Dream Girl

What did you want to be when you "grew up?" For me, the answer was always "an archaeologist." Sure, I went through the stereotypical little girl "ballerina phase", and the "veterinarian phase." When I left high school, I was certain I wanted to be the first female president of the United States. But I never lost my love for archaeology.

Unfortunately, to be an archaeologist, one also needs to master college-level chemistry. This was not in the cards for me, no matter how hard I tried (three times, to be exact). So, I turned away from the hard sciences in favor of the social sciences, and went down the path to Sociology, and eventually Social Work and Public Health.

Today, nearly 30 years after I declared my intention to be President, I work as a writer and marketing strategist for a financial services company. A good job, but not my dream job. While I don't really have a ton of time to develop a dream career, I still have time to get a dream job.

My list of dream jobs is eclectic. It includes:

• Travel writer
• Prop master
• U.S. park ranger
• Museum curator
• Landscape architect
• Political strategist

At this moment in time, professional stability feels more important than dreaming. A stable paycheck, stable health insurance, stable place to go every day. So, for now, it feels likely that my path involves continuing my current work, maybe moving into middle management, and eventually retiring with a stable corporate retirement package.

Once I'm retired, I'll let myself dream again. I have a fantasy of becoming a National Park volunteer, which would allow me to taste what is is like to be a park ranger, and help me achieve my goal of seeing every National Park in the U.S.

If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be? Are you doing it now? Or do you have plans to achieve your dream sometime in the future?

Happy

What are the happiest moments of your life, so far?

When I asked my 91 year-old neighbor, she said, "Having my three kids." Then she paused. "I've had times when I've felt happy, like at weddings and things. But my happiest moments were having my girls."

My list includes:

1. My wedding, every single moment of it
2. Nearly every memory of playing as a child
3. Unwrapping the plush version of Camel with the Wrinkled Knees and "Angely" at two separate Christmases long long ago
4. Seeing Rodin's "The Thinker" in real life for the first time
5. Seeing Half Dome in Yosemite National Park for the first time
6. Driving with BMG to Sanibel Island from the Fort Meyers International Airport in the convertible with the top down

Happiness, for me, feels like being full - of emotions like delight and joy. So full that I'm on the verge of being overwhelmed, and can't possibly take in any more.

Like my neighbor, there are many moments of my life when I've felt happy, but these are the moments, today, when I remember feeling happiest. 

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've learned to focus my enjoyment of winter holidays on the things that make my heart go pitter pat. These are:

• Sending Christmas cards - in part because I love to receive Christmas cards. But sending them helps me remember the people who are important to me and gives me at least one touch point with them each year. BMG and I make a point of sending them to every family invited to our wedding, if only to communicate "Look! We're still married! Thanks for your support!"

• Decorating the outside of The Tiny Bungalow, complete with lights. I love coming home at the end of the day to a gaily lit home and am thrilled by the beauty of evergreens with pops of colors adorning the house. And I try to decorate in non-denominational ways, so I can leave the lights up throughout the winter without looking like a lazy neighbor. Even better than admiring my house, is driving around to see other people's outdoor decorations. From the tacky to the sublime, I love it all. This may be, in part, because as a child my parents would drive me and my sibs through downtown Syracuse to look at the municipal lights after the Christmas Eve service at my grandmother's church. Riots of light mean, to the child in me, that it is *almost* time for Santa to visit. 

• Delivering homemade cookies to neighbors and service people who make my life easier. For BMG and I this includes our mailman, the trash guy, our pharmacists and the ladies at the post office. We've also given to the UPS guy, the folks who staff the dump on the weekend and our favorite bartenders. This year's mason jar inspiration came from the folks at The Decorated Cookie. (And bonus! All of the mason jars we bought for the lemonade bar at the wedding are now officially out of the basement!)

• Wrapping packages in unique and colorful ways, with the end goal being a Christmas tree surrounded by a rainbow of beautiful gifts. My mom has always been a generous gift giver, and the pristine display of presents under the tree on Christmas morning was a thrill I remember from childhood. This year, I've handmade gift embellishments that look like gnomes and am wrapping in craft paper and bakers twine. 

