I See What You Meme

I meant to blog yesterday. I tried. It wasn't for lack of material but lack of...energy?  will?  drive?  All of the above? I blame it on the calendar.  I was doing ok for a while and now July 9th looms large on the horizon.  These days, grief comes and goes. I've actually gotten to a point where the day-to-day is pretty tolerable .  But it's the holidays that get you . They're the real challenge. The storm clouds started brewing over the weekend and seem to have come to rest over the house. At the moment, it all just seems to be sitting there. Waiting. It's like a big weight sitting on my shoulders. It's exhausting. I came home last night intending to answer emails and write reports and blog and exercise and fold laundry. I did none of that. I sat on the couch reading a book and watching TV . The only benefit of the passage of time is that you have some experience to help you gauge your feelings. It really is all relative.  We'll talk about this

This week's Follow Friday is dedicated to one of my oldest friends. I am blessed with many dear people in my life so I hope that nobody feels offended or slighted by this post. Jamie has been my friend for as long as I can remember. In fact, I don't remember not knowing her. I think we met sometime around Kindergarten. We lived only a few blocks from each other and even though we were a year apart in school and only attended the same school for 2 years, we were constant companions in childhood.   This is not a childhood picture of me and Jamie...but it could be. This is actually a birthday card she sent to me years ago. It hangs on my bedroom mirror and constantly reminds me of our friendship. Summers were spent riding bikes, swimming together, pining over boys (both those in our school as well as impossible celebrities) , playing games, creating crafts (oh, the friendship bracelet obsession!) and making mischief (ask her about the Pepto Bismol story!) . I

I came across a thread on a local mommy discussion board recently that resonated with me. The gist of the conversation revolved around this conundrum: how do you balance health and convenience and (further) how do you reconcile the seemingly contradictory health information that we face every day?  Examples : We all know you should wear sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, right? Did you know that some research indicates that sunscreens may be bad for us ...and for the environment? Plus, now we have to worry about Vitamin D deficiency if we don't get enough sun.  We all know we should eat our fruits and veggies...but do they have to be organic? or locally grown? How many of us can afford a completely organic lifestyle?  Carbs are evil...meat is murder... High Fructose Corn Syrup is from the devil (and yet in everything known to man)...keep your house clean but only use "green" products...  It makes my head spin. Even with all of the supposed knowledge at our

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I know that I'm suffering from penis fatigue. It's a sad day when the lead stories on the national news all seem to involve men and their  sexual escapades (DSK...Weiner...Edwards....Schwarzenegger...you get the drift).  Surely, there must be something else to talk about. It's hard to believe, considering the coverage that CNN (and other news organizations) gave to the Weiner story just yesterday. I was sitting in a diner with cable news playing in the background and I am pretty sure that 90% of the screen time during my hour (or so) at lunch revolved around the build-up of the lead-up to the announcement that Weiner was going to announce that he was planning to decide that he was announcing that his next big decision was to decide THAT HE WOULD RESIGN his office.* (* yes, that sentence was purposely rambling. No, I have not completely lost my ability to write a coherent sentence.) So in case you are finding it difficult stay

The official calendar may say that it's still spring for a few weeks but most of us know the truth. School is out for many students around the country. The majority of the Eastern Seaboard has been melting in the 90+ degree heat this week. It's summertime. Aside from the heat, that other harbinger of summer is the summer movie.  As a kid, I have fond memories of balancing my time between outdoor activities such as the pool and the playground with the cool, dark indoor sanctuary of the movie theater.  For today's Follow Friday, I'm going to share four of my favorite movies from my childhood. In no particular order, I give you: ET: The Extra Terrestrial : This classic Steven Spielberg film released in the summer of 1982 is one of the first movies that I ever remember seeing in the theater. What's not to love about this classic? I still cry every time I watch it and I still marvel at the special effects.  They may seem simple now in the world of CGI but at the time

I'm not sure if it was courage or just a need for some catharsis but Tuesday night I watched Rabbit Hole . I had actually put it in the Netflix queue a while ago. It was pretty far down the list but for some reason, I bumped it up to #1 last week. It came in the mail on Monday. For those of you that haven't heard of this movie, it's based on the play by David Lindsey-Abaire. It's about a couple (Becca and Howie) whose only child dies at the age of 4.  Yes, I knew what I was getting into. In truth, it was a pretty amazing movie. It's sad but it's also honest. In fact, I think it's one of the most accurate portrayals of parental grief that I've seen outside of real life.  Roger decided not to watch the whole movie with me but 15 minutes in, he said, "Do these people read our blogs?" I couldn't agree more.  I resonated with Becca's challenges: Failing to find comfort in religion . Trying to move on while keeping your child's mem

For those of you who actually follow my blog, you may have noticed that things were a bit quiet after last Monday's post. I actually did get a comment from someone wondering why my regular Friday blog was missing.  Ok. So the comment was a text message from my mother. Does that count?  I told you that she reads my blog . Anyway...I suppose I could offer many excuses about why I didn't write much last week. I did have an additional post out there in the blog-o-sphere. (Thanks to Hey! That's My Hummus for publishing my guest-post.) I could tell you that I was busy.  I could tell you that I was tired.  I was feeling uninspired. ( wow. that's almost poetic.) In truth, it was all of those things. And none of them. In truth, television was my time-suck this weekend.  Oh, I did get some things done. I exercised and visited the Ashland Strawberry Faire . Roger and I attended a neighbor's graduation party on Saturday as well as a wine tasting at The Caboose on Fri