Cooking Failures

Tag: life

  • How Taco Seasoning Ruined My Perfect Driving Record

    Now I wouldn’t say I’m a good driver. I would say I’m a safe driver. I would say I’m a careful driver. I will claim to have never gotten in an accident or gotten a speeding ticket, although that would not be entirely accurate. I have gotten one speeding ticket, but it wasn’t my fault and I went to court and fought it and it got dismissed. So, does that really count? I don’t think so.

    I also got a ticket for not stopping completely at a stop sign, but I’m pretty sure I did stop completely at the stop sign. The cop was rude and said he got it on dash cam so I can go ahead and try to go to court and fight it if I want to. Did that intimidate me? Absolutely. But, I still went to court and fought it and got that one dismissed too. So neither counts.

    I’m actually not supporting my point very well at all, am I?

    I also cannot say that I’ve never gotten into an accident because I actually did get into one right when I got my license.

    I got my license right when I turned 16. Of course I was a confident, know at all, nothing could hurt me, life is roses and sunshine, and everything always works out for me kind of teenager. That was the life I led.

    I was driving to work a couple of days after I got my license, and I was turning left onto a pretty busy road. Even today Brita, with nearly 36 years of driving experience, would never even attempt to make a left like that. I would never even dream of trying to make that kind of a left! Honestly, I would make a right and left or then a U-turn to get on that road instead of attempting to make a left. I guess I’ve learned my limitations. Obviously, when I was 16, I did not know my limitations.

    So, for some reason, I made a left onto that busy road with multiple lanes of traffic, and I only looked left to make sure no cars were coming that way. 

    Why didn’t I look right to also make sure no traffic was coming from that direction, too? I’m sure they taught that in Drivers Ed. Why wouldn’t I also look to the right? I don’t know! Maybe I just figured everything would be fine? Maybe I just figured everything would work out? Because it usually does. And also, I just got my driver’s license, and doesn’t that mean I know everything about driving?

    Well, as you can imagine, it did not work out. It wasn’t fine. Luckily, it wasn’t a terrible accident, but I did get hit by a car that was coming from the right that I pulled out right in front of.

    Thankfully, the damage was minimal, and he was a very nice man. He said not to worry because it was a company car and it was a really crappy company car and he had been asking them to get him a better one, so I actually did him a favor. I love people like that who will lie to make you feel better. Like my brother who always eats what I make for dinner and says that it was good.

    But, it was just a little dent and no one was hurt and no one was upset. Not even my mother. She actually blamed herself because she told me to go that way to work. Mommy always makes me feel better. And isn’t it like a mother to take the blame off her child?

    But, to my poor little 16-year-old self who everything always worked out for, that accident was the end of the world.

    Seriously, you would have thought my dog died or something. I could not have imagined anything worse happening to me. I think I locked myself in my bedroom and cried for a whole week. My mother kept trying to reassure me that it was fine, and that it wasn’t even a big deal and that’s what insurance is for. But still, I felt like it was the worst possible thing that I could ever happen to me.

    Pfft! Little did I know about the other worse possible things. I wish that little accident was the worst possible thing that could happen to me now, because the actual worst possible thing JUST HAPPENED! But I’ll get to that in a little bit.

    After that accident, I proclaimed I was never ever going to drive again! I was going to walk everywhere for the rest of my life! And I was absolutely serious! If you know me now, you know I can be just a little dramatic. Just a little.

    Somehow, I eventually got over the terrible trauma of my early-days driving accident. I stopped crying. I left my room. I ate some food. I went back to work. And, maybe biggest of all, I drove again, which was the scariest thing ever.

    Since then, and probably because of that, I have become a very very careful driver. I will look over my shoulder four times before I switch lanes. I will keep such a distance between my car and the car in front of me that other cars just cut in front of me. They think that’s an open space and just not the (well, my) proper following distance! Then, I have to back up to keep that far of a distance from the new car in front of me and then another car just cuts in front of me! Again! So rude! Don’t people know about the five second rule? When the car in front of you goes, you count to five before you go!

    Maybe that’s not the rule. There’s some rule about some seconds you’re supposed to count in regard to the car ahead of you. For me, it’s five seconds. Then you go.

    I also barely drive the speed limit. Sometimes on car rides, my son will sigh, look at the speedometer, look at me, and ask, “Can we at least go the speed limit?” And he says it in a very annoyed tone. Teenage tone? Maybe I should just say teenage tone. It’s understood that that tone would be classified as annoyed. 

    When that happens, I never even realize I wasn’t going the speed limit. I didn’t even notice. I thought I was zipping along at about the same speed as all of the other cars. I guess I should’ve noticed all of the other cars passing me. Sometimes I’m in my own little world while I drive. I just do what felt comfortable. Which is slow. Slow feels comfortable to me. But, on longer car trips, now I set cruise control so I will at least go the speed limit. I even sometimes set it for four miles per hour over the speed limit. Look at me! Such a rebel! 

    Also, apparently, I’m a terrible judge of when I can make a right. I wait until I have plenty of room and I make a right and still that car that’s coming from the left speeds up and winds up right against my bumper! Why do people do that?!? Why don’t they just slow down and let people make their right turn?! Wouldn’t that make the most sense? Are they going to hit me? Are they trying to prove a point? What would that point even be? I’ve never understood that but I will say that it does scare me. 

    Also, I hit curbs. And run over curbs. I heard that my dad runs over curbs a lot, too. I think it’s probably hereditary and I probably got it from him. 

    A friend of mine saw me once and said, “Poor curb.”

    Poor curb??? That’s the curb’s fricking job! He would be so bored if people like me didn’t bump him and run over him. That curb might be out of a job if it weren’t for me!

    And, can we talk about parking? I have been called a terrible parker a time or two. I will pull in and then do the little reverse and straighten out move multiple times. Sometimes I even open the door while I’m parking so I can see where the line is. 

    And, I never back into parking spots. I don’t understand how people do that. It makes me nervous.

    Parking has always made me nervous for some reason. I’m like my mom and I usually pick a parking spot with no cars on either side of me, so I won’t have to worry about parking well. But somehow, I got away from that healthy and safe habit, and I got overly confident in my parking abilities. I started to choose spots between two cars. And I always just zip right in there perfectly with no problem.

    Until last week. I was just zipping along doing my normal Brita driving, going back to the grocery store because I had forgotten taco seasoning. And, wouldn’t you know it? I pulled into a parking spot, and I hit the car beside me while I was parking. A parked car. It didn’t fly out in front of me. It didn’t grow an arm that it stuck in my path. I just hit a parked car. I couldn’t believe it! I heard a little crunch. It took me a second to figure out what happened.

    How did that even happen? Was I rushing? Was I not paying attention? I wish I could rewind my life 10 seconds. Like push a little rewind button and see myself backing up and getting another try. But unfortunately, life doesn’t come with rewind buttons. Mistakes can’t be easily rewound and undone.

    My first thought was, “Geez, I guess I really am terrible at parking. How did I not know that? Why did I think I could park? And why didn’t I pick one of those parking spaces with no cars on either side?” There were actually plenty of them around.

    My next thought was, “Oh no! Am I losing my mind? Is this part of growing old? Am I going to be sent to old people’s home soon by my kids? Will they take away my license for something like this?”

    I imagined the DMV saying something like, “We do not believe she is in the right state of mind to be able to operate or motor vehicle.”

    My next thought was that I’m really glad I haven’t bought a new car yet. Which I had been thinking about doing.

    The next thought was even, “What am I going to make for dinner?” I think this thought is just a constant in my mind, so that’s why it showed up. Get out of here dinner thought! This isn’t the time!

    I was also thinking, “Am I dressed appropriately to have a conversation with a real person about hitting their car?” Those of you who know me know that I constantly just wear pajamas. I have at-home pajamas. Work pajamas. Going out pajamas. I even have different pajamas for bed that are different than the ones I wear around the house. “Do I have time to run home and put on real clothes and then come back and deal with it? It’s really close!”

    But, don’t worry. I turned into a normal person pretty quickly and I had all of the normal person thoughts after that.

    “Oh no! I just hit somebody’s car! I hope they are not going to be too mad at me! I hope it’s not going to cost me too much to fix! I hope my insurance is not going to go up too much! What do I do now?? How could I’ve been so stupid??”

    So I pulled into to a different spot and rummaged through my car to find something to write a note on. I discovered I should really keep a notepad in my car for instances like this. The only paper I had was from my son’s last physical, so I had to use that. At this point, I didn’t mind that the stranger had my son’s height and weight and pulse and blood pressure. I just wanted to get this note written.

    How do you begin a note like this? To whom it may concern? Dear black Jeep owner? Just, “Good afternoon?” Then, I decided the note did not need a greeting. I should just apologize. I should probably apologize profusely just so he/she knows how sorry I am. Should I give him/her some background about how I’m really a sweet person and I typically don’t crash into other people’s cars? What information should I include? Obviously, my name and my phone number, but does he/she need my last name? My email address? My insurance info now, or just wait for when he/she calls me? I’m not really sure of the proper etiquette for leaving a note saying I accidentally just hit your parked car. 

    Should I write down my blog website in case he/she wants to read my blog so he/she can get to know me a little better? I’m sure he/she wouldn’t be so mad at me after he/she read my blog? He/she will realize what a mess I am and probably just feel sorry for me. 

    Am I overthinking this? Of course I am! Overthinking is my middle name! Not really. It’s Lynn.

    So, I decide to just write a simple note that said, “I accidentally hit your car. I am so so sorry. Please call me and we can fix this.” 

    Then I just wrote my first name and my phone number.

    My first instinct, of course was to panic and call Mommy. Was I absolutely harder on myself and I should’ve been? Yes, but that’s just who I am.

    So, I spent the night overthinking it and feeling terrible. I spent the night feeling stupid and even crying a little bit. But only one night. Because life is short and, as you age, you get a better understanding about what’s a big deal and what’s not.

    But, I also learned that it’s OK to make a big deal out of little things. Just not for too long. Just for one night.

    I think I was getting too cocky and comfortable, and I needed the universe to knock me down a notch and say, “Look Brita, you can still make mistakes, so… pay attention.”

    So, now I pay attention. And I also find a parking spot far at the back where there are no cars on either side of me.

    You have to be careful parking, people. It’s not as easy as you think it is. Take it from me. I learned my lesson the hard way, so you don’t have to!

    Also, I’m absolutely not going to tell my kids about this little accident. I’m going to continue telling them I’m a perfect driver with a perfect driving record. At the same time, if you see me driving, stay out of my way. And, if you see me parking, definitely stay out of my way! But, if you see my kids around, please keep my little secret.

    And yeah, I was thinking I need a new car, but now I’m thinking I should hold off. I have a feeling there might be a few more surprise bumps in the road. Or on the curb. But at least I can blame my dad for those.

  • My Multitasking Madness

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    Is there anyone who doesn’t multitask? You read everything about doing one thing at a time and putting all of your effort and concentration on the one thing you’re doing so you’ll do it right. But, honestly, how is there time to do everything if you do that?

