We savored a delicious dinner in a new to us spot. We lingered over dessert relishing in the intimate dinner for two. Upon arrival home, we tossed on a movie we had seen before so we can carry on the conversation with background noise. We slept in until our bodies ached with the grogginess of the late morning. Hot coffee was enjoyed while curled up on the couch in my PJs—tucked under an old worn quilt. It was the break we had been needing. Then the text came in.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 10 date night
It is not often that my husband and I get a date night. Back when we had no kids, we regularly went to dinner together. We would go to the movies. Then kids came and the need for childcare was always our holdback. Babysitters are expensive and we cannot always rely on family to be our pro bono childcare providers. But we would be able to get in the occasional date.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 9 lasagna
A year or so ago, my husband wanted to learn to cook a few meals. He thought it was good to know and would help ease the burden of always cooking which falls to me…or take out. We started simple with all things ground beef. Tacos. Sloppy joes. We kicked it up to chili. Then that kind of fizzled out with all the hustle and bustle of family life.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 8 Mornings are Hectic
I have three children. Each is as different as they could possibly be.
2023 SOL: 7 phoning it in
These little computers in our hands are specifically designed to suck you in. I remember when they first were announced I said I would never want to merge my phone with my iPod. I felt like it was putting all my eggs in one basket. What would happen if you lost it?
Yet here I am many years later using my phone to do…literally everything. If I cannot do it from my phone, I am likely not doing it.
Pay a bill? Get my phone.
Order food? Open the app?
What’s the weather? Let me check.
Who won the game? I have the score right here.
Getting out my actual computer, which is literally a fraction of the size of the computers of yore, seems like a gargantuan feat. Getting out of my bed to do it is impossible. It’s just not happening. Especially if it is after 7:30 pm.
How did this one piece of glass and microchips become the single most important thing I own? This past summer I lost my phone. Somewhere between my car and my house. I was in the garage. It seems like that couldn’t happen and yet somehow it did. The phone was in airplane mode. I scoured my car. I dumped out my purse. Twice. I cried tears of frustration. It had vanished.
I had no other choice but to go buy a new phone the next day. Luckily I was rocking an 8+ while the 13 had already been released. it was time anyway. But still the need of having to do it immediately sent me into a panic. I completed my transaction and I was relieved to see my data downloading onto my new device. I went on my merry way.
About a mile from AT&T, I heard my new phone ringing a familiar yet incorrect ringtone. It was alarm tone. Yet I hadn’t set an alarm yet. Did my alarms carry over to my new phone? And why was it going off at 1:43 in the afternoon? I pulled over and pulled my new phone from my purse. It was not alarming or ringing. My purse was.
How could that be? I dumped it out twice. I checked every pocket and zipper. I dumped it again. Empty yet still ringing. I turned the lining inside out.
That’s when I saw it. A huge hole in the lining and a weighted rectangle singing it’s song in the middle. So although my 8+ was close to becoming a relic, it was still perfectly functional. I was fine to continue using it. Yet I had literally just spent $500+ to replace the handheld computer I could not live without. For even 24 hours.
I guess that will tell you how much I rely on this technology I was so hesitant to embrace not all that long ago.
SOL 2023: 6 mindset bullshit
I’m part of a mom’s group that started as a friend wanting to connect to and help women. We were all strangers. Unless you count some limited contact in a mom centered FB group. Melanie started a private FB group for us and shared some of her amazing resources for us to get our lives Mostly Under Control. We meet virtually monthly. Typically this is done with an expert of some sort. Lately, as we’ve gotten to know each other more, it’s been just us supporting each other and gabbing a bit.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 5 weird stories
I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic grammar school and high school. We attended church almost every weekend. I know all the prayers and responses. The old school ones—I forget the new ones every single time. There is a rhythm in the Catholic mass that brings me comfort.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 4 fever free
It was about two years of tracking fevers and cycles, forty fevers, and I cannot even tell you how many bottles of Motrin and Tylenol. Sleepless night were a given and he practically lived in our bed.
Continue reading2023 SOL with FMF: 3 REACH
My reach is not long enough to get to you. Nor yours to me. Yet somehow you are always near.
No matter how much I long to hear your voice, it will always only be within my dreams that it will come to me.
Continue reading2023 SOL: 2 Pancake Supper
Yesterday afternoon when I got home from work, I was WIPED. I sat on the couch and soon found myself sliding down to rest my eyes. It didn’t take long to realize that dinner needed to be started immediately or I would have a bunch of hungry gremlins on my hands.
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Karyn In The Kitchen 