What would Judi do?

It doesn't feel  like end of the year.  It doesn't feel like a year has gone by.  But it has.  And so much has changed: My kids are in high school. My mom is in a nursing home. I grew a bunch of food. Okay, that's not SO MUCH.  That's a kind of short list.  But it's all I can come up with. Lots has stayed the same: I worry about my mom (though this year is dramatically different from last year - she's safe now). My dishwasher still doesn't work. I'm still in the same field that I should have left years ago. I'm still living in this house. There's more but that list depresses me.  I asked my girls yesterday what personal goals they had for the upcoming year (response: silence) and what accomplishments they had for 2015 (made it to high school, had their first job).  It got me to thinking about my own stuff. Personal goals: 1.  Keep walking.  It's good for me. 2.  Maintain life on the healthy track.  I miss so...

I had my day pretty well planned out before I left the house today.  I knew where to park for my jobs today that would give me the most steps.  I knew what I was eating.  You see, I have to think about these things now.  It probably comes easy to you but it's not easy to me.  I have been living a mindless existence in many ways.  I eat mindlessly and I don't think about exercising.  I concentrate on what needs to get done in any given day - work, my kids, my mom.  That's about it. But it's changing! I am on my 30th day of hitting my walking goal of 10,000 steps or more each and every day. On 15 of those days, I hit over 11,000.  My highest day is 14,700. So, what have I done?  I made doing something for me a priority.  That's been huge.  Every day I walk.  This seems to annoy my children but, get this, I DON'T CARE.  M is somewhat onboard meaning she'll walk with me occasionally.  A doesn't enjoy it at all....

Facebook has been a game changer for me in a multitude of ways.  There's the obvious - reuniting me with friends, locating family I didn't know, all that stuff.  The surprise was all the cooking stuff I've learned.  I had no idea all the stuff I didn't know!  Because of all the posts, I had a great thanksgiving.  This is what I learned: 1.  Brine a turkey.  I had no idea what the hell that meant.  I also had no idea just how many people do that.  And that it's pretty hard to fuck it up.  Game changer!  It should be noted that I've never cooked a turkey before so I'm new to this game. 2. Crockpot stuffing.  Again, who knew?  Thanks to yummly and allrecipes and the people who post reviews with suggestions, I made some kick ass stuffing. 3.  Sausage stuffing.  This was a foreign concept to me.  I like Stove Top stuffing.  I'm a simple girl.  But holy moly, this is good shit! Now, I learned a ...

I've been thinking a lot about all the things for which I am grateful.  I've been reading all the facebook posts documenting the things my friends are thankful for with interest.  There's a lot of gratitude out there! So, what am I saying thank you to the universe for?  Lots of things....but let's see if I can narrow this down a bit. 1.  My children are super cool.  I love them, obviously, but I like them a whole lot.  They make me laugh, cringe, giggle and proud.  I can't ask for more than that. 2.  Andrew. I am extraordinarily lucky to have him in my life.  I overheard a conversation the other day between my girls.  One was telling the other that "he treats mom so well" and they were adding that to the list of reasons we love him.  It's a good list. 3.  My mom is still here.  'Nuff said.  She's still doing okay, for which I'm grateful. 4.  Work.  I'm lucky enough to spend much of m...

Today was a good but rough day.  I was tired and stuck in a conference room that had no windows all day.  I knew it was nice outside - I drove to work with the sunroof open.  I wanted to be out in the sun, not sitting in a meeting.  But it's my job so there I sat. At lunch, everyone was deciding where to go.  Luckily, I brought my lunch.  The good thing about this healthy living thing is now I make careful decisions.  I think about what I'm eating before  I eat it so I don't make decisions while starving or from a vending machine.  So today I brought fruit and half the portion I would normally eat of a Trader Joe's thai pasta salad.  It was surprisingly satisfying.  Mostly I wanted to get the hell out of the room.  I wanted air.  So everyone left for lunch and I went on my walk, It wasn't a long walk.  But it was warm and sunny.  Once I got out of the parking lot, I found beautiful trees.  This area is...

