Merry Lazy Christmas!

The best part about Christmas nowadays is knowing that it is essentially done by 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Take for instance right now: I’m actually just sitting here typing this blog and it is 3 o’clock. Both my husband and my father are taking a nap, and my son is blissfully watching Mickey Mouse Christmas cartoons on TV. As for myself, I am sitting here doing the thing I love most during Christmas break: Enjoying a good book, snacking on whatever I want to, and alternating between coffee or a cocktail (sometimes a cocktail with a coffee in it).

Ten years ago, I spent the majority of Christmas Day traveling. But now, there’s no place like home to use the grand cliché. My son gets up at the crack of dawn, or more accurately, before dawn, and I make him lie down until at least the sun comes up.

Our tradition consists of getting up and putting on family pajamas, then watching him gloss over his clothes and rip through his gifts to play with the most wanted toy for an hour before giving into the urge to play with boxes. We then open our couple gifts, followed by a leisurely breakfast, which is more accurately a brunch since we start so late. Then my husband goes out to the grill and smokes a pork loin roast, after which he goes to take a nap, warning me not to touch the roast until a very lax dinner time, or at least not 20 minutes. Dinner is anytime, which can be anywhere from 2 to 7, then we veg out in front of the TV. Then I call it a day.

Granted, I get invited to family dinners and also get the opportunity to house hop. YetI generally remain noncommittal so that I can say, “Sorry. Can’t make it out. See you sometime this week.” We both know I have no intention of coming, but a little white lie at Christmas never hurts.

Wheelchairs Are F***ing Heavy!

By the end of the year, I’m pretty sure I’ll have some nice guns, or Popeye arms. Have I finally gotten back into my hourly arm exercises at work? I wish. My workout comes from lifting a wheelchair.

I know that there are lighter wheelchairs out there. My aunt used to have a light travel one. Yet none of my father’s wheelchairs are fortunate enough to be light. His current one doesn’t even have leg lifts that stay on. On the one occasion leg lifts were on the chair, 1 fell off and damn near crushed my toes.

For those who don’t know, for the past 3 years, my dad has been in a nursing home almost as much as he’s been here at home with me. Recently, I've been taking my dad out to his doctors' appointments then a meal afterward. Do you realize what this means? On 6 separate occasions, I have to heft a wheelchair in and out my trunk.

This is exercise in and of itself, especially since there is an art to it. First, the trunk has tone relatively free of debris. Since my trunk operates as a catch all (currently it has a few textbooks, some sodas for my dad, a wayward wheelchair cushion and my dad's gloves from March), this requires pre-prep (shoving things out of the way or tossing them in the back seat).

Then there's the folding of the chair and figuring out how not mash any fingers in the process. After that, there is the 3-foot lift and maneuver, where I have place the large wheels in first, then do some crazy twisting to be able to close the trunk. This lifting and maneuvering means that proper attire has to be worn dresses and skirts are not recommended.

The exercise goes in reverse for the removal, with the added twist of seeing how much weight to bear down to flatten the chair. Dad usually needs a little assistance out of the car too, so I squally offer him arm like we’re about to start a waltz.

I get about 3 of these reps for each set. Add to this the aerobic workout I get from pushing Dad around. Thanks to our excursion at the VA, I managed to log almost 4,000 steps! To me, those steps should count as double with the resistance. Never let anyone tell that as people older, they get lighter, even if they lost weight.

I guarantee you tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling like I wrestled a walrus and wondering why I feel that way. But if it gives me a bit of a workout, it's okay since my ultimate goal is to stay off meds and out of a wheelchair.

The School Kid

Today, I have to take some time to just express my mommyhood.

My son officially started kindergarten today.

I’m leaving that sentence alone like that just so it can sink in.

The question you’re inevitably asking me is if I cried this morning. And though my eyes did get a tad watery, no, I did not shed any waterworks. I wasn’t even super anxious, not even when A said to me that he didn’t want me to leave. Once he was seated in his classroom, I was ready to go, much to the chagrin of my husband. But I’d been standing in corral of k-3rd graders and their parents for 20 minutes and in a crowded hallway for another 5. I’m not super fond of large swarms, and I was feeling antsy. Plus, I had to get to work.

But I have to say about this whole school thing, this is where true parenthood will be put to the test. Not only do I have to make sure he gets up, takes a proper shower, brushes his teeth thoroughly, AND has a cleaned pressed uniform, I also have to make sure he has breakfast before he leaves the house. I will admit, I have been spoiled. At each of the four places he has been prior to school (a friend’s daycare center, a babysitter/grandma figure, and two childcare centers), I could just drop him off in the mornings and he was fed for free there. Sure, two of the places had uniform requirements, but their uniforms were no big deal since, it was just a matter of basic uniform pants and a basic polo shirt. I could scoop up the pants for less than $10 apiece and the shirts for $4 or $5. And again, as long as I dropped him off by 8:30 at the childcare centers, he was fed breakfast, lunch and a snack free of charge (or at least included in the weekly fee). I was even semi-prepared for the school systems here in Maryland since each year, I had a supply list which generally included things like crayons, boxes of tissues, wipes. As he got older, the lists got longer, so I wasn’t too shocked at what I had to buy for this year, only at the quantity.

The middle of the summer this year, I decided to start picking up items from his school list and was done relatively early. Of course, it required printing out said list. As I said, I was used to the idea of having to supply crayons, tissues, Clorox wipes, sanitizer and even paper (this time composition notebooks and construction paper). But here’s where things get a little weird for me: four glue sticks! 2 24-packs of pencils! Dry erase markers! The one that most astounded me was the pencils. Why 2 packs of 24? In my mind, I can see the teachers providing my kid with 2 pencils and then giving the rest to the school office to sell back to kids (paranoid I know, but 48 pencils?). I know they’re meant to last a school year, but really?

The other thing that threw a curve ball was the specificity of the uniform. Sure, the kids can wear any khaki colored pants, and they can wear any type of shoe, but the shirts?! They are custom embroidered by one particular uniform shop. The short sleeved shirts are $23 and the long sleeved ones are $25. And there’s a $10 tie. And the option of a vest and a sweater. So 3 of each type shirt plus a tie, and you do the math.

The absolute upside? This is a public charter and is therefore tuition free! After 4 years and 2 months, I am not paying for all-day care, only before and after! While I still have to pay something every 2 weeks, I am seeing about a 25% reduction in tuition. Of course, I do have to make sure he gets breakfast and lunch every day, whether it’s homemade or paid for at school.