    I never do one thing at once. Sometimes I do five things at once. I honestly feel I will never get everything done if I only do one thing at a time.

    I don’t even brush my teeth without doing something else. I run around the house, brushing my teeth while I fold laundry or while I sweep the floor or while I wipe down countertops. One of the main reasons I don’t use an electric toothbrush, although my dentist always recommends it, is because you can’t do household chores while brushing your teeth with an electric toothbrush. It’s just too heavy. It will fall right out of your mouth.

    I always have a list of at least a dozen things swirling in my head, so it makes sense why I will try to do multiple things at one time.

    Like filling the dog’s water bowl. Why does it take so long to sit there and fill the dog’s water bowl? While I’m filling the dog’s water bowl I think, “Oh, there’s at least two quick things I can do instead of sitting here and waiting.”

    We have a reverse osmosis faucet and so I used to put the bowl on the counter and start filling it up and go do something else quickly and then come back. Until that one day when I forgot about it and it overflowed all over the countertop and all over the floor. And all down the insides of the cabinets and the drawers underneath. That was a mess, but then I learned I should put the dog’s bowl in the sink to fill it up and then go do something else. Just in case I forget, which I always know I won’t.

    That worked perfectly until the one morning when I got up, and the dog’s bowl was still in the sink, full of water, with the faucet still in the on position. Had I left it running all night long?!? Obviously, yes. 

    I had put it in the sink to start filling up the water before I went to bed while I fed the cat and let the dog out and, obviously, completely forgot about it.

    I started freaking out about my water bill, but honestly, I should’ve been freaking out more about my memory. In case you’re wondering, the water bill was fine. I had a panic moment that my water bill would be $1,000 from letting it run all night. Unrealistic, I know, but there’s no reasoning with a panicked Brita.

    We were going out of town to visit my mom a few weeks ago. Ever since I was little, my mom has made me eggs in bed. But they are not really eggs in bed. It’s just where you fry an egg in a little hole in the bread. There’s a bunch of different names for them like toad in the hole or something like that. 

    My mom makes me those every single time I’m home and it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. They remind me of when I was little and something as simple as an egg in bed could fix the world. I guess I was feeling a little nostalgic, hungry, and ambitious, and I thought I would make myself some eggs in bed. 

    While I was standing there watching the eggs cook, I was getting really impatient and thinking about all the other things I could be doing while the eggs cooked. I had a brilliant idea that I could run upstairs and pack my son’s clothes really quickly for vacation while I was letting the eggs cook. Well, I’m sure you can figure out how that turned out. Writing this now I see that it seems unrealistic and slightly ridiculous, but honestly, I’m a really really fast packer. And a really bad cook.

    As you can imagine, I burned the eggs. But I wasn’t going to waste them and they didn’t look that bad so I ate them. They were gross. But then I was feeling really disappointed afterwards and a little discouraged so I told myself that I CAN make eggs in bed. I told myself this wouldn’t be a failure and I just need to try again. 

    So, I picked myself up, dusted off my apron (kidding, I don’t wear an apron, but I just thought it sounded good for the story), and tried, once again, to make eggs in bed. But, again, I got super impatient waiting for them to cook, so I just went to do some smaller things such as clean the downstairs bathroom and, guess what? I burned the eggs again. But still, I ate them because I did not want to waste them. I had eaten four burnt eggs while multitasking, and still did not learn my multitasking lesson.

    I always have a list of about 12 things in my head to do. I’m one of those people who walks in the room and forgets why i went in there, but I’ve heard that’s common. People always suggest I write a list instead of trying to remember things in my head. It really makes a lot of sense and would make things much easier, but still I think I’m great at remembering things so I keep doing things that way. 

    Isn’t it interesting how sometimes when things don’t work we just keep doing it the same way? Is it a habit? Is it because we’re too lazy to change? Or is it just us trying to prove to ourselves that this way can work if we just try a little harder?

    The other day I came home from work and was feeling really hungry. I decided to make myself some pasta. I filled the pot with water, and I put it on the stove and turned it on.

    Then I went upstairs to do a few things while I waited for the water to boil. I sat at my computer and sent a few work emails. Then I put away some laundry and I cleaned the bathrooms upstairs. I was walking downstairs to get something and I thought to myself, “Geez, I’m a little hungry.”

    And then I thought, “Didn’t I make pasta? Did I eat the pasta?” And then I ran to the kitchen and luckily there was a little water still boiling in the pot. Just a little! Like less than an inch. That could’ve been a disaster! I am always a little nervous when things like that happen and I told myself I should probably quit multitasking and do one thing at a time. I have not taken my advice yet.

    The other night, my brother and I were making mac & cheese. I was of course, doing a million other things while making mac & cheese, like the dishes and sweeping the floor and folding a little laundry and feeding the dog. And multitasking, of course, so I was doing all this stuff while we were making mac & cheese and then I put it in the oven to bake for 25 minutes and sat down with my brother to watch TV. 

    I did set the timer on the oven. After a little while, I asked my brother if he could see how much time was left on the oven clock because I’m blind and cannot see that far and was too lazy to get up. He looked at the oven clock, he squinted, and he asked me if I was sure I turned the oven on. I tsked at him and responded with, “Of course I turned the oven on!” Just to be sure, I got up and checked. And guess what? You guessed it, I was baking the mac & cheese in the oven for 25 minutes and it wasn’t even turned on. I guess that’s what I get by trying to do a bunch of other things at the same time. It worked out fine, dinner was just a little late. It taught us all patience.

    I can’t even watch TV without doing something else at the same time. I’m always typing on my computer or scrolling through my phone or reading the news. 

    I can’t even clean my house or do laundry or walk the dog without listening to an audiobook on my phone. 

    I know that I’m always distracted and that’s why, on rare occasions, I have found my car keys in the fridge and my cell phone in the silverware drawer. I know, I asked myself the same thing. Should we be worried about something more? But, I did actually talk to my doctor about it at my last physical and she’s not worried at all. We both think I’m completely sane. Just too busy.

    I can’t even sit in church without running through a mental list in my mind of all the things I need to do. Sometimes I even sneak off to the bathroom to send a quick email or respond to a text. I know! That’s awful! But, I feel like if I don’t do it right away, I will forget. But then I come back and pray. 

    I am ashamed to say that sometimes I even get my phone out in the middle of church. Maybe people will think I’m just doing God things on my phone. I always sit out in the entranceway where they don’t have the hymnals, so when a real Catholic rocker is being sung and played, I Google the lyrics quickly on my phone so I can sing along at the top of my lungs. Yes, I also feel very sorry for whatever stranger is sitting next to me in church. I’m not a great singer. On one occasion, someone actually got up and moved. I honestly think it was because of my singing.

    I was in the grocery store today and the woman ringing my things up was going so slow. I was just standing there, watching her ring things up at a snail’s pace, thinking about all the other things I need to do and all of the things I could be accomplishing during this time. So I whipped out my phone to respond to a quick work email.

    Does anybody else else’s life look like this? Are there people who actually just do one thing at a time? People who aren’t always stressed about the next thing on the list? People who accomplish everything they need to in a day while only doing one thing at a time? 

    But sometimes I drop the ball. Sometimes I forget something important. My supervisor called me on Tuesday a couple weeks ago and said she was thinking that it didn’t make much sense for me to drive to Raleigh on Thursday so I don’t have to.

    Ummmm… Was I supposed to go to Raleigh on Thursday? Did I miss something important? Obviously. But, I played it off and acted very gracious that I did not have to drive to Raleigh on Thursday. 

    I recently had jury duty, which I was all pissed off about because I had a million things to do. They said no phones were allowed so you had to leave it in the car. At first I panicked. I brought a book in with me and, after being nervous about all I was missing for the first half hour, I actually just sat there and read my book. It was kind of luxurious. Part of me was hoping jury duty would last the whole week. But it didn’t.

    I have a friend in my book club who reads a whole book in one day. She said she just starts in the morning and she takes a break for lunch. She just spends the whole day reading. What?!?! When does she clean her house? Maybe not everyone has to clean their house three times a day like I do. But, I’m so jealous of a day to do nothing but read.

    I should probably pay better attention to things. I should probably slow down. I should probably put some things off until tomorrow.

    I can easily blame it on being a single mom with four jobs and demanding pets but those are really just excuses. I’m going to try to quit multitasking. Right after I Swiffer the floor, while brushing my teeth and folding this quick load of laundry. Or maybe I will just try to quit tomorrow. Or in 20 years. I mean, isn’t just thinking about it a good first step?

  • Ode to Bacon Hamburger

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    Last summer one of our dogs passed away. We were all very heartbroken and, the day after, my son declared that he wanted a hedgehog. Having a hedgehog as a pet would make him feel better, he said. He was very excited about it and, after the trauma of the previous couple days, I was happy to see him excited.

    Well, I know that you parents out there understand that, when your kid is hurting, you will do anything. Anything! If my kid had told me at that point that he wanted a pet giraffe I would’ve done everything to get that kid a freaking pet giraffe. But he only wanted a hedgehog. That’s got to be a little easier than a giraffe.

    It’s quite surprising how expensive a  hedgehog is. And how difficult it is to obtain one. Even though I had a  million things going on,  I was going to jump right into our hedgehog adventure because that’s what my son wanted.

    Well, I guess it was taking a little longer than expected, so, one day, he just declared that he didn’t want a hedgehog anymore. He just wanted a hamster, and could we go to the pet store and buy him a hamster right then.

    I cringed when he said hamster because my track record with hamsters is not so great. In my lifetime, I think I’ve accidentally killed three. Sammy G, Cupcake and Tyrone. May they all rest in peace. They all deserved better lives that I gave them.

    But, to be fair, being a hamster owner was not what I imagined it would be. I wanted a cute cuddly hamster who wants to hang out with me and watch TV and stuff. One I could just carry around in my purse. One that would just sit by my computer when I do my meetings. I wanted to have a hamster best friend. But I learned that hamsters aren’t really like that.  

    Of course we went to the pet store and we got a hamster. We asked for one that liked to be held and liked to be pet. We found the cutest little long-haired white hamster. I loved  him instantly because he looked like my Bible study leader.

    We brought him home and my son named him Bacon Hamburger. Bacon Hamburger did not like to be held, and he did not like to be pet.

    My son paid attention to him for maybe a week. Then, honestly, I don’t even think he would notice if he was still alive or not. I guess it didn’t really make him happy like he thought it would. I guess it’s human nature to try to look for an easy fix to ease the pain, but I guess, like the rest of us, he realized that getting a new hamster will not fix anything.

    Still, I really wanted to be a good hamster mommy, so I still tried to pet him, and I would try to talk to him, but mostly he just hid in his little log all day.  

    Every morning, I would peek at him and wiggle the log to see if he was OK. I would usually see a little movement out of him. I would leave little treats out for him every morning, and, if they disappeared, that meant that he was still alive. I always breathed a sigh of relief when those little treats were gone. I’m always a little traumatized and scared of being responsible for living things. It’s a big responsibility to keep things alive.