In one year, three months and 10 days, I'll be 50.  But who's counting, right? I have certain things I want to accomplish by that time.  I won't list all the things I want to change in my life but there are a few things that need to be different.  The most important thing is I need to be healthier.  I want to look pretty in a wedding dress (no, I have nothing official to announce.  I'm just speculating.....or hoping).  I want to live to see my children graduate from high school, college, and see them be adults who might one day have children of their own (after age 32).  I have lots of things I want to do. I want to tell you that I woke up one day and decided to  be healthier.  I want to tell you I've had some great epiphany and am changing my life.  I want to tell you all that stuff.  But that's not what happened. A friend called saying she needed to make some healthier changes and asked if I'd do it with her.  I didn't h...

Conversation with M today: M:  I'm sorry the government didn't close. Me:  What?!! Why would you say that? M: Well, last time it happened, you were home every day after school.  We baked and cooked and played games.  You were a full time mom. Me:  Sigh....That's true.  But it was hard for us. M:  But we made it through.  And I liked it. This conversation came about two hours after a similar conversation with my mom: Mom: I wish you didn't work so much. Me:  I don't work 60 weeks any more. I often don't work 40 hours. Mom: No, but between work, kids, appointments, activities, responsibilities, you don't have a lot of time. Me:  That's true.  But you still see me every week, sometimes several times a week. Mom: Yeah.  But I miss you. I can't help but feel I'm doing something wrong.  No one is happy and I feel like a mouse on one of those running wheels.  I'm doing a ton of shit and no one - including me ...

I started taking pictures (with film) when I was in the 5th grade.  I have tons - TONS - of photos and negatives all around the house.  The smell of developer still makes me happy in ways nothing else can. I was a slow convert to digital.  It was somewhere around 2002.  And even then, I didn't want to fully five up my love of film  But slowly the draw of being able to take as many digital pictures as I like, the ability to easily manipulate them or delete with ease drew me in.  I was a full digital girl sortly after that. My kids have grow up with digital pictures.  They've known nothing else.  Until now. My ex gave M a trip to Six Flags for her birthday.  She wanted to take a camera, but not one she'd be devastated at losing.  So we looked around CVS and discovered they still have disposable film cameras.  Who knew  She picked a water resistant one so she could use it in the water park.  That thing was monster sized...

Every day, at least once a day, I go out and look at the garden.  I talk to the plants.   Grow!  Why are you taking so long?  Grow!   They don't listen to me.  They do what they want, which is to be expected. I have something like a dozen tomato plants.  I don't particularly like tomatoes so there's some irony that that's the thing that grows best.  And the one by the compost heap is doing better than any of the others.  It's weird.  But really, I'm not complaining.  We'll make salsa and Andrew thinks making ketchup might be fun.  I'm not sure about that. My cucumbers are taking over my garden - just the leaves.  There's an itty bitty thing (that makes me laugh) to prove it's a cucumber. My peppers are happy.  I have green peppers, super cayenne (already shared a few), poblano and probably something else.  I have no idea when they're ready for picking.   Andrew makes me feel ...

I'm not a huge fan of Mother's Day.  It's not because I don't think I deserve strawberry nutella crepes (the breakfast A has been making the last few years).  It's not because I don't want a day with no arguing (fyi - it doesn't really happen but a mom can dream, right?).  And it's not like I don't want it acknowledged but if I make a big deal about Mother's Day, then I need to do the same for Father's Day. And the problem with that is I haven't had a dad for all but two years of my life.  I remember being with my then-boyfriend when I was in 11th grade and a friend of his asked me what I was doing for Father's Day.   Nothing , I replied.  He thought that was awful.  I just didn't want to explain it.  So I never did.  Not when I didn't show up for father-daughter dances in girl scouts.  Not when my uncle offered to be a substitute dad for all those events (which I always declined).  Not ever. Then I had kids.  I had to cel...

