Yin and Yang

It was weekend-lite around here once again.

By 'lite' I mean we didn't get a full weekend since hubs had an early morning flight out yesterday.

Ugh.

You shouldn't feel too sorry for him though because

his view will be something like this for the next few days...

You shouldn't feel sorry for me either...

here's my awesome view...

Did I mention, ugh?

The plumber and tile guy (I'm sure he has a more official title) along with tile guy's assistant came to get the master bathroom shower re-do underway at the end of last week.

Things started off with a bang when assistant tile guy dinged my upstairs hall foyer ceiling as he was carrying the old shower doors outside...

Ruh-roh.

I've zoomed in here...the ding itself is small.

Unfortunately, not so small that it doesn't smack you in the face when you walk up the stairs.

And it's an actual gash as opposed to a scrape, which tells us that the entire ceiling will need to be repainted as opposed to patched.

Patching a ceiling is never smooth sailing.

Just to make things sightly more problematic...

that little patch of ceiling is part of a much larger space which includes our downstairs foyer, the family room and the upstairs hallway...

Its a whole lotta ceiling.

Plus (yes, there's more) the ceiling is two stories up on either side of the staircase which spells good times if you're a painter.

I'm thinking they will try for a patch but I'm pretty sure I will not be happy with that.

And I know for certain my hubs won't.

Other than that they were exceptionally neat and tidy.

I'm sure they'll make it all purty once the work is finished, but this sort of thing gives me a knot in my stomach.

Hubs happened to be home when the 'incident' occurred so he was able to talk to the tile guy but now it's up to me to 'discuss' it with the plumber who is the project boss.

I detest this sort of task.

I like for life to always be very pleasant.

Very pleasant with no unpleasant unpleasantness.

Hubs, on the other hand, lives for this stuff...tell me again why he's not the one negotiating repairs with a work crew while I lounge on a beach somewhere warm and lovely?

Okay, so technically he's working and not 'at the beach' in a - sitting in a lounge chair- kind of way but still, you know what I mean.

In other weekend news we finally found a mirror for our dining room wall.

I needed something above my server and am really happy with the way this looks...we still have to decide what's going atop the server itself but having the mirror up helps.

Let me tell you-hanging that mirror was quite the project.

Somehow hubs has thrown his back out (he claims he did it painting upstairs but I think that's his way of getting out of finishing off that last bedroom) and he's been in agony all week.

Did that stop him from hanging the 50+ pound mirror?

No it did not.

I'm sure whatever is wrong with his back is nothing a 12 hour flight can't fix.

Ahem.

So now tell me, is your fuse slightly shorter than normal when you and your significant other attempt a project like this?

A project that involves one of you barking orders while holding something extremely heavy and completely awkward while the other one snaps back that she is not a mind reader?

We used to have a boat and hanging that mirror reminded me of our days docking the boat.

We'd be floating gently towards the dock and hubs would begin telling me to grab ropes and bumpers and blah blah blah and even though we were on our boat everysinglesolitary weekend I would act like it was my first time on the water and would drop ropes and trip over his feet as he tried to keep us from smacking the dock.

I think you get the picture.

Hanging this mirror was a bit like that.

I think its partly because hubs is a perfectionist.

He takes approximately 637 measurements while we awkwardly hold the very heavy mirror up to the wall no less than 42 times, all the while trying hard not to drop it or ding the paint.

Then he measures some more to be sure it is 100% exactly centered because if that mirror is one millimeter too far left-right-up or down he will never be able to eat a meal in there.

He would not disagree.

I guess it could also be partly because I'm sorta clumsy.

And directionally challenged.

'Oh, you meant my left, I thought you meant your left.'

The good news though is that the mirror is up!

Once we got it on the wall we were pretty pleased with ourselves and we smiled and congratulated each other and admired our new purchase.

Disagreement?

What disagreement?

I tease him about his tendency towards perfectionism.

He teases me about my tendency to be clumsy and directionally challenged.

He's yin and I'm yang and together we make a whole.

And life is never ever dull.

