle. (Strange dice game that she was obsessed with when she was receiving treatment for lung cancer. I haven't played it since she died. It was her game.)

6. Never collect Precious Moments or Hummels or those Willow Tree angels. But creepy African nail figures and masks, yes.

7. Never will I stop loving the movie Amelie. It makes me happy to my core. And I will also never be able to watch Steel Magnolias or Beaches without crying like an infant.

8. Never buy any of the Left Behind series of books. I will never watch the Kirk Cameron movie version either, unless we are doing a drunken MST3K type of viewing party.

9. Never live my life without an abundance of excellent books and music.

10. Never miss out on the chance to spend time with my girlfriends. They are as important to me as my family. They are my family too.

Bonus item discovered today: I will never be afraid to wear purple tights again, they make me feel all awesome. (Until this year I was a black or brown only type of tights girl. Now I'm all purple or argyle or whatever, it's kraazy, as Ron Swanson would say.)

"Eating words has never given me indigestion."

Winston Churchill

December 5: Sorry, but I Say Sh*t a Lot

2011-12-05T12:47:00.001-06:00

December 5 Reverb Broads Prompt: What is the one thing you finally did this year that you always wanted or said you were going to do, but in your heart of hearts never thought you would actually do? courtesy of Amy at 2bperfectlyfrank.blogspot.com

(I pre-apologize for the excessive use of the word "shit" in the following post, but I needed it. And just a side note, I curse like a sailor most of the time. Except at work and around small children. Just thought you should know, I used a lot of restraint on here. I need back pats.)

Oh, if I were more narcissistic, and that is possible, I would swear that Amy had written this prompt to taunt me. As I read the list of possible prompt ideas that were submitted for our project this month, this prompt dove off the page and charged at me with claws drawn. I jumped back in a damp panicky fear realizing that, shit, I was going to have to write about it. I tried to mock it while it snarled at me, reminding me of my failures this year. Nothing dramatic, I wasn't fired or divorced, I didn't murder anyone accidentally or intentionally, no births, no maimings. But just some general "you've disappointed me, Kassie" type of personal failures. But on reflecting back at one significant thing that I wish I had forced myself to do this year, I could only long for last November 30, 2010.

Much like the lovely creator of this prompt, I participated in NaNoWriMo last year. I spent November 2010 locked alone in a room with just my brain, some half formed character ideas, a dream, some inspiration, some vaguely sketched plot lines and pithy dialogue and I hammered out a little over the required 50,000 words. And I felt fantastic. See, read here. I was happy. I'd started something I'd only dreamed of doing since 8th grade. I wrote part of a book. A real novel type thing. The momentum, the adrenaline, the pride. I had tackled the first part. It was hard. It was baby steps, but I had accomplished something. But then the flip side arrived.

I let the self doubt take over. I read through my first draft and it was awful. Hideous, embarrassing, it made me cry. Literally, and I'm not a big crier, I promise. I've read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott three times, I know the logical need for exactly what she calls "shitty first drafts" in the book. I know this intellectually. I know you can't edit without an actual place to begin. I just think I had the blind faith and idiocy to hope mine wouldn't be quite so coated in manure. Nope. It stank. It still stinks actually. And that's the real problem. That's the real failure on my part that sort of eats away on my confidence like a tiny stomach ulcer. That acid of doubt gnaws and corrodes my desire to open that draft. I question myself. "Maybe I'm not a good writer? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this, maybe I should just shut this blog and take up needlepoint? Why haven't my friends and family kindly told me I suck in order to to save me this pain? Maybe all I can string together is about 1,000 coherent words? Why I am such a wussy? Where is my self discipline?" Yes, I have actually thought these very silly, very stupid, probably very typical thoughts.

So once Joe printed it for me last December, I read that draft once. And then I filed it away like every corny writer in every movie about a failed writer that I've ever seen. I dread when kind people ask me about it. They are only trying to be friendly and caring. And then I make snide jokes and mock myself for not wanting to lay hands or eyes on the shitty draft. And have I read it in a year? Have I edited or written anything else to continue this appallingly sad first draft? Nope. I've just let it sit, covered in that steaming manure. Just sit there. Taunting me, all ulcerated and stinky. Gosh, this is an appealing post, isn't it? Maybe I needed a warning about not eating any snacks while reading this ,in addition to the wanton profanity. But I wanted to be honest. Because it's been a struggle. I'm figuring out what I need to do to open it. So I'm just going to do that starting January 1. Writing about it and admitting my fear based terror/failure is probably the first step. Is there some kind of AA group for struggling writers? Or maybe they just call that AA?

I'm going to open it in January 2012 and I'm going to start working on it. Now, can you hold me to that, internet?

December 4: All We Have in Common are Big Boobs and Brown Hair

2011-12-04T08:40:00.001-06:00

December 4 Reverb Broads Prompt: In the movie version of your life, which actor/actress would play you and the significant players in your life? What kind of movie is it (e.g., made-for-TV, action, emo/indie, etc.)? What would be the major plot points, and how will it end? courtesy of the lovely Emily

What follows is a nearly verbatim conversation between my husband, Joe, and myself while laying in bed this Sunday morning, though possibly edited for inappropriate content and fluffed a bit for comedy sake. I was lamenting that I didn't want to write on this prompt, because it was hard and I wanted to skip it. Except Emily wrote it and I love Emily. He groaned and said no way. And then this happened:

(Please go through and read this first and then follow the links scattered throughout this post to a variety of YouTube videos that Joe and I curated. He handled the ladies and I handled the men. They are hilarious and excellent and you will laugh at a minimum of three.)

Joe: "What about Jennifer Tilly?"
Kassie: "All we have in common are big boobs and brown hair."

J: "She's the one with that high pitched voice, right?"
K: "Yes."

J: "Well, then that won't work. What about Joan Holloway/Christina Hendricks from Mad Men? I know you'd like that."
K: "Yeah, but that's not flattering to her. Maybe a bit Christina Hendricks with brown hair, but it's more like Rosie O'Donnell on a good day, taller with bigger boobs."

J: "How about Jennifer Connelly?"
K: "Again, not particularly flattering to her."
J: "No, but I'm picturing Jennifer Connelly in that movie where she's uptight and cries a lot and breaks a bunch of stuff and Bradley Cooper cheats on her. What movie is that?"
K: "You mean He's Not that in to You? Where he cheats on her with Scarlett Johanson? This is how you picture me? Needy, weeping and cheat-on-able? Are you sure this isn't just turning into a list of actresses Joe likes?"

J: "Is she the one in Say Anything?"
K: "No, dummy, that's Ione Skye"
J: "I don't have a type. Leave me alone."
K: "Not A Beautiful Mind Jennifer Connelly where she's all lovely and supportive?" (Watch Joe change the subject.)

J: "What about Sue Sylvester/Jane Lynch with dark hair. She's not super skinny, she's biting and funny, tall. Maybe replace her head with someone else's? You aren't that mean, so more like Jane Lynch not Mean Sue."

K: "This is hard because I really don't think of myself like any actresses, because I'm not pretty like an actress."

J: "It's more like an attitude, you're like a great character actress, not some stupid blonde chippy. Like a Tina Fey attitude, and you've got the dark hair, nerdy theatre background, and she's a writer, and her voice in her book is great." (Joe wanted me to make sure to plug her audiobook here, because it's that good.)

K: "Ok, so we almost have my actress hybrid figured out. What's the movie we are in?"
J: "Like an indie, maybe an indie romance, kind of like a happy ending version of 500 Days of Summer?"
K: "You're just trying to work Zoe Deschanel into the conversation."
J: "Oh, that part where she's sings in Elf, ooh." (Joe then makes the sound of a thirteen year old boy with a serious crush.)
K: "I'm sorry, dear. But that horrible cotton commercial negates her cuteness for me. Plus she's too twee to be me."

J: "Fine, fine. But like an indie romance like Nick and Nora, or High Fidelity, Amelie, those movies you love."
K: "Yeah, like charming, but more like a heightened reality, not too glossy, not too far from how you really feel in your own life, but funnier, wittier with a two hour struggle and a happy ending, and a killer soundtrack."
J: "Exactly."

K: "So now, who's going to play you? I'm thinking like a Greg Grunberg with a goatee."
J: "Oh yeah, that could work. But I think of him as kind of milquetoast. And I'm not milquetoast."
K: "No, you are not. So a funnier, nerdier more biting version of Greg Grunberg. Mixed with like the goofy comedy of Paul Rudd. Because you are totally willing to make a fool of yourself for the laugh. And you have a dark haired charm."
J: "I like that. Plus Paul Rudd in like I Love You, Man. Or when he's meaner and funnier sometimes, like his character in Knocked Up. I don't think he's mean like that in person, but like that character was written. Who else?"
K: "I don't know. What actors do you like?"
J: "I'm like the anti Leonardo Dicaprio."
K: "Baby faced and not believable as a character over the age of 30?"
J: "Exactly."
K: "What about like a Ben Affleck?"
J: "Yeah, I like him in nearly every movie he's been in. Except more like Ben Affleck when he's trying to act like he still lives in South Boston."
K: "Because you're from Southie?"
J: "You know what I mean, a little rougher, a little meaner, but I like him. Ah, Kevin Smith."
K: "A skinnier Kevin Smith?"

J: "Kevin Smith and I meet each on the scale occasionally, sometimes up and sometimes down."

K: "That's perfect. But we can't think of a single plus size actress that works for me. Because there are only two famous two plus size actresses at a time, one young and one old. Kathy Bates has been the old one for years and Melissa McCarthy is the new young one. I love her actually."
J: "Yeah, you're dirty like her in Bridesmaids."
K: "I am not. I don't have sex with sandwiches!"
J: "That's not what I meant, more like her Emmy speech, she's funny, you're funny."

K: "What does it say that we can't think of more than two plus size actresses?"
J: "I'll google it."
K: "It's sad that you just had to google that."
J: "Ok, here's a list, when I started typing in Google and got to "plus size ac" the first Google auto-fill pulled up "active wear" and then "actresses" was second."
K: "Of course."

J: "Ok, here's a list."
K: "It's going to be a short list."
J: "How about Camryn Mannheim? But how's her career doing?"
K: "She was the famous young plus size actress for about 15 minutes five years ago, Melissa replaced her."
J: "Yeah, there's no winner there on this list. Queen Latifah, Jill Scott and a bunch of pretty Lane Bryant no name models."
K: "And I'm not African American or a singer, though they are both lovely. If you are African American and plus size, you have to be a singer. If you are white and plus size, you have to be funny."

J: "What about Elizabeth Taylor, but like when she was in a wheelchair and kind of crazy?"
K: "Yeah, she's dead, honey."
J: "Oh, that won't work then. Back to the list, Margaret Cho!
K: "Do I have a Margaret Cho attitude?"
J: "No, but I do. Ok, list: Missy Elliot."
K: "Again, African American singer/musician."

J: "But she's dirty, and you're dirty."
K: "Next!"
J: "Susan Boyle?"
K: "I don't have a mono brow, or a cat, or an amazing voice or live at home."

J: "Adele then, you have an Adele quality."
K: "I'm not dark blonde, British or 22 with a staggeringly good voice."
J: "No, but you have that Adele face and hair prettiness factor going for you."
K: "Oh, now you're just trying to make up for that Jennifer Connelly comment."
J: "No, it's true."
K: "Ok, you're biased, but thank you. So you're a combo of Kevin Smith/Greg Grunberg with a dash of Paul Rudd goofiness and a touch Ben Affleck when he's trying to act like he's still got a Southie attitude. I agree with all of this, but are you really going with that Ben Affleck Southie thing?"
J: "I have family in Boston, my Nana's from Boston!"
K: "Ok, and I'm a brunette Christina Hendricks mixed with Jane Lynch height and biting humor, Melissa McCarthy body and a little Adele face. And we are staring in our own indie romantic comedy with killer soundtrack and immensely quotable lines, like some kind of High Fidelity, Nick and Nora, 500 Days of Summer, Garden State, Amelie, About a Boy, so a movie probably written by Nick Hornby but set in the Midwest. Sweet, real, and much wittier than we are in real life."
J: "I think that covers it. I want to go see this movie."
K: "I'll get the popcorn."

This is why I love this man. Because he helped me take a prompt I was dreading, and turned it into the most fun three hours I've spent on a Sunday morning in ages. He's is my dream movie star leading man in real life, who sometimes forgets to take out the garbage.

Today's prompt is for our brand new Reverb Broads blogging group for December. In case you missed it, our group of witty, lovely, intelligent bloggers will be writing on a variety of clever, interesting, silly prompts for all 31 days of the month. Go here or here to learn more and join us in the writing madness!

December 3: I Don't Wanna

2011-12-03T01:08:00.001-06:00

December 3 Reverb Broads Prompt: How did you become more of a grown-up this year? Or did you pull a Peter Pan and stubbornly remain childlike? via the short but sweet (her own words) Bethany at bethanyactually.com

I think I've been a grown up since I was 13. I'm one of those "old souls" or at least that's what I've been told repeatedly by kindly adults or protective grandparents. Divorce and serious responsibility and a natural predilection to overwhelming independence from birth will do that to you. My mother swears that even as a baby I couldn't fall asleep unless I was in my own bed, not being touched by anyone or anything. I'm still not a "cuddly sleeper." I did stupid things as a high school student. I wasn't a goody two shoes. But in general I look before I leap. I think twice. I check both ways before crossing the street. I married the wonderful nice guy. I own a home I can afford. I drive a reasonable car. I wear low heeled shoes when I know I'm going to be on my feet a lot. I vacuum the house before company comes over. I pay my bills on time. I show up to work when I say I will. I follow through.

