Once again, National Blog Posting Month (also known as NaBloPoMo or, in my brain, NaBloPoMoFo) is upon us. Although you can technically participate in NaBloPoMo in any given month, November is traditionally the month during which “everybody does it”. (You can sign up on the BlogHer website and possibly win something, plus you’ll find lots of like-minded individuals and maybe some new bloggy buddies!) How does one participate in NaBloPoMo? One blogs every single day. For thirty days in November. That’s it. Sounds easy, right? Yes and no, depending on what else one has going on in one’s life and how badly one might be suffering from writer’s block at…
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New 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit At Chicago’s Field Museum!
When I was working on my book a couple of years ago, I researched the 1893 World’s Fair pretty extensively for the chapter I wrote about Chicago history. The World’s Columbian Exposition, as it was also called, is extremely fascinating to me. Here’s some of what I wrote about it: “The World’s Columbian Exposition was conceptualized as an 1892 celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World. The cities of St. Louis, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago competed fiercely for the privilege of hosting the World’s Fair and representing the United States to the rest of the world. (Chicago ended up having the deepest…
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Six Years Of Scrawl!
Today, Suburban Scrawl is six years old. Six years!!! While I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for six years, I also can’t remember what it was like to live life without social media. Though I have several friends who have blogged for a decade or more (wow!), I still feel like an OG blogger: six years is almost like a whole lifetime in internet years. I belong to a fantastic generation of bloggers–I refer to us as the Jan Bradys of blogging; don’t ask unless you are in the same room or on the phone with me and have about ten minutes–and I see no end in sight, thank goodness.…
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What Goes Up Must Come Down. That’s What Scares Me.
I have a confession to make. I am terrified of skiing. I have been afraid of it for as long as I remember. In fact, I vaguely remember being invited by my uncle and cousins (avid skiers) to go along with them when I was a youngster, and the thought of it paralyzed me so I stayed home. It’s a weird fear to have, I admit it. It doesn’t seem anything like “I’m afraid of spiders” (I’m not) or “I’m afraid of zombies” (Uh, yep!): those are commonly expressed fears. NORMAL fears. I’ve always been afraid of heights, and even though I conquer that fear for about an hour each…
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After This If We Could Talk About Your TPS Reports, That’d Be Greeeeat.
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This Is The Part Of The Roller Coaster Where I Go, “Wheeee!”
I have a habit of comparing all different measures of time to a roller coaster. “Oh my gosh, those two hours were like a roller coaster!” “I had a roller-coaster kind of day.” “Last week was really up and down, like a roller coaster.” The fact is, life is like a roller coaster. I’m glad about that, too: if there were no ups and downs, things would be pretty boring. (Naturally I prefer the ups, but you can’t have them without downs!) The stress of sending J to college six weeks ago was quite enormous, and as much as I knew that things were going according to plan it was…
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Perhaps I Should’ve Bought Fewer Treats And More Tricks
Though I wouldn’t say my boys are total opposites because they share lots of the same fundamental characteristics, they do have many differences. Take, for example, the way they both reacted as college freshmen to receiving packages from me. D, who is now a senior (finishing up this December, one semester early…HOLLA!), did not like packages from home. If you can believe it, he actually found it embarrassing. I have never heard of such a thing. Here I was, sending all kinds of goodies–in quantities that he could share with his friends, too–and after being at school for less than a semester he asked me to stop sending packages. After…
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Stalking In Starved Rock State Park
A little more than a week ago, Jim and I were sitting around trying to make a variety of plans for the weekends ahead. It’s what you do when you’re an Empty Nester, you know. Suddenly you have all of this time on the weekends because you don’t have kids coming and going at various times: if you don’t make plans to do things, you’re basically just living from meal to meal and that’s no fun at all. Jim and I are all for fun, so we spend lots of time on our calendar of activities. After a few minutes of silent and individual thinking he said, “You know, if…
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Healthy Choice Baked Entrées: No Guilt!
This is the third (and last) in a series of sponsored posts I’m writing for the folks at Healthy Choice. I often look back on our pre-technology days and wistfully mutter about the simplicity of life back then. Usually only a minute or so goes by before I give myself a mental slap because truly, technology has indeed made almost everything easier. Take a second to remember how your life was before–ahem, depending on your age–computers, cell phones, MP3 players, DVRs, microwaves, television, automobiles, indoor plumbing… Wait, too far back? Okay, never mind. When I found out that my final Healthy Choice post would be about their Baked Entrées–and this…
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Bubble Gum Ice Cream Stream of Consciousness
A couple of weeks ago, Jim and I drove to Wisconsin to visit J at his college. The three of us went to the quaint downtown area of his new town, ate lunch at a diner, and then headed back up the street where we had seen a vintage-looking ice cream parlor. When we checked out the flavor choices that were available in the freezer, I was overjoyed to discover Bubble Gum and, just like that, my decision was made. Bubble Gum ice cream takes me back to my childhood instantly. It’s the flavor I remember ordering every single time my maternal Grandpa took us out for ice cream. It’s…