Trading Places

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of my death as a blogger have been greatly exaggerated.  I know it has been nearly a year since I last wrote, which isn’t an uncommon occurrence for me; however, the circumstances under which I put my blogging on hiatus—actually, in this economy, that circumstance isn’t so uncommon either.  Due to my husband’s job loss in March 2011, we have traded places.  Thankfully, this trade didn’t involve any kind of Freaky Friday body swap.  (I don’t think Matt could handle the PMS and I prefer to have two eye brows.)  This trade involved a move halfway across the country, which resulted in me becoming the sole earner and in him becoming a stay-at-home dad, for the time being.  While this trade has been stressful, and at times, not ideal, we have learned quite a bit about ourselves, each other, and our marriage. Read more »

The Three Most Important Lessons My Mother Taught Me

It’s important to learn how to take care of yourself. Mom made sure that I knew how to cook, clean, and sew.  From the time I was nine until I was sixteen, I was in 4-H where I learned how to boil an egg, sew a skirt, and arrange flowers.  By the time I was in high school, I was an accomplished seamstress.  But I remember those first few projects–and what a pain in the ass I was about completing them.  When finishing my first sewing project, a purple flowered skirt that I still have up in the attic, I desperately wanted to hem it on the sewing machine because it was so much faster.  Mom insisted that I use a needle and thread and do a blind stitch.  I remember it took what seemed like forever, but in reality took maybe an hour in total.  Today I can blind stitch a hem in about ten minutes.  Because I participated in 4-H, I also learned other important skills such as public speaking and how to perform in front of an audience, which has served me well.  I often have to speak in front of people and as an English instructor, I have to be able to think under the pressure of my students’ scrutinizing eyes. Read more »

The “New” Seven Dirty Words

During a time when the majority of George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words can be heard in everyday language as well as on basic cable, with the exception of the dreaded c-word, it is incumbent upon us to come up with a new standard of decency.  Leave it to those ever clever Republicans to do just that.

Below are the seven words that seem the most offensive to the GOP:

7. Liberal: has become such a dirty word that even liberals are backing away from it.  For example, the president has labeled himself a  “pragmatic progressive” and not a liberal.

6. Global Warming: “Drill, baby, drill!”  Of course, they don’t believe in global warming because if they did then they’d have to do something about their oil and gas campaign donors.    Besides that, regulation, whether it is for the environment, banking, or food and drugs, is probably dirty word #8 to the GOP. Read more »

Five Inches of Fiction

In the Waiting Room

Waiting. . . Waiting. I feel like I am always waiting.  Of course, that’s exactly what I was supposed to be doing at this particular time.  This was the Waiting Room.  How aptly named this tiny room was.  I wondered who had come up with the obvious name for what this room was all about. Waiting.

Waiting for news to arrive; whether that be bad news or good.  Waiting for the doctor to arrive–in which case, I may be waiting indefinitely.  Waiting to find out exactly how much my life would change after this particular stint of waiting was over.  Waiting to find out something important about myself; can I go on if the worst happens; can I make the right decisions when the time comes.  Waiting to find out what my reaction will be when the waiting ends and I must act.  I can imagine it a thousand times, playing the conversation out in my mind: what the doctor will say and what I will do.  But I will have to wait and find out when and if the time ever does arrive.  That’s the worst of the waiting.  I want this waiting to be over; I want to know and move on, but I dread the ending.

Perhaps the name should be changed to the Purgatory Room because that’s what this room feels like.  All of us who are here waiting are suspended in time.  Suspended until we find out if we will move on to heaven–the happiness of taking our loved one home no matter what the future may hold.  That we may be granted more time; something that is our enemy now: time.  During this “more time,” we will move on to another sort of waiting, waiting for the next shoe to fall.  Or will we move on to the hell of grieving and unwillingly letting go and trying to find that most irritating of terms, “a new normal?”

And then the doctor comes.

And the news is told.

And I am no longer waiting. . .