Category Archives: Life in general

Things I Would Rather Do Than Move My House (Again)

Posted on July 18, 2013 | 3 comments

Moving one time in ten years isn’t bad, but the next time cannot be far enough away for my taste. It’s kind of a pain to pack up every single thing you own, move it and then unpack it all. Note to self: next time, hire the kind of movers who do all your packing for you and then load up the truck… then you only have to unpack it all (and do NONE of the lifting) and marvel over how they simply dumped the contents of your junk drawer into a box and helpfully labeled it: Junk Drawer (I was a little lax on my labeling, rather just inconsistent – I helpfully labeled a box “Kitchen 2013” because apparently the year was necessary.

I was trying to think of things that would qualify as something I would rather do than move (again) and quickly discovered that actually, there are still MANY things I would rather NOT do than move (get rid of a bee hive, face off with a squirrel and go deep sea diving are all on that list) so while my list isn’t that extreme, it does give you some perspective on my limits and boundaries. It should also be noted that moving THIS time was way more than worth it… just all-consuming and exhausting! Each night from Saturday through at least Thursday I went to bed completely wiped out, legs aching from standing, carrying and in general moving ALL day. By Tuesday, when my parents came to help unpack and put things together, I actually had to tell my ~~nearly 80~~ in-his-70s father that I needed a break when he was ready to move on to the next project. And as of right now I still have about 30% of our boxes left to unpack and our bedroom is a giant Tetris game of furniture, boxes, baskets of clean laundry and plastic tubs. Still worth it.

Things I Would Rather Do Than Move My House (Again)

Visit a water park or Cedar Point (I’ve realized I am not a fan of these places, but I sure hope my kids like them because Simon sure does and then, someday in the future, the three of them can all go away together and I can have the house to myself)
Have a third child – girl or boy.
Go a year without Diet Coke. (oh wait)
Move my office.
Never eat ~~chocolate~~ ~~bread~~ peas again (I mean, I do love pea soup).
Stop using the phone to talk on… wait, totally not a hardship but I’m not giving up texting.
Not see a movie for a year (or two, even, if I’m being generous).
See AC/DC in concert.
~~Eat only at Applebee’s when we go out for dinner.~~… nope, can’t do that one, as much as I love Tequila Lime Chicken… give me small and local and DELICIOUS every time.
Give up Prime Time television… think of how many Pinterest projects and crafts I could get done.
Take up running.
Not hate running.
Spend 24 hours with Flava Flav OR Lady Gaga OR Martin Short; but not all of them at the same time.

That’s all I got for now… what would you rather do than move?

3 Comments

Posted in House, Life in general

The Internet Gives and Takes Away

Posted on July 17, 2013 | 9 comments

The spam comments folder is always great for a laugh. To wit, I received the following spam comments on my 40 Before 40 post:

Useful information shared..Iam very happy to read this article..thanks for giving us nice info.Fantastic walk-through. I appreciate this post. [Apparently I provided a fantastic walk-through for turning 40.]
I think so. I think your article will give those people a good reminding. And they will express thanks to you later [I’m still waiting for an expression of thanks.]
I am often to blogging and i really appreciate your content. The article has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your site and keep checking for new information. [I’m less often to blogging lately, but I hope to be often to blogging again soon.]
My favorite: Dude.. I am not much into reading, but somehow I got to read lots of articles on your blog. Its amazing how interesting it is for me to visit you very often. [Gotta love a spambot that uses “dude.” But what else can you expect when their spam email has “baby-gaga” in it.]

And just when I’m feeling all special and great about myself, I find this comment from someone with a blog title that includes the phrase “how to get rid of kidney pain”:

When I read a blog, I hope that that doesnt let down me just as much as this one. I mean, I know it had been my choice to read, however actually thought youd possess something exciting to say. Just about all I hear is a lot of whining regarding something that you might fix in case you werent way too busy trying to find attention. [Dear spambot: why don’t you try using apostrophes, maybe you won’t get so angry. Also, you are dumb. And ugly.]