I'm probably not the first friend you would invite to the wild new club that just opened downtown. Though I can't hold my liquor, I can only name a few times, including college where I embarrassed myself publicly. Does this make me dull? Does this make me a stuck up bore? Does this make me too old for my own good? Maybe a little. But does it make me happy? Absolutely. My childhood from 13 until college was filled with chaos and drama and bad decisions and family illness and serious dysfunction. I hate drama. I've had it with the drama. In my early twenties, with lots of therapy and family support I ended that up and down frenzy of drama within our immediate family. I opted out.

Am I perfect? Ha, I laugh in your general direction. No, oh no no no. But the structure of my life and my mental health is sturdy and peaceful and stable in a way that is lasting and concrete because I choose that everyday. I have things I need to work on. I have improvements and growth and experiences I seek. But at my core, I am a grown up. In the best way. I am grounded. But isn't it nice to fly like Peter Pan sometimes you ask? Could I play more and goof off more? Probably, but I've got nephews and a niece and honorary nephews and nieces that help me with that. I like to sit on the floor and play Connorville with my nephew Connor and all his Fisher Price Little People. I like to hear Aedan's imaginative stories and Jack's talk about his baby sister and going to the movies. And I could hold little Tierney all day. Those kids and kids in general keep that little Peter Pan inside of me alive, just a glimmer, a glimpse of green tights and pointy hat flying through the sky when I'm reading Dr. Suess or laughing at The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Because don't we all need to keep a bit of that Neverland spirit inside of us? I think you can be both young and old, mature and immature, childlike and grown up, but it's a balance. And my balance always leans closer to that solid, grassy soil, gazing up at those Peter Pans blazing through the sky and hoping they travel safely.

Today's prompt is for our brand new Reverb Broads blogging group for December. In case you missed it, our group of witty, lovely, intelligent bloggers will be writing on a variety of clever, interesting, silly prompts for all 31 days of the month. Go here or here to learn more and join us in the writing madness!

December 2: Matt Damon Doesn't Think You're Stupid

2011-12-01T21:20:00.001-06:00

December 2 Reverb Broads Prompt: "What is the stupidest thing you did this year? What about in your whole life? You can take stupid to mean: embarrassing, dangerous, funny, lame, whatever you consider "stupid." via me, actually

Joe and I quote a line from the Matt Damon movie The Rainmaker at each other quite often, really anytime we do something goofy or accidental or absentminded. The movie was good but not particularly quotable except for this one scene. It's about a court case against an insurance company that refuses to pay for a cancer treatment for a woman's son and the insurance company sends her a letter that begins, "You must be stupid, stupid, stupid." It's a horrible thing to say to a mother struggling to save her son. But having just dropped a full glass bottle of vanilla, leaving it to shatter on the tile kitchen floor, it sounds really funny coming from your husband in his fake Southern accent while you try to clean it up.

I did lots of dumb little things this year: tripping on nothing at all, opening my big mouth when I probably shouldn't, yelling at people in traffic when my windows are down and they can hear me call them "motherf*&$r" quite loudly, being sarcastic when it's not necessary because it's easy, making a joke to smooth over awkward situations when sometimes awkward is ok, lots of things. I can't think of one major stupid thing I did this year, but more many little lame, embarrassing things. Or those small disappointing things, like looking up and realizing it's already December and some of the goals I set for myself for the year aren't going to be accomplished. I guess that's stupid. It's stupid that I let myself down. It's stupid that the same struggles I've dealt with since high school, weight loss etc, are still some things I struggle with daily. But for me it's not the stupid action or inaction or mistake itself that matters. It's the way you handle it. It's brushing yourself off when you trip on the top step of the busiest building on campus and know that 40 people just watched you bite it, smiling, waving to the crowd and walking away. It's figuring out what went wrong and why and refocusing with new ideas and a new approach. It's laughing in the face of your own ridiculousness. It's apologizing when your stupidity has hurt someone else, as stupid things often do. But we all make bad decisions, foul up, screw ourselves, trip over our tongues or our feet, it's just being human. I like thinking about this. It makes me feel like I'm in some kind of klutzy, loveable, gangly club of misfits. And I like that.

Ok, here is the stupidest, most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. It still haunts my dreams:

I'm twelve years old and my parents take my little brother and me on a little weekend getaway to the Ozarks. One of our last family trips before my parents got divorced. Silver Dollar City, the Passion Play, several cheesy carnival rides and games, and the one I was most looking forward to, BUMPER BOATS!! Like bumper cars on water, driving my own boat, permission to violently run into other people, yes!! I enjoyed my 10 minutes of bumper boat action, tooling along in the small pond of water crowded with many other preteens trying to crash and knock each other around. My time was up, I steered my way to the side, the last kid to get out since I wanted my maximum time on the water. I pulled up to the ladder where I needed to dock the boat, reached up for the hand of the teenage attendant who was positioned to assist me as I de-boarded my boat and exactly at that moment, the teenage attendant looked away, turned to talk to someone behind him, missed my reaching hand, and I plunged into the water, waist deep and soaked. So this is a bit of a problem. Not only am I wet and humiliated, standing waist deep in a pond of dyed blue theme park water, the cute boy attendant is vaguely apologetic, while laughing hysterically, but worse than that we were about two hours away from our hotel and a change of clothes. We had tickets to a show that started in about two hours. So no time to get back to the hotel, no dry clothes in sight, no chance to avoid more humiliation in my wet pleated acid washed jean shorts. What solution did my parents come up with? Let's go to the laundromat and dry your clothes. Ok, that's a reasonable solution, but I ended up sitting in the back seat of our station wagon for 45 minutes wrapped in an itchy blanket scavenged from our trunk, wearing nothing below the waist. I'm twelve years old and couldn't be more embarrassed if I were sitting completely naked in the backseat. I could have sworn that everyone walking past our car knew that I was naked below the waist, because the world revolves around every 12 year old girl.

Today's prompt is for our brand new Reverb Broads blogging group for December. In case you missed it, our group of witty, lovely, intelligent bloggers will be writing on a variety of clever, interesting, silly prompts for all 31 days of the month. Go here or here to learn more and join us in the writing madness!

December 1: 36 Going On 13

2011-12-01T20:55:00.000-06:00

Good Morning! Here is our first prompt for our brand new Reverb Broads blogging group for December. In case you missed it, our group of witty, lovely, intelligent bloggers will be writing on a variety of clever, interesting, silly prompts for all 31 days of the month. Go here or here to learn more and join us in the writing madness! So let's get this thing started:

December 1: Reverb Broads Prompt: "If the you of today could go back in time and give advice to any of the previous yous, which age would you visit and what would you tell them?" via Kristen at kristendomblogs.com

Dear 13 year old me,

Oh dear. You've got a rough few years ahead of you, my girl. Buckle down and focus on school: study, read, devour everything you are interested in and throw yourself into getting smarter, funnier and stronger, it's one of the few things you have control over at this point in your life. Flirt with boys more. They are just as terrified as you are, and if you make the first move you aren't a slut or an idiot. It's ok to figure out what you want and figure out the best way to get it. Even boys. Hang on and have faith in yourself. Find people who will listen to you and understand you. Don't be so scared, I promise you will be ok, in fact better than ok, eventually. That eventually seems a long way off, but it's closer than you think. I know this time is terrifying and strange, turns out that divorce often is, but you need to tell someone you trust about everything that's going on. I mean everything. You need to open up and ask for help. Soon, because you can't protect your mom or your brother because you are a child still, and your father isn't the bad guy. It's too complicated for you to understand on your own, so don't try to handle it yourself.

This is sort of our issue it turns out. We don't do well asking for help. At 36 I still struggle with asking for help, feeling weak, feeling vulnerable, so it's sort of the 36 year old pot calling the 13 year old kettle black. But your world has sort of collapsed. So I'm saying it anyway. And I know you don't have any idea how to process it all, but just keep going. Get out of bed everyday, make sure to wash your face and hair a lot, because puberty is doing a number on you, even at 36 you still have greasy hair after just one day and a shiny face, it certainly slows the aging process, but dang, wash the mug every night. Spend the night at your grandparents more. You'll miss them later. Let your grandma paint your nails and teach you how to play Kings on the Corner, and swim in their pool until your fingers turn pruney. Eat their crunchy Grape-Nuts and watch the Royals game with Pa-Dad. Go for a long walk when things get stressful at home. Grab your Walkman, play that cassette of Dad's, Paul Simon's Negotiations and Lovesongs, Paul Simon is wise and music will help save you. Put on that black houndstooth skirt that you love with the pink fluffy sweater on days you feel your worst and look at how gorgeous and young you are. Take that in. You are at the time in your life when you can do or be anything. Be brave. You will survive it all. What seems incredibly life or death right now you will have almost entirely forgotten by the time you turn 14 or 15. And get ready, because the next five years are insanely hard and horribly exciting all at the same time. And it's ok to still play with Barbies now and then. No one has to know.

Love, You

We Want You!

2011-11-30T08:05:00.001-06:00

The month of November is nearly over. I like November. It's starting to get colder here. The days have a nip in them until they get downright chilly like this morning. Tights and boots and summer dresses with thick cardigans pulled over them, not having to shave my legs everyday (come on, it's the little things,) Thanksgiving, all things spiced and pumpkin and festive begin, and this month that meant writing everyday here for NaBloPoMo. Some days what I wrote was fast and silly. Barely a twenty minute thought with a photo and a few words. But that's the beauty of writing every single day. The days that aren't amazing or perfectly crafted are just fine. They serve their purpose, they keep that writing muscle toned and limber and ready for when the really inspired posts come out. And there are these pieces I'm really proud of having written this month. Proud because they were difficult or important to me, reflective or funny, or just something I was excited to share.

That's the benefit of making myself write everyday. Those pieces come much more frequently when I know I have to write. I am more open to inspiration. I look everywhere for ideas. Out of the necessity to create everyday, I find myself letting a little kernel of something I would have overlooked in a different month developing into a full blown post. It also forces the perfectionist inside of me to take a break, take a breath and realize that I can't edit every post to Pulitzer prize winning perfection. And that's ok. There is a beauty in the short, dinky posts sometimes too. There is a beauty and importance in capturing a regular day instead of all the exciting trips and vacations and family visits and extravagant meals. There's beauty in the simplicity of a row of days added together to capture the feeling of what my normal life looks like. And blogging everyday enhances that for me. I don't plan to keep it up, mind you. But do I have some exciting plans for December? You bet!

Last December about 6,000 bloggers and I participated in the December Reverb project, where we wrote responses to a set of 31 prompts, one for each day of the month, reflecting on 2010 and thinking about what we wanted to manifest for ourselves in 2011. Well, the hosts of Reverb have bowed out this year and put it back on the participants to create our own Reverb groups. So that's what I'm doing. And I want you to join me!

I had no plans to participate in Reverb this year, last year the posts tended toward the new agey, slightly cheesy and repetitive. Too much manifesting and reflecting. I want more humor, lightness and whimsy in the prompts. I finished it because I had committed myself to doing it, but I didn't like it about 1/2 way through. In fact I think I complained about it rather annoyingly. My friend Kristen and I had talked about starting our own group, so why not right now?

Our Reverb group, the Reverb Broads (though men are more than welcome) is going to chuck that reflection theme since I think we are all more pragmatic and down-to-earth than new agey, and go with our own prompts, no rules, just creative and interesting. I've invited some fantastic bloggers to join us and help create prompts and write with our group. Because the more the merrier!

So if you've considered starting a blog or have a blog and would like to join us, please click here to go to our public Facebook page, like it and don't forget to post your blog address there too. Or leave a comment here to join. We'll add you to our Facebook group, our Google Reader bundle with the other bloggers and you can get writing! We'll be posting the prompts here everyday and sending them out through our Facebook page and group, you can write on any or all of the prompts that you want, the more the better, but don't feel obligated to write every single day. I've found the more I write, participate, read other's blogs and comment within groups the more I get out of the whole thing. This should be a great chance to flex your writing muscle, read some excellent work from other bloggers, and create a little community for ourselves.