And this is where I say that school is the true test of parenthood. And while we didn’t exactly flunk today’s test, we did flub a bit and almost forgot to make sure he had lunch. We ended up paying for it in the cafeteria. Apparently this school goes by an online code system, where the parents can add money and the kid only has to punch in a pin number for their account. No more robbing kids for milk money I guess.

I am glad that I had the foresight to follow my girlfriend’s lead (who is the mom of my youngest godson, who also happens to attend the same school) and actually make sure that he ate before he left the house. Yet that puts a whole new set of burdens on us. Now we have to make sure we actually buy breakfast stuff and prep it on weekdays. Before, we (and I use “we” very loosely to mean mostly my husband) cooked breakfast on the weekends and days off (when we didn’t go out for it). This whole breakfast in the morning is going to shake up my entire world. I have to get up earlier, prepare a meal, and change his order of operations (he brushes his teeth right after the shower, then lotions and dresses) to put on underclothes, eat, brush teeth then finish dressing. Add to that the fact that some days, I will have to prepare lunch for him as well. Then there’s the evening routine as well. It’s a further commute, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has soccer. This is going to require him changing into his practice clothes at some point. Yikes.

My worry? Okay, I have at least 2 besides the lifestyle change above. One, Ayden is the small fish in a BIG pond again. In his first 3 places he went, he was 1 of 7 or 8 tops. Then last year, I got a little panicked when I realized he was 1 of 17. His class this year has a total of 28 kids! My other worry of course is that Ayden is a talker. He always feels the need to express himself. While I don’t exactly want that stifled, I also don’t want it to create a problem for him. What’s weirdly comforting is that my mother-in-law tells me that her son (the one I married) was much the same way. She said that it got him onto the debate team.

I can only hope. But for now I can only pray.

**Sigh**-nuses

It is officially Hump Day, and I am just getting to the completion of this blog. This was technically Monday’s post, but as you will find out when you read, I blame all lack of productivity on sinus activity. I’m actually writing most of this from memory because somehow I failed to save a single word.

My DBBF (if you don’t know by now, that stands for Dearly Beloved Best Friend) and I will occasionally begin a phone conversation with this greeting: “Will you please come cut my nose off?” This is usually our not-so-subtle way of signaling that our sinuses are out of control. Yesterday, it was my turn to call, but my sinuses had me so off course that I barely got anything done.

Whenever my sinuses go completely off the rails, it’s because I’m either not drinking enough water, or because I’m catching a cold. In my younger days, colds would be of the 24-hour variety, easy to come, but easy to get rid of with a cup of my mom’s hot tea remedy.

But as my age increased, so did the complexity of the treatment. At first Theraflu worked, then NyQuil. Now it’s a combination of the tea, NyQuil, a sinus pill and a squirt of nasal spray. I generally try to avoid the nasal spray at almost all costs because it’s totally gross. After I spray it, I can feel it—ewww—oozing down my throat and I get the unfortunate taste as if I’ve just drank hair spray.

So until my face stops leaking (because with sinus problems comes runny nose AND watery eyes), I am at the mercy of NyQuil.

My biggest problem is that I’m allergic to dust. Laugh at the irony that I work in a library, where dust is a job hazard. So going to work inhibits my sinus healing, and has on a few occasions led to a full blown sinus infection where I had to get antibiotics plus other OTC remedies (last year it was Mucinex and Sudafed).

Tired now. My nose is draining, not just in the tissues I am blowing through, but causes fatigue. Charge any grammatical errors to them. **sigh**

And **sniff*

McDonalds: I am NOT Loving It

McDonalds is an American icon. It has brilliant marketing, capturing and branding children from the age of 18 months with a thrilling mix of red and yellow, which are coincidentally the first colors developing babies can discern (these are not made-up statistics; for more, read Juliet Shore’s Born to Buy).

McDonalds makes it easy for its employees to ring up orders because it tells them meals with icons on the cash register. The cashiers don't have to figure out change because the register tells them how much money to give back and dispenses the coin change for them. The company has even ensured cup pouring where all employees have to do is put the appropriate size cup in and push the matching button! They don't even have to hold the button down; the machine measures the size. So you'd think that most human error would be eliminated.

Not.

To be fair, I am addressing one particular McDonalds located on 8901 Stuart Lane in Clinton, Maryland. This McDonalds is THE worst I have ever been to. Why do I keep frequenting them? Pure location. My dad’s nursing home is there and it’s the closest one to my son’s practice field. So I get held over a barrel when the kid wants something, and when my dad needs an early breakfast on the way to an appointment.

Scenario 1 with kid: I go through the drive-thru for a quick stop on the way to soccer practice. I order a simple Happy Meal: plain cheeseburger with ketchup, fries, apples, and milk. Off we head to the soccer field. We get there and what do you think was wrong with the order? No, not the cheeseburger: these dorks fail to put in any milk! So I have to leave the soccer field return to the McDonalds, go inside (defeats the purpose of fast food AND drive-thru).

Scenario 2 with dad: Today, I had to take Dad downtown—early. Stopped through the drive-thru again. Paid attention to order on screen. Did clever thing and actually looked in the bag. All items accounted for. So I pick up Dad, give him his meal, drink my coffee and eat both hash browns. The steak, egg and cheese bagel would be great for later since I couldn't dig into it while I was driving into DC and trying to find the VA Medical Center.

Four hours later: I safely get Dad to the VA, stop him by Wendy's, drop him back to the home, then make my way back home. Now I’ll just let you into my head to hear—or rather read—my thoughts.

Ah, time to open the bagel. Hmm, it looks a little thin. And feels a little light.

Okay, end of the inside my mind tour because what you would hear—uh, read—would blister your ears. You might have guessed by now, but I’ll just tell you.

My STEAK, EGG and CHEESE bagel had everything but the STEAK, the EGG, and the CHEESE! They gave me a friggin’ toasted BAGEL! Who the hell does that? Therefore, if you have a choice, do NOT frequent this McDonalds. Wendy's, Chipotle and Arby's are across the street. There is also a Checkers and Popeyes on Woodyard Road on the other side of 5. If it's too early and you can sit down, IHOP is across the street too. Even one of the many carryouts in the vicinity would be better. Heck, get a breakfast sandwich from 7-11 or the Shell store's market. Rant over.

Undignified Foods

There are just certain foods you can’t eat with dignity. They’re either incredibly messy or cause you to open your mouth in a non-dainty fashion. And you do not want your date to see your molars on the first date. (Or at least I don’t.) When I was single and dating, if it was a first date with someone brand new and we went out to a restaurant, there were just things that were off the menu. Essentially, if it could not be cut into small geometric shapes and handled easily with eating utensils, it was off the menu until I was safely at home and could break all the dating etiquette rules.