I have been thinking all day about the rhyme Mary, Mary, quite contrary.  How does your garden grow?   Nothing good rhymes with Judi. Judi, Judi, with a big booty - NO! Judi, Judi, oh so moody - NO! Judi, Judi, you have cooties - Um, NO! I can't come up with anything.  I am the least likely person to be a gardener.  I like plants but don't really know a ton about them.  I am learning to like worms but don't care too much for the other critters that try to eat my plants.  I like the whole start from seeds thing.  I like the process of it all. I asked M the other day if she enjoyed it.   No, not really.  But I like seeing how excited you get when something grows.  That's fun.   I'll take that. So, what am I growing?  And where?  I have a tiny front yard that just got tinier.  I now have 4 large garden boxes.  The picture only shows three but I just inherited one from a neighbor that's the biggest of all! ...

We have one more half day of the school year left.  One more HALF DAY.  It's just enough to screw up summer camp plans and force one more day of early rising.  It's so incredibly stupid.  But then again, so was a MONTH of parcc testing, losing nearly a month of instruction preparing for parcc tests, the endless amounts of movies my kids watched on the days when they weren't testing (because other classes were) and the subsequent MSA tests.  Half of this year has been a clusterfuck of stupid. A came home from school today teary-eyed at the thought of leaving most of her friends.  They've been together in the French program since they were 5 years old.  Now they're all doing to different schools.  It will be a change for us all. A said they watched their class videos from 6th grade.  She commented how small and young they all looked.  They did.  They were straight out of elementary school.  Now they're wearing make up, flirti...

Fourteen years ago I became a mom.  It's been a fun ride so far but holy smokes, I had no idea what being a mom meant.   No. Freaking. Clue.   I've learned so much.  Let's review: I learned to be an advocate for my kids from the beginning.  I remember telling our (then) pediatrician that something was wrong with one of my kids (A).   No, you're just a nervous mom , she said.  After changing doctors and getting a referral to Children's Hospital ( what took you so long to bring her here? ), I was proven right.  Boo yah. I learned how to take advantage of the world around me: When M had eye surgery at age 4, I told her if she'd just suck it up and do the drops until the end, we'd have a super huge party with a big surprise.  She didn't know until around age 12 that the fireworks that last day of her eye drops were really for July 4. We got so lucky and won two slots in the french immersion program and sent our girls to school in a language...

I did something I haven't done in years.  Years! I took time off.  I did NOT work for a week.  I haven't had this opportunity in 3 - count 'em - 3 years!  My last real time off was when I went to Geneva with my boyfriend.  I've taken a day here, a day there off since but no significant time doing something I wanted to do.  In fact, I haven't left Silver Spring for more than 18 hours in nearly a year (since my mom fell). It felt good.  Well, not at first.  At first, I was still stressed.  I was thinking of the money I was not making.  I was thinking of Kid #1's braces and Kid #2's braces and their camp expenses and the cost of their continually growing feet and all of that. Then I didn't care that much. In my perfect world, I would have taken them to Puerto Rico (on my bucket list) or a beach but a pricey vacation was out and it was raining all week.  So we came up with Plan B. It started with our last White House Easter Eg...

I am lucky to have a friend who actually knows stuff about blogging.  Alissa over at  http://www.clevercompass.com  knows more about blogging than I ever will.  She gives me things to think about, advice when I need it and sits with me when I (very rarely) go to a blogging event.  She gave me something to think about about a year or two ago when we were at such an event.  Someone asked me what kind of blog I had and I answered the question with a blank stare.  Thankfully, Alissa answered for me: a lifestyle blog. How cool was that?  I write a lifestyle blog.  Who knew? Then I looked at stuff and realized that "online personal musing that appear randomly from my brain" isn't a category of blogging.  The first seed is planted. Jump forward a year or so to last week when Alissa sends me an email saying she received something from a WWJD and it was actually about Jesus and not me!  Surprising?  No.  Cause for thought? Ye...