This is my 500th post! To honor that… I’ll pick a random commenter to get a mixed CD… odds are pretty much in your favor since it’s a pretty small comment pool.

9 Comments

Posted in Life in general

Wednesday Musings

Posted on June 26, 2013 | 5 comments

We’re moving this weekend. In theory, I’m ready – or we’re ready, I should say, though my husband will gladly tell you I have done 98% the packing while he makes sure the rest of our house runs as it should in the meantime. I kind of like packing and do not trust him to not just put things randomly in a box and call it good. That kind of packing is only allowed the day before the move when you resort to just throwing all things left out into boxes and taping them shut. This is also when you abandon labeling boxes so you end up with 20 boxes that you have to search through for that Very Important thing that you had to wait until the last minute to pack (in our case it will be Vegamite, toothbrushes and/or power cords for the Kindle/iPad).
I made a Facebook event out of our move so maybe it won’t seem like we are asking too much of our friends because it’s: FUN and we will feed you and give you drinks of whatever variety you would like. Win-win, right? Unless you pull a muscle lifting a box, in which case, I can give you an Advil Liqui-Gel, a heating pad and my sincere apologies.
Swim lessons went fabulously last week – both boys learned to swim and swam the required distances across the pool after either jumping in or being tossed in by their beloved mother. This week’s lessons have not gone as fabulously… well, for 50% of my children. Jack happily does whatever Miss Julie asks of him and hasn’t once protested or cried this week; Liam is another story. He has suddenly developed a FEAR of the deep end and whenever he is taken there to swim because he will NOT stop touching in the shallow when he is not supposed to, he FREAKS out. It is not pretty. And it makes no sense because he is actually quite a good swimmer and can swim across the pool, no problem. It’s all in his head and it’s like a switch gets flipped and he WILL NOT be reasoned with. I am at a loss. Tonight is the last night, I’m hopeful he will remain calm as he did finish up well last night and without a total freak out for three laps across the pool.
I made these Nutella Mocha No-Bake Cookies as first recommended by my friend, Keri… they are awesome and you should make them. The End. Recipe at the end of the post.
We had a family reunion last weekend – it was quite a lot of fun to catch up with people I don’t see often and also makes me sad I didn’t grow up along with my cousins being that the closest in age cousin to me is still 9 years older. Ever the baby of the family. Alas. But at least I can hang out with them now that we are all adults and hopefully we will make the reunion an annual or bi-annual thing! I’m totally up for hosting next time – though we might elect Bill and Paula every time because they were pretty awesome hosts!

Because we will be getting rid of our DVR next week, I have let the children record whatever shows they would like in the past couple weeks. So now we have 15 episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and at least a dozen of Kung-Fu Panda Legends of Awesome and Monsters vs. Aliens. [Spell check offered “Lung-Fu” as an alternative option for Kung-Fu up there – really?]
Sandy’s little baby L has finally warmed up to me and will let me hold her without crying. This does wonders for my confidence since last week I made her cry the big tears after I looked at her. She probably knows I am the mother of boys.
I wish bandages solved all the worlds problems like they do for my kids. Jack will demand a bandage for a nearly invisible ouchie he has been crying over for a large amount of time and when I give it to him he is suddenly “all better.”
We also close on our current house tomorrow, which will be awesome to no longer own two homes. Sadly we didn’t close on it sooner because yesterday Simon tossed a bread knife in our sink and it poked a hole in it so today we had to put in a brand new sink. Awesome.
I feel I shouldn’t put this here, but I have a wrinkle on the outside surface of my eyeball (yes, even imagining that makes me squeamish and it’s MY eye) that I’m just ignoring until after the move. It feels like I have an eyelash in my eye but does not seem to be affecting my vision. And yes, I will get it checked out but I cannot be wearing glasses right now since I have not actually worn glasses since freshman year of college and that one time I did, I fell down some stairs because my depth perception was WAY off. Does anyone else ignore health issues because they don’t want to deal with them at the moment? I know I’m not alone on that one.
And happiest of birthdays to my sister-in-law, Joan! I think she’s pretty awesome! May you all be so lucky to have a relative like her!