We aren't interested in huge readerships or major publicity, but more interested in creating a quirky, fun, and thought provoking month of writing. If you decide to join in we have three "Writing Broads" buttons you can choose from to put on your blog, as well as a twitter hashtag " #reverbbroads11" so we can collect all of the posts more easily when you tweet. I'll be writing here everyday to promote the prompts and the other great bloggers, and do a bit of writing myself, but for now here's our growing line up of bloggers:

Adrianne at arl275.wordpress.com
Amber at amberdsibley.com
Amy at 2bperfectlyfrank.blogspot.com
Andrea at andrea414tas.blogspot.com
Becca at beccaobergefell.com
Bethany at b ethanyactually.com
Brenda at brendabethman.com
Bonnie at zebrabelly.wordpress.com
Catie at catiecake.wordpress.com
Colleen at colleenriggle.com
Craige at craigemorsels.blogspot.com
Dana at simply-walking.com
Deanna at www.soullikeaspider.com
Emily R at warmedtheworld.blogspot.com
Emily H at snowy-tales.blogspot.com
Eva at evawashere.blogspot.com
Jamie Sara jamiesara22.wordpress.com
Jen M at sidewaysrain.diaryland.com
Jen W at heymrswilson.net
Jennifer H at chasingthefirefly.wordpress.com
Jennifer at octolilly.com
Jenny P at kiltstokaapstad.tumblr.com
Jessica at profbanks.com
Julia at awholelotofumph.blogspot.com
Julie at julieclarsen.com
Julie P at jpkirchmeier.com
Kaitlin at kaitmonster.wordpress.com
Kassie (me!) at right here!
Kat at katwalsh.wordpress.com
Kate at katekinsella.wordpress.com
Kathy at kathypetras.com
Katie at theteachermcmillan.blogspot.com
Katrina at katrinatripled.blogspot.com
Keri at kerbearspeaks.blogspot.com
Krissy at vivalakp.wordpress.com
Kristen A at kristendomblogs.com
Kristen R at kristenmrothfeld.weebly.com
Lauren at bluecosmic.wordpress.com
Laurie at laurieaberry.com
Lea at leawasson.tumblr.com
Louise at jeezlouise.net
Mallory at mallorybower.com
Mandy at music-and-baseball.blogspot.com
Mary at blog.the-framptons.com
Matthew at thegeekygay.posterous.com
Melanie at plumbtuckeredout.blogspot.com
Melissa at melissabrown47.wordpress.com

Neha at whereyouarehere.blogspot.com
Niki at nikirudolph.com
Rebecca at smiles4u2have.blogspot.com
Sarah at howardsj.blogspot.com
Sarah H at shrub775.blogspot.com
Sarah at dontcrymuffin.wordpress.com
Shannon at ablogofherown.wordpress.com
Stacy at stacyloliver.com
Susan at howardsj.blogspot.com
Tara at faithinambiguity.blogspot.com
Taren at haphazardlyme.blogspot.com
Wendy at itisallrelativereally.blogspot.com

Check back tomorrow for our first prompt of December and please join us. Happy writing and reading!

Celebrating Fred

2011-11-29T17:00:00.000-06:00

I believe it is a generally understood fact that most funerals are somber, serious, deeply sad gatherings. Mourning and loss and regret mixed with lots of black clothing, a minimally personal homily or eulogy from a religious figure, cold ham salad sandwiches made by the very kind church ladies, and an exhausting collection of family members forced together to grieve in a way that can feel impersonal and disconnected from the essence of the person being missed. Often staid traditions and the chilly, antiseptic quality of a floral and beige funeral home sucks all the personality and joy out of what can be a celebration of a life well lived. Which is what makes the weekend we spent in Omaha last month so special. A celebration is exactly what Joe and I had the honor of participating in, a true memorial celebration for Fred Wupper, the 95 year old patriarch of the Wupper clan.

My husband Joe's mother, Sherry, married John Wupper, Fred's oldest son, back in 1991. So John has been in Joe and his brothers' lives for more than two decades. And therefore they have been an extended part of the Wupper clan for just as long. So when John's father, Fred, passed away at the end of September, it was a true loss for the whole family. John has two younger sisters, and all three of them have a few kids, and now many of those kids have kids. Fred's family is now large, diverse and scattered across the United States and even the island of St. Martin. As Fred's health declined over the summer and early fall, John and his sisters kept the family connected and apprised of the latest news with these thoughtful emails. Each email, weekly at first and almost daily toward the end, had a quick update and prognosis at the top, and then shared a memorable story about Fred's life. They were funny and sweet stories, and such a wonderful way to remember Fred before the inevitable advances of age weakened his energy and his health. But age never weakened his zest or exuberance for life. Right up until the end Fred loved ice cream, loved visits from his family, and kept his wicked sense of humor.

So when Fred passed away, John and Sherry and the sisters requested that all of the family come together. Come together for an entire weekend to celebrate and remember Fred and the love, commitment and passion that created his clan. So we did. We gathered in Omaha in October. We shared meals and drinks, laughs and reminiscences.

And Fred would have loved it all. Babies ran around, wine was poured, and that was all just the first night.

The memorial service was held on Saturday at the chapel of the assisted living facility where Fred had lived for the last several years. It was his chapel and he wanted his friends, staff and family to be able to gather there, looking up at sun streaming through the stained glass, seeing the corn stalks from his farm propped up next to the mums and pumpkins of a Midwestern fall and listening to the music and memories of his family and friends. A slideshow with big band music played. Many brave family members stood up and shared stories about Fred. Through tears and tight voices, grandchildren and children remembered times that exemplified Fred's tenacity, his kindness, his humor, his true love for his wife and children, his steadfastness, and many many stories involving his deep love for the healing properties of ice cream.

After the memorial, the family headed right around the corner to have an ice cream in memory of Fred. It's the most joyful and silly thing I've ever done after funeral, and it was perfect. After spilling cones and dribbling on ties, and wiping off the sticky hands and faces, we drove over to the cemetery for the inurnment.

Fred was a WWII veteran so the military presence, complete with a gun salute and flag presentation took place. It was emotional and moving. The pomp and tradition felt very appropriate and respectful in honor of Fred's service, which was a very important part of his life.

Having married into the family a little later and living out of state, I never knew Fred quite as well as I would have liked. I always enjoyed talking politics with him at holiday gatherings, he was a staunch Democrat and was famous for showing a Michael Moore documentary at his retirement community, much to the chagrin of the predominately Republican residents. He always had a good story to share. After serving as a pilot in the 1940's, Fred had a passion for flying and I remember seeing his face after he had come back from flying a glider (in his 80's!) and that look of pure joy on his face. Even later in life, Fred knew how to make the most of a day.

After the weekend spent with Fred's closest family and loved ones, I feel like I know him well now. Because they knew him so well. The respect for others, the appreciation for a perfect DQ cone, the warmth and kindness, and wise, pragmatic advice that Fred bestowed on his children and those lucky enough to know him, will always last. Fred may be gone, but his legacy is broad and powerful and he imparted a gentle strength that will always keep his family connected and comforted. I'm happy to be a part of Fred's extended clan. And now I kind of want some ice cream. I know he would approve.

All photos by Joe Sands, of course.

Peanutty Thanks

2011-11-28T20:42:00.001-06:00

Oh, the dreaded Monday after a loooong holiday weekend is kind of evil. I have no energy, no motivation and only wish to sit on the couch and watch the super cheesy super creepy American Horror Story that Joe's cousin Dave got me hooked on. But instead I went to work like a good girl, went with Joe to pick up my car from getting some work done, went grocery shopping, hit the library, and then actually went home to cook a savory and nutritious new recipe.

We love the veggie chicken potstickers from Costco, but they aren't quite a real meal. So I found this light, veggie filled peanut-ginger noodle side dish recipe. It was creamy, nutty and slightly spicy and the perfect side for our lazy potstickers dinner. Lots of cilantro, lots of Thai chili sauce and I only modified a couple of things. So my list of accomplishments for this drab Monday have just increased. Add "yummy dinner created." Now add, "cleaned kitchen and watched TV in pajamas by 9pm like an old cat lady." All I have to say is "meow."

Bubble Light Thanks

2011-11-27T20:00:00.001-06:00

We got home last night after an excellent holiday trip to Madison. I'm thankful we were able to have all day today at home with very little planned. Other than Joe coming down with some kind of stomach flu last night and being down for the count most of the day today, Sunday was solid. I had brunch with my parents, got some Christmas shopping started, bought saltines and Sprite for the rarely ill husband after waiting in line behind the lady using 35 coupons at Walgreens and then came home and hauled the decorations and tree trimmings up from the basement, avoiding one very large, angry looking non-festive spider in the process. (I saw it eyeballing my bare feet, contemplating running over them just to make me shriek, so I grabbed the closest box of bubble lights and ran up the stairs like I was being chased. He had hidden somewhere by the time I got up enough nerve to go back down for the next box. He was hairy and conniving.)

So the house is all decorated. And now I want to sit on the couch with a cuddly blanket and hot cup of tea to watch Elf or Love Actually or Nightmare on Elm Street (just making sure you're paying attention) and relax in the festive splendor. Nat King Cole and Eddie Izzard helped entertain me while I decorated the house. It was kind of lonely doing it by myself while Joe slept or watched Return of the Jedi in our bedroom. But I only dropped the f-bomb once while putting up the pain in the ass bubble lights. It's not really Christmas in my family until someone fights or curses over a string of faulty holiday lights. And those damn bubble lights always cause trouble. But they are worth it, because now it's done and pretty and my in-laws can enjoy it all with us when they visit later this week.

Tomorrow is back to work. At least for the next couple of weeks before the holidays roll around again. This week I've got to finalize our shopping list, start working on my handmade presents and figure out what cookies and candy I'm going to make to ship off to distant friends and family this year. I'm thinking salty caramels, but the other slots are open. I'm looking for some new options. Do you have any family classic recipes you want to share? Some treat that makes Christmas Christmas in your family? But the baking will wait. Because tonight I'm going to put on my pjs and pop a movie up on Netflix and relax the evening away while Joe watches Sunday Night Football. The last gasp of the holiday weekend. Hope you had a good one too. Because tomorrow it's back to reality.

7 1/2 Hour Thanks

2011-11-26T18:10:00.001-06:00

Strips of concrete, lined down the middle in bright white and yellow, to keep us all in our places, rolling down the road, passing other families and singles and grandparents heading home, cars packed with lugagge, a sad looking middle-aged man driving an empty rusty sedan with the windows cracked to let out the constant trail of his cigarette smoke, packed minivans with three tiny car seats Elmo playing on a tiny screen speeding across the miles, all of us right next each other but also entirely alone in our own bubbles. Listening to the radio, rolling across the miles and highways and towns and states.

Casey's General Store, the Kum and Go, Conoco, McDonalds, BP, DQ, all flashing lights and greasy 10 minute fuel. Big rig drivers pump their air brakes to slow down to exit for the night. Sleeping in their cabs after a quick shower and piece of pie after dinner. We stop for gas or drinks, back in the car after stretching our legs, eyes glazed over from the miles and the stale air, making good time, reaching our destination. Keeping on track with home in mind, playing someone else's story to make our time trapped in the car speed by faster. While somehow living our own story at the same time.

The last hour feels the longest. Driving past the empty amusement park, the darkened shadows of hulking roller coasters still make my stomach flutter like a little kid. Remembering that thrill of driving past them and their impossible size looming over the highway, somehow both exciting and menacing on the horizon. They mean we are almost home. They greet us on the edge of town like a man-made mountain range in our flat prairie town. Telling us we have arrived.

Black Friday Thanks

2011-11-25T20:39:00.001-06:00

The day after Thanksgiving is usually mellow for our family. We aren't big shoppers. No one got up at 3am to hit Target. We are more of a movies and talking and snacking on leftovers kind of clan. And usually a walk. Because aren't we all usually a little desperate for some exercise after all the feasting?

After a quick visit with the grandparents before their trip back to Philadelphia. And an afternoon spent watching football, eating Texas caviar, leftovers and veggies and dip and running around after the little kids, we all wrapped up in warm jackets and gloves. Loaded ourselves in the car and headed over to a beautiful walking trail near the hotel where half of us are staying.

It was a perfect afternoon for a walk. Cloudy and crisp, the kids rode their bikes, we strolled along and chatted and enjoyed the scenery. It was a perfect little mile or so. Nice to stretch our legs, breathe some fresh air and avoid the mall at all costs.

Tomorrow we head back home. Our holiday was everything we wanted it to be. Here was all the family, pie, brussels sprouts cooked in blue cheese and cream, long conversations about weddings and Dubstep, shared book and movie recommendations, recitation of our favorite Parks and Rec lines, and plenty of baby holding time, snotty noses and hugs from the cutest little boys I know. Big thanks to Jim and Katy, Mary Jo, Bonnie, and everyone else who made our holiday so full of thanks, joy and the pleasures of holding one sleepy baby girl so long my arm fell asleep. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tomorrow, though I'll miss our wake up call from two little ragamuffins bursting into our room at 6:30am.

Feeding Frenzy Thanks

2011-11-24T17:50:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Like a Norman Rockwell painting, today was filled with family and friends, three different turkeys- one fried, one roasted and one crockpotted. Wine flowed. Little kids ran around, played with uncles and great grandparents. Babies got passed from aunt to uncle to cousins who've held maybe one baby in their entire lives. Look at all those desserts. Insanity, delicious insanity.

Jack insisted that I take his picture, while his brother had little interest in the camera, he was busy flying planes and managing the runway on my iPad.

And now we are sprawled across couches, watching football, talking books, the frenzy of Black Friday, and getting progressively sleepier. It's been a long, delightful day. I hope you day was filled with warmth and friendship and teasing and laughter and so much food. I'm eating a caramel right now and flipping through Target ads and chatting with Jon Sands about the discount charms of Marshalls. I deem today a really great day.

In Between

2011-11-23T18:39:00.001-06:00

I'm writing this in the passenger seat of Joe's car half way through our trip up to Madison for Thanksgiving. Joe is listening to one of his many tech podcasts, verbose men and women currently discussing X-men characters as cell phone brands, Android as Mystique, and I'm typing away thanks to the magic of the iPad. It's a nerd explosion up in here.