    I always made a point to say goodnight to him when I went to bed. Sometimes, if I was up really late at night, I would go to say goodnight, and he would be out of his little log. He’d be sitting in his food or munching on a treat. And, those nights, I would pull up a chair and I’d have a little heart to heart hamster talk with him. I asked if he was doing OK and if I was doing a good job and if there was anything I could do better. I asked if he needed more toys or anything. It’s hard because I don’t speak hamster. I figured maybe I would tell him a little about my life and about my struggles, so he saw me more as a human with feelings. He was kind of like my therapist who didn’t speak English. Or speak at all.

    I remember, in 2017, we got a dog. I had a dog when I was little, but I’ve never had my own dog. My mom always took care of the dog stuff, so I was never really responsible. What really struck me about taking care of a dog was not the feeding it or the walking it or even the cleaning up the poop. It was just wondering if I was doing it right. I would look at my dog all day and I’d ask her if she was bored? I’d ask her if I was doing this right? I’d ask her if she needed anything. I spent many nights worrying if my dog was bored. Finally, I realized that dogs are bored. That dogs are supposed to be bored. And that they are OK being bored.

    So, back to Bacon Hamburger. Our life went on like this for almost a year. I would peek at him in the mornings and leave him little treats. I would change his cage every couple weeks. We would have 1 a.m. talks every once in a while. But that was the extent of our relationship.

    Life gets busy, and I have a lot on my plate, so taking care of Bacon Hamburger became more of a chore. It became just another thing on my list every morning. Part of my morning pet maintenance along with changing the cat’s pee pee pads and feeding the cat and the dog.  

    One day when I was changing his cage, I noticed he was a little more lethargic than usual. He was still rolling around in his hamster ball and kicking his little legs when I picked him up, but he seemed a little calmer.  

    Unfortunately, he had a little clump of poop stuck in his long hair. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about that, but after Googling it, I found myself soaking his little hamster butt in a little bowl of warm water and massaging the little poop ball, hoping it would melt. Not really my idea of a good time or how I like to bond with my hamster, but man was it a feeling of success when I finally got that poop ball loose. I felt like I just climbed Mount Everest or something. I high fived little Bacon Hamburger and put him back in his newly cleaned cage.

    The next morning, I peaked in his log to check on him, and he was all curled up like he usually is, fast asleep. I wiggled the log like I usually do, but he didn’t move at all. His treats from the night before were not gone, but sometimes he saves them until later in the day. But I knew something was wrong because, as much as I wiggled that log, he did not move at all.

    Now, I am a big strong woman who can do lots of stuff, but touching a dead hamster is one thing I cannot do. My brother was out of town for work, but fortunately he was coming home that evening. I texted him that I thought Bacon Hamburger is dead, but I’m too scared to check for sure, so I’m going to need him to do that when he gets home. Sounds like an odd request, but my brother has lived with me for over five years so I’m sure he didn’t even bat an eye at something like this.

    I did do the log wiggle periodically through the day with the same results, so I was pretty sure he was gone. I was wondering if I should Google hamster CPR to see if there’s any way I could try to save him, but, like I said earlier, I didn’t really want to touch a dead animal.

    Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those my hamster died and I didn’t realize how much I loved him posts. This isn’t one of those, appreciate your hamsters while you can posts. This isn’t even one of those, I feel extremely guilty and regret neglecting my hamster posts.

    But honestly, I did feel sad about losing Bacon Hamburger. There was that regret and that sense of failing but I get that feeling almost every day about different little things. Why is it easier to look at our failures than our successes?

    I posted his cage and all his treats and food on Facebook for free. A woman messaged me and told me that her two young boys have been begging for a hamster. She saw my post as a sign that she could get her babies a hamster. She was so excited about how excited they would be.

    That got me thinking. When was the last time something as simple as a hamster made me happy? Well, to be honest, nothing about hamsters make me happy, but I’m talking about finding joy in simple things. No offense to the hamsters that I just called simple. I’m sure they’re very intelligent, complex animals. Although they do run and run on that wheel and get nowhere. But I guess humans do that on treadmills.    

    I do remember when I was five years old. I went to a friend ‘s birthday party. I fell in love with a little calico kitten and carried her around the whole party. When it was time to go, I cried and cried and begged my mom to let me take her home with me. I honestly remember thinking I cannot live without this little kitten. My mom, let me take it home and I seriously remember feeling the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life. OK, maybe not the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life but that little calico kitten that we named Pirate made me pretty darn happy.

    Where is the joy in my life? How have I forgotten how to find joy. Do I just blah blah blah through my day forgetting to find joy? Is that called being a grown up?

    The woman who took my cage, sent me a message a little while later just telling me how happy her boys were.

    These two little boys getting excited about a hamster reminded me to look for some joy in life. Definitely not by getting a hamster, but maybe I’ll look into getting that giraffe. Or maybe even just a take a nap.

  • Boobs Hold Up Shirts!?!?

    You know those memes where the person says things like, “Trying to decide when someone asks me how many siblings I have if I should just lie and give an easy answer?” Well, my family is kind of like that.

    I have a hip little fashionista sister who’s 24 years old. I know, she’s not even half my age yet. Don’t ask – that will be a blog post for another time. She recently bought a house and my cousin Laurie – who is pretty much, more or less the same age as I am – and I decided to help her on her moving day.

    We got tasked with unpacking all of her clothes and putting them in her closet. I pulled the clothes out of the bag, put them on hangers and handed them to my cousin who organized them nicely in the closet. Laurie was much better suited for that job than me. I couldn’t even figure putting the clothes on the hangers most of the time.

    OK – I’m over 50 years old and I wear clothes. I’d like to think that I understand how clothes work. After all, I’ve been wearing clothes for over 50 years. I have a closet full of clothes. I have bought clothes. I wear clothes. I wash clothes. I wouldn’t call myself a clothes expert, but at least I thought I understood clothes.

    But wowey! After this experience, I think I need to go to clothes school so I can understand clothes. Do they have a clothes school? Clothing 101? Clothing for Dummies? There must be a book like that out there somewhere.

     I’m pretty sure I learned the basics in kindergarten or first grade – like, a shirt goes on your body, pants go on your legs, socks go on your feet – that kind of stuff. I thought I knew all that stuff. Isn’t it just like life to be like, “Oh, you thought you knew something as simple as clothes?  Well, here you go! One more thing you know nothing about!”

    The older I get I realize I don’t know much. But I thought I at least had clothes figured out.

    As we started our clothes unpacking task, I was able to pull out some clothes that I could recognize. Here’s a t-shirt… I know what to do with that. I know how to put that on a hanger.

    But, as we got deeper into the bag, I pulled out articles of clothing and I literally had no idea.

    Is this a skirt?
    – me (holding it up to my waist)

    No, it’s a shirt.
    -Laurie

    What?!??? How does it stay up?!!
    -me

    Boobs. Wouldn’t work for you.
    -Laurie

    Can’t you also wear it as a skirt too? 
    -me

    No.
    -Laurie

    The next one, I was turning all sorts of different ways. Then I was very convinced that it was completely missing the front. Laurie calmly informed me that was the back, not the front.

    “So, it’s completely missing the back???” I asked Laurie. She very calmly said, “Yes.” I was baffled. “But… what if your back gets cold?”

    The next one I pulled out was totally missing a whole arm! Manufacturing issue or something? They just forgot to put a whole arm on? Don’t you think my sister would’ve noticed that when she bought it and then bought one WITH an arm?

    When I started going off about how irresponsible that was of the company that made it and that it was probably made in China, Laurie interrupted me and said, “It’s supposed to be that way.” 

    It’s supposed to only have one arm? Why would anyone want an arm on only one side? Are there people who are like, “My right arm is always so much hotter than my left arm. I really want a shirt that only covers one arm? Oh, and is it like, reversible? If your left arm feels like being cold on a Monday, you could wear it that way, and then you could totally flip it on Wednesday when your right arm is cold? 

    It didn’t make any sense to me, and I had a really really hard time trying to figure out how to put it on the hanger because it only had one arm hole. But then Laurie showed me these cool little clear plastic things that are inside and their whole purpose is to hang things on a hanger that don’t hang well!

    What??? How did I never know that? I’ve had dresses with those things and when I put them on, they’re all hanging out and looking all awkward, so I just ripped them off. I never stopped to think about what they are really for. Sounds like something I would’ve Googled, though. I Google everything. I guess I’ve just been busy.

    Then I pulled out a cute little leotard. Oh, does my sister take ballet? I used to have the cutest leotards when I was little. But wait… this leotard barely covers the butt cheeks.  Do you wear underwear under this?  And are those snaps? Like a baby’s onesie? And do those snaps feel cold on your….  area? Are these things machine washable? I ask Laurie all of these questions while looking at my sister’s cute little leotard… completely confused.

    Once she has stopped laughing, Laurie Informs me that these are absolutely not leotards. They are called bodysuits and people wear them so their shirt stays tucked in.  But they are not even wearing a shirt? And who wants their shirt tucked in? Nobody tucks shirts in anymore. We haven’t done that since the 80s when we would tuck them in and bubble them out and have them match our double pairs of socks. Nobody tucks shirts in these days. And that’s not even a shirt!

    She also tells the that you don’t wear underwear underneath them, and, when I ask, “Isn’t it uncomfortable?” she just kind of shrugs. She says you probably can’t feel the snaps and she’s sure they’re machine washable.

    But then I pull out one with chain-link straps and sequins all over and say, “This one’s definitely not machine washable. You’ve got to wear underwear under that one, right???” Laurie just says, “dry cleaning.” I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I have gotten something dry cleaned.

    I pull out another one and, now I think I’m so smart, so I say, ”Oh, I know this one. It’s one of those one sleeve ones.”

    And Laurie says, “No, that is a halter. It has no sleeves.” Then, when she showed me, it made perfect sense and I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it. 

    I would also pull things out of the bag and, although I wasn’t extremely confident what they were, I would play it off like I knew what I was doing, and I would hang them on the hanger and hand them to Laurie.

    She would laugh and proceed to take it off the hanger because it was on upside down or sideways and hang it on the correct way.

    After that, I didn’t even pretend to know what I was doing. I would just pull a shirt out hold it this way, that way or that way, until Laurie nodded once it was right side up.

    How does she know all this stuff??? She must be a genius! Am I supposed to just know this stuff since I am a woman? Is there something wrong with me?

    The next item made NO sense. Three holes in this article of clothing! 3 different size holes. Two very large. I couldn’t figure this one out to save my life. I kept turning it around and putting my arms or head in different holes to see if it would make any sense. I think this one might have even stumped Laurie at first, although she tried to play it off. You know what? It probably didn’t stump her and I’m just pretending it might have stumped her to make myself feel better. 

