Short and Sweet: True Love

Short and Sweet: a real life example of true love, in 100 or fewer words. 

That moment when you mention to your husband that you'd like to hang a heavy mirror, meaning that you'd actually like him to hang the mirror, but once it's hung, you realize that it's 4 or 5 inches higher than you'd like it to be, and despite the fact you know he's thinking that your decorating sensibilities are entirely too precise, he lowers the mirror.

Exactly 4.5 inches lower.



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Woke Up Like This

You've seen these shirts, right?


Well, I'm thinking about launching a similar campaign that specifically focuses on my children's hair.


Just keeping it real, every single morning. 

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Feel like you've been hit by a truck? This will help.

I feel like I've been hit by a truck.  This is a funny expression.  Not because there's any real humor in getting hit by a truck, of course, but rather because people say it on a semi-consistent basis, even though the vast majority of us have no idea how it actually feels to be hit by a truck.

Even so, during the past week I've felt like I've been hit by a truck.

I've been tired, sluggish, sore, and unmotivated.  An acquaintance suggested that my lethargy might be due to aging, and as evidence, she quite happily referenced the fact that I celebrated my 39th birthday earlier this month.  Point noted, but grudgingly, because a) turning 39 means I'm practically still a puppy, and b) we're all aging.  Every day, in fact.

No, I don't believe that the real culprit for my recent tiredness is because I'm facing the end of my 30's.  I've decided that it's due to my recent trip to Florida.  Florida has ruined me.  During our six days in the Sunshine State, I grew accustomed to warmth, and vitamin D, and the smell of sunscreen, and posing for pictures with alligators.


Now that I've returned to the daily grind of my life in the north, I've reverted to a cold-weather existence that involves heavy jackets, clunky snow boots, gray skies, snow squalls, and scraping frost from my windshield in the morning when I forget to pull my car into the garage.  

I tolerated this reality for the past several months without complaint (or even notice), but now I've moved past these winterish practices, both mentally and physically.  They have no place in my post-Florida-trip lifestyle.  I vehemently object to them, in fact, but despite my protest, they continue.

Which is why I recently took a nap on my kitchen floor.  You see, when the afternoon sun shines (which doesn't always happen in March, but did happen today), it illuminates a small stretch of flooring tucked between my kitchen table, a house plant, the spot where my kids leave their boots, and the wall where I lean our broom.


And, for some reason, when I saw this brilliant sunshine streaming through the sliding glass doors this afternoon, I immediately lay down, stretched out, closed my eyes, and basked in the light.  Granted, closing your eyes is a dangerous prospect when you're worn out; sleep comes quickly, even if you're not intending it to.

In my last wakeful moment, after realizing that there were some hardened Cheerios stuck to the floor near my head and noticing that a child had vandalized the underside of our kitchen table with Banksy-esque graffiti, I remember vaguely thinking, "If Joel comes home and finds me sprawled on the linoleum, he's going to think I'm dead."  (Of course, if my kids had found me, they would have ignored the fact that I was on the floor, nudged me with a foot, and asked for a snack.)

It wasn't quite the same as lying on the beach, mind you, but it must have counted for something.  After all, I woke from my unlikely nap feeling warm, refreshed, and no longer as if I'd been hit by a truck.


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Happy First Day of Spring!


Title: Happy First Day of Spring!

Subtitle:  Consider this to be a post card sent to you from Pennsylvania.  There's a bird in that one tree.  That's spring-y, right?


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2,400 Miles. 3 Kids in Tow. 1 Epic Road Trip.


Our family recently took a Spring Break road trip -- driving over 1,200 miles from Pennsylvania to Florida, and then over 1,200 miles back again, only to get walloped with an epic Pennsylvanian snowfall upon our return.  This juxtaposition seems both ironic and somehow fitting.  I mean, who doesn't want to spend one day vacuuming sand out of your minivan, and the next day shoveling your driveway so you can pull that minivan out of your garage?