• Salad: this is at the top of my list for myriad reasons. The unpredictability of lettuce as you try to tame it in on the fork. The other ingredients that don’t stay on together as you get that prefect combo bite. The dripping of the dressing. The width you have to open your mouth to accommodate all this. It’s not pretty. So when on a first date, a salad is never recommended.
• Ribs (or any other bone-in meat): Even if you manage to cut most of the meat of the bone and into those geometrical shapes, there’s still always that stubborn piece that clings to bone. And I personally don’t like to waste food, so at some point, I’m going to be tempted to pick that bone up and gnaw the rest of that meat of (which sounds so sexualized but is really just greedy). But especially call ribs out because unlike other meat that can be gingerly cut if tender enough, ribs don't cooperate. At best, you'll get a long string of rib meat. You try to bite some off and the string falls apart but doesn't give easily against the grain. you're then given the choice of wrestling it with your mouth or shoving the whole thing in. Then there's the added messiness of sauce (I personally like mine dry rubbed with the option of dipping the meat in the sauce).
• Corn on the Cob: First, there’s the fact that you HAVE to pick this one up with your fingers. You can try to cut it off the cob, but that still involves handling it with your fingers at some point. Other than that, eating corn is a risk. First of all, there’s the propensity of corn to spurt. I’ve accidentally squirted someone in the eye with corn juice. Then, there’s the fact that corn on the cob tends to nest between your teeth at every discernable gap. Uncomfortable and unattractive.
• Maryland Crabs: Again, one of those foods that has a multitude of problems. First, you have to pick them, which is a mess in and of itself. I don’t know about you, but gorging out of the innards of an animal does not smack of romance to me. Secondly, the juice from a crab is more dangerous than that of corn-on-the-cob since it is often liberally laced with Old Bay. Imagine getting that in your eye! Finally, even after you’re done, the scent of the crab lingers with you. Yes, real crab eaters know that using lemon juice will eliminate the crab smell from your hand, but why even risk it. Save them as a social activity with friends and family.
• Long Pasta: This one is iffy since I do like to go Italian places. If I don’t feel like I want to avoid having pasta (usually the case if I order something like chicken parmesan), I’ll cut the pasta into small pieces, twist it on with a spoon and secure it with a small piece of meat and then take a bite. It sounds tedious, I know, but it saves a lot of mess.
• Spinach or broccoli: These two vegetables, more than any two, seem to lodge themselves on the front of your teeth in the most unattractive fashion, so whenever you want to flash that gorgeous smile at your date, you end up looking like you have the worst tooth decay EVER. And it’s always highly embarrassing when that date tells you—and even worse when he doesn’t.

So I know by now that you’re wondering what in the world did I EAT when I was on a date. I would choose a thick soup over salad. For an appetizer something small that you can fork and eat neatly (calamari for instance, but only the rings). For an entree, my go-to has always been a steak (and no, not the most expensive one on the menu) with a baked potato and green beans. For seafood restaurants, there’s always salmon, shrimp and crab CAKES (enjoy the flavor and avoid the mess). Rice is almost always safe because you can control the portion and it’s generally dry and doesn’t make a mess if you drop one or more grains. Although I have something against ordering most types of chicken at restaurants, I don’t mind it as a go-to if there are no other appealing options.

Now when I’m home or comfortable with the people I’m with, all rules of dignity and etiquette are tossed off the way women toss their bras and Spanx off when the get home (yes, fellas it is a thing).

Unruly Emails

Unruly Emails There was time when I got my first desktop computer that email fascinated me. I could read them, save them, print them or discard them with ease and would only have a few in my inbox.

Fast forward 20 years later. Now, I have not one, but 4 email accounts, and they are so flooded with email I can’t stand it. And I know the first thing you’re thinking is why on earth do you have 4 email accounts?

The first one is my work email account. This is where all my work related things get filtered. Also, as my oldest email account, it is the one most of my family and friends know should they need to contact me or send me something. And over the years, it’s grown from the campus alerts to all things library, higher education, teaching and reading related. And then there are the occasional ads for merchants that I frequent. Now the work email has a separate clutter area in addition to the junk mail feature. The clutter mailbox filters out sites you may have signed up for but not accessed frequently.

The 2nd email address is my Yahoo! Email addy. This is my 2nd oldest account, set up to filter personal correspondence away from my work email. I also had some of my early commercial accounts and restaurant email sent there. I used to do a lot out of my Yahoo account including chat and blog. No one IM chat chats anymore since cell phones took over that market. And Yahoo closed its blog server sending me archived blog in one big text doc. So out pure protest, I stopped using it, checking mail only when the server threatened to close my domain, which after so many years, I basically think of as trademarked. Then in 2010, I reactivated it, keeping it as a place where most of my mommy emails went.

Along came Gmail. When my hubby and I started sharing mutual items together, this account was set up so we could both access things. Shortly after that, I decided I needed an account dedicate purely to my professional writing aspirations. This is also the one connected to this blog, which is recently new. Blognotable Moments used to be More Unchained Thoughts which used to be Unchained Thoughts under Yahoo! I’m pretty sure Under the Cherry Moon was a blog name too in its early carnations but copyright law and all that.

My Mistrust of Straight and Perpendicular Angles

Yes, this is a serious blog about a serious situation. I do have an actual mistrust of things that are placed too painstakingly at right angles. I promise you I am not-OCD, and I wasn’t born this way.

Today, I saw a series of 4 drawings on a study table in the library, meticulously lined up with no owner in sight. It isn’t the first time I’ve some drawings on that particular table, as different ones appeared a week or so ago. The artist is semi-talented in the way a 5th grader would be. Today, I gathered them in a pile and read the note the artist left behind, dismissing him or her as one of our special patrons, which we get a lot of. But his organizational tactics reminded of that innate mistrust I have of anyone who places objects in flawless formation.

It’s no mystery (or at least it shouldn’t be) that I have not 1 but 2 mentally disturbed parents. Now I get the fact that most children feel that there is something wrong with their parents, but I’m not saying that in a general-fun-of-the-mill-all-parents-are-crazy way, but in a clinical-psychologist-has-diagnosed-both-of-them kind of way.

I won’t go into great details of their respective psychoses right now, but they each had their issues manifest in their mid-20s. Needless to say, a lot of circumstances surrounding the illnesses caused our nuclear family to implode. But that’s not really the point of this blog.