    How can I be SO confused about today’s clothing? Is this what they are selling in stores these days?!? How do people just know how to wear these things? Oh! It must be on a mannequin! That would make sense. If I saw this clothing on a mannequin, I would maybe probably be able to put them on correctly. Just maybe probably though.

    Oh, that would be a cool game show! Have three women in separate rooms and give them the same article of clothing and see who can figure out how to put it on properly! And time them! And the cameras will be watching the women trying to figure them out. That sounds hilarious. I would totally lose.

    I don’t know. Maybe I need to up my game. If I ever do buy new clothes, it’s mostly just off of Amazon and it’s a t-shirt or a dress which is shown on the model, so I easily know how to wear it. Also, I think I learned that in kindergarten. 

    Maybe I need to go to the mall or whatever kind of store where they sell these clothes and get myself something different. I’ll get myself something fun. I feel like it might change my life. I am always looking for something to change my life. Like when I got a bread maker.

    But if you see me walking around with my clothes on backwards or upside down or something, please just don’t say anything. Let me feel hip and young.

  • Overstimulated Mom vs. the Relaxing Salt Caves

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    Recently, we took a vacation to Asheville. We did the rage room and splatter paint and white-water rafting. On the last day, my son needed a vacation from our vacation, so I was looking for something fun and different for my brother and I to do.

    My brother is more of a “let’s relax” type of guy, so I was looking for something relaxing.

    I was just sitting around the AirBnB Googling things to do in Asheville, and I came across the salt caves. What exactly is a salt cave? I have heard of those pink salt lamps, of course, but can salt really heal you? My interest was piqued so I read on.

    I had a lot of questions after reading the website.

    Thirty tons of pure pink salt! That’s a lot!! Where do they get that from?!?! Do they actually weigh it? 

    The website says sitting in the salt cave lowers stress, boosts mood and improves sleep! Along with helping with respiratory problems. The stress and the sleep part got me.

    And blankets? They provide blankets? I love blankets. They are almost my favorite thing. Salt caves had me at the word blankets.

    It says they provide earplugs, blankets and tissues. What are the earplugs for? Is it really loud in there? Loud salt? What are the tissues for? Is it going to make me cry? I mean, everything makes me cry, so that’s very likely. But I’m still confused about what the tissues are for. Maybe to help with respiratory issues? Will my nose all of a sudden start running?

    Community salt rooms? It says open seating is available. Is that like a first come first serve type of thing? Do you get the best seats if you get there early? And where exactly are the best seats? Is there a map of the room somewhere so I can scope out the best seats before I get there and shove everyone else out of the way to get to them?

    Do you sit in a salt room with a bunch of strangers in a recliner for 45 minutes? Is that awkward? Are you best friends when you leave after having had some bonding salt experience, or do you just ignore other people the whole time? 

    They say you have a choice of a recliner or a Thai mat on the floor with supportive bolsters and pillows for propping. What is a Thai mat? What’s a supportive bolster? I should probably Google this before I go in there, I thought. But of course I didn’t. The recliners seemed like the more comfortable choice anyway.

    No phones allowed due to the corrosive effects of salt. Corrosive effects of salt? In 45 minutes? That must be some powerful salt! Do I need to wear protective gear or something?

    What am I going to do with no phone for 45 minutes?  What if someone needs me? What if my cat throws up? I did get a phone call from Pet Paradise (the place I boarded my cat for this trip) in the middle of the rage room the day before to inform me that my cat had thrown up. Surely someone will need me in those 45 minutes.  Surely there will be some emergency!  But I know inside there won’t be. I am not nearly as important as I pretend to be.

    I’m always reading a book on my phone, reading the news, doing the Wordle, checking emails doing 50 things at once like most women do. It sounds like torture to me to sit in a room without my phone. People like to put their phones down for a moment to relax, to be still, to think. But not me.  I don’t want to do any of those things!

    And no smart watches? Also, due to the salt corrosive effects. Once again, I’m a little nervous about this super powerful salt that corrodes phones and smart watches in 45 minutes.

    But seriously, how am I going to know how much time has gone by? I’ll be all relaxing thinking it’s been 45 minutes and it probably has only been four. Then I’ll be all worried that there’s something suspicious going on and I’ll be locked inside that salt room forever! And then my mind will start panicking, and I’ll be thinking instead of pumping in the salt-infused air they’re pumping in some kind of poison! And then I’ll decide that I should probably stop reading all those thriller novels and try some romance ones or something.

    I am just such a bad judge of time. And I rely on my smart watch.  I’ll be all worried that it must be 5 p.m., and my kid is back at the AirBnB wanting dinner. I can feel myself getting claustrophobic and worried just thinking about it…

    Maybe there’s a clock on the wall? I wish I knew this beforehand because then I would’ve dug my old Swatch watch out of my jewelry box to wear for the salt caves. Swatch watches were the best. Maybe I’ll start wearing one again instead of this stupid smart watch that reminds me constantly during the day that I have not exercised enough, and every morning tells me what poor sleep I got the night before.  My old Swatch from the 80s would never do that.

    Time is funny like that. Sometimes it will feel like an hour has gone by, but it’s only been five minutes. And sometimes the reverse is true. Sometimes life just slips away without you noticing it. 

    Another thing it said on the website is to bring clean socks. Do people bring dirty socks? Do they really need the word clean? I guess if it’s in there maybe someone has done it. Well, darn, I guess I will have to do laundry quickly because I was really planning on bringing some dirty socks to the salt cave.

    But also, why do you even need socks?

    It says you can read books, but here’s the thing. I didn’t bring any actual books. I read my books on my phone. And there’s no phones! Do I have time to run out before and buy myself an actual book or do I just have to sit there alone with my thoughts? I know, sitting there alone with my thoughts will probably be good for me, but I might leave with more anxiety than I had going in after figuring out what’s really going on inside my head.

    So we decided to do it. I figured it could at least make a good blog post if it doesn’t heal all of my ailments. We decided it would be something different and kind of interesting. And secretly I had hopes of it healing me and I had even bigger hopes of being a totally different person after 45 minutes in a salt cave.

    It was actually a pretty magical experience. You only went down one flight of stairs, but you felt like you were going deep down into the center of the Earth. And I understand the socks thing now because the ground is covered with salt and it felt really good walking on all the little salt crystals. It felt like a little foot massage.

    The room itself felt like something from inside a fairytale. The walls were covered 2/3rds of the way up with pretty pink salt crystals. It’s like the ice cave from Frozen… except pink. It’d be kind of cool if the woman who leads the thing would dress up like Elsa. Maybe I will suggest that.

    There were also two water fountains all covered in crystals making the most relaxing water fountain noises. The ceiling had wooden beams across. In the spaces in between the beams was a net holding hundreds of pink salt crystals. I would like to tell you my first thought was, “What a pretty pink sparkly ceiling,” but my first thought actually was, “What if the net breaks and all those crystals fall on my face! Will there be some magical healing going on like all my wrinkles will magically disappear? Or will I just have a black eye? Hopefully the nets won’t break!” I’m sure they’re pretty sturdy nets. 

    I elbow my way past everyone to get to the best seat in the cave. (There’s not really a best seat… it’s not like you are looking at anything but the walls and the ceiling and you can see that from any seat)…  I try to relax. I try to clear my mind, but my mind is always full of a million thoughts. Also, these recliners are not as comfortable as you would think. I felt like there was a bar sticking into my back.

    So, I look over at those Thai mats on the floor wondering if I was allowed to change my mind and go lay on one of those. Are you allowed to move or is it like a, “you chose it so you are stuck with it kind of thing?”

    Also, I very confused by these Thai mats. I knew I should have Googled them!! I kept trying to figure out which side was for my head and which side was for my feet. It appeared to me you could actually lay either way.  I couldn’t figure out a top and a bottom.

    And they were way too short to fit a human on them. Were they for a little kids? I think it would probably be OK to experiment since it looked like everyone else in the room was in a total state of relaxation. There was a woman with her mouth literally hanging open. Maybe that is what the ear plugs are for! Drowning out the snores coming from other people.

    I was worried there might be a video camera or something and people who work here will be watching me laughing trying to figure out why I’m laying upside down on a Thai mat. Darn it! I knew I should’ve Googled it. Google has always been my best friend.

    So, I very quietly and carefully scoot on over to the Thai mats, crawling part of the way, like that will help people from noticing I am moving… since I might not be allowed to move. I think I figured out that maybe the pillows are where my head goes…. Maybe the bolster thing is supposed to go under my knees? I’m just playing it off like I know what I’m doing. I want to get up and try it the other way around, but I don’t want to bring too much attention to myself, so I just convince myself that this is a correct way to lie on a Thai mat in a salt cave and that no one is secretly laughing at me if I am doing it wrong.

    Isn’t it funny where your mind goes when you have a few minutes to relax? It definitely didn’t go where I wanted it to go. It definitely didn’t relax. It goes to things like, “Is the dishwasher broken?” “Do I need to order more hand soap?” And, “I wonder where my passport is.” I have no upcoming international trips, but still…

    I kept trying to kick thoughts out of my brain, but they just kept coming back in. Maybe relaxing isn’t for me. Maybe I was never meant to relax. Maybe I am just bad at relaxing. 

    But I did like the feel of this all salt under my feet. I did like the sound of the waterfall, and I did like the idea that being in one place can heal you. The idea that something outside of yourself can heal you. Isn’t that what we are all looking for? Something simple that will heal us?

    But before I knew it, the 45 minutes was up. I can’t say I ever got to a point of total relaxation, but I was almost there. I even found myself wanting just a few more minutes.

    After we left, my brother and I were both looking at each other and asking if there other felt any different? I think we were both waiting to hear what the other one would say. Maybe neither one of us really wanted to admit that we didn’t feel any different.

    Because don’t we all just want a quick fix? An hour in a salt cave to heal all our hurts? But we all know there is no quick fix. You have to work at healing, and it takes time. 

    While I was a little disappointed this salt cave didn’t heal all my hurts, I know there’s beauty in the process of healing. And maybe the salt cave isn’t the miracle cure I had hoped.

    But maybe I’ll try acupuncture or something just in case there really is a quick fix and I just haven’t found it yet.

  • Neighborhood Yard Sales

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    Everybody loves a neighborhood yard sale. People pull out all of their once-loved items and display them on the front lawn hoping someone will pay a dollar for them. How could items that once were so loved and needed now be discarded and worth practically nothing? It’s kind of sad if you think about it. I guess it’s a bit like relationships sometimes. People you once loved and needed are now discarded and worth barely anything to you.

    Is there anything more awkward than walking up someone’s driveway and looking at all of their junk? What happens if you decide it’s all just junk to you also?  Do you just turn around and walk away? You almost feel obligated to buy something, so you won’t hurt their feelings. “Oh! Look at these shin guards! Just what I needed! I’m a klutz and I’m always bumping into things and bruising my shins.  Are they kids’ size? Perfect! I have really small shins. How much are they?”

    I come back from yard sales with so much junk just because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And then I go turn around and sell it at the next neighborhood yard sale and hope those people don’t come to my house.