      

• Christmas music, particularly the classics sung by Rat Pack-era musicians and other jazzy performers. I love listening to the music and singing it. I'm sorry caroling is considered so dorky, because it gives me a thrill to sing Christmas songs and to deliver the gift of music to neighbors. I also enjoy medieval choral music at Christmas time; it transports me to another time and place. I try to go to one concert a year. Usually by myself because no one else I know can stomach the stuff. 

Giving gifts to children in need, filling Christmas stockings, festive Christmas parties, eggnog and the joyful crowds at shopping malls are also among my favorite aspects of the seasons.

What are the aspects of the holiday I don't like so much? Just three things come to mind: 

• Obligation gift buying, particularly obligation gift giving generated by a surprise gift from a friend. Why? Unless the gift is one that I can return with a box of cookies, there is usually implied reciprocity that I may not be feeling. This, in turn, makes me feel pissy about shopping, rather than feeling generous love. So if you plan to give me a gift worth more than a loving token, consider talking with me about first. 
• Disassembling the Christmas tree. The needles, the repacking of the ornaments, the scramble to find packing material for fragile items. Ugh. How do I deal? By making an indoor Christmas tree a rare occurrence rather than the norm. This year, BMG and I have decorated a tabletop Eiffel Tower instead of a tree. I'm telling people this is a "no tree" year because we have a kitten. While this is true, I'm grateful for the excuse to not have a tree indoors. (Hmmm. Maybe we'll get a kitten every year?) 

Being childless by choice is one of the reasons I am able to make the winter holidays, and especially Christmas, exactly what I want it to be. I don't have the need to create magic for my children through contrivances like "Elf on a Shelf," nor do I have to withstand hours in line at the big box toy store or whiny children anxious for the 25th to arrive.

Childless or not, what are your favorite parts of Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas and/or Kwanzaa? And what do you do to make the winter holidays joyful for you and your family?

And, are there parts you don't like so much? What do you do to minimize or avoid them?

Regardless of what parts of the winter holidays you love (or don't), I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

If Jack Sprat had Crohn's Disease

I was raised in the 1970s in one of those families that ate every meal together. While food was rarely fancy, my mom always prepared a balanced meal that contained a starch, meat protein, some sort of dairy (invariably a glass of milk) and a vegetable. My mom occasionally experimented with amazing (Chinese fried chicken) and disastrous (lion's head meatballs) results.

As a married adult who tends to play the caretaker role, I've bought into the idea that my job is to cook for my family. But, my husband has a particularly advanced form of Crohn's disease, which leaves him with mercurial eating habits. He doesn't have enough small intestine left to have much use for vegetables or any other food with any measure of fiber. (His body cannot process them.) The speed at which his body processes his meals means spicy foods tend to cause discomfort, as does anything with pointy edges. In this same vein, his body doesn't absorb bad nutrients the way mine does (or most other people's do). So, processed food, cheese, fat, sugar - all fair game.

On the flip side, if left to my druthers, I tend to cook vegetarian meals for myself, particularly Indian and North African flavors that I'll serve with brown rice. And loads of butter,  salt and spice. Oh, and I'm lactose intolerant. So high doses of dairy are taboo.

So, if left to our own devices, my husband and I would eat completely different meals.

But, because I have this belief that cooking for my husband is one of the ways to show I care for him, I've figured out how to make meals we both will eat. The meals we share are likely to be composed of animal protein with white rice or pasta.I'll cook a veggie for myself, or if it is one of the few veggies he'll eat (spinach, asparagus, cauliflower, peas), I might OVERCOOK a vegetable for us to share.

While I'm cooking, BMG might snack on some cheese, while I drink wine and sample from the meal as it simmers. When we serve dinner, BMG will take a portion of the meat we've cooked and a triple serving of carbs. And me? I'll eat a generous serving of meat and vegetables and a light helping of carbs. For our dessert course, I'll continue with another serving of beer or wine, and BMG gets dessert - often an ice cream novelty or candy.

When I'm preparing meals for us, I'm often reminded of the classic Mother Goose rhyme, Jack Sprat:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
his wife could eat no lean.
So betwixt them both,
they licked the platter clean. 

But, with slightly different words:

Jack Sprat ate carbs and crap
His wife? The wine and greens.
So betwixt them both,
they licked the platter clean.

