Dirt: Close Family

April Update... see March List.

We are counting down the days of attendance until the end of school for both girls (30 days for one and 24 for the other). Ellie started driving and is now running all over town, having fun.  Our family life is shifting a little bit.

We are a close family. I always joke that we could downsize to a house with just 7 rooms (2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, kitchen and living room) and one sofa and we would not notice. We spend so much time in our kitchen that we really could just have the television in the kitchen and do away with the living room.

The past few weeks, I feel closer to the girls. Maybe it is the impending change. Maybe it is seasonal, but I enjoy them so much lately. I am frustrated by them, sure. Fights with mom are easy to pick and I am an easy target. However, I am thrilled that we are so close.

Boyfriends 

Best friends

I have friends who are as close to their daughters and I think that is part of the success of our relationships. The girls see the other dynamics and know it is a settling thing to have your parents close. I feel sad for the girls who hide EVERYTHING from their parents. I do not for one second think mine don't hide things from me. However, I know a lot and am privy to secrets that other moms are not.

I love being a mom. I never thought I would want to be one. I thought I wanted to travel and live a big life. One without kids. However, my life is large because I have these amazing women in it and I would not change  a thing.

March: List Update

March was a blur of fun and anticipation. My daughter spent the first few weeks waiting by her computer for her college acceptance. The proverbial mailbox if you will. After months of writing, being recruited, reading up and dreaming about schools, she finally got the news. The week started off sad with a no thank you to her dream school, one she had been recruited for rowing, but who only accepted 5% of the 22,000 students who applied. Then a wait list and another no. All to her top schools.

The sun started shining by the end of the week and she had 5 additional acceptances (she had been admitted to an SEC school in the fall). All of them gave her money, several gave a large amount and she had choices to make.



In the meantime we flew to Chicago with college friends and their kids to see Hamilton! Holy cow, that was a dream. I had purposely kept away from the media, plot and music of the play so that I would be in the moment the entire time. A boy that went to high school here that we saw perform for years was one of the lead characters, making it even more of a special night. The show blew me away and I am now constantly humming songs in my head.



March was a dream.

                                                   2017 The List

• Read 100 books 22 and counting 
• Join an exercise group of some sort (social) 
• Take a class of some sort every quarter So far...Pure Barre and Vive, next up 9 Rounds 
• Get my home office cleaned up I am sitting at a clean (ish) desk
• Run a race with friends (Ragnar, relay marathon, something) Signed up 
• Spend more time with my girlfriends (Dominique, Ann, Toni, Debbie Sue, Lisa, Stacey, Cindy...) Have let it drop these past few weeks. But I have plans this weekend. 
• Take a trip with Steve somewhere neither of us has been Fall 
• Do one thing that really scares me every quarter (this will be easy, I am terrified of a lot of things.... mostly to do with water)  Still nothing. Can't really think of much. 
• Resume the dates with Delaney and Ellie  Check
• Spend more time with my parents  Not so much 
• Spend more time with Steve's parents  Dinners with Steve's  mom every other Sunday 
• Attend church more regularly  Not yet. 
• Volunteer every quarter  other than at GPS  Not even that :(

Dirt: Why We Care When We Do

This is a post that I wrote last year. I was going through my drafts and found it among about 100 others. Why didn't I post? I am not sure. However, with the current political craziness that is going on around us and in Washington, I thought I would share. I still have no answers, but I know in my heart that a ban does not make sense. Racism, xenophobia and hate are not the answer to any of our problems.

Holocaust Memorial in Boston

I admit it. I jumped on the band wagon. My Facebook profile picture is the French flag. I am  normally not one to do so, but there is something that Steve said that made me do so. France is one of the most accepting countries of religious differences.

He hit the nail on the head of what has been bothering me for years about our country. We don't embrace differences. Oh, we will try your food and embrace  your heritage if it suits our current fashion trend (think fringe and bohemian dresses, thank you native Americans and India), but you had better get in line when it comes to everything else. Your faith, speech, accent and public life better damn well reflect our homogenized watered down, version of America.

We Are Marching Through February

February always seem like a whirlwind. Maybe it is the two missing days, maybe it is the shorter days so that it seems all I do it get up, go to work, cook dinner, go to bed and start over. I am not sure, but it flies by. Here we are 5 days in and I asked someone yesterday how their new year has been, like 2017 just got here.  February is the month of love, so I wish it was longer.  We find out about colleges in March, so I wish it would fly by. Such is my life.

If you have been paying any kind of attention, you know we have a new president and at least half of
the country does not like him. I personally think he is a salesman and everything he does is motivated by the highest bidder. I have so much to say about how he has the potential to cause the fall we have been saying is coming for years for the US. However, no effect is without a cause, so suffice it to say for now, we are reaping what we have sown. An ignorant, uneducated populace who sees the return to the "good old day" that none of them lived through as the answer to their problems.

Why Not and A List

At our team meeting at work on Wednesday, we were asked what our New Year's resolutions are for 2017. Since I don't make resolutions, and I set the same goal every year, I shared my usual "read 100 books". I also explained that when I used to blog, I kept a list going month to month (at least for the first few years) of what my goals for that year were. When asked if I kept that up, I muttered something about computers and being busy and that "No, I am not doing that anymore". This felt really lame. I am not going to lie, I was a little embarrassed about the whole thing. 

The reason I was embarrassed is two fold. One, a dear friend had just stated that she was trying to read a book a month in 2017. So, I sounded like I was one upping her. Two, I set that same goal every year, and have for at least 10 years. LAME. Nothing is new  and I sounded like the ass clown I sometimes am.