Frankie and Annette

Daughter2 is on spring break this week.

She is in an undisclosed Florida city with 10 of her closest friends.

Relax....I know the city, I'm just not sharing it here.

In fact, I have the street address complete with house number because I'm a nagging mom like that.

Did I log on to google earth to check it out?

Perhaps.

Hubs and I agree that spring breaks back in the 'olden days' were a far cry from the spring breaks of today.

For starters, we didn't know anyone who took a cruise.

College kids couldn't afford that when we were in college.

Can they afford it now?

Mine can't and I'm not quite to the point where I'll pay for a cruise.

If I'm paying for a cruise I'm going to be on it.

And heaven help the families who find themselves on a cruise with 100+ college students.

Also, we didn't take a trip with our friends every single year.

Some years we just went home and hung out with the folks.

I went to uni a fair distance from my family and I enjoyed trips home.

Mom cooked my favorite foods and took me shopping...I slept in my own bed and saw friends and didn't feel cheated in any way by not having a trip to the beach every Spring.

My senior year in college I spent Spring Break in Ft. Lauderdale with four of my best friends.

We shared one small and tacky, but delightfully inexpensive hotel room and since it came furnished with just two double beds we took turns sleeping on the floor every night.

You had to step over that lucky person to get to the bathroom.

No renting gorgeous beachfront homes with jacuzzis and private pools and room to sleep 15 when I was a college student.

My dad would have looked at me like I had two heads had I even suggested such a thing.

Hubs was my boy friend back then and he had also gone to Florida with friends, however they were in Daytona Beach some four hours away.

I was always a responsible girl, a rule follower, and not a wild child.

But 20-somethings are 20-something and I was 20-something so one day I borrowed my friends brand spankin' new RX7 and drove to Daytona to see him.

By myself.

No cell phone.

No GPS.

No phone call to the parents letting them know what I was up to.

Oi.

My friend didn't think twice about loaning me the new car her dad had purchased for her...in fact, she suggested it.

And now, you are in for a real treat.

Because I am about to post a picture from that long ago day and unlike a lot of 'old' pictures around here I know precisely where this one rests....

in my husbands wallet.

Sometimes my hubs will meet a person who doesn't know me and when they inquire about his wife he likes to show them 'my picture'.

Then, when I eventually do meet these people who only know me from the photo, they scratch their heads and think that I cannot possibly be the 'wife' in the wallet.

If you meet my hubs someday he will very likely show it to you.

My hubs loves this picture.

When I was writing this post I had the photo ready to upload onto my blog and he came in the room, saw it, and got a huge grin on his face.

Honestly, when he looks at me, I do believe this is the girl he sees.

Back in 2005 we were in a little village in Italy purchasing a lovely table.

We had been happily chatting with the shopkkeeper when it came time to pay.

As hubs opened his wallet the shopkeeper caught a glimpse of my photo circa 1982.

He pulled hubs aside and in his oh so charming Italian accented English, with a worried tone in his voice, asked, 'What is this? You have zee beautiful wife....why you need zee girlfriend too?"

"This is your girlfriend in the picture, no?"

Well, if you want to get all technical, yes...it's his 'girlfriend'.

His girlfriend from 25 years ago.

The girl she was when she was just a girl.

Before she was a wife.

Before she married him and bore his children and shlepped from state to state and across the ocean with him.

I'm here to tell you that kind of stuff ages you ya know.

And also that Italian men call all women beautiful.

A reel has been playing over and over in my head this week every time I think of my daughter...

Is she being sensible?

Is she wearing sun screen and her hat?

She's so fair, I hope she's wearing her hat.

Is she eating right?

Has she spent all her money?

Has she spent all my money?

Is she re-charging her batteries for the second half of the school term?

As I run thru this laundry list of thoughts it helps if I try to remember my 20 year old self.

The carefree girl with the tanned legs and hair flying in the wind.

The girl making plans, dreaming dreams, and feeling excited for all that lay ahead.

The girl who was ready to take on the world.

The girl still lingering in the gap between adolescent and adult.

I hope my daughter is wearing sunscreen.

