Each year before Hanukkah, Jim and I have a discussion about budgeting for the holiday overall as well as specifically how much our budget is for each other’s gifts. When the holiday rolled around last month, Jim (once again) proved himself to be quite clever, as he came up with a gift that was not only way below budget but was romantic and pretty awesome: plane tickets to Key West. No, our budget was not THAT high. He bought the tickets with airline miles: it only cost him twenty bucks! See? Clever! With a little research and some more budgeting, we found a nice, very reasonably-priced guest house where we…
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Old Friends
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson As we have for MANY of the last twenty-six years, Jim and I rang in the new year with our oldest friends, Dawn and Scott. Scott and Jim were in Navy boot camp together back in 1985 and Dawn and I became penpals shortly after that. We married only eight days apart in 1986 and grew close when the guys were both stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. I could tell you lots more about our history but I already wrote about it extensively four years ago, HERE. (You’ll want to…
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You Know What My Family’s Doing Today…
Merry Christmas to those of you who are celebrating! I hope you have a fantastic, stress-free, fun day with your loved ones. I hope those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas ALSO have a fabulous day. We’re going to hit the theater (providing the five of us can agree on a movie)…right after we do all of this:
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Gifts For You (and Me) At Dom Itp
One of the first bloggers I became familiar with online back in 2007 when I first found myself surgically attached to the internet was Pauline, widely known as @OHMommy from the blog Classy Chaos. (Not at all related to the story is the fact that it took me about eighteen months of interacting with her online to realize that OHMommy wasn’t like, “Oh! Mommy!” but rather “Ohio Mommy”, because she lived in Cleveland at the time. Oops.) Pauline became a Chicago-area blogger over the summer when she and her hubby and kids moved back here, and she is now working for Dom Itp, her parents’ business. Dom Itp is a…
- Amazing People, Best Thing Ever, Blessings, Friends, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Too Funny To Ignore
My Friends + Laughter = Me + Thankful
I had a couple of ideas for this, the penultimate NaBloPoMo post for 2012. I thought I might write about how I used to sew clothing (easy patterns, but still) for the boys when they were little and how a matching pair of shorts led to one of my favorite pictures of them from way back when. Then I thought that I would post a couple of black and white pictures I took of the boys over Thanksgiving weekend. (I love black and white pictures, don’t you?) I also considered sharing (finally) one of the buildings I toured during Open House Chicago, since I never got past talking about Marina…
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Let’s Work! (Or Not.)
As things start to fall into place for the 2013 season of Listen To Your Mother, the frequency of phone calls and emails between Tracey and me picks up, too. Two weeks ago we scheduled a Google+ Hangout (we like to video conference) and things got silly enough that it was clear we weren’t going to get anything done. So we invited a couple of friends to chat with us. One of them couldn’t make it, but the other joined in. Laughter ensued, and I got this evidence of our fun. Tracey and I are meeting via Google+ Hangout again tonight and I’ve already told her that we HAVE TO…
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Déjà Vu
Every single time I retrieve Roxie from being boarded when we go out of town, this is the conversation that occurs: Jim: “So, what kind of LIES did they tell us about her this time?” Me: “They aren’t lies. I’m sure she’s an angel there! Everyone loves her. Anyway, let me read you her Pawgress Report.” Jim: “All lies.” Me: “No! I mean, OBVIOUSLY it’s a business and they want us to bring her back there, so they let us know that she had a great time! But it’s all true.” Jim: “Harumph.” I mean really, doesn’t this look like a dog that had a blast on vacation?
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Record Store Day 2012!
Your Black Friday traditions might include trying to find retail bargains, sleeping off your food coma, or putting up your Christmas tree. As usual, my family goes in a totally different direction. Our tradition, which is in its second year, is twofold: some of us (Jim and the boys) leave bright and early to hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and some of us (my sister and me, joined by Mom this year) head out to celebrate Record Store Day! Record Store Day celebrates vinyl and the idea of actually holding your music in your hands rather than using a digital file: believe it or not there ARE…
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The Greatest Show On Earth
Last night I went to the circus. My sister, J, and I headed out to take in the show and I realized it had been approximately thirty-five (ish) years since I had enjoyed a “real” circus, if you don’t count the much smaller-scale Shrine Circus that my father-in-law participated in when he was a clown named Jingles. (And I don’t.) Even that was about eighteen years ago. As the circus–the one known as “The Greatest Show On Earth’–started and seventeen-year-old J had the look on his face of being really impressed with the amazing acts (rather than the “I’m a teenager and I really don’t belong here” face), I suddenly…
- Best Thing Ever, Childhood Memories, Music, My Sister Has Mad Skillz, Something That Could Change Your Life, Uncategorized
Totally Worth The 30-Year Wait.
Something incredible happened this weekend. I don’t even feel like I can put a proper post together, partly because I only got five hours of sleep and partly because I still can’t believe it. My sister and I saw Adam Ant live last night. If you don’t know me well, you might think, “Oh, cool…I guess.” It was beyond cool. Trust me. You may recall that Adam Ant was my Numero Uno back in the 80s. I wrote about my obsession here, in a post that even includes a picture of me dressed up as Adam Ant for Halloween 1983. I never saw him in a live concert, though. Back…