Nutella Mocha No-Bake Cookies
In double boiler, melt: 1/2 c. butter
1 3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp instant coffee granules (I used 5 packets of Starbucks VIA instant coffee)
Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of Nutella until melted. Stir in 3-4 cups of quick oats (original recipe called for 3 cups, I used 4 because mine seemed too runny and I also used Old-Fashioned Oats, use your judgement). Scoop onto wax paper and cool in fridge.

5 Comments

Posted in Food, Life in general, Random

A comparison of sorts

Posted on June 20, 2013 | 2 comments

Not too long ago someone popped up on Facebook that I hadn’t seen before and we friend-ed each other and sent along hello notes to see how life was going since we’d last seen each other in high school. You know how it goes, “How’s life? We should catch up the next time you are in town… cute kids, etc…” I thought nothing more of it until I started reading his status updates and they made me realize how life had taken us down very different roads, like laughably different.

And as is bound to happen, I thought about how these things occur… how two people end high school both as class officers (he being our president and me being treasurer) and almost twenty years later in the span of a week he is having a private dinner with the President of the United States and partying at the same event as Jay-Z and Beyonce [both true stories and not exaggerations] and I am carting my kids around to swimming lessons and camping [also true and far less glamorous]. And that is not at all to say that I would want his life, or am jealous of where he is and what he is doing (okay, a little “jealous” because, Sasha Fierce people), but it is really to note how anything is possible in life. Anything. And the choices we make in what school to go to, who are friends are, where to live and what priorities to have make the difference in where we end up – no matter where we start out. Two roads indeed diverge and we choose one or the other at every juncture.

Senior year class officers (left) and junior year (small inset on right) – humorously, all the same people two years in a row, mostly because I think our class was too, shall we say, lazy to elect new people (clearly we were not so intimidating that others wouldn’t run, to wit: the photo on the bottom right is also me and yes, I am wearing a turtleneck, denim shirt and a scrunchie on my arm. I am Michelle Fierce.)

Yes, I had that momentary twinge of “wouldn’t it be nice to have dinner with the President?” Because, hello, he is THE president and I am only human. But just as quickly as that thought came another one reminded me that his life wouldn’t be the life for me. Sure I was the girl who did everything in high school but now I’m the girl who does what she wants and there is a difference. And Mike is living the life he wants and making the choices that will take him where he wants to be (which I believe I can safely say is not at swim lessons and sleeping in a tent). But different isn’t better and different isn’t worse, it is just different. So instead of maybe being a bit jealous, I can be a whole lot more happy that it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round (and be super proud of where life has taken people I knew way back when). I can also take a moment to remember that just because someone’s highlight reel on Facebook is pretty fabulous, doesn’t mean they are any happier or better off, they are just living a different life. And good for them… it gives me a glimpse into an alternate reality and it is my choice to be thankful for the reality that is my own.

And because my search for the class officer photo also uncovered a couple other gems from the yearbook I thought I should post them here for your viewing pleasure. Above is a pic of me and my friend, Josh, decked out for the Homecoming pep rally. And because I was also the yearbook editor, I wrote the article that is featured on the page – I was totally that person in high school, the over-achiever. I’d be apologetic about that, but I’m not really sorry. I was also the girl who was on winter homecoming court my junior year (below). And, yes, Mr. Junior has black painted nails; he’s now all grown up, married to a girl we went to high school with and has two kids.