I hope she's eating and resting and re-charging.

I hope she's being sensible.

And I hope especially that she is tucking these friends inside her heart...

that she takes a picture in her head of these years where her hair flies in the wind and she too lingers in that most magical gap.

Wednesday Hodgepodge Mardi Gras Style- Vol 17

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge and our own little Mardi Gras...be sure to add your link to the bottom of my post and click around to see how the rest of the internets answered...

here are mine-

1. The season of Lent begins on March 9th this year...do you participate and if so, in what way?

I didn't grow up in a denomination where 'giving something up' was common, but I can appreciate the meaning behind that idea. I do like to focus my head and heart in the days leading up to Easter so I usually find a devotional to read that is geared towards that. This year I ordered a book called Bread and Wine-Readings for Easter and Lent which is a collection of writings featuring C.S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Martin Luther, and more.

2. Traditionally pancakes are eaten on the day known as Shrove Tuesday which is the last day before Lent (March 8th this year) So....butter and syrup? Blueberry? Chocolate chip? Ewwww, no thanks!! What's your pleasure when it comes to eating pancakes?

I like pancakes any old way but blueberry are my favorite. With syrup and a side of crispy bacon. Did we have pancakes last night? No, but if we had they'd have been blueberry.

3. Spring is coming. (It is coming, right?) What's your favorite springtime flower and do you suffer from seasonal allergies? That's two questions I know but they're lightweights.

Tulips...I love them and they are one of my favorite flowers period. I bought an unusual bunch in the market the other day...green and really lovely!

I've always had seasonal allergies but this year I don't even care...I am so ready for spring I say bring on the Allerest and the Visine AC and the sunshiny warm weather please.

4. "Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves." Author unknown. Agree or disagree? Why?

There are definitely people in my life who cause me to take a hard look at myself but certainly not everyone I know falls into that category. And I think when I am immediately drawn to a person its not necessarily because of something in me...it's generally due to some quality they posses. That quality could be something I lack or something I have in abundance.

I guess what I'm saying (see, even I don't know what I'm saying) is that for some of my relationships the quote rings true, for others it does not. Does that make sense? I hope so because answering this one strained my brain.

5. Since it's "March" and also the season of Mardi Gras...have you ever been in a parade? What's the best parade you've ever seen?

I've never marched in a parade but my favorite ones to watch are the slightly hokey home town 4th of July celebrations. I think of all those summers spent living in small town Maryland sitting on the curb with my little girls as the fire trucks and swim teams and scouts passed by. Candy was tossed, balloons were set free and miniature flags were waved to the sounds of a high school marching band....

Oh be still my heart.

Once the parade wrapped up we'd head to the pool for an afternoon swim before packing a picnic dinner and making our way over to the Naval Academy grounds..a

nother parade, this one with marching military men...

Afterwards my girls would comb the grass in search of four leaf clovers, turn cartwheels in the setting sun and hula hoop until it was dark....

We'd snuggle close together on a blanket and watch fireworks rain down on the beautiful Severn River.

I love a parade.

And summer.

And blonde headed blue eyed little girls.

6. You would jump up and down and shout for joy right now if someone told you_________?

...those same sweet girls, now fully grown, were standing just outside my front door.

7. How clean is your car on the outside? Inside? Is there junk in your trunk?

Have I mentioned the weather here lately? Yeah. Rain, snow, and sleet combined with salt on the highways do not a clean car make. We have rain with a chance of snow forecasted for Thursday so I'll probably wait until the weekend to have it washed. The inside isn't bad although it could use a good "Hoovering" due to the aforementioned rain, snow, sleet and salt you encounter everywhere you go around these parts.

For the record-there is absolutely no junk in my trunk.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

My mother in law has a birthday this week. I wrote a post about her this time last year which you'll find here...go ahead and click over...you know you want to.

I'm blessed in the m-i-l department...Happy birthday m-i-l!

Mardi Gras Hodgepodge Style

Happy Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or just regular old Tuesday!

