Category: Slice of Life

Thursday Thoughts: Manly Obsessions

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My dad had a thing for flashlights. And he was always misplacing them. Once, when he climbed into the attic, he found a flashlight he’d left there the previous year. I recall at least one birthday when he received flashlights from everyone. I think they were all misplaced within six months.

My husband is the same. He is always buying flashlights. We have all shapes and sizes. A few years back, he purchased several “Brooklyn Lanterns” from TV. The cupboard under my downstairs bathroom sink is filled with TP and flashlights.

My husband is also obsessed with tool kits and car emergency kits. Especially car emergency kits. I have one he bought for me, and I’m very grateful for it. But how many does one person need? (One more than he already has!)

Okay, I guess it’s no different than my obsession with office supplies. Pens. Notebooks. Pretty file folders.

I think I find it amusing/frustrating because my husband is not a mechanically mind kind of guy. He can quote baseball trivia out the ying-yang, and don’t get me started on movies–he has come to a realization that he might like movies even more than he likes baseball. These are obsessions I understand and even share up to a point.

But flashlights, tool kits, and car emergency kits? I often just shake my head.

 

 

 

 

MJ Monday-Motivation: Lightning Bugs

Once again, my schedule–writing and day job–prevented me from getting to my patio/garden/back yard in a timely manner. It doesn’t help that the person who had all these grandiose plans for the space disappeared on me last year.

The first year of my garden was the best. It looked amazing. I had fresh herbs. I had colorful coleus, and planters of other beautiful things.

Since then, the space has become more of a jungle. I still love sitting out there, especially at night.

I love watching the lightning bugs. (Yes, I am born and raised in upstate NY, and we always called them lightning bugs. I never heard of a fire fly until I started school.) This year they start flashing early and continue to flash often.

No wonder summer is my favorite season.

Thursday Thought: Typewriters

The other day I recaptured a memory from when I was very, very young.

My aunts and uncles and cousins always got together with extended family, so I knew my cousins’ aunts from the other side of their family.  This memory comes before I went to school, so I couldn’t have been much older than three or four, but it is very vivid.

My cousins’ aunt, a teenager at the time, had a toy typewriter. It was red. It typed purple, like the dittos I would later receive in school for classwork. I was obsessed with the typewriter. I remember wanting desperately to play with it. Longing to use it.

Even then, I knew I was a writer.

My Boy is 30

Yes, my first-born, a/k/a Y-Chromo, is thirty years old today.

I never knew unqualified love until I met him.

He was 5 weeks premature. He couldn’t wait to get out and meet the world. When he was in day care, other parents would tell me he would be a politician or a cruise ship activity director.  Within a week of being in daycare, he knew the name of every child in the center. That hasn’t changed.

He decided what he wanted to be when he grew up when he was in middle school, and except for one brief diversion, he became exactly what he said he would be.  His 7th grade math teacher told me Y-Chromo had a mathematical mind. I laughed. I stopped laughing the day he received his BS in Mathematics summa cum laude.  The next year, he received his MS in secondary education: he was all set to become a math teacher. His dream. He got his first teaching job right out of college.

One of my most memorable moments with him was when he was an infant. I was rocking him in the middle of the night after feeding him, and I felt him grow. Babies grow at some point. We see it when their clothes become too small. But that night, I literally felt him grow in my arms as I rocked him. A miracle.

Happy birthday, baby!

 

Office Update-July

I have made significant progress in my office reclamation/redo project. I completely cleared out the area in the hall where the printer and all the old RWRs sat.

Next, I tackled one of two bookcases belonging to my husband that reside in my space.

The book case hid behind the door, and was literally crammed to the ceiling.

Cleaning it off took an entire Saturday.  And yes, the shelves are warped. Replacing the bookcase isn’t in the budget right now.

The bookcase now resides in the hall where the old magazines and printer once took up space.  It took the good chunk of a Sunday afternoon to move all the books.

As the bookcase is not only taller, but more solid than the printer stand, it seems as if there is less room in hall, but that’s an optical illusion. The bookcase is actually narrower than the printer stand. It just takes some getting used, especially when coming out of our bedroom.

But it’s done!