    And what is the proper protocol when you are walking up someone’s driveway and they’re sitting there in their camping chair staring at you?  Do you smile? Do you make chitchat? Do you talk about the weather? Do you say, “Wow, it all looks lovely!” And then not buy anything? They will know you are lying!

    Also, I always think, “Am I walking funny?” I try to walk all tall like I’m a model on a catwalk or something. “Walk normal,” I tell myself.  I don’t want them to say, “Why is that girl walking funny?” Then I’ll be known as the girl who walks funny and doesn’t buy anything. Is anyone else self-conscious about the way they walk or is it only me?

    It’s also pretty awkward having people walk up and look at your stuff. “What do you mean you don’t want that old used bib? My son spit up on it over 432 times. You know what!? This bib is too good for you! It’s not for sale anymore!”

    And then I hug the bib to my chest and start crying and feeling nostalgic. That will really make people avoid my house.

    But does it make you feel bad about yourself when they walk away and they don’t buy anything? I’m torn between saying “Don’t worry! I won’t be offended if you don’t buy anything!” and, “How dare you not want this wooden train with a missing wheel?!”

    Is what people sell a reflection of them? Can people figure out who I am by looking at all the things I consider junk? Do my discarded items tell a story of my life? And is it one I want everybody to know?

    I have never taken part in the neighborhood yard sale because it seems super daunting and overwhelming. How do I know how much to charge? How can I see something I once loved being sold for 50 cents?  It seems like it must be worth more than that. Is the point of a yard sale to get rid of stuff or to make money?

    Do you have to put a price on every single thing? Do you have to buy those little stickers from the dollar store and write prices on them? Do you group them by items? By price? I don’t want to yard sale wrong! Is there a class for this somewhere I can take? 

    Luckily, I have a friend who is really good at yard sales, and she gave me some good advice and made me feel like I can conquer this task of taking part in the neighborhood yard sale.

    We moved to Wilmington 13 years ago. It was a pretty quick move, and I was doing most of packing myself. Also, I had two young kids with me so I just dumped everything in these big bins and figured I would sort them out when we got to Wilmington. 

    I’m sure you can imagine how that went. Twelve years later, there were still bins in the garage that had never even been touched. My mom was always on me about sorting through those bins. But You know how life goes. And you know how listening to your mother goes. I’m kidding, I listen to my mom now. It only took 45 years.

    Well, life doesn’t always turn out as you think it will and with all the twists and turns, and a couple difficult years, I found myself divorced, back in the house, and owning it on my own… with a garage full of bins that had not been opened in 12 years. It seemed like a metaphor for starting over and cleaning out, so I decided to finally go through them. The timing coincided perfectly with the neighborhood yard sale.

    So, I slowly started going through the bins. Cleaning out the bins, cleaning out the garage, and cleaning out my life. I honestly had no idea what was in most of them.

    The first bin I opened had a box of Cheerios in it! That expired 12 years ago. I think it might’ve even been opened. What was I thinking? That they don’t have grocery stores in Wilmington? That I was going to unpack this box right away and probably figured it would be good to have some snacks handy for kids. Don’t worry, I did not sell that box of Cheerios at the yard sale. Although people like strange things. Maybe a vintage 12-year-old box of stale Cheerios could’ve sold. It was embarrassing and too much to explain so that just went in the trash.

    Another bin was full of vases! Ten beautiful vases! I didn’t know I owned vases. Who needs that many vases? Did I have a vase collection? Was I a vase collection person 12 years ago? There were some colorful ones, but they were definitely not something I needed. They went in the yard sale pile and they sold quickly. I guess people liked my vase collection.

    Another bin was full of coffee mugs. But each one of them was wrapped in one of my ex-husband’s favorite t-shirts with a funny saying on it. He loved the funny t-shirts. I guess I didn’t have packing paper, so I wrapped each coffee mug carefully in one of his favorite t-shirts.

    I assumed we would get down here and I would unpack them quickly and he could have all those t-shirts back. I wonder if he misses those t-shirts? I wonder if he even remembers them? I wonder if I should give them back? I ended up just selling them. He’s lived without them for 12 years. But also, why did we have so many coffee mugs? Who needs that many coffee mugs?

    There were bins and bins of children’s books. They have always been my weakness. I chose my favorites like the Knuffle Bunny books and all the Berenstain Bears books and put the others in a bin to sell. Even though it broke my heart. I guess there are things you love that you don’t really need. 

    There were bins of DVDs and bins of video games, but the ones that broke my heart were the bins and bins of children’s toys and games. 

    There was the big Thomas the Tank Engine collection. My older son was obsessed with Thomas, and he would never leave the house without a Thomas train in one hand and a Percy train in the other hand. Not only did I have to keep track of my wild kid when I went out in public, but I also had to keep track of a Thomas train and a Percy train. SO I needed extras.

    We would always come home from the bookstore with a new Thomas train and a new Percy train. My husband would look at me questionably and ask, “Don’t we already have a bunch of Thomas trains and Percy trains?”

    And I said, “yes, but what if we LOSE one?” Which did happen, so I feel justified here.

    There was the Star Wars collection and the Hot Wheels collection and everything I pulled out brought back heartbreaking memories of my kids being little that I could hardly stand it. I saved some things, of course, but I also knew it was time to get rid of all of that.

    My garage had been a messI was excited to clean it out and make it my own. I found a new toilet in the box in my garage. I know that you can sell these things, but I mostly just wanted to get rid of everything, clean it all out and start my life over.

    I grouped things by prices and just had a big blanket that was two dollars, a big blanket that was five dollars and so on. On the morning of the yard sale, I dragged the blankets and the items on the front lawn and waited. 

    People started showing up early. And people LOVED my stuff. I wasn’t such a stickler with the prices though so when they asked if they could give me a lower price I of course said sure because I was super excited that they liked my stuff. And also, the thought of an empty garage filled me with so much possibility.

    When I say my garage was a disaster, I mean my garage was a disaster. I didn’t get to go through it all before the yard sale because time ran out and it’s pretty much an impossible task. 

    I pictured my yard sale day with me lounging in a camping chair, making chitchat while people straggled in to look at my once-loved belongings. I even had a couple books that I planned to read during the day. But that’s not how it went.

    Things were going so quickly, and I just knew I had more stuff and more bins in my garage so I spent the day just kept going through bins and dragging stuff out and placing them on the blanket and they were pretty much sold right away.

    Who knew I could clean out my garage during the yard sale at the same time I was selling my things?

    But the day went on, and I kept dragging out more things and dragging out more things and people kept buying them and buying them and by the end of the day, my garage was empty.

    Buying is a loose term here because towards the end of the day, I was just giving everything away for free. Toys, books, DVDs, kids’ games, kids’ toys, a random new toilet, furniture, paintings, and so on.

    It was all happening so fast I didn’t get a chance to sit and look at each item and decide if I really wanted to give it away or keep it. Everything just went on the blanket. 

    At the end of the day, I had an empty garage, an empty blanket in my driveway and surprisingly an overwhelming feeling of sadness. I guess we all love our junk more than we think. I guess cleaning out and decluttering can be painful.

    As I sat there, looking at my sad, empty garage with his stained floor, I knew that he needed a new beginning, too. Even after that long, grueling day when I was exhausted and covered with sweat, I got in my car and drove myself to Home Depot. I bought the prettiest dark green paint and came home and stayed up all night long painting the floor of my garage a pretty dark green. I found some old light green paint left over from my bedroom wall and painted half of the garage walls. He looked like a brand-new garage. Brand new garage, brand new me, fresh starts for both of us.

    But all through the next year when I needed something, I would keep thinking that I have it somewhere in my garage until I remember that I sold it in my yard sale. So, I’d end up buying a new one. 

    So, when this year’s neighborhood yard sale came around, I sat this one out. I want to keep all the junk I have. I’ve even replaced some of the junk I sold. I didn’t buy a new toilet or a box of Cheerios, but I did buy 10 new Thomas the Tank Engine trains and 10 new Percy ones. You know, just in case we lose one. 

  • When your ex gets engaged, go buy Champagne

    You see it in the movies. The pretty young girl is going about her business, and then she finds out that (insert big dramatic foreboding music) her EX is ENGAGED. (Put some MORE dramatic music here for effect) The world stops, the world goes dark, the world spins, sometimes the girl even faints. 

    Everything changes. Her attitude, her demeanor, the way her apartment looks. It’s so dramatic in these books and these movies. She lies on her bed and cries for three days. Or something like that.

    I mean, why are women and girls so dramatic about this stuff? My brother and I are currently watching Sex and the City. I think we have run out of shows to watch.  Of course, I watched it when it first came out, but that was before my brother was even born.

    I remember watching it over 25 years ago and just feeling so heartbroken for Carrie. But watching it now I’m like, “what are you doing, Carrie? Just dump Big! He’s terrible for you. He’s just playing with your emotions! You are too good for him!” And also, if you watch the show, there are plenty of rich eligible bachelors in New York City. 

    But seriously, Carrie, why are you SO dramatic about every little thing? You’re crying because he didn’t want to go to dinner with your friends? After he said he would! Who cares? 

    You’re crying because you want to move to Paris to be with him and he says, “don’t move for me?” I get it, 20 years ago, I probably would’ve cried too. 

    I think I had a boyfriend at the time who was very similar to Big. I felt like I was being strung along and that he couldn’t commit and all that heartbreaking stuff. (That’s not really that heartbreaking) But at the time I could totally relate to Carrie. I was living her life. Relationship-wise I mean. Not in the “cute shoes and cute clothes and going out to brunch with your girlfriends everyday” type of life.

    So, when it happens to you, you sort of wonder if you’re supposed to do the same thing. But you don’t really think about it happening to you. Or at least I didn’t.   

    But then it did. On an average Wednesday morning when I’m walking out of Bible study feeling all Zen and peaceful, I get a text from a friend saying she saw something on Facebook.

    I try to be dramatic. I really do! Sometimes I like being dramatic. I think it’s part of being a Pisces. But I excel at it. Sometimes. 

    I try to be that young girl in the Hallmark movies who just crumples into a pile on the street and bawls her eyes out. Strangers walking by asking if they should call 911 or if she needs any help. 

    I try to be that girl who later will comment that she couldn’t remember what happened at that moment because it was all a big blur.

    Should I take the day off? Should I walk along the beach and contemplate how life did not work out how I planned? 

    Should I go to the beach and hurl handfuls of sand into the ocean with tears streaming down my face? That sounds kind of fun actually. Minus the tears. But it also sounds a little cold and messy. There’s lots of options for healing heartache at the beach when you live so close to it. I think there’s probably crying at the beach in some of those movies also.

    Should I be jealous? Should I be angry? Should I punch a wall? Should I cry all day? Should I take a nap? Actually, a nap sounds good on any day. 

    I think I’d be pretty good at throwing myself on the bed and pounding my pillows with my fists. I bet I could even fake cry. All I would have to do is think about that commercial from last night at the Super Bowl, where the little girl lost her dog in the storm, and I can probably really cry. I used a whole box of tissues for that commercial. I should make myself a little note to order more on Amazon. 

