Family

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Tuesday Randomosity: The Let’s All Pretend I Didn’t Completely Miss November Edition

December already. Another Tuesday. Grey has returned to the sky. Skiff of snow. Never-ending laundry. Blurry hold music, third phone call of the day. My wrist buzzing with notifications from a group chat I did not consent to join. I should be writing. What to make for dinner? A goat bleats in my brain. The persistent grey.

Let’s try to break through the grey and the goats with some bullets, shall we?

  • Dinner is killing me lately. I have whined continuously for the duration of this blog/my marriage about the Sisyphean tedium of trying to figure out what to make for dinner, and lately it seems to have come to one of its periodic peaks whereby I cannot envision even one dinner or its components. My list of Reliably Delicious Dinners looks like gibberish. My husband is infected, too; last night I asked him for ideas and he listed several options, all of which were side dishes made solely of potatoes. The added pressure of cooking for visitors is not helping. I did, finally, come up with something for dinner tonight: one pot salmon with peas, alongside savory garlic farro. My visitors love salmon; my child enjoys salmon; I like salmon; my husband dislikes salmon but has bravely agreed to eat it for the sake of harmony and wifely sanity. 
  • I am gearing up to cancel a service and ask for it to be refunded. I don’t actually think I will get a refund, but I am kind of gleeful at the prospect of talking to someone about why I am cancelling this completely worthless service. The only problem is that I don’t do great with confrontation, so I’m trying to prepare in advance what I’m going to say. Perhaps then I can be very methodical in my explanation also prevent myself from going all shrill when I enter into confrontation without warning. I don’t want to yell or be mean to whoever I talk to; it isn’t her fault that her company sucks. But I do want to be very clear about why her company sucks and that I Am Done. It would also be nice if they listen instead of writing me off as a Karen or a crank.
  • Speaking of companies that suck.  I got a letter recently from a financial service that there is an error with how my name is spelled in their system, and that it does not match how the IRS spells the name, which of course is going to result in, I don’t know, my imminent execution or something. Fine, whatever, I can fill out a form with the correct spelling. But guess what the misspelling they have on file is? My correctly spelled first name, my correctly spelled last name, and an ampersand. Like… couldn’t the people at the financial services company just… remove the ampersand? Is it not obviously a typo? 
  • The above reminds me of an issue we had years ago with our health insurance. The health insurance company was rejecting a fully covered claim because the name that the hospital billed under was not exactly identical to what the insurance company called the hospital in their own system. I can’t remember the exact ridiculousness, but it was something like, the insurance company covered Polkadot Rainbows Hospital and the hospital sent bills to the insurance company under the name Unicorn College – Polkadot Rainbows Hospital. And then I was stuck calling both the hospital and the insurance company and trying to get them to understand this stupid, stupid discrepancy that should not affect the coverage of my claim in any way. I am still salty about it, nearly two decades later. 
  • Perhaps could I come up with a bullet that isn’t quite so grumpy? Hmm. Hmmmmm.
  • Carla is in the most delightful holiday mood.  I woke up on December first and thought, my goodness, it’s December, and I have done NOTHING to prepare for Christmas/Hanukkah, and was about to slide down a long dark hole of holiday despair… but then Carla came skipping into my bedroom wearing a Santa hat AND reindeer antlers with jingle bells on them and announced that she’d already started decorating. Then she played “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on repeat for the rest of the day. THAT is the kind of Christmas energy I want to slather on myself like body butter. 
  • Should we do a cookie swap? One thing I have been eagerly thinking about as December sneaked up behind me and shoved me headlong into the holiday season is what cookies am I going to make???? Since I love talking about cookies as much as I love baking and eating them, I wonder if anyone would be interested in doing a bloggy cookie swap? Like, we all make cookies and document the process and then blog about it? Is that dumb? Does that require more organization and planning that I can handle? Alongside some of my old standbys and Nicole’s gingersnaps, I think I am going to try making these cranberry lemon bars. 
  • Where are you in the Christmas prep process? So far I have: 1.) finally ordered holiday cards, which I kind of threw together at the last minute on Sunday, but that’s okay because they are ORDERED, 2.) purchased a few presents for Carla and for my husband but zero presents for the other eight family members for whom I usually buy presents, 3.) bought a last-minute Advent calendar for Carla only yesterday, 4.) grabbed a little bag of gelt for Hanukkah from Trader Joe’s, and 5.) thought extensively about cookies. Oh, and I also sent my friend a Christmas goat. In terms of decor, the decorating process stalled shortly after Carla came into our bedroom and announced that she was decorating, so we have stocking holders up on the mantel, two reindeer kissing on the sideboard, the Christmas countdown figurine sitting on the kitchen table and a bin of other decorations sitting on the floor of the living room. All the other bins of decorations AND the Christmas tree are still on shelves in the basement. December is only three days old and already I feel very behind. 