Being surrounded by a parent with a mental disorder is an exercise in paranoia. You learn to put up your defenses at an early age because you never quite know what you’re going to encounter with a mentally ill parent. My mom has remained largely untreated throughout her lifetime, except for one brief intermission where she was institutionalized. However, though her delusions were lessened, they had become such a symbiotic part of her psyche that they are a permanent part of her reality. I lived with her for 17 years of my life, at least 1 with all four of us, 7 with her and my brother and exclusively with her for 10 years.

Then at 17, I moved in with my dad to a whole new lifestyle. Not only was it a physical change in atmosphere in terms of moving from rural to suburban, there were other changes in my routine, how and what I ate, even in the water. I was never fully aware of my father’s mental issues because for the most part, he stays well medicated and fully functional. Apparently only a few things will trigger a breakdown, and they are usually associated with extreme stress or certain cold medicines.

I don’t quite remember the first time I saw him go off the rails, but I do know the end result was me calling my uncles for assistance. In the years to follow with his occasional attacks, I learned how to efficiently deal with them, including developing a good relationship with his psychiatrist and knowing the early warning signs. One of them was organization.

My dad’s ex-military, so it would stand to reason that he already had some organizational quirks. However, when his meds stopped working, there were definitive signs. Neatly organized items with exact parallels and perpendiculars was one of them. Check out the pictures of this normal arrangement...

...compared to the neatly aligned items in this picture.

When I would see this, I would be on edge, waiting for the signs to manifest, which would include playing of loud music, sleeplessness, high-pitched Turret’s screaming, forgetfulness and finally catatonia. The sleeplessness would first be his, followed closely by mine as I tried to keep him from shouting out to the entire neighborhood in the middle of the night. The forgetfulness would cause him to do things like start cooking and then forget a pan on the stove. When I started working closely with his psychiatrist, I could usually get him admitted for a quick reset, and the earlier I caught it, the quicker he’d get better and come home.

The residual effect of his stay? It would take me a few days to ease back into friendly father-daughter conversations with him until I made sure he was balanced. The long-term effects are of course that I live in more of an organized chaos. Part of this was due to my own upbringing, where I was not held responsible for cleaning my own room, but would have it done every day by my mom. But part of it is that natural distrust of anything laid out too neatly.

Funniest Thing I Heard Today

I don’t know about you, but I have a quirky habit of thinking that something is so funny, even when it is either only vaguely amusing, or in some cases, not funny at all. For instance, I remember one time a long time ago, one my restaurant co-workers and I went to a movie—a Sinbad movie at that! From what I just said, you already know that the movie was most likely not funny. However, I can tell you that the co-worker and I both cracked up laughing at this one particular scene (don’t even ask me to remember the scene; I don’t even remember the movie). The problem was, no one else in the entire theater laughed! Our fit of laughter could have had something to do with the food and drink we'd had (or drinks rather).

More recently, the other day, I was told something anecdotally that was just a cute story about someone else (I won’t bother to share because there is no context I could make you understand), and one part of it struck me so funny that I actually slapped my knee! Not only that, I chuckled about the incident ALL DAY! Even now, I find the corners of my lips turning up as I remember the story.

So today when I’m on the phone with my husband today, he says to me, “I’m going to look to you for help on this.” It doesn’t matter what it was per se; all that matters is my response: “Well, you can look to me all you want. I will probably just blink back at you really hard.” I know exactly why this particular phrase was so funny and part of it is because the subtext is that no matter how hard he looks the help probably will not materialize.

I suppose my weird sense of humor is because I'm a word nerd combined with the factI find humor every day. On top of that, I like the stories that are infused with humor.

The Desperate Longing for Eyebrows

I bet you think I'm reaching at straws with this blog topic. But for those of you don't know, there’s a real tragedy because I am hereditarily cursed with thin eyebrows! Although my entire family has thick flowing locks to adorn our crowns, the vast majority of us are hairless wonders, especially the women!

This is great for our legs because we don't have to shave or wax. I literally have 5 hairs on my left leg and 3 on my right. There is faint hair on my arms but it is the same color as my arms, and therefore, invisible.

Then there are my eyebrows. Lamentably, they are almost non-existent. Without eyebrow enhancement, I resemble Whoopi Goldberg, who is rumored to keep her eyebrows shaved/waxed because she thinks eyebrows are a useless part of the body.They’d always been on the thinner side, yet unshaped. To thicken them, I started using an eyebrow pencil. At first, was the good old fashioned Maybelline pencil, but the wood shaving started bothering me.

Then I discovered the self-sharpening eyebrow pencil and it has been my boon companion ever since. Avon pencils are by far my favorite as far as quality and price. I also use their eyeliners in almost every color. I even forayed into the waterproof eyeliners, which I especially enjoy using during the summer. I am so dependent on them that for the longest time, even my best friend had never seen me without them painted on for the first 6 years of our friendship.

To get rid of the unruliness, I first tried shaping them with one of the those eyebrow razors, but it didn't do as clean a job and when they grew back, it was stubbly. So in my mid-20s, I got my first waxing from a hairdresser. It hurt so bad, it made my eyes water and I never went back to her again. Over the years, the pain lessened as I started getting done every few months. My brows were so thin that the one of the ladies who used to wax them once suggested I get a tattoo enhancement!

But now that I’m older, I no longer need the waxing, just an occasional pluck of about 8 or 9 strays, including my first gray eyebrow hair! I recently tried to stray from my trusty brow pencils. Usually, I just go to the nearest store and grab another self-sharpening pencil. My first try was at a beauty supply store where I found this nifty brow powder from NYC. Then I tried two new products from Avon. One another powder with sealing wax. Both the powders worked well.

Then I got cocky and tried a liquid brow brush. The problem with the brush is that I needed to brows that were thick enough to paint! When I applied the brush, it was just a wet slimy mess. Needless to say, I returned it for my 8 bucks and went back to my trusty Avon pencils.

He Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

For some reason, my child is into Ghostbusters. I'm not sure where it came from other than the previews he's been seeing and maybe Kevin McCarthy reviewing them. He's so obsessed that when his class went to Build-a-Bear Workshop, he ended up buying a Ghostbuster's outfit for his newest bear. He named him Cheesy though, which I didn't get, other than except through child logic: "because he likes cheese!"

So he's constantly been telling me that he's brave, and not scared, except still of chuck E. Cheese. So my deal with him?