Recanted

I've written extensively about my childhood and its influence on my as an adult.

I've written so much about my childhood, that a friend once said, after reading my blog, "Your family reminds me so much of Jeanette Walls' family as described in The Glass Castle."

While I need to be mindful of hyperbole, I can say that my childhood was apparently wackier than most.

Yup, my siblings and I ran with scissors while sucking on lollipops throughout our unattended home. While my single mom worked multiple jobs to provide for her five kids, we populated the neighborhood like a band of English school boys following a deadly plane crash.

But we always did our chores first.

My mom knows she did a good job raising her kids. And she also knows she was lucky.

On those occasions when I've reminisced with my mom about the crazy that was my childhood, she has been reflective. "It is amazing that none of you got into more trouble. I am glad that none of you made such bad choices that you ended up in jail, with an addiction, a family before you were ready, or serious illness or injury." (My therapist has said the same thing.)

And recently, she has been adding the following, "I believe each of my kids has an extraordinary work ethic. This is part of what helped you become the people you are today. And I'm sorry that I taught you that work comes before pleasure, that you can't stop to smell the roses before you finish your chores, that getting things done is the goal of life."

Wha?! Recanting the primacy of the almighty list?!

She continues, "Getting things done is important. But it isn't the goal of life. The goal of life is to have fun, enjoy friends and family, seek out and appreciate beauty. I wish you - and your siblings - could unlearn just a little bit of that work ethic I instilled in you. Before its too late."

Carol has spoken. I'm going to cross "Write blog post" off my list of things to do and go have some fun.

Park N-Shop

I had to take the strengths finder aptitude test for work and discovered that I am an "achiever."  What this means is "By the end of every day I must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about myself."

Big surprise.

I was raised by a list maker. Every day she would make a list of things that needed to be done. When my four siblings and I were old enough to read (and do chores), my mother would make lists for us too. "You can't play until you've done everything on your list" was her mantra. To further cement the importance of lists in our lives, we even played games that started with making lists.

Park N-Shop dealt each player a set of errand cards. The object of the game was to run your errands more efficiently than anyone else. The game board was a mock-up of a downtown square, and you rolled the dice to see how many sidewalk squares you could move to get to your next destination. Park N-Shop was such an influential game in my family that it became part of our vernacular, slang for being more or less efficient than one would like. As in "I am not park n-shopping very well today."

In Park N-Shop your errand cards functioned as your list. and one of the core strategies of Park N-Shop was to review your cards and plot out the most efficient route for tearing through downtown.

Luckily, I also married a list maker.

We just made our list of things to do this weekend, and have finished negotiating the first leg of our weekend errand running. We will drive to the farmer's market. Buy whatever vegetables (or other goodies) we want. We will then store them in the car while we walk to a local watering hole so BMG can pick up his football cards. We'll then walk back to the car, and head to the mall to return something and look for a new bookshelf for the living room. On the way back, we'll stop at Bed Bath and Beyond so I can get the new floor and carpet steamer I've been wanting. Once at home, we'll move the clean sheets from the dryer and make the bed, and move the wet towels to the dryer. Then, I'll clean the bathroom (including steam cleaning the floor).

Boom!

This achiever feels satisfied today.

15 literary influences

There is a meme circulating on Facebook right now. It invites people to list the first 15 literary influences in their lives - in under 15 minutes.

Because my husband, BMG, asked, here are mine, organized by the type of influence they had on me:

Stories I remember reading in my childhood:

• Carolyn Haywood - Hers were the first mindless serials I remember reading obsessively. To this day I still find an author I like and then inhale her/his books. The author du jour is Deborah Crombie. I continuously stalk the library shelves for books by Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child, and Jonathan and Faye Kellerman
• Ray Bradbury (ONLY because of the short story "All Summer In A Day," which I had to read in 4th grade. It horrified and fascinated me and I've never forgotten it.)

These two guys wrote the first "adult books" I ever read:

• Stephen King - "The Stand" was the first long form adult book I ever read. (My pal Erika gave me the Stephen King gateway drug, "Night Moves." Yup, I mean business when I read
• John Irving - My aunt loaned me her copy of "The Cider House Rules," which started a ridiculous love affair with his work and helped me become a feminist. "A Son of the Circus" was nothing but irritating to me, then I learned that John Irving has an elitist side IRL, and the love affair ended. 