We just finished listening to an hour long episode of This American Life all about the middle school experience. Somehow it took us almost two and half hours to finish listening to this one podcast because we kept pausing the show to talk to each other. You'd think after 10 years of marriage we would already know all of each other's childhood stories, but for some reason middle school is sort of this awkward dead zone. Maybe it's the horror of being 11-13 years old, the peer pressure, the hormones, the decades that have passed since we lived out these experiences, that make us want to forget those years. But listening to middle school students talk about their daily lives and listening to other writers share their hilarious and embarrassing stories sort of broke open our memories. We suddenly started recalling clothes and friends and being bussed from one side of town to another, and hideous one piece gym uniforms, polyester swimsuits that were owned by the school and worn to swim in and then turned back in to be washed and passed out to the next class, gag. (That was Joe's memory, thank god, not mine, because the idea of shared swimsuits, frankly the idea of having to wear a swimsuit in middle school at all, is horrifying to me, in fact I think I actually had nightmares about this when I was 12.)

The stories on This American Life included an interview with a fascinating researcher who has studied the preteen/young teenage brain and helped to explain why middle school is such a painful, extraordinary and often challenging time for kids. The brain cells of 11 and 12 year olds are overproducing at a rapid rate and when that production slows around 12 or 13, those cells have to fight it out to survive, so those cells that are studying and focused and frequently exercised survive. Focused on Spanish, or music or English, often those things that you become interested in at this age become the things the adult you is still interested in. Middle school age kids are still trying to figure out who they are, their identities aren't solidified yet. They are open and ready to try on new identities and new interests, new friends, figure out their place in the complex social strata of school. This all makes sense.

In 7th grade I vividly remember writing a story for my English class. It was some type of first person journal written by Vincent Van Gogh. I loved writing it. I remember that feeling of making up the details and emotions around the brief bit of his story that I did know and how powerful that felt. I can still see the compliments that my teacher wrote on the paper in her curvy red handwriting. Mrs. Komm was my teacher that semester and she was very very petite and she wore the highest heels that I had ever seen, everyday, while standing up and teaching class for 8 hours, she clip clopped down the hall and she was fantastic. I was hooked on writing.

So yes, the learning and education and experimentation can be wonderful in middle school. That openness and lack of cynicism makes learning new things exciting and interesting. But that sudden desire to find your place and figure out who you are in the larger world, makes the social side of school so painful. The hormones, the anxiety, the unwritten social rules, the sudden arrival of "cool" and "uncool", the desire to blend in and never never stand out because to stand out is to invite ridicule, yeah, those parts aren't nearly as fun.

I had good friends in middle school. But I also took part in those "mean girls" activities too. Excluding friends from the lunch table for no good reason. Struggling to french roll the perfect Guess jeans so I could look just like the drill team girls did. Getting uninvited from my friend's birthday party because her mom wouldn't let her invite more than 12 girls and I would have made it 13 then she ran off giggling to a group of our friends and I could hear her repeating what she'd told me, confirming for me that it was a lie, and laughing. Talking about friends behind their backs. Picking and teasing and not bullying, but not being nice always either. I don't think I was a "mean girl" often, but I was too inside my own head, letting my own self esteem and anxiety drive my actions. But I was 12.

Middle school is a no man's land. You aren't a kid anymore. You become aware suddenly of the rest of the world and at the same time terrified about where you fit in inside of that world. You lack the maturity of an adult to deal with those anxieties and fears, and so you act stupid, sometimes cruel. I wish at 12, I had known that almost everyone was nervous and uncomfortable at that afterschool dance. That everyone wanted to slow dance with someone and were equally scared that it would happen and that it wouldn't.

At 12, I was still secretly playing with Barbies. I had a Coca-Cola swimsuit with a little skirt. I though that spending the night at a friend's house, playing with the Quija board, watching Erasure, Madonna and Living Colour videos and then doing each other's hair was the ultimate way to spend the evening. I was in the chess club, but only because I had been sick on the club selection day and all of the other clubs were full. The constant rumor mill that flowed through those halls, sharing a locker, figuring out how to talk to boys without turning bright red (I still haven't figured that out.) Suddenly capable of self reflection, trying things on to see if it's you, open and flexible, picking friends for the first time, not sure who you are yet, but not yet jaded.

I can still feel that self conscious 12 year old inside of me, nervously standing in gym class, wearing that itchy gray polyester, my required t-shirt with my name written in block letters across my growing chest, waiting to learn how to dance a waltz with a boy almost eight inches shorter than me. My palms are sweating just thinking about it. That tall, awkward girl, who bumped her elbows and knees on everything, is still inside me somewhere, I'm just thankful I never have to attend middle school again, because I'm pretty sure my jeans aren't nearly cool enough.

Stuffing Your Face Early

2011-11-22T20:42:00.001-06:00

How are you cooking your thanksgiving turkey? Maybe you're going with a tofurkey or maybe a ham just to mix it up. Maybe you've decided that deep frying is the way to go. I hear it is the most delicious way to serve turkey. But if you haven't yet bought the deep fried turkey equipment or maybe your co-workers forced you to watch the horrifying videos of idiots cooking frozen birds in overfull pots of oil and then setting their decks on fire instilling in you a new deep-seated fear of setting your house or self on fire while 25 of your closest family members watch, might I suggest dry brining?

There's some scientific mumbo-jumbo explaining why dry or wet brining works and makes for a super juicy super flavorful turkey, something about opening the pores or saline transfer, I don't know, I'm not Alton Brown, so I can't explain it, but he does, here. I just know that based on entirely anecdotal evidence, it's totally true and absolutely the best turkey I've ever had. Here's the recipe Joe used and the flavored salt recipe as well. It's easy as long as you start early enough and it doesn't need to involve an enormous bucket of water taking up all of the space in your fridge like wet brining does. And Joe got to use the mortar and pestle, he was very excited about this. And he will give me a resentful, "why did you say that? I wasn't that excited." look, and we will all know that I'm right.

No faux Thanksgiving is complete without some kind of pumpkin based dessert. I like traditional pumpkin pie. I just know that I'll be having some scrumptious pumpkin pie in a few short days. I went with a lighter, double layer treat instead. One layer Cool Whip, cream cheese and sugar, then topped with pumpkin, vanilla pudding and more sugar, all poured over graham cracker crust. No baking, no oven, just two bowls, two layers, and two spoons to lick when you are done. Pop those pies in the fridge and four hours later you have yum. Here's the recipe. My co-workers gave their stamp of approval to this pie at our potluck on Monday. So you don't just have to trust me. More Cool Whip on top if you like a little excess, and isn't that the name of the game this time of year?

Somehow I managed to marry a man who doesn't like stuffing. Or as he would call it "soggy, mushy bread." Why waste your time on that when there's mashed potatoes or green bean casserole? But this stuffing recipe was so good, he had leftovers and actually complimented my soggy, mushy bread. I borrowed this recipe from Pioneer Woman's site and then modified the heck out of it. No mushrooms, swap french bread for some whole grain bread, add a little apple cider for the wine, since I forgot to buy wine at the store and I'm too lazy to go buy it just for "soggy bread," and slightly spicy pork sausage instead of italian sausage, because the same person who doesn't like mushrooms or soggy bread also hates fennel in his sausage. This stuffing was fantastic. Sweet and savory, crunchy bits on top and moist and herby on the inside. Plus it has this warm golden color from the turmeric. But then again, I love some soggy, mushy bread as long as it's got a little sage and some apples. (Side note: after making cornbread in a cast iron skillet for the first time I will never make it any other way, it was perfect. Plus I felt like someone's tough, no-nonsense grandmother cooking on the farm with these ridiculously strong forearms acquired from lifting cast iron skillets at every meal.)

If you'd told me five years ago that I would willingly and joyfully be making brussels sprouts as a side dish for our mini-thanksgiving, I would have laughed in your face and told you that they taste like tiny cabbage scented sweat socks. But I was wrong. I had only ever eaten steamed brussels sprouts and I still hold the opinion that they are heinous and sour. But roasted with shallots and olive oil and doused liberally with balsamic vinegar, they are tangy and slightly sweet and bitter and earthy and perfect little morsels of veggie goodness. Try them please. They will surprise you. Here's the recipe we used, but if you add some butter and some bacon, they are even better.

See how beautifully browned and crispy Joe's turkey turned out? He patted and seasoned and bagged and dried and coddled that baby off and on for two days, and we were rewarded mightily. It was juicy and perfectly salty and now I'm scouring the internet for recipes worthy of it's leftovers. We whipped up a quick gravy to go with the mashed potatoes that my parents brought, and basically to drizzle over anything that made it onto our plates. It is accurately called The Best Gravy Recipe Ever by Alton Brown and it is heavy with red wine, herbs and turkey drippings and those dark crispy fatty bits on the bottom of the pan, they have a fancy name that Joe could tell you but I've forgotten, I'll just call them crispy bits.

We had a feast. We had wine. We had a pretty table. I got out cloth napkins and these things called napkin rings. Joe moved his laptop and I dusted our kitchen table which we hadn't actually eaten at in weeks. Then the clean up, wow we had dishes, sweet lord, did we have dishes. Again, the sign of a good dinner party, three loads of dishes in the dishwasher. That was our feast. Try some of the recipes we used, they were all pretty easy and definitely crowd pleasing. Ok, four person pleasing, but still, we have good taste.

Now on to the real holiday! So what are your big holiday plans? I plan to be as helpful as possible, with minimal sarcasm on Thanksgiving, as my sister-in-law and brother-in-law take on the mighty task of hosting 25 family members for dinner. I've been told that holding my baby niece may be on my lists of helpful tasks. I hope I can handle it. That and some sweet potatoes sound like a pretty perfect way to spend the day.

Beeper King Thanks

2011-11-21T23:23:00.001-06:00

Today I'm thankful for:

Happy hour with some smart, funny, excellent women and a cold dirty martini.
30 Rock rerun with several of my favorite characters including Dennis Duffy, the Beeper King, which is second only to the Cleveland episode as my favorite.
Coming home to delicious thanksgiving leftovers for dinner.
Emails from people sharing stories that made me feel entirely surrounded by supportive friends who are sadly going through very similar struggles.
And the fact that this work week is only 2.5 days long and by Wednesday I'll get to hang out with many of my favorite Wisconsinites, Pennsylvanians and Nebraskans, hopefully avoiding all heated political discussions,at least while sitting at the dinner table.
What are you thankful for on this dreary, cold Monday?

Just So Tough

2011-11-20T16:21:00.001-06:00

I thought I would be writing a post all about our early thanksgiving day of cooking and prep. The smells bubbling in the kitchen and filling the house with warmth and growling stomachs, but I'm not today. Instead I've gone about my cooking and prep, with joy and pleasure alongside Joe, but with this constant sickening, hollow pit in my stomach. This ache that has been there for a very long time because someone I deeply love is an alcoholic. I have this hideous feeling of helplessness and guilt, mixed confusingly with anger and frustration. And so instead of writing about cornbread stuffing and turkey brining, all I can think about is my loved one. I opened a heartbreaking email first thing this morning from my loved one. Full of pain and hurt and self hatred, and a plea for help and a desire to go into rehab and frankly there is nothing I can do. Other than offering my support and my desire for their good choices and strength, this is a path that I can't walk for them. I can't call around and find a rehab for them. I can't and won't pay for it and until they decide to make an effort to get better I'm going to be deeply skeptical and cynical. I hate feeling this way. I want to fix it. I want to make it all better.

And this is my personality flaw. This desire to take the pain away for my loved ones when it's not my place, or my responsibility, or even a healthy way to help them. I can't fix it. I can't solve it with good advice and a shoulder to cry on. I have to put up these barriers because they've hurt me so many times. I have to keep myself apart a bit for my own self preservation. I don't want to be an enabler, so I have to stand back and just watch. Alcoholics can be manipulative, deceptive and so often passive aggressive. They can also be intelligent, passionate, loving and dynamic, but their addiction makes them deeply selfish and stuck sometimes. They control the people around them with their addiction. They can suck all of the energy out of their family. But this doesn't stop you from loving them. It just stops you from being able to get too close. So thanksgiving will wait. And I'll sit here for the rest of the day questioning myself. Wondering if I've made the right decision, wondering if I've done enough and only letting myself cry for a few moments. Because this isn't my addiction. This isn't my responsibility and even the strength of my love can't solve the problem. So I'll eat some turkey and hug my family and the day will go on. And in the back of my head I'll be wondering what he's doing and thinking right now.

Meet Cute Thanks

2011-11-19T22:21:00.001-06:00

When I was a teenager I thought adulthood would look like a movie. My life would be a series of parties and dates, pretty dresses, a cozy house, someone who loved me, a career that I adored but that part was a bit hazy, time to read every book I wanted. Maybe marriage, as long as I didn't screw it up like my parents, probably kids at some point, but even though I was a pretty mature kid I don't think I ever thought about the responsibilities of adulthood. I just thought about having freedom. Being out from under my parents' control, away from the rules and chores and curfews. I would get to do exactly what I wanted. Spend all the time I could imagine with my boyfriend and my friends. Drive anywhere, do anything I could dream up. Silly girl.