That’s all I’ve got for today, Internet. I hope you are well. I miss you and I’m sorry for being such a crap blog friend lately. 

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Ask Me Anything Answers, Part 5

I got so many wonderful, thought-provoking questions from lovely readers during NaBloPoMo, but I took a rather lengthy break from answering them and still have a few to address! 

Gigi of Gigi’s Ramblings asks:

A follow up to the How I Met My Husband – how long was the engagement? 

Once we got married, friends and family alike said, “FINALLY.” We met in fall of our junior year at college and fell in love rather quickly. We moved in together in two years later while I attended graduate school, and then moved together to a different state two years after that so my husband could start medical school. We finally got engaged in September of the second year of medical school, and then got married halfway through his final med school year. That’s seven years from meeting to marriage. Seven. Years.   

One of these days I should post about our engagement. And maybe I should post the story of my engagement ring, which is a “fake” family heirloom.

And, I’d love to hear about the wedding too. Based on the description of your dress at the college formal, I’m guessing that your wedding dress was pretty amazing too. 

My wedding was a dream wedding. My parents offered us a down payment on a house or a wedding, and we (I, probably) chose the wedding. I am cringing at that now, because WHAT A POOR FINANCIAL DECISION?! I suppose I was 25 at the time I (we?) made this decision, and should have been capable of making a wise choice. But looking back, WHAT was I thinking? And yet, it was a fairytale day and I have (mostly) wonderful memories and everything worked out okay and I don’t regret it.

We got married in my home state, in a space that has been special to me since I was very young, and which I had been able to share with my husband in the many years of our courtship. We had a fairly small wedding – I think we invited about 75 people, and I’m guessing about 50 were able to attend. We got married in a tiny, non-denominational church, its alter backed by enormous windows that overlooked the snow covered mountains. Then we had the reception in the restaurant of a ski lodge.

The food was spectacular. Our dinner menu included a make-your-own pasta bar, tiny shot glasses of perfect creamy butternut squash soup, and miniature Brie grilled cheese sandwiches. We had huckleberry mimosas and a candy bar at which guests could fill up their own favor bags. Nearly all of our college friends attended, which was special to us; my husband and I met at college and we had a very tight-knit group of friends that we shared. We spent the evening dancing together in a big happy group enfolded by warmth and candlelight while outside enormous snowflakes drifted down from the sky.

My dress was strapless, with a sweetheart neckline, a lace bodice, and a full, satin skirt with a long train. Do I have a photo of it? No one had iPhones back in 2008, so it seems unlikely… Oh, right. Our photographer gave us a big binder full of thumbnails of all the photos he took, so here are photos of a few of the thumbnails that at least give you at least a sense of the dress. I never had a “this is it!” moment with my dress, and in fact ended up working with the designer to create a custom dress that I loved by piecing together parts of other dresses. And then I got sick in the weeks leading up to the wedding and lost so much weight we had to do an emergency last minute fitting session and my dress was QUITE baggy in the boobage area. 

Looking back at these photos brings back some of the angst of the day. The person who did my makeup was running late, so we were late to the church and ran out of time to take proper photos. So I don’t really love ANY of the photos from that day. I’d wanted the kind of artsy pictures you often see of the dress hanging in gauzy light in front of a window, and pictures of the shoes and rings, and fun photos with the bridesmaids. But since we were so behind, all our photos took place in the basement of the church. I don’t know if you’ve been to many church fellowship halls, but they are not known for their beauty, and this one was no different. (My husband and his groomsmen got to take AMAZING photos outside the reception venue, and they are very cool and beautiful.) Also, while I had a hair trial with my stylist that went perfectly, something was wrong on the day of the wedding and she could NOT get a good curl in my hair. So when I look at photos, I haaaaaaaate my hair. Apparently I am still salty about wedding imperfections nearly fifteen years later. Obviously, none of it matters at ALL, then or now.