These authors wrote books I read during my college years - some because I had to, others because I wanted to. All introduced me to new ideas and world views that had an impact on me:

• Margaret Atwood - "The Handmaid's Tale" was on the reading list the summer before my freshman year
• Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World"? Woah. 
• William Golding - "Lord of the Flies" is still a useful cultural reference today. Go banana.

Yep, I love to escape inside a good, all-consuming fantasy world, and these are the masters, IMHO:

• Johnny Gruelle - Boy did I get lost inside the Raggedy Ann and Andy books of my youth. Perhaps these books helped launch my love affair with gnomes? 
• William Goldman - "The Princess Bride" rocked my world. If you haven't read it, you need to because it is pure genius. 
• J.K. Rowling
• J.R.R. Tolkein - I read "The Hobbit" while camping and backpacking in Yosemite National Park. The redwood forests are a terrific place to to imagine the world of hobbits really exist.
• Gregory Maguire - "Wicked" was the first and best. All the others he has written are too derivative of the first and don't come close to capturing the magic of his reimagined "Wizard of Oz." 

And just a few that can only be categorized as being the authors of memorable books that help me see the world in different ways:

• Amy Tan - "The Joy Luck Club" because it and her other books, like those by Lisa See, opened my eyes to the cultural peculiarities of the mother/daughter relationship
• Mark Salzman - I truly and seriously love the book "The Laughing Sutra" for helping me appreciate the value of adventure for adventure's sake.
• David McCullough - Who knew history could be so engaging?!

Which authors are on your list? Why? 

Elf on the Shelf: Savvy Auntie Edition

My sister tells her kids, ages 8 and 6, that the family's semi-feral cat would eat the "Elf on the Shelf." Their cat is a renowned hunter, so the kids believe this is the reason why there is no elf wreaking havoc at their suburban Baltimore home, tattling on the kids to Santa and the elves.

But this does not mean they are off the hook when it comes to good behavior in the weeks leading up the Christmas.

My sister does not need a successful commercial enterprise, masquerading as a Christmas tradition (in spite of being fewer than ten years old), to keep her kids in line during the holidays.

It used to be, before the age of the Internet and cell phones, merely humming a few bars of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was enough to keep Christian children (and their non-secular counterparts) on their best behavior throughout the month of December. When I was a kid we KNEW that he knew if we'd been bad or good, so we had better be good, for goodness sake.

I think children are a little savvier than we were back in the 1970s. And my youngest sister KNOWS her kids are savvy consumers of parental legend.

So every year, right after Thanksgiving, she changes my contact name and photo in her cell phone from "Auntie Clownface" to "Santa Claus."

And then I start getting random text messages and cell phone calls, from my sister, ostensibly to Santa, asking for verification that I am in fact real, that I did in fact shake her son's hand at the local tree lighting ceremony, or I did receive her daughter's light mailed just a week ago. They always start with a "Hi Santa" greeting, so I know it is time to turn on the "ho ho ho." So I glibly reply, savvy auntie that I am, with a recapitulation of her message, affirming that the alleged incident (e.g. shaking Santa's hand at the local tree lighting, or an incident of mischievous behavior at school) did in fact occur, followed by a reminder to the kids to be good because I'm watching them carefully from the North Pole.

I love being able to do this for my sister because she lives 400 miles away, and I rarely have the opportunity to be hands-on in my support of her parenting. I love that this happens effortlessly. One day, maybe three years ago, I randomly received a text addressed to Santa and just picked it up and ran with it. We never rehearse, I never know when a message is coming, and I haven't dropped the ball on her yet.  And nearly 35 years after an early end to my belief in the physical manifestation of Santa, I am still delighted by my child's eye view of Santa and the magic that happens at the North Pole.

Are you a savvy aunts or uncle who celebrates Christmas? I invite you to share this post with the parents of the little ones in your life, and invite them to play along. It is a great way to get the effect of elf on the shelf, without kowtowing to the relentless pressure of developing new, hijinks-fillled tableaus to showcase the elf's worst behavior, and it is a wonderful way for you to be involved in your siblings' Christmas traditions beyond gift giving.