I think while many of the things I pictured as a naive kid have come true in certain ways, there are so many dull realities that children don't see, can't imagine, won't anticipate. Those parts never make it into those glossy, perfect movies. But don't we need that gloss occasionally? Put aside the laundry and the car inspections and the deck staining? Cut through the monotony of daily chores and tasks, like the three hours of yard work we did today, and plan an evening out with friends. To get all dolled up, break out the cute shoes and that dark top that shows a bit of cleavage, put on some lip gloss and go out on the town. Star in your own movie for the evening. So we did that tonight. It looked just like the perfect date night scene in your favorite romantic comedy. Three couples out on the town. Married 30 something's, happy to be out together, kids tucked away at home, sparkling conversation and laughter. We tried a new restaurant. We ate delicious foods. We talked about new houses and light fixtures, movies, crazy family, babies and daycare, accessories and the holidays. We marveled at the bizarre outfit the hostess was wearing and it was excellent.

Only difference though, if this were a real movie, our evening would have continued at some dark bar or trendy club instead of parting ways at 8:30, some of us heading home, some to a movie, and Joe and I off to start Christmas shopping, grab some coffee and end up at home, baking pies and watching tv on the couch together. The movies always cut out the best parts anyway.

14 Pounds of Turkey Thanks

2011-11-18T20:56:00.001-06:00

I love Thanksgiving. I love cooking and sharing a meal with a big gang of loved ones. I love traditions and the smell of a Butterball turkey cooking in the oven. An insane number of side dishes and that goofy gelatinous cranberry jelly, the smell of sage and apples, creamy mashed potatoes and laughter and time spent with people we don't get to see nearly often enough.

Since we are heading up to Madison for a huge Thanksgiving celebration, Joe and I decided to cook our own little Thanksgiving on Sunday. In order to avoid the craziness of holiday grocery shopping I headed over to the store tonight. There were about 10 people in the whole place. It was heaven. I wandered around and filled up my cart leisurely without having to navigate the masses loading up their carts with Stovetop and pie crusts. So if you can get past the nerdy aspects of grocery shopping alone on a Friday night, I highly recommend it.

So this weekend will be filled with yard work and then lots and lots of cooking. We have a 14 pound turkey defrosting in the sink today and it will be getting dry brined tomorrow. Then Sunday we'll be making roasted brussels sprouts with shallots and balsamic vinegar, red wine gravy, sausage, apple and onion cornbread stuffing, and double layer pumpkin pie. I think we'll be freezing some turkey leftovers and making turkey pot pies and turkey soup throughout December. I'm looking forward to a whole day in the kitchen with my husband. Plus some new recipes for my 52 this year! So what are you doing for this Thanksgiving?

Sea Change: Achingly Observant

2011-11-17T21:33:00.000-06:00

Like the ocean, this novel lulled me into it's rhythms, waves of hazy, palpable sadness, set adrift by loss and somehow anchored to that loss at the same time. Sea Change by Jeremy Page, Blogher's Book Club selection for November, is a gorgeously sad novel. It is filled with exquisite writing, a devastating story at its core, and the intensely painful recollections, observations and memories of a man working to deal with the inescapable loss of his family.

The main character, Guy, is living alone on a houseboat off the coast of England. He teaches piano lessons but mostly he is alone. Deeply alone. Except when he is writing in his "diary." Every night Guy writes the story of his family and creates a fictional future for himself, and his absent wife and daughter. He keeps his family intact but only in his imagination. This fiction is his anchor, it gives him something to live for everyday but it also paralyzes him and prevents him from moving on with his own life. He is obsessed with creating a future for himself, his wife and his daughter that is impossible. As the book cuts back and forth between the fictional family Guy has fabricated and Guy's own daily life, we are immersed in his internal monologue. And it's this internal struggle to just keep moving everyday that is so sorrowful. Guy can't connect with other people. Only the people in his fictional world. Guy's grief, his ever present suffocating grief, makes the story monotonous at times but intentionally so. The story has that wearisome feel of being on the water too long weighed down by the dull aching monotony of Guy's loss. You could feel it all through the book, but it was always a pleasure to read simply because the writing is so controlled, tight and lovely. I was swept up in the tragedy. I was swept off onto Guy's house boat, drifting through the seas and estuaries, bumping up against other people but never really joining them, always aloof, always alone. This novel is an achingly observant tale of one man's grief and the power of writing to, as Guy says, "reclaim the things you have lost." The power of the imagination to protect and explore, and the power of fiction to create a world better than the world we might be living in right now. A place where the dead are still alive, and while it may not be perfect, families are still whole.

(I was compensated for my review of this novel, but all opinions expressed were, as usual, my own.)

Trying Hard to Be Thankful

2011-11-16T19:46:00.001-06:00

Today was a long, long day. So today's thanks were a bit harder to find underneath my stress, my pissy attitude and just my general sense of ongoing pressure, mostly self induced. So here's all I've got:
This link which is freaking adorable: http://carlidavidson.photoshelter.com/gallery/Shake/G0000s_trsF9CDFI/
Roasted chicken and potatoes cooking in my oven right now.
Dinner with my little brother for the first time in a very long time.
Introducing him to the ridiculous entertainment that is Hard Core Pawn.

Hoofing It Around the Garment District

2011-11-15T11:12:00.000-06:00

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep a gang of twenty or so photographers together? They wander. They meander. They hyper focus on brick work or the light hitting a window, the details. They seem to intently stare into space. They look toward horizons and vistas or tiny fascinating cracks in the sidewalk. They are in your world and yet in their own world behind the lens. Framing and sculpting the image they see into the image they can capture. Focusing and tweaking, setting apertures and speeds, switching lenses, laying on the ground or climbing up on ledges just to get that perfect shot. The photo club that Joe is part of hosted a walking tour of the Historic Garment District in downtown Kansas City a couple of weekends ago. And I felt bad for the very gracious and knowledgeable guide, Nancy, from the Historic Kansas City Foundation, who led us around the area. Her audience was constantly scattering. Chasing down the next shot. Oh, we listened closing at the beginning but as the tour continued it was hard to keep us all wrangled together.

The two and half hour tour extended into three as Nancy tried to wait for the group to reconvene before she told her next story or explained the next beautiful brick structure. She had to give up though and just plow on with her anecdotes without everyone at attention, otherwise we would have been there for days. She talked through the different buildings and the dates they were constructed. She talked about the huge number of employees that worked in the Garment District in it's heyday, more than 3,000 in the textile mills and fabric stores, and she very patiently, if with a expression of bewilderment, tried to keep us all within sight of each other. On a Saturday morning, this area is quiet. It was crisp and overcast and silent. As we ran across streets, jumped curbs, wandered around corners and gazed up at scrolled iron fire escapes it felt like we almost had the city to ourselves. A few cars drove by, giving our motley group some strange looks and a few honks and hoots out the window, but being there in this less populated part of the city, quietly recording these gorgeous historical buildings was wonderful. So let's get to the photos. Joe's are first.

We took a ton of photos between the two of us. If you want to see the full sets, click here and here. Joe pulled a few of his best shots. (Out of like 400!) He used a wide angle lens for much of the morning so his shots tend to be grander, broader and more dramatic than mine. I love these.

This is the monument to the Historic Garment District in the little park where our tour started.

The New England Life Building, built in the 1880's, it's dark red and covered in New England themed motifs, like anchors and ships.

This is probably my favorite sign in Kansas City. I remember seeing that little fox as a kid and thinking it was adorable.

Too bad it's not 7 Days right now.

The Phoenix is one of the many jazz clubs in KC. Thick velvet curtains welcome you in.

This Hardware store looks like it came straight out of the 1930's.

Another classic jazz club and steak house, the Majestic. The upper window frames and ledges are all covered in copper and when the sun hits it they light up like they're on fire.

And these are mine. I like little details. Joe set me up with the 18-200mm lens so I couldn't capture a lot of wider shots, but I had plenty of room to get in close and still catch some full shots of buildings and the skylines.

There were some beautiful condominiums facing the park where we started the tour right above here. I could see living down in this part of the city. It's gorgeous and more residential.

This dark red entryway to an old dress manufacturers shop. I loved this vintage ad. Why don't women get to wear hats anymore?

Gaggle of photogs.

Peeking in the windows of Harry Epstein Co. is like stepping back in time.

This building was under construction/repair. Nancy, our guide, was very concerned that they weren't taking the building down since it was a registered historic site. It looked like they were taking it apart brick by brick. She panicked a bit. It was kind of cute.

Mural along the wall of The Phoenix Piano Bar

Being a tourist in our own city was eye opening. I think of other cities as historic and beautiful. Cities like San Francisco are easy to get poetic about. The allure and the history are right there, smacking you in the face everyday with stature and relevance. Kansas City is more subtle than that. You have to dig a bit to find the history these days, with suburban sprawl and glossy commercial districts like Power and Light,Westport and the Plaza, places geared more towards dining and shopping and drinking, their history just a little plaque on the wall, or a bubbling fountain. But when you dig and look closely, and escape those typical spots, the history and the beauty is right there waiting to be rediscovered. I'm thankful to live here, in this charming, friendly little cow town.

Mommy Dearest Thanks

2011-11-14T20:27:00.001-06:00

My mother hates it when I call her "mommy dearest." In middle school when my mom often made my brother and I watch classic movies (we actually loved watching them but because it was decidedly uncool to admit you liked Alfred Hitchcock at 12 or even knew who Alfred Hitchcock was, we had to pretend indifference.) When she had us watch the Joan Crawford bio pic where Crawford insists that her children don't just call her mom, but "mommy dearest" all the time, I was hooked. I called my own mother that in a simpering voice for days afterward. And she hated it. So of course I kept doing it. What parent wants to be compared to the awful, abusive massive shouldered Joan anyway? Certainly not my mother. But because I was 12 it was funny. I should know better but I still do it occasionally now. She just cringes and shakes her head and gives me that mother look that says "you know how much I hate that don't you? Then don't do it." and I feel guilty like I'm 12 years old again. I roll my eyes and we laugh.

Today I'm thankful for a goofy, serious, sweet, easy lunch with my mom last Saturday. Often mother daughter relationships are challenging and ours certainly has qualified as that over the last twenty years. But Saturday it was just nice to be together. Just enjoy each other's company and laugh and tease and not take ourselves too seriously or be too sensitive or judgmental. We sat over our Chipotle and just talked and it was simple. So thanks for that, Mom. Oh, and for teaching me to love movies and you know, giving birth to me and stuff.

I Can Tell That We are Gonna Be Friends

2011-11-13T11:49:00.000-06:00

I've always heard that as an adult I would find making new friends to be awkward and difficult. Something about losing that childhood ability to meet another girl or boy, make an instant connection, grab our new friend's hand and run off to play pirates in the backyard or immerse ourselves in an elaborate scenario where Barbie is a doctor and Ken is her receptionist. We tend to have sort of locked in our friendships by this point. For our own protection we've learned to wait to share our time and our thoughts and ourselves. We hold back. We don't expose too much too soon. As we should. Some people aren't deserving of our time or our intimacies. We learn this through trial and error and fights and tears and gut punches to the stomach. Especially us girls. We figure out our own boundaries. Our self preservation. And this makes opening up ourselves and our time more difficult. It's more precious now. Filled with family and work and responsibility.

By now we've solidified our friends from our college or high school or work or kid connections, those deeper friendships, the kind of close, extremely comfortable intimate friendships. But instead for me at least, adulthood has come with the ability to appreciate and seek out different types of friendships. I meet new people all the time in all kinds of ways. Through work activities or networking events or volunteer situations or online or through friends of friends. These new meetings or friendships have the kind of light cordial warmth of acquaintances at first and just occasionally these casual friendships become something more. And that's exciting. It's this mysterious gelling that brings people together, through shared interest or chemistry. I used to feel that I could only have a few close friends at a time and they were all important, all consuming friendships. I struggled with jealousy and frustration around keeping those friendships, protecting them from interlopers and staying popular within my group, like many pre-teen and teenage girls. This is ridiculous. As an adult woman I feel like I've finally settled into a place where I can appreciate and enjoy my friends for exactly who they are and what they can bring to the table.Finally as a 36 year old woman, I know that not everyone is going to be that friend I feel like I've known my entire life. That friend I could go years without speaking to and then when we are together again it's as if no time has passed at all. Those friendships are rare. Not better, just more valuable because they are rare.

And as I get older it makes me greatly appreciate that type of friendship. I have a variety of friendships with a range of men and women now. We provide each other with different benefits and opportunities. Some friends build you up and soften a hard day. Some friends shine a light of blunt truth just when you need to hear it. Some challenge your entrenched beliefs about the world. Some make you crazy. Some are wildly entertaining and make you feel like the only person in the room when you are together, but these tend to burn up fast and fade away during tough times. Some reflect back your own flaws or strengths, making you see yourself in a different way. Some topics are off limits with certain friends and with others, any conversation is open.

And a few weekends ago, painting pottery with two women, Katrina and Bethany, whom I've known for nearly fifteen years and adore, and Rainbow, who I just met for the first time after being friends online for a bit, I got to experience both kinds of friendships together. That new friendship where you are just getting to know each other. Try out each other's sense of humor, see if you click, see if the chemistry is right or if you have anything in common at all. And then that other kind. The kind built of years of lunches and holding each other's babies and long, intimate conversations and laughter and tears. Friendships that have a history. And I got to feel the beauty and joy of both. The comfortable intimacy and that thrill of learning about someone new, laughing at their jokes and seeing if they get yours too.