Here. Look at a slightly blurry photo of of a thumbnail of our cake. It was vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream (NO FONDANT) and huckleberry jam in between the layers. I loved it; my husband wasn’t as big a fan, unfortunately.

Much to my mother’s horror, the candles had real flames. Our best man gave his toast in front of that stone fireplace and as he talked, he kept backing closer and closer to the candles lined up on the stone, filling my head and my mother’s, I’m sure, with visions of imminent conflagration. He did not knock any of them over; there were no fires.

Another thing I loved about our wedding were the flowers. I adored my bouquet. Irises are my favorite flower, and it turned out exactly as I wanted it to. My bridesmaids each carried a bouquet of pure white flowers, each one chosen because that flower was special to that bridesmaid.

My something old was a handkerchief from my husband’s grandmother’s wedding. It was tucked into the wrap of the bouquet stems.
Roses, tulips, hydrangeas, and calla lilies.

Okay, that’s enough reminiscing about our really very magical wedding! On to the rest of the questions!

Any siblings? And are you close? 

I have one sibling, a younger brother. We love each other, and I enjoy his company, but I don’t know that we are “close.” He is six years my junior, which means that he was in middle school when I went to college. That’s a big gap. It also means that I perpetually think of him as my baby brother, with glasses that were too big for his face and skinny limbs and straw colored hair that stuck up on the top of his head. In reality, he is a six foot tall former soldier in his mid-thirties. He and his wife live four thousand miles away. We got to see them twice last year, which was wonderful. But it may be several years until we see them again. We never talk on the phone but we do text and email occasionally. (More about our relationship here.) He is in law enforcement, so he very patiently answers all the ridiculous questions about policing I come up with as I’m writing my silly murder mysteries. He is brilliant, hilarious, brave, and one of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met. 

Are you on Twitter? (Is this even a relevant question since Twitter seems to be in free fall as I type?) 

Technically, I am on Twitter. I have a Twitter account – one for this blog, one for the book blog – but I don’t really tweet. Twitter makes me VERY nervous, like I’m forever on the edges of a conversation other people are having. I do have a book-focused Instagram account, and I am more active there… but “more active” is not active active, if you know what I mean.

I know for this particular type of question the answer will vary (or, it would for me) depending on various factors. If money, school/work obligations, time, etc., were not obstacles where would you go for your dream trip/vacation?

If money/family/time were not obstacles, I would go on an extended trip to Europe with my husband and Carla. It would be so fun to rent a house in different countries for, say, a month, and then drive around to various cities in each country to really get a sense of what it’s like to live there. It has been my great good fortune to visit Europe several times and I love it and want to go back. There are a bunch of countries I’ve never visited, and a bunch that I would love to revisit, and old favorites (like France and Germany) that I have visited multiple times and still want to enjoy again.

Thanks for all the fun questions, Gigi! If anyone else has any questions or topics you want me to touch on, please feel free to ask me anything.

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2022 Round-Up-a-Rama

It’s time for my annual year-end recap! 

(If you’re so inclined, you can read past versions of my responses: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 
2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009. This yearly recap originated with Linda of All & Sundry.)

I feel such tenderness for Last Year Me, who was feeling “down, down, down” at the end of last year. This year, I feel the exact opposite. I feel fulfilled in so many ways, so happy, so content. So full of plans and hope for the year ahead. It’s the end of a week at home with my two favorite people, and three days of our joint holiday to go. Christmas is still up, and – while I’m itching to dismantle it – it doesn’t feel oppressive just yet. I’ve been contemplating 2023 plans, but just in an idle, cheerful way. Things are good. I feel so grateful. It’s such a difference from the past couple of years, where I was mainly exhausted and stressed fearful about what new devastation lay in store. I do not take this period of calm and contentedness for granted. Instead, I am soaking it up, reveling in it, all too aware of how swiftly life can change.

Let’s take a look back at 2022. 

One change to note: In years past, I left in the original questions even if I ignored them. This year, I am deleting them entirely. Buh-bye, old irrelevant-to-my-life questions I do not want to answer. 

