Category Archives: my life

my world in 120 seconds

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alarms, dogs, kids, plus your typical panic

I can’t…what…why…what’s that noise?  It’s…so…so early. 

[claw my way close enough to consciousness to hear 1, 2, 3, 4 by The White Stripes] 

omg, it’s the alarm.  Why why why why why…do I have time for a shower before camp drop off?  Maybe a quick one.  I’ll just hop in real…

[screams from kitchen]

What’s that?  [check bedroom, no Gracie]  Okay, then, gotta be the dog.  Intervene?  Leave the kids to handle it?

[more screams]

Intervene, it is.  [scurry out of the room]

“What happened?  What happened?  You’ve got to stop screaming.”

[first child gasping with fury while second child presses Gracie to the floor]

She ate my breakfast!

“Well, that would make me mad, too.  Let’s just put her outside and start again, shall we?”  [drag dog to back door and throw her outside]

Okay then.  Everyone in one piece?  Phoebe still hiding under the table?  Breathing again?

Do I have still have time for a quick shower?

RFTM, interrupted, due to a minor life glitch

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Life slid a bit sideways yesterday.

Sometimes those balls just get dropped.  You don’t even know you’ve done it until you’re halfway into your day and it strikes you like lightning – holy crap, I totally forgot to handle this.  The best you can hope for is that it isn’t for something life or death.  Thankfully, yesterday’s I-can’t-believe-I-dropped-that-one moment was more ridiculous than calamitous.  

As a result, though, our family’s gone off the grid for the weekend.  It’s kind of nice, actually, and a good way to celebrate our last baby’s graduation moving on to middle school.  I hope all of you have a wonderfully restful June weekend, and I’ll catch up with you soon.

Stay cool!

One-and-Done: giant floating cities edition

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To my kids’ everlasting dismay, I have sworn off cruise ships.  All cruise ships.  Period.

“Little” cruise ships (is there even such a thing?), huge cruise ships, cruise ships BrightSide claims are “so large you’ll never even feel them move” – all are a Big. Fat. No.  Not happening.  No way, no how.

And you’d think I was killing my kids slowly with this.

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a fresh take on the mind behind RFTM (aka Who’s this chick? redux)

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My who’s this chick? page (AKA Meet the mind behind the blog…) snagged the highest number of views for both 2017 and RFTM’s lifetime, so I thought it might be a fun topic to revisit.  I know, I know…you’re probably wondering how I can “revisit” telling readers about myself, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned after two years of blogging it’s that posts can always benefit from a fresh look.

Boy, what I wouldn’t give for a closeup of my eyeball right now.  Oh, wait, I’ve got a phone with a camera!

Yep.  That’s not at all creepy.

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babysitter standards in the ’70s and ’80s

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I was born on a crisp January day in 1971.  Well, it wasn’t exactly crisp out since my dad was stationed in the Philippines at the time, but you get my point.  I am, without a doubt, a child of the ’70s.

Flared pants and the Brady Bunch.  Fish fingers, banana seat bikes, and heading home by dark.  Bologna sandwiches on white bread and Kool-Aid, with Twinkies as a treat.

The ’70s weren’t just another decade; it was more like another world.

soccerLaura

That’s me, on the left. I hardly have the words.

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why my shorts don’t fit and other adventures in medication

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I’ve been working with my doctor for about a year now on my breathing.  To say it’s been a long, slow process would be a vast understatement.  Vast in a “the Grand Canyon is a pretty valley” sort of way.

But I’m hanging in there ‘cuz, you know, that whole pesky breathing thing.  It’s not like I can give it up for Lent.

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Forever Family: notes for my 20-something self

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Lately I’ve been thinking about my younger days.

Wedding1

See that sweet face?  (Yeah, BrightSide, too.)  How innocent, how naive…ready to go along to get along, keep the peace, calm the waters no matter what.

Well, lately I’ve been thinking about what I’d tell that 20-something me.

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