I gotta fever...

I have taken my temperature no fewer than half a dozen times in the last 35 minutes. Because I need to know if I have a fever. Because having a temperature or bleeding from the head are the only legitimate indicators of illness.

I learned this quick and easy set of diagnostics as a latchkey kid growing up in Central NY. My single mother's work schedule as an underwriter for a regional insurance agency meant that my four siblings and I got ourselves off to school AND handled the after school routine sans adult supervision.

And if we didn't want to go to school? Or we wanted to get out of some afternoon obligation? Or wanted a little adult attention? Or maybe one of us genuinely felt sick? Well we'd start calling mom at work. Incessantly. And she'd start to get in trouble with her supervisor for the constant interruption. So, on the 5th or 10th call to mom at work she'd hiss into the phone, through clenched teeth, "Unless you have a fever or are bleeding from your head, you are not sick. Now STOP CALLING."

Therein lies the extent of my medical training.

And now, nearly 35 years later, I'm almost nearly obsessed with taking my temperature.

Today I feel sick. Laryngitis, sore throat, stuffy nose, headache, ear ache - a generic upper respiratory infection manifesting itself in multiple ways. But I haven't yet registered a fever. So I can't stay home from work. But I'll keep taking my temperature. A girl can dream, right? Crazy, fever-induced dreams.

Spinach Balls

For at least 30 years I've enjoyed my mom's recipe for Spinach Balls, a "back of the box"-style appetizer that combines frozen chopped spinach with cheese and packaged stuffing mix into a delicious cocktail party snack.

While my mom was visiting over Thanksgiving, we made a triple batch of spinach balls, which I promptly froze. Every time I'm invited to a party where I'm due to bring a food to pass, I defrost a ball of spinach balls for the appetizer table. And every time I bring spinach balls to a party, I am assaulted by guests with chopped spinach dangling from their teeth mumbling, "These are delicious! Can I get the recipe?"

So, here's the recipe.

1. Heat the oven to 375-400 degrees.

2. Mix together:

• 2, 10 oz packages of chopped frozen spinach, cooked & drained well
• 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup of stick margerine, softened
• 1 box of cornbread stuffing.

3. Form into bite sized balls.

4. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes.

5. Enjoy!

They can be baked and frozen in advance. Consider vaguely undercooking them if you plan to do this (so they don't dry out when you reheat them).

There is nothing healthy about spinach balls. Except maybe for the fact that they'd be even less healthy if made with meat. Which is why I'm thinking about adding chopped, cooked bacon the next time I make them.

Yum.

The Art of Partnership

Are you good at negotiation? I'm not. And it seems as if no one in my personal circle is either.  Let me share two examples from literally the last four hours of my life.

In scenario one I'm planning to head to NY to visit my family, including four fantastic nieces and nephews. It has been two days since I've sent a potential schedule of activities for my short trip to the four adult members of my family - after several days of cajoling from them. In my note to them I suggest on the first night the kids might head to my hotel for picnic and swimming. Getting no feedback from anyone, I then text a sibling to suggest that maybe a picnic that first night at her kids' favorite playground might be better. Eight hours later, still nothing. (Eight hours is a long time to respond to a text given the speed with which people communicate nowadays, particularly when the other conversant is one who was eager for "a plan.") So then I call. This is how it goes (excerpted to reduce boredom).

Me: Did you get my text?
Sibling: Yeah. It has been really busy at work. I can talk a few minutes now.
Me: So what do you think? About picnic in the playground?
Sib: Well, I'd already told the kids about the pool (me - didn't really we had decided that - it was a suggestion) and they're really excited to see their cousins.
Me: Would your kids like some one-on-one time with me?
Sib: They're pretty excited about the pool and their cousins.
Me: So they don't want one-on-one time? Okay. And if they want to go in the pool we need to figure out how to do it so they aren't trooping in and out of our room. BMG has to do a three-hour conference call that night.
Sib: Well, I guess we can go to the park. I'll have to talk to the kids about it to adjust their expectations.
Me: I didn't say they COULDN'T go in the pool. I just said we'd need to do it in a way to prevent trooping in and out of the room.
Sib: They've never done that. (me - we once spent an entire day at the hotel pool, trooping in and out of the room. I've had her wet kids in my bed. not an issue, just not for this trip) I just want to talk with the kids before responding to you. I'm sure we can go to the park.
Me: Sib, are you listening to me? The pool is fine provided that BMG's call isn't disturbed.
Sib: OK.

