What would Judi do?

The grass is always greener on the other side. I want the green grass.  I want to be on the right side. This all started playing out in my head yesterday.  Well, that's a lie.  It's been mulling around in there for a while.  When I was a stay at home (SAH) mom, I wanted to be working.  I've been working full time for several years now and I want to be a SAH mom again.  Okay, not a full time SAH but I want to be home for my kids after school.  They need it now more than they did in elementary school.  I remember reading a blog post (can't remember from where) years ago that explained why middle school (girls especially) need a parent home after school.  Whoever wrote it was spot on.  My kids see/experience bullying, get teased by teachers, feel overwhelmed by the massive academic expectations, try to manage an age-appropriate social relations - all while coming home to an empty house.  Granted, it's often not empty for long. ...

Maybe this should be titled "Honey, I was wrong".  But I can't do that.  I'll leave it at "I had to adjust my expectations".  That's as apologetic as I get. Boyfriend and I went to Colorado for a wedding last week.  Yes, I did say Colorado.  The land of all the flooding and destruction.  The land where I have been several times before and enjoyed very little of it.  The land where there are mountains!!   I'm a beach girl who doesn't like breathing funny.  That Colorado. We arrived in the middle of the rain.  The rental car guy didn't want us driving an itty bitty car into the mountains so we got a car so big, bf's regular Honda could fit inside   of it.  Really big.  Our voices nearly echoed in it. We made it to our destination (Silverthorne), went to a fun wedding (Dr. Who themed!) and I didn't die.  That was all successful.  Breathing was, um, fun but I didn't stop.  So that was also a success. ...

I remember life before 9/11.  Clearly.  It was an easier life.  My kids were born 4 months before September 11, 2001.  Their life is so different than the one I imagined for them.  Living in the metro DC area, the changes are all around us.  Here's my take on things: Pre 9/11 Post 9/11 There was little security at federal buildings.  This meant I could take my mom to NIH to walk around, go into any Smithsonian museum at any open hour and that the federal agencies were pretty much like any other building. There are huge fences up around many federal agencies.  You can’t just walk around the open suburban ones any more.  You go through metal detectors at every Smithsonian museum – which often means waiting in line. I didn’t need to arrive at jobs a half hour early.  15 mins was plenty of time to get to where I was going. I must have an escort at most of the places I ...

Every now and then there's something I want to write about because it has a special meaning to me.  I'm going to start a sporadic series called (now sing this with me) "a few of my favorite things".  I'm starting with Friendly's Black Raspberry ice cream.  It has to be Friendly's, no other. I was in elementary school when my brother was in high school.  He had a part time job working at Friendly's.  I don't remember much about any of it - except one part.  I remember going there with my mom and ordering dinner (likely clam strips!).  When it came time for dessert, he brought me one of those metal ice cream dishes that Friendly's has filled with purple black raspberry ice cream. The ice cream was covered in black chocolate sprinkles.  I remember them.  I had never had so many sprinkles on one cup of ice cream.  Because it came from my brother, it was special. We've had many ups and many downs in our life.  He and I are nothing al...

I don't own pets (except my whore fish).  I had a few pets when I was young.  Shep was our dog when I was little but when we moved to a townhouse when I was 9, my mom took him to my grandmother in Maine where he would have more space.  He threw up in the car pretty much the whole way there.  My mom had to wait until a perfect weather day to sell the car.  It still smelled bad years later if the weather was hot and humid. My mom got me a cat when I was 10.  That lasted a few months.  I couldn't breathe.  As in I Could. Not. Breathe. The house was scrubbed (professionally) several times after that.  Years later (like more than 10), the washing machine flooded and made the rug in the family room wet.  Whatever was left in the rug filled the air and I couldn't breathe again. This is why I don't have pets. But I know people who do. My brother had a dog, a Bernese Mountain Dog - Chester - who didn't realize he was a dog. He thought he ...