"Badgers? We Don't Need No Stinkin Badgers!"

2011-11-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

(I do not feel one way or another about either the Huskers or the Badgers. My title was directly taken from the mouths of drunken Husker fans who repeated this catch phrase about 30 times while we drank Wisconsin beers at a bar heavily populated with Husker fans. They thought it was hilarious!)

For the record, I am not writing some sarcastic post about how much I don't care about sports, what a book nerdy, gender stereotypical girl I am about all things sweaty and ball filled (heh, heh) and yardage and team jersey related. This post is not going to be that. I could write that in my sleep. Instead after a charming weekend heavily seasoned with smack talking and beer drinking, friendly rivalries and rabid Badgers, I can kind of see the benefits of football.

Joe and I drove up to Madison to attend the inaugural Nebraska Wisconsin Big Ten football game in early October. Joe and his brothers grew up in Omaha and as a rule anyone born or raised in Nebraska is inoculated at birth with that Big Red team spirit. Weddings are planned around games, grocery stores play the game over the sound system for the four lone shoppers, movie theatres sit empty, everyone watches the game. Everyone. So when Joe's brother Jim moved to Madison, Wisconsin with his wife (who was born and raised there,) a city with an equally rabid fan base, two things happened. Jim was torn between his two teams, home team and adopted team, and now that they are in the same conference, the annual rivalry will be an exciting family weekend for years to come. Or at least exciting for the fans. People like me get excited about the brats and the cake pops and the fall weather and the chance to observe drunk 35 year old bros argue and tussle like little kids, and running around after the actual little kids. But the enthusiasm is kind of inspiring. Nebraska and Wisconsin fans may trash talk but everyone is so nice about it. It's that Midwestern thing. Hospitality and generosity and gritting your shiny white teeth behind a cordial smile, all while thinking, "we will crush you."

We spent Friday just hanging out with Katy and the kids. Reading and playing and running around. It's always fun to drop yourself into someone else's routine and craziness for a couple of days. I love just hanging out at Jim and Katy's house. It's warm and comfortable and lovely and filled with the kind of joyful family chaos that only houses filled with several children can sustain. It's fun to peek into their lives and run after the boys and have them explain the games they like to play or read books or watch Connor doing very important projects outside. That night we ran and picked up Jon Sands from the bus station while listening to one of the filthiest songs I've ever heard. Thanks, Jim. And then the Sands brothers argued over Garrett's popcorn, now another family tradition.

Then Saturday was game day. The kids were decked out in handmade rivalry shirts, whipped up by Katy. Even Tierney was wearing the required red. We had lunch and did all the pre-game regular Saturday stuff. And then I got to meet one of my favorite internet based friends, Emily of And Her Glow Has Warmed the World!

Emily actually went to KU as a graduate student so we share a few mutual friends, and vaguely knew of each other but have become good friends over the last year through blogging and Facebook. We had never met in person until last month. Jim and Katy had an extra ticket to the football game and generously let us offer it to Emily and her husband Jay. So along with my slightly selfish offer to give up my ticket (because as much as Joe might like me to care, I just don't and as if it meant that we got to finally meet Emily and Jay then it was totally worth the "sacrifice" to give up my ticket) we now had some bait to get them to drive down to Madison. Em is a rabid Badger fan and alum so after a quick email and phone call, plus Emily's use of the word "fantastic" about 12 times, she and Jay drove the few hours from their home in Minnesota to come down for the game. On Saturday afternoon, while Jim and Katy headed to a birthday party with the kids, we ran out, with Jon Sands, and met Emily and Jay.

It felt like we'd know each other for years. Just easy. We shopped and wandered on State Street for a bit, mocked our husbands together, looked at strange and overpriced antiques and became actual real life "in person" friends. Having only met a few of my online based friends, I still have this slight hesitation when I do meet strangers. I hope that the version of this online person that I think is so great is just as great in real life, and that they feel the same about me. Because how awkward would it be otherwise? But guess what? Em is even better in person. Plus she comes fully equipped with her adorable and sweet husband Jay, who is funny and quietly mischievous and an excellent bank jingle writer.

So we ran around in Madison and then headed over to the pre-game party to end all parties. Katy's parents, Tom and Mary Jo, are incredibly hospitable and fabulous people. They invite a huge number of friends, neighbors, their kids' friends and sometimes I think random people who just walk in off the street to their house for a huge party. There is food and food and more food. Drinks flow, laughter and hijinks ensue. It was a wonderful time. And if all football games included parties and people like this, I might become a fan. And a huge thanks to them, and Jim and Katy, for inviting us all and Emily and Jay too.

After fortifying ourselves with brats and dips and chili and cake pops, and the best cookies in the world from another internet friend Melanie at Two Smart Cookies, (Emily brought plenty to share with the whole party) we parted ways. Joe and Emily and Jay headed off to the game with Jim and Jon while Katy and the rest of us not going to the game did a little clean up, played with the little boys in the driveway, passed around the sweetly sleepy Miss Tierney for a bit until Katy and I headed back to the house with the kids to finish watching the game in pajama'ed style on the couch. Gossiping and half watching the game and in my warm cozy bed reading by 11. It was a substantially good end to our weekend.

Thanks again to Jim and Katy, Tom and Mary Jo, and Emily and Jay for making this such an excellent football based weekend. This almost makes me want to actually go the game next year. Almost. Let's see if we can convince Emily and Jay to drive down to Nebraska and go with us.

Most photos by Joe Sands. He of the excellent 1970's Husker hat inherited from his father.

White Zin Thanks

2011-11-11T20:26:00.001-06:00

Tonight I am thankful for:

Reading with a farting hilarious five year old
Drinking more wine than is considered medicinal with two of my favorite people
Brown butter rice Krispie treats for dessert
Listening to Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer on my commute and being filled with a powerful righteous indignation
Sitting on the couch in my pjs right now in a very quiet house, dog curled up on me, getting ready to watch Mickey Rourke's wrecked face and stringy hair extensions in The Wrestler
Raking leaves tomorrow or Sunday or maybe next weekend or never
Cutting off several inches of my hair tomorrow while laughing and gossiping with the best hairstylist in KC
Good night!

Wasabi Dipped Thanks

2011-11-10T20:04:00.001-06:00

I'm keeping my head above water at work, but just barely this week. I have that sense that I could be there until midnight and still have more and more to do. As I said to a client today, this is not a complaint. I have a lot of excellent projects and a couple of irritating ones on my plate right now, my very full plate. But thankfully I work for a company that respects the balance between employees' work lives and personal lives, so I'm not expected to put in 80 hours a week. I worked a little late tonight, I'll go in a little early tomorrow and I'll chip away at each task and project as much as I can in the 10 hours I'm there.

I'm realistic. Many, many people work many, many more hours than I do each week at very difficult jobs. Compared to those people I've got it easy. I work in a nice office with kind people, air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. But at a certain point I know my own limits and when it's time to head out to unwind. Leave the stress and phone calls and abundant emails behind, and go out for dinner with my favorite date.

There is nothing more stress reducing than dinner out with Joe. One, there's no meal planning, no cooking and no clean up. And then there's my date. Have you seen his hair? Or that sly smile? He listens to me complain and whine with minimal eye rolling. He supports me unconditionally even when I sound like a raving moron. He plays devil's advocate and politely stops when I say "stop doing that!" and he makes me laugh until bits of sushi rice pop out of my nose. We took our Groupon and we headed to my 5th favorite sushi restaurant in KC and had a tasty, delightful meal served by a young waiter straight off of The Jersey Shore with slightly less hair gel. So tonight I'm thankful for Joe and date night and work and L.A. rolls with unagi sauce.

Hump Day Thanks

2011-11-09T18:48:00.001-06:00

Thanks go out today to the following:

The offensively funny Tosh.0 that I find myself laughing at while feeling guilty all at the same time. It's confusing.
Realizing finally at 36 that I have a certain style, and even if the clothes are free and cute I still don't want them if they don't feel like me.
The vlookup formula magic in Excel, my job just got so much easier based on this bit of knowledge.
Scheduling a lunch date with my mom for this weekend, squeezed between my haircut and her hair color appointment. We will carry handbags and wear white gloves and order the Waldorf salads.
Backrubs while doing the dishes.
The over the top costumes and songs on Glee, but not really the rest of Glee anymore.
The fact that when we finally send movies back to Netflix, Joe and I both forget to check our queue and we end up with two movies neither one of us remembers adding to the list. (The Wrestler and Mulholland Drive, I guess we choose grim or crazy for our viewing pleasure this weekend.)
Red skirts
Ginger snaps
Free books

Freestyle Thanks

2011-11-08T20:26:00.000-06:00

Sitting at a small table pushed up close to the window, I can see the rain trickling down the glass pane. It slides and connects in smooth rivulets creating tiny streams and rivers like a transparent unmarked map of the world. I'm listening to three conversations at once and absentmindedly reading the book in front of me. I should really give it up. The men behind me, in their late 20's both wearing the flannel shirts, plastic framed glasses, vaguely maintained stubble and knitted caps of Midwestern hipsters are discussing Tori Amos' rumored sexual proclivities, then German music, and I've missed something. They somehow link this to the burgeoning scandal at Penn State and end up talking about ewoks. Which is where many conversations in coffee houses end up in my experience. The place smells of wet wool scarves, damp newspaper ink, and freshly ground coffee beans. The women next to me are talking Chanel's latest line, Junior League gossip and the Duggar's latest addition to their brood, and the stress of potty training.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a little girl staring at me. Her springy ringlets going to fuzzy, she wears a pink and black rainslicker and she is kicking her green frog galoshes against her mother's leg while looking right at me. I smile and she looks quickly away until I pretend to turn my gaze back to my book and she starts staring again. Her game is interrupted by more cookie and hot cocoa consumption, and a brief scolding from her mother, "Libby, stop kicking me." "I'm not kicking you, mommy, the frogs are jumping on you." They both laugh and Libby spills hot cocoa on her jacket.

I hear the constant grinding ballet of espresso machines and grinders, milk being frothed into delicious submission, order after order of creamy hot beverages from harried customers ending their day here. Middle aged ladies frown while reading Joan Didion. A crowd of Catholic high school girls in plaid pleated skirts all push back from their table at once, chairs screeching on the hard floor, we all watch them walk out of the shop, their long straight blond hair falling in unison down their backs like lines of longitude. They will separate and head back to their homes. To warm 1930's houses, and dinner with little brothers, and Algebra homework and instant messaging late into the night with boys named Jake and Colin, their young shoulders braced against the wind as they push open the swinging door and head into the rain.

Today I'm thankful for thirty minutes at a coffee house, alone. My last meeting of the day will start shortly. We will talk for an hour about social media and Facebook versus traditional websites, I'll have the chance to catch up with a friend and colleague I haven't seen in ages, but for right now, I'm thankful for these thirty minutes. Just to watch and listen and write. Write whatever I see and hear and feel. Just feel the pen in my hand dragging across the paper. Just freestyling. I need to do this more. Pen on paper will always feel more natural and unrestricted than filling this blank screen with words. So today I'm simply thankful for those thirty short minutes and Libby's sweet smile.

30 Second Book Review: Thanks for all the Books Edition

2011-11-07T19:29:00.004-06:00

Ready for the Thanksgiving edition of the 30 Second Book Review? Well, I know it's not quite Thanksgiving yet. We have a few weeks to prepare and look for old family recipes and make centerpieces and place cards, people do all that, right? I mean, not me, because I'm a lucky guest this year instead. Oh, I might do dishes, and bring something small (I'm thinking homemade caramels,) and assist as needed but no pressure for me, that's all on the other Mrs. Sands this year. But I'm in the right month for this Thanks for the Books post at least. My contribution to the table I suppose, and at least it will give me plenty of fascinating conversation topics entertaining out of town family. Oh we could discuss French serial killers, the history of the Jimmy Fund, sage advice for when the zombie hordes attack, yes, lively conversation.

Hopefully something in this list will amuse you over the holidays plus it might help you provide stimulating conversation while avoiding discussions of Herman Cain's misunderstood "sense of humor." Wanting to stick with my thankful theme, I think I'm obvious today, and really everyday, that I'm thankful for the books. I'll just dive right in, working backwards from most recently read first, simply because I don't want to wait to review this book until the end! It deserves to be first.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell: Ah, I love this book. I highlighted so many funny, sweet and spot on lines that Joe is complaining about all of the yellow in our Kindle copy now that he's reading it. Oops, sorry, honey, blame Rainbow. This book is the perfect version of that demeaningly titled "chick lit." It is a romance but the structure and style of the book is adorably unconventional. Much like the author herself. As I said to Rainbow, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of weeks ago through our mutual friend Bethany, this book has dialogue that rings so true it's like listening to smarter, funnier, kinder versions of everyone I love. Rainbow said that Say Anything was an inspiration for this "true but more entertaining version of true" style and if that's the case, then she nailed it.

