31.3.16

List #271: March Things

I used to think that I hated February . With it's dark days, cold nights, saccharine love, and basically all of the excuses in the world to hibernate and be as anti-social as you want. But more recently in my years, I truly don't enjoy March.

With the end of winter and beginning of spring March has the worst qualities of both seasons. It's indecisive and wet. The days are longer, but the temperature rarely treats you with warm evenings. It's too chilly or windy to sit on patios and it's about the time of year where I hate everything in my wardrobe. 

Basically? March sucks. 

But in the end, the month does tend to fly by pretty quickly. And now I can step on into April to enjoy all of its birthdays, sweet nights, and packed weekends. Sure, it will still be rainy and I'll curse my old rain boots every morning. But at least it's still April.

March had 31 days and this is what I did, or didn't do, with them:
  • Watched a few hours worth of Practical Jokers (someone might have it on as I type this). 
  • Become exasperated with one very needy cat.
  • Hook our family on Masha and the Bear. We need more non-Russian seasons! 
  • Daydreamed about young Harrison Ford.
  • Drank a few tiki drinks.
  • Didn't really drink a whole lot of wine.
  • Went to bed far too early.
  • Stayed up far too late.
  • Battled with Gwynnie Bee.
  • Spent a little too much on clothes.
  • Sold my first few items on eBay.
  • Started planning summer reading. 
  • Ate too many nachos.
  • Failed to sleep in.
  • Took are of sick members of this household.
  • Hated wearing tights.
  • Loved wearing tights.
  • Slowly made my way through a book.
  • Woke up with nightmares. 
  • Wished I was going on vacation.
  • Had dinner and drinks with old friends.
  • Missed old friends.
  • Discussed hot celebrities with an old friend.
  • Hid a whole bunch of Easter eggs.
  • Ate Satellite wafters.
  • Remind my mom that I don't like Neco Wafers (again).
  • Cheered on the Penguins.
  • Watched a lot less hockey than I would prefer.
  • Designed some logos. 
  • Cried? Probably.
  • Desperately needed to get my hair cut.
I don't know what April is going to bring. But here's hoping I can get my haircut in the next week. 

30.3.16

List #270: Things My Cat May Be Chasing Around the House

By any definition, our house is not huge. But it is big. It is old. And it does have tons of nooks and crannies. The basement is a hodgepodge of rooms and is basically filled with (still) unpacked boxes, furniture we aren't using, and toys that a certain little boy has outgrown.

I make note of all these little details becuase when we moved into this house, the cat got weird. Fast.

He'll spend all evening in the basement, sometimes just sitting the third stair from the bottom, and then cry like crazy when we decide to head upstairs to bed.

He has poked a few holes in our screens and knocked over a few plants, cups, whatever else just happens to be in his way.

But more than anything, oh can the cat run in this house.

He often chooses to run and run and run and run when I'm home alone and basically my imagination runs wild (all thanks to the scars of finding a mice in my laundry in college. and one dead mouse in our house in early fall of this year). I made the husband put out mouse traps and with the exception of that one we haven't seen any evidence of mice in the house at all.

But still.

Here are the things I think the cat is chasing at any given time:

  • Stink bugs
  • Spiders
  • This green stress ball we grabbed for free at the Home & Garden Show and that he's inexplicably obsessed with
  • Matchbox cars
  • Flies
  • Mice
  • Rubber bouncing balls
  • Lids to things. 
  • Plastic toy rings
  • Beads
  • The green sticks that go inside your Starbucks cup
  • Pens
  • Pencils
I'm heading to bed in a few minutes and he'll surely drive me bonkers with all of this chasing for at least another forty-five. Before he's up tomorrow at dawn with the birds. Which he seems to forget every day are on the outside of the house and no amount of force is going to will them inside. 

29.3.16

List #269: In a Year

When it's been almost a year since you wrote something for the internet to read. Or, more accurately, when it's been almost a year since you've written anything for anyone that doesn't frequent your library to read it can be a little intimidating to get back on track.

It wasn't that I didn't think about writing in the last 11 months. It's actually quite the opposite. I've thought about it a lot. Sat down on the couch with the laptop and thought up a hundred different things to say. But every single time I would think, "Who really wants to read that?" or even more frequently, "Why do you think you have the authority to write about that?"

And as I sit here writing something tonight, I'm not quite sure I have the answers to those questions. Those fears still haunt me.

My life is completely different than what it was when I first started this writing journey that I was having a hard time coming to grips with it all and still feeling like I had something to say.

But whatever. I'm still not sure I do have something to say. And daily life in this house is nothing short of hectic without much of a predictable schedule. Both of those things are challenges when I'm trying write.

But just like the 10 year-old me who sat up in her bedroom and filled wide-ruled notebooks with stories and notes, the 34 year-old me still needs to write. So here goes nothing.

Here's your crash course in what's been happening since we last met:

  • We bought a house.
  • My new communte is just minutes away from my library.
  • I can go home for lunch every day that it's possible.
  • That baby in my life turned into a preschooler.
  • The boyfriend became my fiancĂ©.   
  • The fiancĂ© became my husband.
  • We went to the beach.
  • We traveled to California.
  • We joined some wine clubs.
  • We drank a lot of wine.
  • Family moved away.
  • Friends moved away.
  • We went to the beach again.
  • Friends had babies.
  • Medical things happened. 
  • And then medical things happened again.
  • I went to New York.
  • I saw a taping of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
  • I discovered that I really like dry wines.
  • I loved being an unexpected mother.
  • I struggled with being and unexpected mother.
  • I still hate the word "step-parent."
  • I wore a lot of dresses.
  • And I wore jeans just once.
  • We had parties at our new house.
  • We still didn't get the hole in the ceiling of the spare room fixed.
  • I raked a lot of leaves.
  • We discovered a dead mouse in the house.
  • I got caught in the rain.
  • I tricked myself into stop biting my nails.
  • All in all, it's been pretty quite.
And that, is why you leave for 11 months and how you feel like you've got a lot to say.