It was a glorious trip, even with its small hiccups along the way.  Plus, you have time to reflect when you have that much distance to cover.  For example, once again I was amazed that strategic road trip bribery is effective, even though it's definitely not my typical parenting style.  Here are a few other observations from our travels:

The original adage is wrong.  The journey of a thousand miles actually begins with a child asking, "Are we there yet?" 

When your spouse packs a can of Lysol spray and a container of Lysol wipes and stores them in the cup holders, the exact place where you want to store your bottles of iced tea and water, do not question whether Lysol products are necessary to take on a road trip.  Do not think about hiding them away.  They are essential.

At least, they were for us when one child announced that her stomach hurt a mere 30 seconds before vomiting across the backseat as we were driving 75 miles per hour on a dark and congested stretch of highway.  (Yes, this was as exciting as it sounds.) 

But, we had Lysol handy.  Always pack the Lysol.

You'll take inordinate pleasure when you find a license plate from a new state.  On our drive home alone, we discovered plates from 40 states and 4 Canadian provinces.  (Shout out to Ontario, Qubec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick!  You, my friends to the north, are the true road-tripping heroes.)

During your license plate search, you'll realize that you haven't given this much thought to US geography since elementary school.  Incidentally, you'll also notice that no states begin with the letters B, E, J, Q, X, Y, or Z,  so you'll feel prepared if you ever get asked this question in a trivia game.

You'll eventually get in the driving zone and it will be so surprising, so shocking, that you won't want to do anything -- no talking, no glancing in the rear view mirror, no fumbling with the bag that's crowding your feet -- because you recognize it's a holy moment.  Nobody needs to use the restroom.  Nobody is hungry.  Nobody is cold or hot or complaining that the sun is too bright, or that their sister looked at them funny, or that it's their turn to have some device that will low on batteries and missing its power cord.

The miles pass, and you feel like you could drive forever -- which, you reason to yourself quietly, is good, because you are driving forever -- and it reminds you of the rare times when you've run and felt like you could run forever, which happens so infrequently that it also deserves a moment of silence, because most other times during a run you feel every step and are tempted to check your watch or the treadmill screen every few seconds.

But no, you're driving, and miles are adding up, and all is right with the world, and don't dare to breathe and offset the hushed glory.  You remain silent and awestuck, like you would if you encountered an albino deer or a snow leopard in the wild or witnessed the Northern Lights.

That zone will last roughly 25 minutes.  Then you're back in the fray.

It's worth it.  When you finally arrive at your destination and stretch your legs, you'll forget the 19 hours of minivan confinement.  You'll forget the vomiting episode and the three bathroom breaks in a span of under two hours because one child chugged an entire bottle of Gatorade.  The excitement will counterbalance the road-weariness, and the roadside challenges will turn into good stories, and the trip will finally have begun.  You have arrived.  You made it.

Yes, a road trip is always worth it.

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It's What You Do After a Good Show

Early in the morning when I hover in the grogginess between sleep and wakefulness,  I sometimes can't discern what day of the week it is.  To push through this haze I need to focus more intensely than what seems possible.  Eventually, reality surfaces and I remember details of what I did yesterday or what I must do today.

That's happening to me right now, but it's not regarding the day of the week.  No, right now I'm confused about seasons.  You see, it's still winter in Pennsylvania where I live, but our university is on spring break, and to celebrate, we're visiting my parents in Florida where it's perpetually summer.  (Essentially, the only thing I'm certain about is that it's not fall.)

Mind you, this is a good type of confusion.  I can handle the cognitive dissonance of sitting on a beach and toying with the idea that it's actually March when I get to see sights like this:


The other night my family, along with a group of unknown beach-goers, stood on the shore and watched this sunset.  As the sun slipped beneath the horizon, spontaneous applause erupted from the crowd.  My youngest daughter looked around and asked why we were clapping.

"Well, it's what you do after a good show," I said.  "We just watched a beautiful one and we're acknowledging it."

She nodded and went back to dragging her towel and getting sand stuck to every exposed ounce of skin because that's what kids do.  After all, kids really don't need to worry about what time it is, or what day it is, or even what season it is.  They simply enjoy the beautiful show, just like I've been doing this week.

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