Written with two connected but separate story lines, each chapter alternates between following the life of the male protagonist Lincoln, as he works the night shift running computer security at an Omaha newspaper, then cut with the other chapters that are an ongoing email conversation between two friends Beth and Jennifer who also both work at a fictional newspaper in Omaha. Do you see where this might be going? Lincoln has to check any red flagged emails for questionable content, and whose emails continue to pop up? There are so many things to love about this book. The flawed characters who are so open and vulnerable and yet frightened of change. The comedy which runs naturally throughout the book and only serves to enhance the story line instead of sticking out awkwardly as funny lines often can in less skillful hands. I know having met Rainbow, she attended the same high school as my husband, that I'm a bit biased because I liked her so much in person. But this book deserves high praise. I'm certain that the age of the characters, very close to my own in 1999/2000 when the book is set, the setting of Omaha, and the familiar and welcome pop culture references make certain that this book is aimed right at my exact type of Midwestern, college educated, pop culture fanatic with a husband and many friends from Omaha. But the power of a book like this is that I think nearly anyone could fall in love with it. And fall in love with Lincoln and Beth too. Can't wait to read Rainbow's next book sometime next year.

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg: Gorgeously written, painful with every turn of the page, and a deeply insightful journey into the impact of mental illness on a family. This memoir follows the severe psychotic break of Greenberg's teenage daughter in New York City. His writing is raw, meticulous and exposed, unflattering and enlightening. Worth reading.

Full Dark, No Stars by Steven King: I've loved Stephen King for a long time. His books are fast, well crafted and creepy as hell. This one is no exception. Made up of four novellas, push past the first story that went on too long for my taste and start off with the revenge tale, Big Driver. Don't read this at home alone.

The Gingerbread Girl by Stephen King: This is one of my favorite King short stories. I don't want to say too much about it other than it's terrifying and it makes me wish I was a runner. A fast runner.

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein: This was one of the deeply discounted books I bought from Pixel of Ink. If you have an e-reader device, Pixel of Ink is a great way to buy cheap books from new authors with very little risk. I'm glad this one was only a dollar. Too slow, too much bland build up, too much pompous self righteous father character and once the big finale is revealed I'd slogged through so much set up that I didn't even care. Skip it.

I Am America (and so can you!) by Stephen T. Colbert: I love the conservative pomposity of Stephen Colbert and I found this audiobook to be an amusing diversion on my daily commute. I like the Colbert Report and should watch it more often. Colbert is a sublime be-suited political satire.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton: I liked this story set in an isolated castle in England. There are convoluted literary back stories, long lost letters, family secrets and romance. And yet this book was bloated. At over 500 pages it needed more editing. The over the top ending was a long time coming and only the last forty pages clipped along as quickly as they should have. I skipped more than I like to. Stick with Morton's Forgotten Garden instead.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal: Clark Rockefeller, or should I say the imposter Christan Gerhartsreiter, is a troubled, rather arrogantly brilliant scam artist/chameleon, possibly a murderer and certainly a kidnapper. And the charade he was able to pull off, pretending to be a member of the prominent Rockefeller family for more than 20 years, is staggering. This book went into a bit more detail than I needed but it was a intriguing story and made me think about the assumptions we make about people in general, and the wealthy in particular. The man had some gall. A serious pair of galls.

Death in the City of Light by David King: Much like Erik Larson's books, this book took the true story of a serial killer and laid it out in a more narrative form. Following the brutal and terrifying crimes of a Dr. Petiot, as he lies, misleads and pretends to help Jewish and other vulnerable citizens of France escape Nazi Occupied Paris in the 1940's. No one escapes with Dr. Petiot's help. This is a long, detailed and thoroughly researched book that with strong voice over work, made an excellent audio book. If you like true crime, a peak inside the seriously strange French legal system and a clearer picture of Paris during Nazi occupation, pick this one up. But be warned, it is filled with violence, and some descriptions of depraved and sick crimes, both from the Nazis and Dr. Petiot, though not in a gratuitous way.

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman: Again a real 3.5 not 3 stars. This novel skillfully captures the uncertainty of youthful lust and obsession. Set in Italy it reminded me of the movie Stealing Beauty in that it takes place in a similar setting and extends the theme of youth exploring their sexuality. A little boring and narcissistic in parts like all good new romances can be. It's sexy, but not graphic.

The Imperfectionist by Tom Rachman: I liked this book a lot. It was a little harder to get into at first because each chapter follows a different person who works at a American run newspaper set in Italy. And instead of sitting and reading long chunks of the book I read it in dribs and drabs, 5 or 10 pages here and there. This books needs your time. Sit and immerse yourself in Italy, in the life of a newspaper from its first publication in the 1960's up to it's inevitable close in the 2000's. This books is filled with complex, funny, intelligent and challenging characters. And the behind the scenes atmosphere of the newspaper are educational and captivating.

World War Z by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks, seriously!): If World War Z has taught me anything, it's that my one story ranch house will not make a good stronghold against the zombie hordes. I may need to go with a two or three story steel door reinforced house on stilts with an acid bath moat. I'm not sure which subdivision is offering these types of amenities currently. The horrors on display in this novel, while fictional, are enough to give me nightmares, if not actually cause me to relocate. I loved the formal oral interview government document format and thought this was a gory, yet detached little zombie novel.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee: This "biography" of cancer is dense, encyclopedic and deeply engaging. Following the first "discovery" of tumors and cancer up through the brutal surgeries, dangerous radiation and chemotherapy trials and everything in between, this book is an excellent if challenging read for non-medical types, like myself. It took me awhile, in audiobook form, to listen to the whole tome, but it was worth it.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: I love peculiar children. I love the creepy shelled out old house on an island, the entire first half of this book and the author's ingenious usage of found vintage photographs, but the last half of the book felt much more like the first installment in a young adult fantasy series, which this will certainly become. The likable characters and genuine twists and turns kept me engaged until the end despite the fact that I don't know that there is enough story here to stretch out into several books. Or maybe I just don't care enough to see what happens next. Worth getting from the library or buying on sales just for the photos and first half of the book alone.

Small Changes Big Results by Ellie Krieger: I like Ellie Krieger. This book is simple, direct, reasonable, has recipes that include carbs and is a little basic but not in a bad way. Who wants to review diet books? Not me, but she is very much like the Weight Watchers of diet books. Safe, helpful and great if you can stick to it.

Up next on my reading list, A Winter Sea, which is a historical novel set in Scotland in 1708 and 2008, it's excellent so far, then Sea Change for the Blogher Book Club, followed by in no certain order David Rakoff's Half Empty, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No and Pearl of China (more Pixel of Ink books, they are evil, evil I tell you!) So what are you reading lately? And yes, if you say People Magazine that counts too, (especially the cross word puzzle, those always make me feel so smart.)

Pumpkin Spiced Thanks

2011-11-06T20:18:00.001-06:00

Today I'm thankful for time to myself. Time to bake new recipes, time to read good books, time to spend with friends and family. I'm thankful for that leisure and time to recharge. And pumpkin cake with cream cheese filling, particularly that!

(Here's the recipe by the way! Thanks, Kristen Morin. I added some crystallized ginger, used a bundt pan for fancy cake purposes and dusted with confectioner's sugar.)

Tourist Thanks

2011-11-05T21:43:00.001-05:00

Today I'm thankful to live in such a beautiful and interesting city. I tagged along with Joe this morning for his photo club's tour of the historic Garment District in downtown Kansas City. We both took a ton of shots and I'll write an entire post about it once we dig through all of the photos. It was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday. But for now, here's a sneak peek of some of my iPhone quick shots. Hope you are having a delightful little weekend. See you tomorrow.

To Do List Thanks

2011-11-04T20:42:00.001-05:00

Today I'm thankful for work. I'm thankful for the satisfaction of cleaning up my inbox and deleting or resolving what felt like 1,000 emails today. Checking off about 35 items on three separate to do lists. Working with 12 different clients, five different databases and one long special event planning meeting with two conference calls and three catering menu reviews. A quick chatty lunch with a old friend. It was a full day. A satisfying day. A day that by the time 5:30 rolled around I hardly noticed. I helped a coworker pick paint for her living room as I packed up my things to head home. A quick trip to the grocery store for vital things like marshmallows and shampoo, a long crisp leafy walk with my husband and dog and the whole weekend stretches out in front of me. I'm thankful for the anticipation of a weekend filled with friends, baking, a photo walking tour, and just enough time to recharge before it's back to work again. (Also thankful for the fact that the big angry looking gentleman, who cut me off in traffic on the way home tonight, couldn't here me yelling "Yield to me, motherf%#^r, yield to me!" I think he might have gotten out of his car and come after me. I honked and he furiously started gesturing at me. My road rage is just verbal diarrhea, his could have had bullets. So thanks, sir.)

Cold Snap Thanks

2011-11-03T21:08:00.001-05:00

Today I'm thankful for chilly outdoor meetings with organic, crunchy passionate clients. Feeding baby Kate a bottle while sipping a Rosemary Caramel Latte with her mom and unwinding after a long day. Reading an excellent book while curled up on the couch under a fluffy blanket with the house to myself for a few hours. Receiving a very sweet surprise note in the mail, actual mail that wasn't a bill. And tomorrow is Friday. How about you? What's on your list today?

Theodora: Fascinating and Flawed

2011-11-03T07:59:00.001-05:00

Once again, I had the pleasure of reviewing a book for the Blogher Book Club. This time Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy. Blogher has changed their format a bit to create a more engaging and conversation based review process. So I'll post a brief review here and then Blogher is hosting some fantastic discussions about the book over on their site. Take a minute and go visit! I'll be arguing and debating with my fellow reviewers off and on for the next few weeks and certainly stirring up trouble. Well, the kind of geeky trouble that only book nerds can stir up. (Side note: While I was compensated for this review, the views expressed here are solely my own, as usual.)

The main character of Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore (a book title that is ultimately titillating and somehow a let down) is a fascinating, bold, aggressive and morally ambiguous character just trying to survive in the often dangerous, misogynistic Byzantine Empire. Born into a poor family, raised to be a performer and prostitute by the age of 12, she is a fast talking, sexually skilled and an evidently hilarious actress. Until she becomes a pious Christian woman. Duffy does a skillful job at staying impassive and non-judgemental in tone throughout Theodora's raucous life. Duffy doesn't bring a modern, critical eye to Theodora's actions, she just tells her story. Except my main problem with the novel is that Duffy tells us all of these scandoulous and transformational steps in Theodora's life but does very little to actually show them. And this makes the story more dull than it should be. There is so little dialogue in this book that I felt like an impassive observer reading this novel. I didn't care as much about the fate of the characters, because it was a bit like reading a textbook. Too much historical detail and not enough of the inner-workings of the character's emotions and motivations. Not enough talk and communication. Two characters would have a passionate lover's quarrel and Duffy just writes a quick paragraph describing it. No fighting words, no insults, no anger. Just a paragraph. They fought, she left.

There was so little conversation between characters that Theodora seemed isolated and mute at times instead of the fierce, intelligent fire brand she was supposed to be. In one part of the book, Theodora begins a lesbian relationship with a fellow Christian in the Christian spy network that she has recently joined. Duffy just slides this in in the very first paragraph where she introduces the lover. No build up, no reasoning, very little conversation, just they had an affair. Even though Theodora is a recently converted Christian. I wanted more in scenes like this. I like this book, I do. And the dialogue issue does improve a bit towards the end, in the empress section. As Theodora develops a relationship with the soon-to-be-crowned Emperor Justinian, there is a bit more natural conversation as the characters get to know each other better, but it was almost too little too late. Is Duffy afraid of trying to put words in the mouths of Byzantine era characters and having them sound too modern? I would have preferred her take the risk.

This novel is being adapted into an HBO series and I can't wait to see it. I love the characters, the rags to riches story and the sexual and political exploits, it's ripe for adaptation to HBO, like Rome or Deadwood. But Duffy needed to get out of the dusty libraries where she did her immaculate research and breathe more fighting, bleeding life into the characters. HBO knows how to do that. The real flaw in an otherwise engaging and rather breathtaking story is that passive voice and heavy tendency to describe instead of letting the characters tell the reader themselves.

The time period is fascinating, Christianity is growing and struggling, the Roman Empire is in flux and women's roles are limited but subtly powerful. And while Duffy captured the historical context, the political events and a very strong general sense of the time period, I wish she could have brought more life to the story. I wanted to hear what Theodora had to say and I don't feel like I ever did.

Heartbreaking and Uplifting

2011-11-02T20:43:00.002-05:00

Ok, first off, let me say that I am thankful for my parents and the warm, comfortable home that I was raised in today. It wasn't perfect. There were difficult times, there always are, but it was a safe place. A haven where I knew that I was sheltered and protected and didn't have to be afraid. I had my own space that my parents respected. I knew to the depths of my being that I was loved, everyday, without question. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking to watch a video like the one that has become an internet sensation today.

A young woman in Texas posted a 7 minute video of both of her parents whipping her with a belt, verbally abusing and badly mistreating her. Click here if you want to watch it. For 7 long minutes this video shows a teenage women being demeaned, beaten and abused. It is painful to watch. I cried while listening to her wail as her father berates her with a volley of curse words and threats. I've read several articles about this video. Her father is a judge in Texas. Evidently the video was shot in 2004 when the young woman was 15 or 16. She has Cerebral Palsy. Her mother has since left her father and hopes that she and her two daughters can seek counseling. I don't know why this video resonated so strongly with me, but it did. I watched it and it took me back to working as a social worker in Philadelphia and dealing with parents who had lost their children through family court and were working hard to get them back. Working hard with the ruling from a judge who demanded they change their behavior, take parenting classes and find new ways to deal with their anger and stress. And I think that's what gets to me. This abuser in the video is a judge.