Make it through the originals and then we'll go. So I recorded them for him on AMC and we watched one Friday morning (when he was out sick from school) and the other Saturday morning. While the movies were filled with Bill Murray's outright silliness, Dan Aykroyd's goofy humor, and great sly humor by Harold Ramis (in GII saying "More like my epididymis" in response to Bill Murray saying "I bet they love your big brain"), there really aren't that many ghost appearances. In addition, the animation probably looked elementary to Ayden, who is used to realistic-2D computer animation in his cartoons.

True to our word, we took him. And even though he jumped at times, he still was not scared. Of course, he did have to go to the bathroom twice, and always during the best parts.

And how did the grown-ups like it? Great reboot of the franchise. There were cameos from everyone from the original film that is still living, except Rick Moranis. And while the cameos made a great overall homage to the original film, //I have agree with Kevin: they weren't really needed. The plus side is that younger generations will not get spoiled by this since the originals came out in 1984 and 1989, respectively. In addition, Chris Hemsworth (who we know as Thor in Marvel movie franchise history) is hilarious!

Interesting tidbit that I learned about the movie though. Originally, Ernie Hudson's role was supposed to be bigger and more integrated, but was chopped at the last minute. Winston Zeddmore's character background was actually that of an ex-astronaut. Read more about his comments here and here. I dare anyone to read these and then look at his role in there; you'll read it very differently with this knowledge.

Hellified Heat

It has been extra hot here this week! Not only has it been hot, but there is humidity has draped over the city's atmosphere. It's the kind of hot that makes you want to experiment with frying an egg out here! Is hot enough that I felt sorry for the little stray cat that I see on the side of the road on my commute home from work, and moreso the homeless people I ride past as well.

On days like this, it is almost tempting to call in sick to life in general. Yet because it's so hot, staying home isn't a great option either because on the "dog days of summer," all of the power companies decide that when it's a high heat index day, and that they are going to cycle your air off temporarily, especially if you are enrolled in their energy Savings Plan (which I haven't seen much savings on since I've been enrolled).

For those of you not enrolled in Energy savings, the premise if you lessen your air consumption by a certain percentage, you are supposed to save money on your electric bill. The trade-off of course, is that on certain days that are designated as heat index days, the power company has control over your thermostat! They turn off your central air conditioning supply for a few hours. On the surface, this does not seem so bad especially if they do the cut off at hours in which you are not home. The problem, however, is with the time that the power companies choose. The time from my energy cycling is scheduled roughly for 3 p.m. and generally extends until around 6 p.m. . This means that when I get home my air will not be on! My only saving grace this week is that A and I attended Vacation Bible School, which began at 6 p.m. and ended at around 9 p.m. (more on adventures at VBS later).

Right now, I am sitting in the relative comfort of my home in the morning, nursing my son back to health to help him recover from his summer cold. Like his mama, he can't handle fluctuations indoor and outdoor temperatures. Yes, that means that I caught a slight 1 myself, but managed to knock mine out with Thera-Flu. But it knocked him out of commission not only for the last night of VBS, but also for this morning's soccer practice this morning. I'm actually thankful for it this morning, because after last week's super hot outdoor practice, I was not looking forward to more extreme heat.

Stay hydrated folks. One good way is to make sure you start off the day with a cup before you leave. Fast-food Restaurants give courtesy cups of water. Take your own cup to 7-11 and other convenience stores and you get water from the dispenser for free (a kid actually did not know this and expressed surprise when he saw me leave with my container). Again, stay hydratted. Avoid brown sodas and caffeine because they extract water from your body.

My Obsession with Wegmans, Part 2

So where were we?

Ah, burgers (in my best inner Homer Simpson voice). I almost feel as if I haven’t done the burger bar at Wegman’s justice, but mostly because thinking of that burger makes me almost drool on my keyboard. They actually closed the Burger Bar for a year, and I believe that enough protests brought it back. This year, they’re doing monthly promotions of different sandwiches. In June, they featured a shrimp po’ boy, and I will admit, I had one. I can only close my eyes in remembered bliss. This month, they’re featuring a fried chicken sandwich, and while I very seldom order chicken sandwiches out of anywhere but fast food or Ruby Tuesday’s (the buffalo chicken sandwich), I may give Wegmans the chance to impress me.

But as I was saying yesterday, Wegman’s has cornered the market on the on-the-go person. Say that you want to replicate that home-cooked meal without actually preparing all the ingredients, Wegman’s has you covered. Whereas ordinary grocery stores, hereby probably just referred to as “the others,” have maybe one or two cases a couple yards (or meters for those of you on the metric system) long, Wegman’s has cases the equivalent of a quarter-mile track. You encounter fresh foods that you can mix and match protein and 2 sides for a meal and go home and warm it. You have four different flavors of jumbo shrimp in a case. There are a variety of fish: cleaned, some fileted, and some stuffed with a seafood mixture, again that you can go home and prepare. Then there’s the beef case, where thick succulent steaks are on display. On Valentine’s Day, I’ve even seen ribeyes butterflied and arrange as heart. Again, there are also cuts that are stuffed.

On the opposite side from the cases are the free standing refrigerated items that are prepackaged. This includes the family-style sides that you can pop in the oven and serve. And there is every type of fair from typical American fare that you would see on a Thanksgiving holiday such as mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, seasoned green beans, along with entrée meat choices of chicken turkey. There is also a family style Asian selection of orange chicken and other good things. I’m feel I’m failing in my description or even boring you with myriad lists of foods. You really have to go see for yourself. Admittedly, it might overwhelm your senses. "The Tyranny of Choice" is real folks.

What to talk about next? I could extol the bakery, with its cookies and cakes and pies and donuts, which would do the same thing to this blog that I did in real life and keep me just on one section of the store.

Or I could mention that the store has an artisan cheese section, a freaking Mediterranean olive bar (who likes olives that much?0, a gargantuan organic section, a station where they openly chop and prep vegetables for sides, grilling and stir fry cooking, even peppering in tasting demonstrations (which actually occur in other sections of the store).

Or I could talk about the fact that you can not only get cookware and utensils, but decorate your entire kitchen and dining room in seasonal décor while you’re there, complete with place settings (trust me, every summer, I’ve purchased a new set of placemats from there). I’ve actually also purchased several little novelty items as gifts from there as well, such as this nifty notepad or 3 mini zebra flasks.

I could probably go into more detail and create at least two more posts, but I’m going to stop here. Yes, I do have an obsession with this store. I have yet to venture to the Alexandria location (where they sell booze), but I think it’s on my own personal Zip Trip (me and the hubby with local weatherman Tucker Barnes at National Harbor)..