  • What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before?
    • Began querying agents.
    • Took an online writing class (about querying). 
    • Went on a family road trip across the United States.
    • Posted every day in November for NaBloPoMo! 
    • Tried acupuncture.
  • Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As is my newish tradition, I made some gentle aspirations for the year. Out of 22 things I hoped to accomplish, I completed half. Well, there’s always next year! 

  • How old were you on your birthday and what did you do? I turned 41 in February, ordered my own cake (which turned out to be a disappointment), and spent a lovely evening with my husband and daughter. I am sure it involved Mexican takeout and books, because those are two of my favorite things.

  • Where did you travel this year?

My husband and daughter and I made two trips this year, but we visited many states! Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

  • What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?

Re-upping one of my major wishes from last year: I would like to have an agent in 2023. This is part luck and part grit, and I need to supply the grit. 

  • What dates from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I absolutely loved our road trip in June of 2022. It was so fabulous. Two weeks in the car with my husband and daughter, and we had fun and saw parts of the country we’d never seen and listened to audiobooks and good music and just generally had a fabulous time.

  • What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Beginning the querying process.

  • What was your biggest failure?

Not finishing either of the new manuscripts I started! I need to work on follow through in 2023!

  • Did you suffer illness or injury?

My husband and I both got Covid during the tail end of our road trip. Womp womp. 

  • What was the best thing you bought?

My new laptop! I kept insisting to my husband that I didn’t need a new one; my old laptop worked perfectly fine. But it really didn’t work perfectly fine and it was slow and the keys were sticky and the lack of memory was a real bother. I am very glad he pushed me to get a new one.

  • What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Our road trip! My parents moving here! 

  • What song(s) will always remind you of 2022?

(Most of these are from our road trip – we listened to a bunch of songs on repeat in the car.)

I Love U by the Chainsmokers

Ojitos Lindos by Bad Bunny (feat. Bomba Estereo)

As It Was by Harry Styles

Ghost by Justin Bieber

The Turning Red soundtrack

The Winnie the Pooh soundtrack

I Hate Myself for Loving You by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow) by Fleetwood Mac

Fade Into You by Mazzy Star

Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush

  • What do you wish you’d done more of?

Writing (evergreen item). Exercising. Eating vegetables. Spending time outdoors. Date nights. Game nights. Agent queries.

  • What do you wish you’d done less of?

Mindless scrolling on my phone. Feeling sorry for myself about my feet. Dwelling in a pit of self-abnegation.

  • How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas was just me, my husband, and my daughter this year. But it was perfect. We slept in until 7:30 and then opened wonderful, thoughtful presents from our family. We made cotton candy. We FaceTimed with parents and siblings. We had Monopoly spread out on the kitchen table and a puzzle half completed on the dining room table, so we ate delicious, delicious steak and mashed potatoes and Caesar salad on our laps in front of the TV. Fabulous and cozy and wonderful.

  • What was your favorite (new) TV program?

I did a lot more reading than TV-watching in 2022, which I’m not mad about. My husband and I did watch some TV, though! We really enjoyed the second season of The White Lotus and the most recent season of Stranger Things. We loved Severance – such a creepy, interesting mashup of horror and sci-fi. Bad Sisters was fantastic, riveting television – I can’t believe I haven’t read more about it! We loved Yellowjackets and can’t wait for the next season. We also enjoyed House of the Dragon, despite how horribly violent it is; what can I say, I am a sucker for dragons. I don’t know if I can say that I “loved” The Bear but it was certainly impossible not to watch. Archive 81 was really good until the very ending. We recently started Jack Ryan and are enjoying that so far, too.

By myself, I watched the latest season of Never Have I Ever and continue to absolutely adore that show. I am also re-watching Seinfeld and Schitt’s Creek and still love them both.

With Carla, we started watching Junior Bake Off and Snack vs. Chef, which are fun and light and low-stakes. 

To jog my memory, I looked at a bunch of Best Of TV lists, and wow there is so much fabulous TV available that I haven’t watched! 

  • What was the best book you read?

I read 86 books this year, mostly thrillers, and there were so many fabulous books. I think Station Eleven gets top billing for me, though. It was so well-written and so different and so perfectly paced. I just loved it. (I posted all of my top books of 2022 on the book blog.)

  • What was your favorite film of this year?

