Another November NaBloPoMo is in the bag. Yaaaaay me! I feel like I did really well this time: I didn’t have any trouble coming up with things to write about, which was refreshing because I’m usually hitting up my draft folder like a boss. Not this time. I think that I had more fun with NaBloPoMo this month than I probably ever had because I didn’t stress out about “how good” each post had to be, which is a strange admission to make but completely true. After all, if you were to ask me why I started blogging in the first place I would have a couple of answers for…
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- Amazing People, Best Thing Ever, Blessings, Fun in Chicago, Proud Moments, Something That Could Change Your Life
Get Ready For Listen To Your Mother 2015!
Things are getting exciting all up in here (again!); on Thursday, the LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER 2015 season kicked off with our city announcement. This year we’re bigger and better than ever with twenty-nine returning cities and ten new cities! We’ve come a long way from that single show in Madison, Wisconsin back in 2010, don’t you think? (*high fives Ann Imig*) As the National New Cities Mentor, I’ve been working with our new production teams behind the scenes for the last month or so, all while they were keeping the news of their selection under wraps. That’s DIFFICULT, you guys. Like, you don’t even know. Over the past four…
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Just Do It.
Last month I wrote about the sad state of my family room walls. After living in this house for nearly fourteen years and using the family room more than any other room during our waking hours, I never made the time to finish hanging things on them. Happy update: I finally did it. I received the photo canvas that I ordered online and hung it on the wall over the TV—i.e. the wall I stare at the most—and completed the wall behind my couch, which I adore so much now that it is the home of some of my favorite pictures. Getting the walls finished motivated me enough to tackle…
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Take A Hike.
When D was a Cub Scout and going on his first group hikes, he used to stay at the front with the other little boys. They would inevitably increase the distance between us parents and them by speeding up from excitement and not paying attention. “Slow down,” we’d yell. “We need to be able to keep an eye on you.” As one would expect, the boys learned very well as they grew older to pace themselves according to the rest of the group, and hikes became a little less stressful for the parents. A couple of years in, he and his same-aged friends hiked in the middle of the pack…
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Office Space
There’s a running joke in this house about Melisa’s office space. I have lots of offices here. Err, I should say “offices”, in quotes. I have a family room “office” (on that couch), a living room “office” (on the other couch), an upstairs “office” (the little rolltop desk in D’s bedroom, which I have actually never used as an office but it sounded good when I mentally took it over a while back), and a basement “office” (which Jim now claims as HIS office, but I use it every now and then). I am in my family room office (on that couch) about 75% of the time I’m working and…
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Golden Year
We just had a whirlwind weekend in Tennessee, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of my parents’ wedding. To mark the occasion, they decided to renew their vows, and it was really so sweet. The Fab Five (Jim, D, J, my sister and me) made the trek from Chicago—we wouldn’t have missed it!—and we were thrilled to be a part of it all. There were twenty-six of us filling the living room in the home of my parents’ good friends from their temple. Jim, D, J, and my uncle held the poles for the chuppah and my parents’ rabbi performed the ceremony. My parents held hands the majority of the time, my…
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Absolute Proof That Time Flies.
I know it’s something we say all the time, but I can tell you without a doubt that time flies because I know it was only yesterday that this happened: Wasn’t it??? And then suddenly, this past Sunday, this happened: That’s right. It’s been four whole years since I was wondering how this house would feel when our older son left for college and it was just the three of us, and now we’re already a year into being empty nesters. D’s graduation from college over the weekend (Mom brag: graduation from college with honors!) was lovely. It was a proud day for our entire family, and I watched in…
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I Just Helped Give Birth to 13 Babies And I’m Exhausted.
After an anxious, emotional (understatement), and sleepless (mostly) weekend of laboring, Tracey and I finally gave birth to thirteen bouncing baby girls. Well, adult girls. And we’ve both already lost all of our pregnancy weight! Amazing, right? The cast of LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO 2014 was announced today (by us, the proud parents). I might have even sent LTYM Founder and National Director Ann Imig a text asking, “If LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO is Tracey’s and my baby, would that make you the grandmother?” Maybe I sent that text. (I did.) I am so glad that the hardest part of our season is over, and now it’s onward…
- Amazing People, Best Thing Ever, Blessings, I'm Apparently Old., My Kid Has Mad Skillz, Proud Moments
A Simple Birthday Message
For J, who turns nineteen today… I knew I wanted to write a post on your birthday, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to say. I kind of wanted to say that I can’t believe you are nineteen already but that, although true, sounds overdone. I definitely wanted to write about how I have just one more year of saying I have a teenaged kid, but that’s stating the obvious… I was going to write that I am so proud of the young man you have become. You’re a caring, thoughtful, and responsible person, and I couldn’t ask for any more than that. You care about your school…
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And, Exhale.
It’s amazing how, sometimes, things just fall into place. The last couple of months have been extremely stressful for D as he has worried about finding a job or two—any job—right out of college so he could continue living in the Wisconsin house with his friends until their lease ends on May 31. Things hit a fever pitch after Christmas because the time clock was ticking down to zero on his ability to stay in the house: we paid his rent through the end of January and he needed to either fish or cut bait. The uncertainty was troublesome, to say the least. He was applying for jobs both in…