    So, I walked around all day not really sure how I felt. I told my friends who, of course asked, “Are you OK?”

    Am I OK? Am I not OK? Am I supposed to be OK? Am I not supposed to be OK?

    Is there anyone else in the world who has a hard time knowing what they feel or am I the only one?

    And how often do we feel what the world tells us to feel even if we don’t really feel that?

    Like when I bought my house, everyone was all like, “Congratulations! You must be so happy!”

    I mean I was, but mostly I was confused and terrified. Did I just buy a house? Did they let me buy a house? Do they know me? Am I responsible enough to own a house? Am I in charge of everything that goes wrong with the house now? I don’t know how to own a house honestly. But also, of course, I was happy. 

    So, it was 8 o’clock on that night that I found out my ex was engaged. I walked around all day trying to figure out how I feel, acting out some of the emotions like I was in one of those movies and my life was completely over because the man of my dreams was going to marry someone else. I always thought I would make a pretty good actress, but I’m painfully shy so that never worked out for me. Maybe I’ll give it a go in my 60s.

    It was cold and it was rainy, but all of a sudden, I knew what to do. I knew the perfect thing to do when your ex gets engaged. I told my brother I was going out and I’d be right back. (Now you have to understand that I would never go out to the store at 8 o’clock at night. I hate going to the store. If I needed toilet paper, I would just cut up T-shirts and use that rather than go out to the store. I hate the store! Read my blog titled The Worst Place on Earth if you haven’t yet so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about)

    But my ex was engaged, so I went to the store to buy a bottle of champagne. When your ex gets engaged, buy some champagne! 

    I was texting my friends (who know me well and were not that surprised at this type of reaction).

    One friend told me to get the most expensive bottle and use the best glasses I have! Yes, I thought! I sent her a picture of me from the grocery store holding a bottle of champagne and she said, “good for you, but that is NOT the good stuff.”

    First of all, it’s Food Lion. Second of all, I don’t know what the good stuff is! I don’t really buy champagne unless it’s for Thanksgiving or Christmas when we make mimosas. And then I just buy the cheapest stuff I can find because, well, we drink a lot of mimosas on the holidays.

    I brought that bottle of champagne home. I got the best glasses I have, which are really not fancy glasses but at least they have stems. I’ve started using stemless wine glasses because really, what is with the stem? How is a big wine glass supposed to stand up on that tiny stem? It’s just asking for a disaster! The proportions are all off! I wonder if whoever invented the wine glass did that on purpose so people would break so many and have to buy so many more?

    My brother and I sat at that kitchen table that rainy night and drank that bottle of champagne out of our glasses with stems. We didn’t even watch TV like we usually do. We just sat and talked. Reminiscing about old times and talking about the future and our life in general. We laughed and laughed.

    I wasn’t “celebrating” that my ex was getting engaged. I wasn’t NOT celebrating my ex getting engaged. I was just celebrating. It’s not even really about him. Except finding out he is engaged gave me the thought to go buy a bottle of champagne. (So, I should probably thank him) 

    What is my other option? Be one of those girls from the movies? It is what it is and it doesn’t change my beautiful sweet little life. Not one bit. It took me eight hours to figure out the answer was to buy champagne. I always knew it deep inside but was so influenced by the movies and the books and those poor heartbroken girls. I wish I could tell them all to go by themselves a bottle of champagne and get over it. But they’re young, and I’m 50. And I like champagne. And I’m smarter than they are.

    So, I think that might be my new solution for anything. Go buy a bottle of champagne and celebrate something. Because there’s always something to celebrate. Unless something breaks in my house. There will be no celebrating then. There will be no champagne then. There will be lots of crying and being dramatic.

    So that’s what I did on that cold rainy day when I found out my ex was engaged. I went and bought a bottle of champagne. And I enjoyed every sip of it.

  • Old broken plastic dog toy bins

    Is there anyone else who just doesn’t like new things? A new phone, a new car, even new clothes…. they just don’t excite me. There’s something about the old, the familiar, the well-loved, that just feels so comfortable. It feels like home.

    I wear my clothes out until they’ve disintegrated to nothing. My favorite pair of black pants has holes in the butt, but it’s fine, I just wear black underwear, and no one can really tell. No one’s really looking at my butt that closely.

     I had a favorite gray long sleeve waffle knit shirt that I wore and wore and wore until it fell apart. The collar had come off, the cuffs had come off, the holes in it were too big to keep wearing it, even around the house. I still miss that shirt over 20 years later.

     It’s also as if my old clothes know me. They know how I like them to fit; they know how I like them to feel and when I get up off the couch they say, “ Oh, are you going to get yourself another glass of wine?” Then they high five me  because my clothes know if they are lucky, I will spill some on them and they will get some wine too!

    New clothes are all tight and stiff, and uncomfortable. They try to be all high waisted. No one likes a high waist! I like a low waist. I know that’s your name and what you were made to do, but don’t try to do that stuff around my house. Go low.

    They’re also very judgmental and questioning. “Are you getting ANOTHER glass of wine?” They also freak out when I spill stuff on them.  “Quick! Get the stain stick!” They yell. “Oxy Clean! Shout! Where are you?!”

    “Chill!” I tell them. “You don’t need a stain stick! Or any of that other stuff. We love stains around here. It gives us character!”

    And then there’s my car. I’ve only had it for eight years, but I’ve put over 230,000 miles on it. The back right door doesn’t close properly; the left turn signal doesn’t work unless you push it down really hard. If you just push it down normally, then the right turn signal will come on. I give it a break because sometimes I confuse my right with my left also. 

    The air vent on the far right doesn’t work, the paint is peeling, it has more than a few dents and scratches, and the radio is very finicky. The radio sometimes stops working, but over the years, I have found that I can easily reset it with my earring.

    “Oh, not this again,” I say pretending to be annoyed with the radio and I drive along, pull my earring out and reset it quickly.  Usually resetting the radio fixes it. If not, I just wait until the next day and then it starts working again magically. I guess you need patience with used and well-loved things.

    My car knows me. It knows what I want to listen to, it knows that I like to go below the speed limit and it doesn’t give me a hard time about it. Not like some rental cars that I’ve been in that just want to go fast. My minivan likes going slow and enjoying the view. Just like I do.

    I was going to say it knows exactly how I like my seat, but I just discovered last week that I can adjust the seat so there’s not a big bar sticking in the middle of my back! Who knew?  After eight years? I guess you can still learn new things about old cars no matter how long you’ve known them. And people too. With all its quirks and inconveniences, I love my car and I’m hoping it’ll last another million miles.

    My phone was the worst though. It was really old and well loved. It knew me so well. I don’t think another phone could ever know me so well. I know, I know, people talk about an Apple ID and you just sign in on the new phone and all of a sudden, all your stuff is there and then the new phone knows you too. I don’t really believe that. I got a new phone and I tried it. It doesn’t understand my typos, like my old phone did. This new phone corrects my typos to actual words!!! 

    “That’s not what I meant at all, New Phone! Old Phone would have totally known that” I actually said out loud the other day.

    It doesn’t know that I lose my phone all the time and there’s no reason to panic. Old phone just sits there and rolls his eyes and waits and waits for me to figure out where I left him. 

    New Phone is all panicky. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me alone? I thought you were lost forever!!!”

    New Phone needs to chill out.

    I do think it is pretty cool though how you can put one phone next to the other phone and they just transfer information and send stuff between them. How do they do that? It’s like magic!

    My old phone got to the point where it just wouldn’t send texts sometimes. (Maybe it knew I really shouldn’t send those texts, but still, it should do what it’s told) It just wouldn’t receive texts sometimes. I would get a notification that I got a text, but I couldn’t find it when I opened my text messages.

    There was also NEVER enough storage on my old phone so every time there was an update I have to delete everything. And still, there was not enough room for the update. Sometimes there was not enough storage for me to clock in on my work app. And don’t even get me started on pictures! There was never enough storage for me to take pictures.

    Sometimes I would delete and delete and delete a bunch of pictures I didn’t necessarily need (although I really wanted) and still there would be no room for me to take one picture. 

    “I just deleted 30 pictures!” I would say to Old Phone. “And you won’t even let me take one?”

    My phone said “no.” I get it. He was tired. I am too.

    I was at the vet’s office and they had the cutest little sign saying if your dog has anxiety, take this little bandana and lay it over her/him because it has been sprayed with something calming. (Well, the sign said it in a much more eloquent way. That’s why I wanted to take a picture!)

    I thought it was the cutest little sign, and I took one bandana and laid It over my dog. It had autumn leaves on it, and she looked so cute! I wanted to take a picture of the sign and take a picture of my dog to send to my family chat because I knew they would love it. But Old Phone said “no.”

    Even after I deleted so many things I just begged it for just one more picture and it said “no.”

    Also, the camera only worked in selfie mode. I’ve gotten pretty skilled though at taking every picture I need to take in selfie mode. I mean, doesn’t everyone just want my face in the corner of every picture I take? OK, probably NOT everyone.

    So I finally got a new phone, and I don’t know what the hype is about a new phone. I don’t know why people are so excited. It’s just a phone. It’s fine. It sends my texts. It receives my texts. It lets me take pictures. But really, I just miss Old Phone. My old phone was comfortable, well worn, and well loved, even with all his bad habits.

    Sometimes I think I want nice new things. The other morning, I was sitting on my couch looking around my house and I thought to myself that I really needed new baskets for the dog toys. This was after I woke up that morning and said to myself that I’m not going to buy anything unnecessary today.

    The current baskets are not even baskets! They are plastic bins the dog toys have been in for years. (and they have NEVER bothered me) They were bins that used to hold my kids’ toys when they were babies. These bins are over 15 years old. They don’t match and they are cracked down the side and cracked down the back. They are just not very pretty. Doesn’t my dog deserve better? For the toys she NEVER plays with. And besides, wouldn’t it just make my house look so pretty?

    So, I hopped on Amazon, and I bought my dog two new matching baskets for her toys. We have one in the front room and one in the back of the house. Honestly, she doesn’t even play with toys. It was the other dog that played with toys, but they are all still here.

    The new baskets are very pretty. They are woven baskets with a the cute little dog bone on them. 

    I was all excited when they came and I switched out the dog toys and showed them to my dog who didn’t care. She loves old well-loved things the best too.  After all, she loves me.  

    After three days of looking at them and how pretty they made my house look, I decided that I didn’t like the new dog toy baskets. 

    They were too nice and too new and too fancy. And the old ones reminded me of my kids when they were babies. They also reminded me of my old dog too who would often pull out all the toys.  And not clean them up.

    Good thing I hadn’t thrown the old bins out. I just threw them in the garage. I dug through the garage and found those old plastic broken bins and I returned those new dog baskets. It’s funny how you don’t really realize how much you love something sometimes. It is funny how they look perfect to me now.  Mismatched, well loved and all.