All I can say is imagine a cross between the others, a big box store, Bed Bath and Beyond, an Amish market and a mall food court and you may be able to grasp just the tip of the iceberg. Seriously, if there’s not one near you, vacation to a location near one.

My Obsession with Wegmans, Part 1

I never thought I would actually fall in love with a grocery store. Prior to Wegman’s, they were just functional places that I needed to go to get groceries. Sure, like any shopper, I could pick up a few added extras from time to time, but usually grocery shopping meant lamenting the long lines.

But then I met Wegmans. Even though it only seems like it’s been a couple of summers, the reality is that we first met in the fall of 2010. What I do remember is that the first few times I went in there, I didn’t make it out of the fresh food and bakery section. The first time I actually went in there to shop, I remember I was looking for pasta. Instead of opting to browse the aisles, I studied the aisle directory and tried to put blinders on to get to where I needed to be. Little did I know that the store had a bulk loose candy/nut section, and further did I not know that it was on the way to the pasta. I remember physically stopping short and just staring at the vast array of bins in front of me which held everything from individually wrapped Snickers to chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

I made it out of there that day with just the pasta and a promise—to return and browse at leisure. This was actually no easy feat since I was due to be a new mommy in a few more weeks. But eventually a break came and I was able to explore at leisure. And it’s been a love affair ever since.

For those of you who don’t have a Wegman’s near you, I would encourage you to take a vacation in a town that has one. I promise you won’t need to go anywhere for anything else. Wegman’s is built for everyone.

For the person on the go. You could be a commuter, a college student, someone on a lunch break, or a busy mom with the hot/fresh food section. At the very first stop in the section (at least the one located in Woodmore), you come to the coffee bar. In the morning the coffee bar sells made-to-order breakfast sandwiches or oatmeal. The breakfast ends at 11am, but coffee is available all day, and you can even get ice cream from here.

Move a few more steps ahead and you come to the deli, where you can a full selection of sandwiches and subs, hot or cold. Only two words for this section: everything bread!

Traverse a few more steps and you can get hot pizza or calzones. Both of these stops offer combo meals where you can add a drink. But that’s only the beginning.

Whoever heard of grocery store having four different hot food stations? But that’s exactly what you get at Wegmans. To be fair, there is a cold salad bar station, but who wants salad when you have a wing bar? Yes. I said wing BAR. The bar has at least six different flavors at any given time. My personal favorites are the lemon pepper fried and the Old Bay flavored (you have to be an Atlantic Coaster to know about this). Added to the wing bar is the Asian hot food station, which is separated from the Indian, and the Southern/home food station. And they also have a soup station.

But that’s not all. How about you can get freshly rolled sushi from Wegmans? Yes, I said fresh, because several times a day, you can see the sushi chefs (is that the right term?) actually make the rolls. And they have the option of the raw or the cooked.

Yet and still, that’s not all. Wegmans has a burger bar. And I’m telling you, Wegman’s has one of the best burgers I have EVER tasted. The patties are hand-pressed and seasoned, and cooked to order. They come with either French fries or onions and the damned bar even has the nerve to sell old fashioned shakes, which I am both proud and ashamed that I have not tried.

I was naïve enough to believe I could talk about this place in one sitting. More tomorrow.

Blogginconsistency

So 3 days have passed since I last put fingers to keyboard for a blog post. And I will admit to something dire. I have a problem with consistency.

I hear imaginary crickets as I realize that no one is surprised by this.

The real surprise is in how many different ways I’ve cataloged my inconsistencies.

1. My constant battle with my weight. Although I have worked out since I was 20, I have very seldom sustained any workout beyond a few months. Then I would find myself going back. Last year, when I visited my physician, I told her that I have done almost every workout in the book: yoga, swimming, kickboxing, water aerobics, aerobic training, track walking, weight training. And I've tried every method of motivation: paying for it, enlisting friends for wake up calls or as workout partners, pinning inspirational phrases/pictures. Look at the latest trend:
   • Cize. Out the eight video sequence, I made it to #2. And this was after staying on video #1 for two weeks, then doing the 2nd about 4 times in another 2 weeks.
   • Kettle Bell. I may have picked each of them (I have one at work and at home) up a grad total of four times.
   • The elliptical. By far, one of my most successful endeavors, meaning I can do it for about 3 months consistently.
   • Insert latest diet craze here.
     • South Beach.
     • Calorie Count.
     • Jug of water per day.
     • 40-day fast.
     I'm not going to lie, each one of these that I did gave me good results, especially when I started mixing them with exercise. And each of them gave me a better eating lifestyle than I'd previously had. But again, the goal was some kind of consistency. How come I can't sustain them is a question I constantly ask. I would be okay if I could just be one of those people who could take a weekend break from the wagon. But not only do I fall off it, I jump with a tuck and roll and sprint away from it, usually to the nearest restaurant.
2. Writing.
   • My book. I've started and stopped so many times I feel like I’ll be 90 before I actually finish it. The bad part is that I am SO CLOSE.
   • This damn blog. Just trying to cultivate the habit of writing something EVERY SINGLE DAY is causing my brain to rebel. I've heard my self tell myself to write on Wednesday. And myself responded back to my self, I'll write later. And while I did indeed write later, it wasn't to blog, but to get my articles done, and I didn't even do much of that.

Okay, so those are only 2 things, but they seem to encompass so much of my stop and start life. Yet there are other things. For instance, I may start a project and never pick it back up. I didn’t even keep with organizing my calendar thanks to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I thought was the most helpful book ever. I had even practiced expressing gratitude on a daily basis through a Facebook group, and I was proud of that…and then it fell apart.

Believe it or not, I am not using this blog as a platform to berate myself. I’ve done okay in life. One thing I do manage to complete is reading. The only problem with reading is that there is SO MUCH out there to read that it makes it hard for me to ever whittle down my To Be Read Lists--any of them. Let's put it this way: for every one book I read, I manage to add 6 to the list (a topic I'll discuss in another blog). I do pretty well following timelines in my teaching too, although I leave as much room as I can for flexibility. And as I've admitted before, the freelancing is helping me be more steady with following deadlines.

There's always room for improvement. The old GI Joe cartoon slogan was "Knowing is half the battle." Now I just have to battle the other halves.

Conversations About the 4th

I took a break for the holiday, but here I am, at it again. As holiday weekends went, this one was tame. It all started with a conversation on Friday.

She: “So, what are your plans for the 4th?”

Me: “Nothing.”

She: “For real? You’re always on the go, or traveling or something?”

Me: “Precisely why I’m not going anywhere this weekend.”