I was raised by a mother who didn't take a lot of shit from folks - if she felt she had been wronged.  I remember hearing her speak of the letters she would write when people pissed her off.  The one that stuck in my mind (because it made me laugh) was the package she sent to whatever food company that sold her rotten hot dogs.  She enclosed them in a padded envelope and mailed them back to the company with a letter of complaint.  Now, this would have been in the early 60's prior to my birth so that's a long time ago.  It's back in the days when mail took a week to get from point A to point B.  So the already rotten hot dogs were in the mail for about a week when someone - a human at that time - opened them.  I do wish I could have seen the look on that person's face.  Instead, I can still picture the look of satisfaction of my mother telling the story, including the ending that included "we had free hot dogs for a year."  Not bad. She taug...

I love Trader Joe's.  One reason I like it is because of the people who work there.  They're always friendly and seem happy to be there.  So when I had a bad encounter today, I was surprised. My girls, A and M, and I were walking up and down the aisles of the Silver Spring store.  It's smaller than the Rockville store but it's more convenient and has most of what we need.  We always get more than we expect there because there are always new things to try.  Basically it's a fun store. As we were walking down the soup/pasta aisle, we encountered a bunch of employees putting stock on the shelves.  Of specific interest were two men who were talking to each other pretty loudly.  We arrived in front of them mid-conversation so we missed the topic.  But we most certainly didn't miss the juicy part: Dude 1: How did she get that (job, acting part, something like that) ? Dude 2: Well, you know she's a specimen. Dude 1: (blank stare) Dude 2: I'...

A person can never be too safe, right?  I'm pretty good with common sense stuff and make the safest choice for things when possible.  But there are some things I never really paid attention to - like what to do with emergencies that don't happen where I live. Lucky for me, I have a kid who likes to read.  She reads anything and everything as long as it's in the bathroom.  This has been a point of contention for me for a long time but in reality, it makes sense. Your mom or sister can't bug you (isn't allowed) when you're in the bathroom.  That rule was set to give me a few minutes of peace when the girls were little.  Now they hole themselves in there (individually) so they can steal about a half hour of silence.  It's weird - and it's caused every single caretaker we've had to think that one kid in particular has digestive issues.  Every time I've had to explain that no, she isn't ill.  She just wants quiet. One of the things we had in t...

Today is Wacky Hair Day in at the girls' school.  This is a yearly event, one that I find odd.  I get spirit week - it breaks up the monotony that is school.  But it is weird to see kids going to school in pajamas or with green spiked hair.  It was odder to see teachers all dressed up.  But it's all good. This is the only part of the week my kids regularly and excitedly participate in.  We've been doing this since kindergarten.  It always involves color and usually hair teasing.  Sometimes braids. Sometimes other adornments. My favorite was the one when they were somewhere around first or second grade.  They came home telling me wacky hair day would be the following day.  They started planning and figuring out what they could do with my limited hair experience.  They came up with this: They were so excited to have big hair and lots of pony tail holders and clips in their hair.  They got on the bus so happy.  However,...

I haven't written for a while.  A long while.  It wasn't because I didn't have anything to say.  Quite the contrary: I had a lot to say.  But none of it was happy or even particularly nice.  It was mostly centered around arrogant medical professionals and the frustration of being the white fluffy stuff in the oreo (my definition of the sandwich generation). I will be 48 on Friday.  I never thought I'd be looking forward to being that old and, really, I'm not.  I'm just looking forward to 47 being over.  It's been a hellish year.  Why? I spent much of the last 6 months taking care of my mother. I now have a house full of stuff that isn't mine. I have a medical diagnosis that could, and likely will, end my interpreting career. I have two teens who are, well, teens. Why is 48 going to be better? I'm no longer afraid to answer the phone for fear of what went wrong with my mom.  She's safe and happier now. I still have a house ful...