Bibliomama

As far as blogging goes, I'm currently feeling a bit like I've been following my thinner, in-better-shape friends to a lot of fitness classes lately and now I'm lying on the kitchen floor with a broomstick wondering if I should try to poke the Advil off the top of the fridge or the cookies from the cupboard shelf first.  This is a slight exaggeration. I was in a bit of a blogging rut - could go for weeks without blogging, was finding most of the people on my blogroll had disappeared and was wondering if I should pack the whole thing in. And then I found a couple of people through NaBloPoMo a couple of years ago and found a couple of people through other blogs and it's felt like a thrilling resurgence - there's something so heartwarming and energizing about having a community, and being able to riff on other people's posts and feed on their vigor.  But man, some of you people are beasts, and I am going to have to pace myself, or, I don't know, do keyboard wor

Drifting off of Sarah s and Engie's laundry posts - from one end of the scale to nearly the other, a family of seven and a family of two. I am currently a family of one, more regularly a family of two, and still occasionally a family of four.  I was so relieved when Sarah said that she did everyone's laundry and, further, said exactly what I've always thought (but often been too chicken to say) - it's great if your kids can do their own laundry before they leave home, but if they don't, they'll learn very soon after. I actually think this about many things - I have half-joked (half-confessed) that I coddle my kids. I didn't work for most of their childhood, my husband worked hard and traveled much, the kids were often busy with school, sports and extracurriculars, and while I didn't act like a servant or expect nothing of them around the house, I didn't feel the need to be a hard-ass about making them 'pull their weight', when I was the one

Things I planned to do on March Break: Buy paint and paint my bathroom Switch out my disgusting shower curtain liner Switch out my twenty-year-old shower curtain (it just took me a frighteningly long time to think "what is it called? Bath curtain? Bathtub curtain?)  for the cute new one I got from Redbubble Do a bunch of yoga Write a bunch of blog posts Things I ended up doing on March Break: Going out for lunch with girlfriends Going to see Journey and Toto Going to see a musical at our community theatre Walking Lucy over to my parents' place in the glorious sunshine and drinking a gin and tonic at one o'clock in the afternoon Having a lengthy nap after said gin and tonic Taking care of my sick, between-international-trips husband Reading a bunch of books No regrets, largely. Although I need to get back to the yoga. My back is better from all the physio, but I need yoga. And I need to go back to physio because my Achilles tendons and calves have been troubling me for over

I have been having a bit of a stupid week. I am calling the week stupid to avoid having to apply the label to myself, but the truth is it probably isn't actually the week's fault. I'm not sure what the deal is - Matt's away, but that's not unusual. If it's a progression of the perimenopausal brain fog I have to do some seriously therapeutic levels of crossword puzzling or whatever the hell, because this cannot continue. Monday I woke up and got ready for work. I wash and dress and take my morning meds and then come down with my water glass and my phone, put my phone directly into my purse and then go to the kitchen, drop off my water glass and pack my lunch and grab my water bottle (except when it's my first day at a new job, but whatever, we're over that).  For many many years the garage was too full of crap to get a vehicle in. A couple of years ago Matt worked like crazy to get it empty enough to park the Rav in. This is completely awesome, so this is

 My husband is leaving this afternoon for a week (then home for a few days and gone for two weeks). For a nice change of pace, the massive snow dump happened just before he left instead of just after - bad for him, good for me. March Break is one week earlier than I thought it was, which is... neutral, I guess, I'm not gasping for it the way I was for the Christmas holidays. Funny thing about my Thursday school, I was almost ready to give notice and then I went in last week and it....suddenly didn't suck anymore. It's almost like it was my vicious winter depression that was the problem and not the school.  I do have to say, it's been startling and humbling working in a K-8 school (my other two are K-6). There's something about the boundary-testing and defiance and general VERY MUCH THERE-ness of pre-and-early-teens that I'm struggling with how to address. Part of the problem was that I was trying to act from a position of 'there are no bad kids', knowing