In scenario two I'm following up with BMG on an offer he made to do very easy video editing for me at work; I need to have a title page and end page added to a video produced by colleagues at work. I've given him the movie file and asked him to try to get to it within the next 36 hours. I've moved on in my life, made dinner, washed dishes, started laundry, had a glass of wine, chatted with the neighbors, watched some TV. I've come back into the living room after being in the basement. The TV is on mute and BMG is staring at his computer (his usual pose).
BMG: What did they do this video in? Three frame, four frame?
Me: Huh?
BMG: This video what did they do it in?
Me: Are you talking to me? (I seriously thought he was video chatting with the guy who is his partner in a nascent - and awesome - video production company.)
BMG: YES! I'm talking to you. What did they do this video in?
Me: I don't know. Are you working on this now?
BMG: Yes. Come look at this.
I sit down.
BMG: So what do you need?
Me: Branding at the beginning and the end. I didn't know you were working on this right now. I can get you the stuff you need.
I head to my computer, six feet away.
BMG: So what do you want it to say?
Me: Are you typing? Didn't I just say I'd get it to you? I need a minute to get my head in the game. I didn't know I was going back to work right this moment.

In the first scenario both my sister and I assume at different times that simply because someone made a suggestion that suggestion needed to be the decision. This is so frustrating to me. In most cases I crave  discussion about things like family plans. I crave the discussion because I want to hear what makes the hearts of my sisters, brother, mother, nieces and nephews go pitter pat. And I want to find a way to make the most people the most satisfied with our family time. To have one person's suggestion become the plan - sans conversation from others - means I (a) miss out on learning more from my siblings, and (b) we don't find a way to try to get what we all want. A child of divorced parents, I know I felt as if I had to do whatever my mom wanted me to do in order to keep her from leaving the family too. So my modus operandi is "Do whatever the other person says, no matter what. The risk is too great to counter with a different idea." Pretty sure other siblings operate the same way.

BMG knows this about me. And he has a very dominant personality. Not a classic alpha male, but he takes up an enormous amount of space - usually joyfully. But the second incident is a classic between us - he is ready to do what he wants to do right now and I (a) need to know exactly what he's doing, and (b) ready to ask "how high" when he says "jump." So my family background is great for him.  In the midst of pulling the video content so he could finish his quickie for me (for which I am grateful), I actually sat at my desk and whimpered.  I wished BMG had said, "I want to work on this now. I need X, Y and Z from you to get this done. When can you get this to me?" And then I could have said, "You're awesome! Thank you so much! Give me 20 minutes to pull it together starting right now." Instead, I was caught off guard, felt as if I needed to rush because the video editing boat was going to leave without me, and, worse of all, was jolted back into work mode when it is SO hard for me to wind down.

I crave a feeling of partnership with all of my loved ones, a feeling of collaboration that comes from a spirit of adventure.

So...what would you advise to help me get to this place, besides taking a daily dose of Xanax? Seriously. I need help here.

How to spend a windfall (or yet another way my childhood shaped my life)

My best friend and next door neighbor from childhood, Cindy Scott, and I practically shared a birthday. Mine is June 4 and hers is June 6. We also shared friends, so it was natural that we'd share birthday celebrations.

What we didn't share was socioeconomic status. I was raised by a practical and powerful, single mother. My father was the prototypical deadbeat dad, and our financial situation fluctuated wildly. By contrast, Cindy's parents remained married until her mom's death in 2005, and they were solidly middle class. Her family had Oreos, and bought cold cuts from the deli counter, which was proof to me that Cindy's family was in fact, rich.

Which leads me to my story.