So it was almost the truth. In actuality, I did have sketchy plans to go to karaoke on Sunday and to the golf course across from my alma mater for jazz and fireworks. On the 4th of July, I sat around in my homemade Public Enemy shirt (more on that in a later blog), yoga pants, knit booties and granny bonnet (yes, really) drinking a cup coffee while writing this blog, watching my son eat his lunch and the rain come down outside. And life is perfect. So what did I do all weekend? Exactly squat.

Friday, I went to work and after work, my hubs and I decided to go to Sam’s Club (if you’re not familiar with Sam’s, think of any big box super club). I was prepared for a madhouse: it was after all, a Friday, the 1st of the month, and the kickoff to a holiday weekend. In addition, a colleague had put her experience at another big box club up earlier that day. Yet I was pleasantly surprised. It was actually emptier than I’d anticipated—even emptier than a typical Friday, and everything was well stocked. So we navigated through with ease and came home. That was Friday.

Saturday, we got up to take our kid to soccer practice—only to remember after we got there that there was none. At least one other parent was as dedicated as we were. Since it was in the 9 o’clock hour we went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel, where I convinced my son and hubby that every child needs a talking toucan toy. Although Cracker Barrel has good country breakfasts, there’s just something a little disappointing about the service since most of the time, my food comes to me lukewarm. After Cracker Barrel, we each ran an errand, got some gas, and came back home. After watching a movie, I took myself out on the deck with a book and a glass of Chardonnay. Then in the evening, I enjoyed good conversation and another drink. And that was Saturday.

Sunday was supposed to be church in the morning followed by karaoke in the evening. Neither happened. I desperately wanted to cling to my bed most of the day. I did manage to get up to eat breakfast, season some chicken for the grill in the afternoon and make some from scratch potato salad for dinner. And that was Sunday.

On the actual holiday, I got up that morning, warmed up some pancakes for my kid and prepped a flag pie

I’d seen pictured on Facebook. It came out rather nicely, although I will confess that I’m not a fan of strawberry pie. I even had enough blueberries left to make a blueberry pie.

Alas, no ice cream. For dinner, we had food the hubs had grilled Sunday and sat down to family movie night watch Zootopia and Chicken Little. No Independence Day celebration would be complete without looking at the fireworks on TV and listening to James Earl Jones read an excerpt of Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July.” Such ended the holiday.

In my usual fashion, I could not sleep, so I stayed up until at least 2a.m. reading, knowing I had to be up in the morning.

Feeding My Boobs

You thought I was kidding, right? But I told you I was coming back. Today’s topic is off-kilter, I know, but it is fact.

It is a common misconception in the fashion world that large-chested women must inevitably desire that the bodice of their clothing be cut low enough to reveal their ample bosom. While in some instances, it is entirely desirable (such as when I’m trying to get out of a ticket or when I was a waitress trying to cajole an extra tip out of a customer), most times it can be downright annoying, especially when it comes to eating.

I find that my boobs only serve as catch-alls to anything I consume. I have effectively coined this as “feeding my boobs,” and I have found that they have very distinctive palate.

1. Peanuts: Anyone who knows me really well knows that I have an aversion to most nuts. No, I’m not allergic to them; I just don’t like the feeling of chewing twigs in my mouth. However, there are two types of nuts for which I will make an exception, and those are pecans and peanuts. Neither of them are as dry as the other species of nuts, and they taste really good wrapped in some type of sugar, which is the only way I generally eat them. I never worry about my boobs having an appetite for pecans since they are generally wrapped in chocolate AND caramel (that’s right Turtles®). However, peanuts are a different story: yes, I mostly enjoy them in Snickers® and Peanut Chews®, but occasionally when I back on my hardcore weight loss determination (you’ve seen the blogs about my constant battle here, here, and here), I buy peanuts to solve the craving, but not plain salted peanuts. These too are usually swimming in sugar, whether it the honey roasted brand or my latest obsession, toffee peanuts. Regardless of which one it is, my boobs often have a say in their consumption.
2. Fried chicken: I’m not going to lie; in this case my boobs have very good taste. And because I generally deprive my entire body of fried foods for extended periods, all of them come up in arms and rejoice when I make a trip to Royal Farms (who must have crack among its list of herbs and spices). Inevitably, the crumbs from fried chicken end up dropping into my bra.
3. Liquids: Hey, after all that good food, my boobs get thirsty! Luckily I haven’t scalded them too much with hot coffee, but they love water, and strangely enough, apple martinis as I found out last night. To explain the water, I have this very large travel mug that I drink out of. I’ve had it for years, and it is truly one of the best insulated cups out there since I can put ice in it in the morning and still have ice three hours later. And the cup is supposedly spill proof. Except for when it’s not. I can’t explain it, but somehow, there are just days when my boobs bribe the cup into spilling just the right amount of ice-cold water.

The worst thing about feeding my boobs is that sometimes they’re sneaky eaters on the verge of being hoarders. There have been more than a few occasions where I have taken my bra off at night, only to discover a piece of some mysterious food dislodge itself. But my boobs are also billy goats with pica because there are a few instances where a stray earring back from the day has tumbled out.

So should I starve them with high-neck shirts and turtle necks? I think that would be cruel. Even if they sometimes make life difficult be obstructing my view, they’ve been my bosom buddies (yeah, I had to do it) since puberty. So they deserve an occasional treat.

Gesundheit: What Financial Health Means to Me

I used to tell a running joke about my childhood: “I was so po’ I couldn’t afford the last two letters of the word.” In my post-graduate years when I first started paying back school loans, I would tell my friends another joke: “Not only am I broke, but I actually owe broke. Being broke would actually be a step up.”

I’m happy to say that far better off now than I was back then. If debt is a sickness, then at worst I have seasonal allergies, not a raging fever and vomiting. However, there is always a healthier me to be had, and I’m always looking for that miracle cure, even though usually the most I’ve succeeded in getting is an allergy pill that provides temporary relief.