    It’s like that with people sometimes too. We get old and we get broken and we get worn out and we get boring. I hope no one will ever trade me in for something new and shiny. 

    That’s the thing though, we learn to love people just like we learn to love things. We love them with their faults, and with their broken parts. We love them because we know them so well, and even their annoying habits become endearing. We love them because they are not perfect. And neither are we.

    The world would be such a better place if we were happy with what we had instead of wanting something new and pretty, if we appreciated a little more our old well-loved things that brought us comfort, and if we were just happy with our old broken plastic dog toy bins.

  • Home (un)improvement


    I have never really watched those home improvement shows but the few times I have they look fun. And pretty easy too.

    A few years ago, I moved into a little rental house. I’m really good at taking care of houses. I keep them clean and well cared for, but accidents happen. Like burning the countertop with a candle or burning the siding while using a grill and a few other things.

    When it was time to move out, I was worried about how much of my security deposit they would take so I decided to fix every last thing I could. By myself. Well with my brother of course. He’s usually around for most mishaps. Usually, an active participant.

    First project was the blinds. We had broken blinds due to dogs and kids throwing balls in the house. I have heard that they will charge you an arm and a leg for that so it’s best to just replace blinds yourself.

    Well, how hard can it be, right? I watched a YouTube video about it, and it seemed simple enough. I was searching all around the house for a measuring tape so I could measure the blinds, but I just couldn’t find one.

    And then I remembered when I was little my mom would measure things with her hand. If she wanted to see if a couch or dresser would fit in a space, she would just stretch her thumb and middle finger out one time and put the thumb where the middle finger was and then do it again from that spot. That’s how she would measure things. 6 hand lengths, she would say.  This dresser will fit in this spot because it’s six hand lengths. What a brilliant and accurate way to measure I remember my 7-year-old self thinking. I was always impressed with anything my mom did.

    I figured I would just measure my blinds like that. Aren’t there just standard size blinds? So, I did my little hand measurements just like I watched my mom do when I was little and measured the blinds. They were 4 hand lengths, and one finger. Easy Peezy.

    I walked into Home Depot. Someone asked if they could help me and I told them I was looking for blinds, so they led me to the blind aisle. I told them I was looking for the cheapest blinds. They asked me what size, and I said “oh, I measured with my hands”, with proud look on my face.

    “You measured with your hands?”
    ⁃ Home Depot blinds lady with a very perplexed and confused look on her face

    “Oh yes, it is four hands and one finger. See? I do it like this!” And I started measuring with my hands down a box of blinds.

    Looking carefully, though, I’m noticing that the measurements are so exact and within inches of each other. Hmm…

    Who makes that many different size blinds? Are there really that many different sizes of windows? I was thinking this might be a little trickier than I thought. But I couldn’t show my doubts and insecurities.

    Full of confidence, I grabbed the box that looked like it was four hands and one finger length, and I told her confidently that this is it!  This is the one I need. 4 hand lengths and one finger.

    I didn’t want her to think I was an idiot so I told her I realize there was extra room in the box and the blinds did not fit perfectly from each end of the box and I have taken that into consideration.

    Ok, bring them back if they don’t fit.
    -Home Depot blinds lady

    I won’t! They will be fine.
    -I say cheerfully over my shoulder

    Feeling smug, I brought my blinds home. I took them out of the box and you guessed it. They were absolutely not the right size. That day I learned that you can absolutely not measure blinds with your hands. I blame my mother for this.

    I also learned there is an infinite number of different size blinds.

    When I was retelling the story to my mom, she laughed and said that you can’t use that method for exact measurements. Well, how was I supposed to know that? I just saw her measuring things like that when I was little, so I figured that’s how you measure things. She should have clarified that 43 years ago. I still blame my mother.

    So then I actually got my brother to help me find a measuring tape, we measured them exactly, returned the ones we had and got new ones that fit.

    I felt like I was doing the walk of shame bringing those blinds back in hoping the same blinds lady would have gone home by then.

    Of course she hadn’t.  She started laughing out loud when she saw me.

    “I figured you’d be back she said,” and we both had a really good laugh.

    At least she now has a funny story to share at the dinner table about the crazy woman who measures with her hands. I like being people’s entertainment.  Makes me feel like I am contributing to the world.  In my own Brita way.

    It made me feel a little better that I was only a couple inches off. I think that’s pretty good considering what I now know is an imperfect measuring technique. Now I know how important it is to be exact with measuring blinds. Learn something new every day I guess.

    Do you know those LED lights that were super popular and all the kids wanted them around the top of their rooms? The ones where you just peel off the sticky back and stick along the wall near the ceiling and they just seem so easy?

    Those are great! Both my kids wanted them, and we put them up in their rooms and it was so much fun. Until it’s time to move and take them down. They just stick on so when you peel them off, they should easily come right off without ripping off any paint underneath. Right? Wrong!

    I don’t know if that always happens or if there was just a shady paint job done in this particular house but when I peeled them off, paint just came off every few inches.

    After a little gasp, and a moment of panic, I pulled myself together and I told my brother that we can easily fix this. We will just paint the top 2 inches of the room. I know I saw paint in the shed. It’ll be easy. We’ve got this. I think I actually even high-fived him as I walked out of the room.

    We went in the garage and there were two different paint cans. I like it how they have a little drop of the color on the lid so you can see what it looks like. This particular room we were painting was a little green and the rest of the house was more beige.

    I picked up the can that looked greenish to me and I brought it inside. I sort of held it up against the wall. This is definitely the one, I told my brother, full of confidence.

    My brother and I each got a paintbrush and poured some paint into a little plastic cup and he started at one end and I started at the other end and we started just painting over the spots where the lights ripped off the first layer of paint. We were talking and laughing and having a great time.  See how fun home improvement can be?

    The color looks a little light I thought and I asked him what he thought. He agreed with me, but then I said, “Paint always looks different when it dries so I’m sure it’s the right color. Let’s just keep going.”

    So we kept going, and I kept doubting whether it was the right color, but then I just kept convincing myself that it was absolutely was the right color and it will just look different when it’s dry.

    Do you know when you’re too far into something that you can’t admit you were wrong, even though you know you are wrong? I kind of felt like that. It was too late to turn back now. But also, I said a little prayer because you know, miracles can happen.

    So we finished painting the top 2 inches of the room and it looked a little off, but I said we’ll just let it dry for a couple hours and then check back. I’m sure it will be fine.

    So I shut the door and went and had a glass of wine because sometimes wine fixes things like the wrong color paint. Or maybe wine really doesn’t fix anything and it’s all in my head.

    When it was dry, and we went to look at it and as you can guess, it was absolutely the wrong color.

    My brother said, maybe it’s just the lighting, and he turned off the light and used the flashlight on his phone to shine on wall. It did match when he did that but I am sure people were going to turn on the light I said.  I was laughing so hard at that I almost peed my pants.

    So I guess it is the other can of paint in the shed. We went back out, and we got the other can of paint, and we redid the whole thing and guess what, it was perfect! I guess I confidently picked the wrong color to start with. Isn’t that how life goes? We often confidently make the wrong choice.

    We fixed it! Mission accomplished, even though it did take a little longer to get there, but, if you’ve been reading my blog, I never do things the easy way. Then I would have nothing to write about. There are always second chances and try agains and do overs I eventually get where I want to be.

    And can we just talk about those command strips? They look perfect! Have you seen the videos? Have you read the instructions? Have you used them? What an amazing way to hang things up without putting any nails in the walls. They look like the greatest invention ever! And so practical for renters.

    I was determined not to put any nail holes in the walls because I did that in my last rental house, and it was just a pain to fix all those little nail holes. (little did I know that these stupid command strips would be even a bigger pain)


    When I moved in I bought probably at least 50 of those little commando hooks and strips and I hung paintings and pictures all over my walls. I am one of those people who want their walls full of pictures from when their kids were little. I am NOT one of those organized people who has school pictures from every year for every kid in a nice neat row on their wall although I have ALWAYS have been jealous of those people and wanted to be them.  Mine are just a splattering of my kids’ pictures in no order at all.  The point is I like my walls to be very very decorated.

    I even used those command things to hang up curtain rods! These are amazing I thought. All proud and smug like I usually am. And it will be so simple to take them off when I move out. I probably even patted myself on the back when I was finished hanging everything up.

    And honestly, they worked great. Until I was moving out and it was time to take them all off the walls.

    Well, I don’t know if anyone else has ever tried to remove one of these things, but if you don’t pull that little sticky thing in exactly the right direction and exactly the right angle, half the drywall will come off with it.

    And if you do pull them in the correct way, they will snap off and hit you in the face. The hitting me in the face thing I can take, but those huge holes in my drywall were very upsetting especially since this was the exact thing I was trying to avoid.

    I’m not even kidding! I watched videos and I read directions after the first mess up, and I tried to perfect the technique and maybe half of them came off the way they were supposed to. How am I a well-educated, 50-year-old woman who cannot get these stupid command strips to come off my wall like they’re supposed to? Why did I bother trying to do things the easy way? 50 nail holes would be way easier to fix than this mess.

    So we went to Home Depot, and we got the spackle and the little scraping tools that come with it. I really like the purple color by the way. It’s bright and cheerful and it makes you think this can be fun. I’m always trying to make the best of a bad situation.

    But it’s a lot more difficult than it seems. I mean do people have to go to spackle school for this? I put too much on and then I tried to scrape it a little flatter and then it’s all indented because I scraped too much so then I put some more on, and I don’t want to scrape it too low but now there’s just a big bump. So I scrape it too low again and then I add more and there’s a big bump and I do this repeatedly about five times until I realize I really should just leave the big bump. Which I guess is how it’s supposed to be because then you sand him down after he dries? Redoing and undoing the same spot five times is just going to make this process really long.

    You would think after it dries that it would be pretty easy to sand it flat but it’s not! I thought I sanded it flat and then I walked away, and I looked at it and there was still a big bump! So I sanded it flat again, and then I walked away and then when I looked at it, there was still a bump! How does it look flat one minute and then the next it’s not? “Am I on Candid Camera or something?” I thought. “Is this a big prank?” It wasn’t. Seriously, how do the spackle and sanding guys get it so perfectly flat? It must be a talent. I have a newfound respect for them. This stuff is a lot harder than it looks!

    After trying about 10 times I decided that a little bulge was just fine. Was anybody really going to notice?

    So we did the best we could and we got the correct color out of the shed this time, and painted over those multiple little speckled bulges all over the walls.

    Surprisingly, we did not get charged for them so I think we did a pretty good job of doing it wrong, but still somehow fooling people. I guess sometimes it doesn’t have to be perfect.

    As i said, I was never one for watching those home-improvement shows. I found them boring. Maybe I should start watching them.

    It seems like I’m pretty good at unimproving my house. Maybe watching those shows will improve that.

    Or I should just give up and hire someone who actually knows what they’re doing. But what would be the fun in that?