One year, right after Cindy and I turned eight, we were going through our birthday loot. Me? I got $5 in a card from my Gramma. And Cindy? More like $20. In the spirit of continuing our shared birthday celebration, Cindy's mom offered to take us both to the local K-Mart to spend our birthday money. My mom agreed and told me to buy socks. Little did she know that Cindy had generously agreed to share her money with me. So, in 1978, with $25 and our eight year old desires, we headed to the Big K. And we came home with Sean Cassidy posters (dreamy), giant DIY color by number posters with lux markers, and handfuls of other impulsive and age-appropriate shwag. I remember feeling unfettered pleasure and the sense of having everything I could ever want.

But the feeling did not last long. Because I got into trouble for squandering my windfall on something I wanted rather than something I needed. (My mom would say she was trying to teach me responsibility rather than introducing me to self-denial and guilt, which, nearly 35 years later, continues to dominate my financial life.)

And now my current dilemma.

I recently won a $50 gift card to my favorite store in the universe, Wegmans.

So what do I do with it? Spend it on a treat, or save it for something I need?

What would be a treat? Take out from one of their on-site restaurants for me and my friends, a fancy cake and fixings for a nice dinner for my upcoming birthday, or a flower arrangement for myself.

What are more practical uses? Snacks and supplies for my next family gathering in upstate NY, supplies for baking and wrapping Christmas cookies this year, birthday and other cards to have in hand for sending to loved ones, or supplies for the house after the renovations at completed.

What would you do?

10 things I learned from my mother

I didn't shower today. I spent the day in my gym clothes; I cleaned the house and and went for a hike. At about 8:00 PM I headed into the bedroom to fold clothes and remembered it was clean pajamas day. And then I realized I could NOT put on clean jammies without first taking a shower. I learned this from my mother. Saturday was the day we changed sheets in my childhood household, which meant we all got baths on Saturday, so we didn't crawl into our fresh sheets with dirty bodies.

Here are ten more lessons I learned from my mother:

 1. It is a waste to throw away moldy food or bruised produce. Try scraping the mold first or cutting out the bad part before sacrificing the food.
 2. Sticking your finger in hot candle wax is a federal offense, because it can burn off your fingerprints. And everyone is required by law to have fingerprints. (This is similar to the "Swallowed gum is never digested; if you continue to swallow gum it will eventually pile up in your body and pop your head off" lesson.)
 3. One isn't *really* sick unless one has a fever or is bleeding from the head. And then it is SERIOUS.
 4. Snickers are the most delicious of the commercial candy bars.
 5. Conformity is not admirable (neither are ostentatious displays of wealth).
 6. Charity - real or perceived - is admirable.
 7. Never pack a cooler for a day trip. Lunch meat, cheeses and other items get unappetizingly soaked.
 8. Be conscious of what underpants you are wearing under what article of clothing; patterned panties under light clothes is tacky.
 9.  Polite slang for a penis is a "horn." (You interpret this. My mom can't explain it.)
10. Homemade cookies are more delicious and virtuous than store bought. In fact, homemade anything is more delicious and/or virtuous than store bought.

"I have a question for all you parents..."

"Other parents: how did you handle yada yada, if/when it occurred?"

If your friends are anything like my friends this is a question you've seen a gazillion times on Facebook.

And...I find it annoying.

Why?

Not because parents are asking for help. Goodness knows we can all use more help with nearly everything we do. And I have great admiration for the work parents do - work they do with inconsistent role models, no instruction manuals, no training. Nope, that's not it.

This is annoying because it presumes that those of us who haven't gone the parenting route don't have any experience that might inform their question.

Let me make myself clear.

• I'm trained in social work and public health. I spent four years studying and doing work in the field of mental illness, infectious disease management, human behavior change, and human and organizational development.
• I am a sexuality educator who has been trusted by complete strangers to help their pre-teens as they navigate the world of sexual and gender identity, sexual expression, and love of self and other.
• I worked in public education for nearly six years. In my work I regularly talked with families about their hopes and dreams for their children's education and aspirations. I also talked with teens about their experience of school and their aspirations. I was a generalist and was required to know the current trends and literature about the PK-12 educational process, special education, school choice, art and music education, recess and school lunch politics, PTA/PTO organizing, the college prep process, etc.
• Prior to this job I worked for nearly four years for a nonprofit that helped people of tremendous wealth come to terms with their financial circumstances. Many of these people were parents who sought to find ways to help their children have balanced and generous lives because of their circumstances. In my work I listened to them and directed them to resources to help them realize this dream.
• And now? Now I work for a nonprofit that helps parents of young children develop, practice and maintain habits of reading together as part of healthy individual and family development.
• I am an auntie to six little people on my side, and six on BMG's side - now ages two through 16. I've observed five siblings and their five partners parent twelve children. I've listened to each one work their way through the "disposable versus cloth" diaper debate, home school versus public versus independent debate, you name it, I've heard it. 
• I also offer my own unique and supportive relationship to each of my nieces and nephews, as well as (although to a lesser extent) the children of my friends.