As usual, I cannot remember watching any movies this year… I know I was interested in watching the newest Top Gun movie, even though Tom Cruise skeeves me out. But my husband had no interest so I didn’t. He and I planned to watch the Knives Out sequel over the break, but haven’t done that yet. Oh! I watched Spirited, a Christmas Carolian movie starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds and I really enjoyed it despite being very weary of Christmas Carol stories and also really disliking musicals. Carla and I watched Turning Red about a million times, and that was okay. Did we watch anything else? 
Anything at all? I have this very strong memory of being in a movie theatre, but cannot for the life of me recall what we saw. Oh well. 

Oh right! We went to see the latest iteration of the Jurassic World movies, as a birthday surprise for Carla! It was… okay. 

Edited to add: Carla and my husband and I stayed up to watch the ball drop, and while we were waiting we watched two movies. The first was Glass Onion with a star-studded cast. It had some adult themes, that hopefully mostly went over Carla’s head. It was fun and funny and frothy and light (despite being murder-y). Then Carla and I watched the new Matilda musical, which was fabulous. The lead actor was amazing as Matilda, and the casting for Agatha Trunchbull and Jenny Honey was superb. The novel was a favorite of mine when I was a kid and lives large in my head to this day, and the actors chosen to portray these fabulous characters did a wonderful job.

  • What did you want and get?

We got to go on our family ski trip in March, which was fabulous.

We got to travel to celebrate my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary and see my brother and sister-in-law. 

My parents are going to move to my state!! I am so excited that it is finally happening in 2023! 

My ceiling is now repaired! (And the repair person is now out of my house, which was an added bonus.)

  • What did you want and not get?

An agent. A solution to my plantar fasciitis. To visit my childhood home, which I got in a literal sense but not in an emotional sense.

  • What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finishing my second manuscript and getting an agent. Pain-free feet. That’s three things, but I’m leaving it.

  • How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?

I am all about the soft pants, as I have been for the past several years. But I did wear more hard pants than I have since 2019. I think my concept was “feel cute but dress the body I have.” It worked for the most part, although I would really like a pair of jeans whose waistline doesn’t sag throughout the day.

  • What kept you sane?

Same as last year: My husband. My terrible, wonderful, unputdownable phone. Books and audiobooks. Carbs. Wine. Reading your blog posts. Long walks. Takeout. Writing here.

  • Who did you miss?

We had such a wonderful family-centric year this year. I felt closer to my family of origin than I have in… decades, maybe? I got to see my parents FOUR TIMES this year, which is unheard of. And I saw my brother and sister-in-law TWICE! Before this year, I hadn’t seen them since 2018! My in-laws visited multiple times, and for reasons of fun rather than reasons of medical treatment which removed a level of worry and stress from their visits. We will continue to see at least my mother-in-law once a quarter. We got to see my sister-in-law and niece twice, which was fabulous. I got to see my childhood best friend for the first time in… five years? Six? So I am delighted and grateful to say that I didn’t do a lot of missing this year. I do, of course, miss the friend I lost in 2019; I will always miss her. I am also missing a friendship that has taken on a new, more distant quality in the past few months.  

  • Who was the best new person you met?

While I didn’t meet anyone new in person (that I can recall, at least), I have met so many wonderful blog friends this year! I wanted to list you all, but it’s funny: I cannot recall how long we’ve known each other. Did we really just meet this year? Or have we been friends all along?

  • Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022.

Connection, even for (especially for?) an introvert, is so valuable. Sometimes it can be stressful. But it is mood boosting and life sustaining and supportive and necessary. I was so, so fortunate this year to see friends and family more than I had in years. I was so grateful for the connections I built with you, through this blogging community. I was so incredibly lucky to spend so much time alone with my wonderful little family, together and individually. Because I enjoy my solitude, and because I am so socially awkward and anxious, too much togetherness makes me retreat into myself. But there is balance to be had, and the memories and affirmation and intimacy and personal uplift that come from making time for one another – online and in person – are worth the small downsides. I am all too aware just how precious life is, just how fleeting our time together on this planet. I want to remember how simple and gratifying it can be to make the effort to connect.

  • Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

“I love you.” – The Chainsmokers 

Happy New Year, dear ones! I adore you and hope 2023 has great things in store for each of us.