He is a man who rules over other families' lives. He sits in judgement and tells fathers when they have done wrong. He pulls children out of violent homes. He sends people to prison for the things they did while enraged. And he also beats his daughter and screams at her for 7 minutes, watching his rage ebb and flow and never quite dissipating, until his daughter is in a crumpled heap on the floor. The reason I'm writing about this isn't to get on my soap box or rant and rave about this case. Instead it's to say two things: 1. Keep an eye on the children you see everyday: neighbors, friends, family. And don't be afraid to say something or call the authorities if you think something seems wrong. Listen to your gut instincts. Kids need to be protected, they need to feel safe and they desperately need interested, caring people to talk to. So be that person. Be that nosy busy body. 2. The courage that it took for this young woman to post such a painful video is inspiring. Sharing her story and this nasty family secret, while probably incredibly painful and shocking because of the intense, sudden scrutiny, will ultimately help thousands of children who are in similar circumstances. It brings the topic of child abuse to the fore front and that is always positive. So share your story if you have one. Maybe just over coffee with a friend. Maybe on your blog or Facebook. Certainly with your children when they are old enough to understand. Because that feeling of isolation and fear, that feeling that no one would believe what goes on in your house when the doors are closed, that feeling can be punctured like a balloon when you know that other people have dealt with the same. Dealt with and survived the same. So be brave. And share your story too.

Let's end this on an entirely different reason to cry. This fantastic video, please please click here to watch, also left me in tears tonight, but happy tears. That we humans can be both delightful and yet so cruel is infuriating and amazing to me on a daily basis.

All Full Up with the Thank

2011-11-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

In the month of November the idea of being thankful seems like a given. We are all thankful for something, at least most days. Sometimes it's small. Like, thank you for not running me off the road, enormous 18 wheeler with squeeky brakes and a distracted driver. Sometimes it's huge, like thank you for those medical tests coming back negative (these are examples, not about me, I'm fine!) But I think I often get caught up in the daily routine and rarely take the time to stop and feel grateful, thankful, appreciative even for the small things. So I'm going to try to do that everyday this month. Sometimes it will be small, like thank you to the local trick or treaters for leaving Joe and I a few choice fun size Snickers, or big, like thank you that I have a full time job that I mostly love and pays me enough to survive and buy frivolous things on occasion. Today I'm sticking with the small stuff to start with: Ginger Ale flavored cough drops, apple cider, the warm cuddly dog curled up behind my knees, and the fact that I can hear Joe emptying the dishwasher. Is there a better sound in the world? So what are you thankful for today?

He's 60, 60 Years Old

2011-10-31T08:42:00.001-05:00

My dad turns 60 today. He is this balanced hybrid. A mix of extreme goofiness, laughing at his own jokes, spontaneous, child-like enthusiasm and jazz hands "watch me, watch me" mixed with this incredible work ethic, this sense of duty and responsibility, and a self effacing modesty that seems ironic but is absolutely real. He is a balance of devoted and ridiculous, intimidating and hilarious, depending on the day. He is flawed and imperfect, with incredibly high expectations for himself and sometimes others. And I love him in huge quantities. He inspires me. He makes me laugh, sometimes at him. Dogs and children are drawn to him. It could be because he gets down on the floor to their level and waves at stranger's babies in restaurants. (Unless they are crying, he "hates" crying babies in restaurants. "It's so rude. We never let you guys do that in restaurants when you were little. We just got up and left.")

He is willing to throw himself into new things with a passion and intensity that is legendary. The perfect description of this is that Dad and I took a cooking class a couple of Saturdays ago. This is his current passion and he showed up with a special composition notebook just to takes notes for this soups and stews class. And falling back on his accountant ways, it was a composition book filled with graph paper. And he took notes, lots of serious notes as the chef explained in his rolling Louisiana drawl how to make a dark savory roux. Dad jotted it all down. Just in case. And then we made little jokes under our breaths throughout the class.

He has taught me to do my homework, work hard and be willing to laugh at myself when necessary, which is often. He can be a little scary. He is driven and focused and goal oriented. To get on his calendar takes a concerted effort because his help and his time are a hot commodity. But he is one of my biggest fans and favorite heroes. The man needs a cape and a mask. So happy birthday, Dad. I sometimes still want to sit on your lap and have you read me just one more story. But I'll take watching copious amounts of HBO and eating cookies with you instead.

Come Over Here, My Little Latke

2011-10-27T15:09:00.002-05:00

There is nothing more boring, save maybe C-SPAN at 2am, than a lazy blogger talking about how out of the habit of blogging they've gotten. So prepare to yawn. I'm that lazy blogger. Not lazy per se. More like full blown swamped at work and ok, lazy and head-cold filled and deadline nuts. I'm forcing myself back here though, since posting one lonely time in the entire month of October is just embarrassing.

I have posts in my head. They just seem to swirl around up there instead of finding their way out of my fingers and onto the screen. I get home from work and I'm tired. So are you, right? I think this is a fairly common condition. So if I plan to ever blog consistently again instead of watching the Real Housewives of Whoreville and getting sucked into the couch when I get home I need to keep my brain engaged after work. Wait to drink the Pumpkin Hard Cider as a reward for writing an actual post instead of popping it open while cooking dinner and thereby drinking away all my desire to accomplish anything other than removing my pants, followed by going to bed at 9pm. I realize that this phrase makes me sound like I have a bit of a drinking problem or that somehow one hard cider increases my sexual promiscuity and sleepy/pantslessness. This is not entirely true. Entirely.

I haven't even cooked anything fancy and delicious in the last couple of weeks. Last night instead of making basic grilled salmon, baked sweet potatoes and a green salad for dinner I stepped it up a notch. Joe has an obsession with Photograzing over at Serious Eats (don't visit this site unless you plan to lose a few hours of your life) and he sends me recipes via email nearly ever day, sometimes several times a day. I have a special Google folder in my email just for these recipes. It's ridiculous and adorable and excessive (rather like the height of his hair right now, epic) and mildly irritating when you are hungry. Anyway, this recipe looked perfect and just complex enough to be rewarding but not too daunting on a Wednesday. Joe got the meal rolling by grilling the salmon and getting the latkes started while I diligently walked on the treadmill in the basement, watching Liz Lemon do something hilariously stupid and sadly relate-able.

I did doctor the recipe in a couple of ways including MORE CHEESE because this is always a good thing, and because the potatoes were taking so long to cook, too dry according to Joe, I poured some of the Pumpkin Cider I was drinking right in there. It was a sacrifice, but I was willing to make it for the latkes. I cooked off the alcohol but that spicy, fall flavor stuck around. And can I mention, cold latkes for lunch the next day? Still pretty fantastic. I might start celebrating Hanukkah style in December just to partake in these babies again.

Here I am, stepping it up for you, dear reader. Ok for us, because having never made potato pancakes before I fear we might be considered unsophisticated and somehow anti-Semitic. I've remedied that. I've remedied the heck out of that. Because you know what? Sweet potatoes mixed with cheese and then fried in a bit of butter are amaaaahhzing. Plus who doesn't like anything with the word pancake involved? And I got to use the word Jarlsberg several times which is my second favorite cheese name to pronounce after Havarti.

So success! I managed to string together words into a blog with actual photograph, work out, refrained from watching the Real Housewives of McMansionville USA, devoured healthy salmon over salad and decadent cheesy sweet potato pancakes made from scratch with husband whose butt I only grabbed twice during our little cooking session, managed to keep on real pants until 11:30 pm bedtime and remained mostly sober. I'm back!

Narcissism and Jello Salad

2011-10-13T10:07:00.002-05:00

Why, hello there. I took a bit of an unscheduled hiatus over the last couple of weeks. After a full month of trying to blog everyday and mostly succeeding, I needed a break. The chance to shut down that observational writer part of my head for a little bit and just do stuff without the delightful pressure of thinking about what to share today was much needed. Somehow I both love and loathe this blog. I love writing and sharing and making people laugh or feel connected or grossed out, whatever, and the chance to record some of the fantastic, mundane or just mildly amusing daily experiences that I get to have in my sweet little life.

And then I loathe it too. Or maybe loathe is too strong a word. No, it's loathe. But it's more that I loathe how sometimes, ok, often, I do something or go somewhere or spend time with friends or family or work and I think, "that's a perfect blog post," or "I could never write about that though I really really want to," or "No, readers would find that too boring." I don't want to see my life as a series of blog posts. I don't like feeling so narcissistic that I've turned this lens on my life for other people's enjoyment. This isn't a reality show. I don't want to rate the value of each of my experiences by how many comments or page views each post receives. So I needed a break.

And it's been a pretty great two weeks. Good stuff happened. I lived it and talked about it and felt it first hand and second hand. But I didn't write much, not even offline. Work has been busy too and that always makes me come home a little tired and a little disinterested in packaging up the day to share here with glossy photos and a sense of humor. It makes me want to sit on the couch and eat homemade soup and watch the Real World. So I did that too. But I missed you. So I'm back.

What 's been going on over here in the last couple of weeks? We took another fantastic trip to Madison. An unusual occurrence since we were just there over Labor Day and we usually space trips out a bit more, but with the birth of our baby niece in August and then the first Nebraska football game against Wisconsin, we had to go back, had to! And I also had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite bloggers/online friends and now real life "I've shopped with you and mocked our husbands together" friends, Emily of And Her Glow Has Warmed the World. I've got a whole post on that one coming.

One of my best friends gave birth to her second daughter, Miss Katelyn. We are thrilled for Tara and Mike. We got to spend a lovely evening just hanging out at the hospital, bringing dinner for the new parents, passing around Kate and oogling her chubby edible baby cheeks, those perfect little toes and her rosebud mouth. Yes, she might have farted in my hand about 8 times, but who cares? Look at that yawn. Kate looks like a tiny doppelganger of her big sister, Madeline. Kate and Maddie are going to be adorable double trouble for their parents, but Tara and Mike are such a strong team that they've got it all under control.

I got a title change and raise at work too. Not so much a promotion as recognition about how much my job has changed since I started here four years ago. That's always a nice feeling. That sense that someone notices you've been learning, focused and stretching your skills to meet new goals. Plus my new business cards look pretty spiffy. Business cards always make me think of that scene in American Psycho where all the suave, smarmy 1980's yuppies whip out their cards and start dissecting the attributes of each, constantly topping and trouncing each other over these tiny pieces of paper. While my business cards are the standard nonprofit light cardstock, I dream of creamy linens and the perfect font. Someday. And I promise I have no intention of chasing anyone with a chainsaw, I just appreciate that flawless sleek font that helps communicate exactly who you are when you hand it over. And I like Huey Lewis.

I joined Weight Watchers too. Today actually. Nothing more to say here. I just want a solid plan and some support. I've had success with that program in the past. And I've heard they've changed their point system and mixed things up a bit, so I look forward to attending my first meeting next week. (I hate meetings though I have promised to attend at least for three months. I always remember going with my mom when I was a kid and it just seemed like unhappy middle aged women complaining about their husbands and sharing recipes for jello salad and taco soup. I think they've made some changes since then, I hope.) Either way I might have some killer jello salad recipes to share here, all under 100 calories and filled with shredded carrots and the retro flavors of the 1970's.

I cooked a bit this week too. I made a butternut squash soup that I kind of cobbled together from 3 different recipes. As Joe said "It tastes like fall." And I'm having some for lunch today with some other yummy leftovers. I made some banana bread for a work potluck which tasted just fine, but nothing spectacular. Anyone have a recommendation to share on this one? I tried Paula Deen's recipe this time and as usual it was too greasy. Paula tends to equate flavor with butter or oil and sometimes that's just not right. I also tried the first recipe out of our new Ruhlman's 20 cookbook, a roasted chicken, which I am determined to perfect since it is simple, delicious and makes at least two or more meals in our house. This recipe was slightly too salty (my fault,) but extremely juicy so I may just dial back the salt a bit. The skin was perfectly crispy and brown if not raising my sodium intake for the day to high blood pressure levels. This cookbook is kind of amazing. It's like taking a cooking class with a very articulate, imperious chef and I can't wait to read it cover to cover.

I read two books, one fiction and one nonfiction, which I will detail later, both were set in WWII and yet couldn't have been more different. Though they both had ridiculously violent murders in them. It seems like everything I've been reading lately is a little on the gruesome side. Probably time for my annual reading of The Little Prince to lighten the mood.

I think that catches us up! Tomorrow we head to Omaha for a family weekend to remember and honor Joe's stepfather's dad, Fred, who passed away a few weeks ago. The entire extended family is coming together from as far away as St. Martin, to gather, spend a few days together at a hotel, share memories and stories and ice cream (Fred's favorite) and remember what an amazing man, father and husband Fred was. This is an eclectic, fascinating and loving clan and I'm happy to be an extended part of it.

So what have you been up to lately?

All photos by Joe Sands, my all time favorite photographer/person.