My point? I know a shit ton about kids, families and parenting. I don't know any of this from the experience of being a parent, but it doesn't make my knowledge and opinions any less valid.

And, because I don't have kids, it is highly likely I have more time. Time to read your questions and thoughtfully respond.

And, because you are my friend and you have kids, I understand that much of you life centers around your children and your ever evolving role as a parent. Being excluded when you pose your Facebook questions just to other parents doesn't inspire me to learn more about the person you are as a parent.

So, when people direct Facebook questions about their parenting journeys exclusively to parents they are discounting all the experience people like me - who aren't parents - can bring to question with which they are grappling.

Dear friends. Keep asking questions. And please don't exclude me. I want to be involved in your life and I just may have a perspective that helps.

My ♥ Belongs to Wegmans

My hometown grocery store, love of my retail life, opened it's first store in Massachusetts today. (Unless you live under a social media rock you already know Wegmans opened in Northborough on October 16, 2011.)

What you may not know is that this store is 47 miles from my house. One way. The travel time is nearly 1.5 hours. One way.

I live within three miles of three other grocery stores. Go seven miles further and you find three more grocery stores. That's six grocery stores, that I'm aware of, within ten miles of my home.

And now, today, after having made the three-hour round trip journey, where I shopped and laughed for four hours, I cannot imagine shopping anywhere else.

I forgot to buy paper towels and plastic wrap at the hometown market today. Yet I cannot bring myself to drive the 1.5 miles to the nearest grocery store, park the car, and walk through the sad, fluorescently-lit aisles. I just can't. It depresses me.

94 miles round trip is a ridiculous and wasteful distance to travel to buy groceries, particularly when I can do the same household errand in 3. That's 1/3rd of a tank of gas versus 1/100th of a tank of gas. My conscience won't let me make the hometown market my one and only.

But my ♥ belongs to Wegmans.

Guess will be living without paper towels for a little while.

Recipe Box

I have a tin recipe box, given to me by my mother when I was a teenager. The original gift came with a set of recipe cards that I promptly filled up with favorites from my mother's recipe books and my grandmother's memory. Over time the box became bloated with recipes torn from the newspaper, sloppily copied down on post-it notes, and printed from emails sent from friends.

I love this recipe box. It houses my mom's recipe for baked beans, written in a shorthand only I can understand. Two copies of a scone recipe that I first learned while on a hiking trip in the White Mountains of NH. I have recipes for Copper Pennies (aka carrot disks cooked with brown sugar) written in my grandmother's spidery script, along with all of my family's Christmas cookie standards. The box continues to grow. Over the summer I added the recipe or BMG's mom's curried rice salad.

Back when I started collecting recipes I did so with the intention of turning to the recipe box as my source for cooking inspiration. I now use the Internet as my primary source for recipes, along with the small collection of interesting recipe books I've amassed over the 25 years I've been cooking.

When I thumb through the recipe box, crowded with little slips of paper filled with delicious (and largely unfulfilled) intention, a pragmatic part of me says, "You've never prepared that recipe for Italian chicken stew you clipped out of The Washington Post in 1990; recycle that slip of paper!"

I don't think of myself as a particularly sentimental person. Except, apparently, when it comes to my recipe box.

And now for an immature moment

My jaw dropped a few moments ago, when I learned that BMG had never heard this popular nursery rhyme:

"Artie Farty had a party
All his friends were there.
Tutti Fruitti blew a beauty,
And they all went out for air."

Please leave a note in the comment section if you have heard this before. I want to figure out if I had the warped childhood, or if BMG is the deprived one.