2 Comments

Posted in Gratitude, Life in general

Things that perplex me

Posted on June 19, 2013 | 4 comments

Why I need to fax copies of my marriage license, driver’s license and social security card to the gas company in order to change my last name on my account from my maiden name to my married name (yes, I have been married EIGHT years and haven’t done this yet because I have to fax all those documents – which is a slight improvement over eight years ago when they required you to go in person with said documentation to change your last name [aside: when I called customer service to see if I could do it over the phone, the person congratulated me on my marriage and I had to sheepishly tell her, actually, I got married eight years ago, I’ve just never made the name change; thankfully she laughed.]). Yet, when I called the credit card company they asked for ZERO proof and made the change over the phone. Is there some high fraud problem with utilities and name changes that I am unaware of? It seems a bit much.
Why my son (Liam) feels the need to question everything I tell him. For example, I told him he didn’t have to take a lunch to daycare today because he was getting Jimmy John’s every Wednesday, he questioned, “Are you sure? How do you know?” I would understand if he were an overall suspicious child or if I was unusually flaky and or often wrong about things but none of those things are true. Instead, he just questions me and I find myself very frequently saying, “Because I said so.” Or asking him, “Why do you think I don’t know things?” I blame Simon.
The new wave of boy bands. One Direction and The Wanted. At least our generations boy bands actually looked like boys/men and have you heard Justin Timberlake? He can actually sing and is witty to boot.
People who look graceful running. If ever I took up running, I am 100% positive I would never do it with grace and if I ever thought I was looking smooth and serene, I’m sure I would actually look like Pheobe running:

GIFSoup
How Jack is always hungry. The kid will be stuffed and unable to eat one more bite at dinner (and in his defense will mostly have eaten everything I put in front of him) and within 10 minutes of being done, he’s “starving” once again. Bottomless pit, albeit a picky, bottomless pit.
Why all technology can’t be plug and play.
Why my phone suddenly started audibly responding to my Google searches. Yesterday I used the voice command for the following inquiry: “Costco Grand Rapids hours of operation” and my phone answered, “Costco is not open, it will open at 10 this morning.” Um, thank you. And also, creepy.
Why, despite my advanced age, I like show offerings from The CW.
Why I cannot resist buying things at Target, Costco and IKEA.
Why I am a procrastinator.
How intense swimming lessons look a lot like the teacher is drowning my child. I am not worried about this because I know they are not going to drown and obviously this method works since 100s of children have been taught to swim by this person, but my goodness, it’s… well, intense.
How I can be dead tired at 2 in the afternoon and wide awake at 2 in the morning despite not having slept at all between those times.
How Jack can NEVER nap and has not napped since he was 2 and will randomly fall asleep on a 20-minute car ride.
How my husband doesn’t trust my medical judgement when I tell him I think he has sleep apnea but our friend (yes, our friend who is ACTUALLY a doctor) says that it sounds like Simon might have sleep apnea and should have a sleep study done and Simon thinks it might be worth looking into. Okay, that one I can understand, but how can I not keep from saying, “I told you so?”
How it is nearly July already.
How Simon and I could both think an Indian dish we had at a lunch buffet was chicken and yet the food sign said “V” for vegetarian. Whatever it was, it was delicious. Also delicious: butter chicken and naan.
Why my dog loses his ever-loving mind when he sees anything out of the ordinary happening outside our house; I cannot wait until he sees deer and turkeys our our windows at the new house.
Whether or not it is terrible that I am letting my children believe the invisible fence at our new house will also work on them if they try and leave our yard.
Why Liam is insisting he get to do something special with Simon for his birthday but is apathetic about whether or not Jack and I come along with them. [He actually sighed and said, “I guess you guys can come, too.”] Apparently, Jack and I = chopped liver. Jack, I can understand, for they have a typical love-hate sibling relationship, but me, I’m the giver to good gifts, organizer of play dates and purchaser of toys and fruit snacks, I should be on the good list, too.
All the different kinds of life insurance.
Why boxes can’t just pack themselves; related: how we got so much stuff.