  • My lawn mower hates me

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    You have all seen them. The people who make mowing the lawn look easy. Those people who are just walking peacefully after their lawn mower in their yard. They are walking at a leisurely speed while barely exerting any effort to push their lawn mower. Some are actually even going fast. They make it look effortless. Some even look like they’re running and some even look like they’re enjoying it! I’ve always seen people like that and thought to myself that mowing a lawn is probably easy. Anybody could do it. Even I could do it!

    I call BS on all these happy people mowing their lawn in an effortless manner. Mowing is not easy. Or maybe I’m just really really bad at it. If you’ve been reading my blog, it’s a very good possibility. I’m naturally bad at cooking so I could very well be naturally bad at mowing a lawn. If that’s even a thing. Maybe no one has been bad at mowing a lawn before. Maybe I invented being bad at lawn mowing.

    Before I got separated, ex-husband just always took care of the lawn. He wanted to. He enjoyed it. Or if he didn’t, I didn’t know. It just seemed like a man kind of thing. It’s a man’s job, I thought. The feminist in me is very disappointed in myself at this thought. All the lawn responsibilities just somehow fell on him so for over 10 years I never even thought of lawn care. It never even crossed my mind. He made it look easy, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard.

    In 2021 my husband moved out and here I was with a big old lawn and no idea how to take care of it. As I said, everybody made it look so easy so I thought it would be no problem at all. I thought it would even be FUN! I could do it. I am a strong, independent, intelligent woman, so mowing the lawn would be a piece of cake, right?

    With my head held high, and walking tall and proud, I march right out to the garage and introduce myself to the lawn mower. I explain to him that we were going to be best friends and from now on I would be hanging out with him. I know he probably really liked my ex, but I am actually way more fun I tell him with a wink. I wheel him out in the grass, and I look at him realizing that I have no idea how to start a lawn mower. I watch a YouTube video, but honestly, I don’t know how anyone learns anything from YouTube videos. People always report that they learn so much from watching YouTube videos, but I just don’t. I can’t concentrate that long. I get bored. But still, I sort of watch one and then I’m ready.

    You just pull that little stringie thing, right? That’s how everybody does it in the movies. Simple simple. So, I pull the string and nothing happens. I talk to the lawn mower nicely and say, “look, I know you and my ex had a great relationship, but it’s just going to be us from now on so let’s make the best of it.”  And I high five his cute little lawn mower side. Then I try again, and I try again, and I try again. I will not be deterred, I think to myself, but the darn thing won’t start. I look up and see my neighbor across the street. I hate asking for help but I’m out of options.

    I walk over there and ask him very nicely if he will teach me how to use my lawn mower. He comes over and he says first of all, I should change out of flip-flops. You’re not supposed to mow your lawn in flip flops?!! I do everything in flip-flops. That doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll listen to him. (A couple weeks later I meet a friend for lunch and I was telling her the story and she told me it’s absolutely fine to mow your yard in the flip flops. Ever since then I always do. I have one pair of lawnmowing flip-flops. My feet are always grass stained and disgusting when I come in that they need a good scrubbing. It’s all worth it to not have to wear real shoes. Anyway, that’s probably too much information so let’s get back to my story.)

    My neighbor shows me how to check the gas. I feel a little silly because I did not know how to check for gas and I didn’t even think of it.  But the mower had gas so that wasn’t the problem. Then he shows me how to push this little button up front. Who knew you had to push a little button? My YouTube video didn’t tell me that. And then he shows me how you pull the string (just like I’d been doing) and it starts right up. That’s easy! I thank him and then I go inside to change out of my flip-flops.

    I come back out and check the gas even though we checked it together and it’s fine, I pump the little button, I pull the string and nothing happens. I pull it again and again and again and finally I have to go back over there and ask my neighbor for more help. It was just that I wasn’t putting enough muscle into pulling the little string. After I learned that, I successfully mowed my lawn for the first time. I thought I was going to die from heat stroke, but I was so proud of myself you would think I had just climbed Mount Everest. And can we talk about how hard it is to turn the lawnmower around?! Why is it so hard to turn?  I struggled while backing up and going forward and backing it up again. It is like I was making a five-point turn after every row.

    That mower is really hard to push, and my yard is a lot bigger than it looks. I remember my ex-husband complaining about it for years and saying we need a ride on mower. I told him he was just being a wimp, and we did not need a ride on mower. I told him our lawn was not that big, and he could easily do it. Well, now I kind of see his point, but I would never admit that and please don’t ever tell him that if you know him. We don’t want men going around thinking they’re right about things. Kidding! I love men. They are right sometimes.

    And that is how my lawnmowing adventure began over four years ago. You would think I would get the hang of it. You would think it would be easier. You would think the lawn mower likes me by now. You would think we are best friends. But for some reason, it’s just gotten harder and harder and harder. There was a point when the lawn mower wouldn’t even start for me. I would go out there ready to tackle the lawn and I would try and try and try to start the lawn mower and then I would just give up and go back inside. When my brother got home, I would tell him that the lawn mower was just not starting, and he’d go out there and start it on the first try. I tried not to take it personally, but it really felt like my lawn mower just didn’t like me. But that doesn’t make sense because everyone likes me! Does my lawnmower not realize how cool I am? I say the same thing about my children. Children and lawnmowers. They really just don’t appreciate us. Someday they will, I am sure.

    I swear that the grass grows six inches in one day around here. Every time I turn around the lawn needs to be mowed again. But also, it rains every day, so the grass is wet. I know they always say, don’t mow wet grass, and I know that, but the grass is always wet because it’s always raining. If I didn’t mow the grass when it is wet I would NEVER be able to mow the grass. I swear the backyard is up to my knees after three days. In this day and age, with all the advanced technology, how has no one invented a lawn mower that can cut wet grass?!? That is what the world really needs. And a few other things too, of course.

    A couple of days ago there was a break in the rain, and I saw neighbors out mowing their lawn with no trouble so I figured I could do it too. Mine was looking pretty bad. If they can do it, I can do it I thought. I went out and checked in with the grass. It seemed dry. It felt dry. It will be fine, I thought.

    But it didn’t work out as I planned. Every minute or two the lawnmower would die because it would get stopped up with wet grass. I would have to flip it over, pull the soggy wet gross grass out with my hands and throw it somewhere.  I would have to give it a little pep talk, wait five minutes, and try again. This went on for about half an hour, and I realized in my mind that I was actually wasting my time but I couldn’t let myself give up. I couldn’t even get a whole row done before it would die. It’s like the definition of two steps forward and one step back.  Except in this case, it could have been one step forward and two steps back.

    Is something wrong with my lawn mower? Am I doing it wrong? Have I been mowing my lawn for four years and I still don’t know how? Why is it so hard to mow a lawn? Does anyone else have these problems or is it only me? I have never seen anyone struggling in their yard like I do.

    Finally I found a trick! If I mow 6 inches, pull back 2 inches and lean it on its back wheels, then the grass sort of flies out from under it, and it doesn’t die. But that’s getting very little done and exerting a lot of energy. My hands are also sore and blistered after mowing that way. But is there any other way? I need to get this lawn mowed because the weather app says it’s going to rain for the next nine days. That’s not a surprise. 

    So I continue with that strategy for a row or two, but then once again it dies, so I clean it out, give it a little pep talk and a pat on the back, wait five minutes, and try to start it again. Every time this happens, it takes me at least four tries before it actually starts. But I get it done.

    I was mowing like this last night in my front yard, and I saw the neighbors across the street sitting in their garage, having a drink and watching their dog and kids play in the front yard. I hope they weren’t watching me. It’s really embarrassing that I’m so bad at mowing a lawn. I hope I gave them a good laugh, but I think probably they just felt really sorry for me.

    My mower is really hard to push. Even though it’s one of those self-propelling ones where you pull in the handle and the front wheels turn. I didn’t figure that out for the first five times I mowed the lawn, and I was really worried I had lost my muscle mass or something. But even with that feature, sometimes I don’t think I’m going to be able to push it. My lawn is lumpy. It’s not one of those perfectly flat lawns. We had trees and bushes that got knocked down from the hurricane and in those spots it’s not completely flat. So sometimes when I get to a lump, no matter how hard I push, the lawn mower doesn’t budge.  I push with all my might but it’s at this point I always worry if this is it, if this is when my lawnmowing career comes to an end. I wonder if I will just have to leave this lawn mower at the bottom of this lump in my front yard forever because it just can’t be moved. But then after pep talks to both me and my lawn mower, and a little extra energy, it goes over the lump. Until the next time. Does anyone else have a lumpy yard or a hard time actually pushing their lawn mower? You can’t even really see the lumps until you get to one with the lawn mower. And I’m a strong woman. I carried my kids up to bed until they were probably eight or nine even. But even my muscles are sometimes no match for lawn mower.

    I listen to books on tape or podcasts while I mow to try to make it more enjoyable. While I was mowing this last time, I was listening to Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She was talking about how difficult, how excruciating, how exhausting it was to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I said girl, you don’t know anything about difficult and exhausting until you’ve tried to mow this lawn on Province Drive. At that moment, I honestly thought it would be easier to hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone for 100 days than it is to mow this freaking lawn. Looking back, I changed my mind about that but at the moment, that’s honestly how I felt.

    I FINALLY get the front yard mowed although it probably took 20 times longer than it should have.  I sit back with the feeling of accomplishment. Real accomplishment. Probably how Cheryl Strayed felt after completing her 1000-mile hike on the PCT.

    The next morning when I walk out and there are all those clumps of dried grass on my lawn from when I had to stop and clean it out. They have dried and turned brown so quickly. You know those little horse drawn carriage rides downtown? You know how sometimes there are big piles of horse poop on the ground before they clean them? That’s exactly what the dried grass looks like on my lawn. Big piles of horse poop. What do you do with that? I don’t see that on anyone else’s lawn! Am I supposed to shovel them up? And put them where?  In a bag? Do you just leave them? What’s the proper protocol here. What does everybody else do and why don’t I see horse poop looking dried grass clumps on anyone else’s lawn?!? Once again, am I doing this wrong?

    I was thinking about that bag that you put on the back of the lawnmower. I have one, but I’ve never put it on. I don’t really understand how it works. Wouldn’t it get in my way? Am I supposed to be using that? Anyway, I wonder if that is the problem. I should probably google it, but I never do. I just keep doing it this way.

    Why do we do things the hard way? Why are we set in our ways and stuck in our habits that we don’t even Google if there is an easier way. And if there is an easier way, will we actually try it? Does it take more effort to change to an easier way than just keep doing things as you’ve been doing them?

    Is this kind of thing like life? Where you look at Facebook and everything looks so easy for everyone else? Is mowing the lawn like that? Something that people just pretend is easy when really it’s hard as heck? Is this just something that no one talks about? Like how hard parenting is or marriage is? Or doing your hair? Or wearing not flip flops? Or is it only me? Or is it my lawn mower? Is mowing your lawn hard for anyone else?!? If not, just ignore this post and I will keep blaming the lawn mower.