Category — Uncategorized

Same as the last two years, I am not writing my blog right now because I need to navigate the twins returning to college. Unlike the last two years, I didn’t aim to rerun a post from the same date, years earlier. Instead, I used a random date generator, and then took the closest post to that date, which is why you may see posts about winter in the middle of the summer.

I scheduled these posts so the blog wouldn’t be empty, and I could have space to process my feelings. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

I am admitting all of this here for two reasons even though this embarrasses me tremendously. (1) It could help someone else who is going through the same thing and (2) I want to reflect one day how far I’ve come because I do have a lot of hope that things will change.

I have been conducting my life out of the preschool library. By this point, I consider the end seat at the table my own and if need be, I would pee on it like a squirrel monkey to mark my territory. I spent the morning writing notes to my niece and friends on my new pink stationary. I read a book. Made some phone calls. And told myself that tomorrow would be the day I’d leave the building. And then I promptly felt ill and decided I would wait until the morning to make a concrete decisions.

I have not actually left the twins at preschool yet.

Read the whole post here.

I lost my copy of The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman, and it’s all my fault.

Back in March 2024, I decided to re-read His Dark Materials. I was near the end of the first book when I told Josh I was doing this, and he commented that he had never read the books but maybe would now because he knew how much I loved the story.

I wasn’t ready to go on to the next book, so I took my copy of The Subtle Knife off the bookshelf and put it… somewhere.

Over a year later, Philip Pullman announced the final book in the series — The Rose Field — would be published in October. Amazing news and what great timing — I needed something that would make me feel good, and I decided I’d start again, go in chronological order, and finish up The Secret Commonwealth right before the publication of the final book.

Except I couldn’t remember where I put The Subtle Knife. I’ve checked all bookcases, drawers, and book stacks in the house. I think everyone is a little gleeful because I hid the book to hoard it for myself. And now I don’t have it.

Joke is on them: We’ll have to purchase a new copy. In the meantime, I started with The Collectors, skipping Once Upon a Time in the North, continued with The Book of Dust, and then restarted The Golden Compass again.

A few weeks ago, Infertile Phoenix encountered an old journal while decluttering where she recorded her temperature. I did this, too, though I wrote it daily on the calendar. I still have these old calendars — technically datebooks — though I haven’t looked at them in over 20 years.

I kept taking my temperature even after I entered treatments, even though it was pretty pointless. I don’t remember when I stopped the first time around. It was probably a few months into pregnancy, though I may have kept it up until I delivered.

Reading her post made me wonder how many people still do this. Do people still read Toni Weschler’s book? It looks like her site is still active, and I received a pop-up asking if I wanted to beta test her new app. I guess people use apps more than paper. I used a different site on my computer and then printed it out. My login still works — I bought a lifetime membership. It looks like my last chart was in 2007.

It was strangely emotional to remember all of this. To see a chart again.

Andrea Gibson’s “Wellness Check” is the most profound and simple guide to focusing on the right thing:

In any moment
on any given day
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?

— Andrea Gibson (@andreagibson) December 28, 2020

I put it up on my computer screen as a sticky note so I wouldn’t forget when I started going too far down the worry road.

P.S. Hate to link to Twitter, but this was the only place where I found their words on their own account.

A friend of mine died after high school, and I encountered her mother for the first time in 34 years last week. We talked about her and cried a little. And as she looked between me and the ChickieNob, she commented that we wore the same necklace.

She is the second person ever to have commented on it, and the first person was a jeweler, so I expect him to pay attention to jewelry. We told her the story of the necklace, and while she gave me a lot of physical hugs that day, noticing that detail was an emotional hug because it’s something special to us. We’ve been wearing the same necklace in different iterations for 16 years. That’s a long time for only two strangers to comment on something.

And then I got home and the necklace clasp broke.

It was an easy fix, and I called a jeweler we use to see if he could fit us in. He’s about an hour away, but I trust them with really special things like this necklace. The woman who answered told me they wouldn’t do a same-day fix for me, no matter how easy or small the fix. She didn’t care that we would be driving an hour or that they had just done a same-day fix a few months ago. I hung up the phone and started looking for another jeweler.

But the ChickieNob told me to hand over the chain. She was taking it to the jeweler and getting it fixed that day. She drove it the hour, walked it into the store, and got them to change the clasp. The time in the store was about five minutes.

She was a lioness. Completely fierce. Making things happen. I am so grateful I have a fierce woman on my side.