Financial health to me is living virtually debt-free. I say virtually, because realistically, the American Dream now requires American Express, or Visa, Mastercard, or some sort of established credit to prove that you are a biped and can purchase a bicycle. In addition, very few people can afford to pay outright cash for things like a house, a car or a college education. In plotting my course toward financial health, here are some valuable lessons I’ve learned:

• Pay your bills on time, every time. Nothing is as critical to good financial health as being a good steward toward your bills. Paying bills on time establishes good credit and good relations with the creditors, and by creditors, think of any good or service that you pay on a regular basis, whether it is revolving credit or utilities.
• Get a yearly printout of your credit report. To get an idea of where you want to be, you need a baseline to know where you are currently. Once items appear on your credit report, they stay on there for seven years, which is both long and short—long if you’re trying to establish credit, and short when you look back and see how far you’ve progressed.
• Get rid of the store credit cards. You were probably offered an incentive to get them—10% off your current purchase. Think about this carefully: what can a store credit card get you that a regular debit card can’t?
• Pay credit cards off each month. As a general rule, if you cannot afford to pay an item off in 30 days, don’t purchase it. The only exception I would make is for those finance options that give you a grace period with no interest. Pay whatever you purchased off prior to that 6-month period, then follow the general rule to the letter.

Financial health means that I can have essentially just my mortgage payments and educational loans to pay off along with the regular monthly household expenses. I’m not there yet; I have a few years before I gain the type of financial freedom I truly desire. Yet I know that continuing to keep a steady pace and not racking up any more bills will keep financial sickness at bay.

Repeating Myself…Almost

So I started writing this blog about my hiatus from writing and right when I started the second paragraph of my long drawn-out explanation, I experienced a strange surge of déjà vu (no, not the Beyoncé song, although that is now stuck in my head). So I looked to my blog, and yup, I’d already poured my heart out and begged forgiveness. And that was a month and few days ago. So now I’m at it again. So let me tell you a little bit more about my freelancing gig. You read the previous blog and found out a little about how I stumbled across the job. It is truly a part-time gig and it pays merely pennies, but the experience I’m gaining has been pretty helpful. While I don’t have an exact count of how many articles I’ve contributed to the world wide web so far, I can tell you that I have submitted content 64 days this year. Considering that we’ve had 186 of those days so far, that means I’ve submitted for roughly 35% of the days of the year. (I’ll do a full tally of articles and words in the coming days so that you be in awe of the full magnitude of what I’m saying). But for now, bear with me as I catalog some of the lessons I’ve learned:

Accountability in Writing. Writing for this company means adhering to deadlines. If I pick up an article or multiple articles, I have 48 hours to complete them (additional hours if I pick up a block [the term for articles]) on a Thursday. Sure, 48 hours may seem like a large range of time, but after you factor in things like work, sleep, husband, dad, son and the rest of the huge laundry list of life that gets in the way, we’re talking 5-10 hours at most. And while the company editors pretty flexible if you are a little late if you let them know in advance, it’s not something I take for granted or abuse. This accountability forces me to focus, and to finish, while at the same time to recognize my limits. If I’m tired, my writing and typing for that matter are garbage, and I put it away for the next day. After I’m done, I send them in and someone else reads and critiques them, which leads to my second lesson.

Humility in Writing. I’ve always considered myself a pretty decent writer. I can turn a phrase. But then I turn in my articles and for the first month, I’m getting feedback on every article, and at first the criticism stings like alcohol on an open wound. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am. Or maybe I am, but I’m careless and I rush through pieces. Teachable moment! Isn’t this the same shit I’m telling my grown college students in my English 1010 class? Double teachable moment, because then I started telling my students that even the more experienced writers—the ones that know better—make mistakes, and that it’s only by taking the time with something that we get better, which endears us to each other even more because now I’m with them and just telling them. And this of course leads me to my final lesson. But before I get to that let me add on the importance of proofreading as part of that lesson in humility. I was at the end of this blog and proofreading when I realized that I’d neglected to add this. No matter how good you are, or think you are, look over your stuff. As a result, I now only get periodic quality checks and received a 4.5out of 5 two weeks ago. But I still have to remain humble, since I just received a 3 out of 5 today.

Improvement in Writing. The purpose of all this is so that I can be better. As I sit here typing this, I am toying with the idea of setting deadlines for myself with this book. Sounds simple right? And just like I learned to set small increment goals with my weight loss (totally another blog), I should probably set concrete ones with this writing thing, not just for my gig, but for my book, which I did pick up again in May. I gave myself a general deadline that by the end of the summer I would review the whole thing, but I can tell you that in the past month, I’ve only picked it up three times.

Another overarching lesson that touches all three of these areas is conquering my own fear of writing, or more accurately that of letting people read my writing. Isn’t that what I’m doing this for, you may ask, and the answer is both yes and no. Yes, I would love for others to read my finish work and enjoy it, but I don’t write expressly for others. I write for the same reason so many other writers do: because at any given moment, there is a story swimming around in my brain and the characters are crowding my head.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another. Tomorrow’s blog is totally different and for commercial purposes, but again bear with me: you might learn something.

What Have I Been Doing with My Life?

Usually when I’ve taken a long extended hiatus from my blog, I usually tell my readers that instead of writing about life, I’ve been living it. To some extent this is true and false this time around. While I have been having some spectacular adventures, I did at least attempt to catalog them, like my last entry way back in September.

Looking at the timeframe, you would think that I had stopped writing altogether. After all, I didn’t even put in my annual yearly reflections post (although I’m sure I started writing one).

But no, quite the opposite is true, gentle readers. In fact, I have been writing assiduously since my last post. It’s just that none of it has gone toward my blogging or even my book (more about that later). Occasionally, I look for paying gigs to submit my work to, just so I can feel validated as a writer. And up until September, I’d gotten rejected or turned down for various reasons.

But sometime around late September/early October, I saw an ad in my favorite writing e-zine, Angela Hoy’s Writer’s Weekly. And on a typical whim, I went to the site, drawn by an easy first-round application of taking a grammar test (I’m still actually smarting that I got 2 wrong and not a perfect score). But I did ace the test and made it to the second round of the application, which required writing on a topic of the company’s choice. I passed this round as well. Somehow, I made it to new writer for BKA Content and was actually getting paid to write! Woohoo! Goal in life accomplished! I can scratch this off my bucket list. No, I’m not Anatole Broyard or Ta’Nehisi Coates, but someone is reading my writing (even if they don’t even know it’s me—the official term is ghostwriting).

For those of you who don’t know me yet, this is just another of the hats I keep juggling on my head. I currently work full-time at a college library; I am also a part-time adjunct English professor at that same college; have a husband and an active 5-year-old boy (mostly by his choice, but the soccer and swimming that I haul him to are by mine); serve as caretaker to my father, who is currently on dialysis and in a nursing home; and I sometimes still try to eek out a social life with other family and friends. So I lead an extraordinarily busy lifestyle and have now crammed 48-hour deadlines into that mix.

No, I still haven’t finished my first novel yet. But I’m part of a community of writers. So since I’ve been sharing the fact that I have a blog, I think it’s darn well time I start updating it.