Here are this week's questions for our weekly Hodgepodge...answer on your own blog and then hop back here tomorrow (Wednesday) to link with the rest of the party go-ers.

It will be like our own little Mardi Gras...see you there!

1. The season of Lent begins on March 9th this year...do you participate and if so, in what way?

2. Traditionally pancakes are eaten on the day known as Shrove Tuesday which is the last day before Lent (March 8th this year). So....butter and syrup? Blueberry? Chocolate chip? ewww, no thanks!! What's your pleasure when it comes to eating pancakes?

3. Spring is coming. (It is coming, right?) What's your favorite springtime flower and do you suffer from seasonal allergies? Two questions I know, but they're lightweights.

4. "Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves." Author unknown. Agree or Disagree? Why?

5. Since it's "March" and also the season of Mardi Gras....have you ever been in a parade? What's the best parade you've seen?

6. You would jump up and down and shout for joy right now if someone told you___________?

7. How clean is your car on the outside? Inside? Is there junk in your trunk?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Monday kind of stuff

Sometimes it's good to begin a new week with a list.

This is one of those times-

1. I have a dental appointment this morning.

What?

You thought this was going to be interesting?

I've been wearing the Invisilign trays for the past four months and today I'm finished with the lower teeth correction.

I'll be having a fixed retainer put in and no I am not fourteen.

The retainer is ultra thin and on the backside of my bottom teeth so pretty much invisible.

This is the latest and greatest recommendation for holding straightened teeth in place.

I wish it had been the recommended method back in 1975 when I had all the hardware taken off my teeth the first time, but better late than never.

I am super happy with the results.

I am also super happy to be done with the lower trays.

And especially all that extra saliva.

TMI for a Monday morning?

2. I was amazed at how much spring had sprung just 90 miles south of here.

My mom had daffodils popping up and buds on some trees.

When she walks out her front door she sees this-

and this-

We woke up to spitting snow.

I know.

When I walked out of my garage door this morning I saw this-

Trust me...it's way slicker than it looks.

And please just ignore those ugly black lawn bags sitting on the rocks.

They've been buried under snow since December and only came up for air this weekend.

On the bright side, the fence is still standing....

Still can't open it but at least we know its there and its upright.

It's becoming possible to avoid walking on ice out back.

The trick now is to avoid the mud.

Sigh.

3. That being said spring is trying to make an appearance here.

I know this is so because we've seen our very first sign-Alvin and the chipmunks have returned and are back entertaining us with their antics in the rock wall.

There is a family of five living there and they run and chase and dart in and out of the rocks just like a cartoon.

I guess they're a family.

I suppose they could just be a bunch of friends having a big time.

4. Work will begin on our Master Bath shower on Wednesday.

They will be removing tile and two walls of dry wall.

Oh what a lovely mess that will be.

Since my closet backs up to the shower wall I have added 'clean my closet' to my to do list.

I don't think they'll need in there but just in case, I don't want a stranger judging my shoe obsession habit.

5. Hubs and I went to see Just go With It on Saturday.

Jennifer Anniston is so cute.

She and I have the same figure you know.

Well, we would if I worked out 8 hours a day every day.

After the movie ended we stopped somewhere locally to have a bite to eat and there was live music playing so we sat some more.

They were an 80s band and they were pretty good.

I have not been out late listening to live music in a long long, long time.

It was fun.

And my girls would say 11 o'clock isn't late but hey, it is when you're me.

Enjoy your Monday!

Do as I say, not as I do

Do you have a 'mini-me'?

A child in whom you see a reflection of yourself?

I see something of myself in both of my girls but Daughter2 is what I often call my mini-me. For one thing, she looks just like I did at that age. People who knew me at 20 say it too and if I run into someone I haven't seen in a long time and they meet my daughter2 they are astonished at the similarity to my younger self. Sometimes when I'm complaining about some effect aging has had on me I freak her out by saying, 'This is going to be you, ya know.'

She laughs.

Kind of.

Oh there is plenty of me in my first born too but I think some of the strongest parts of my personality run equally as strong in my second born.

This is going somewhere, I promise.

I spent most of last week with my mom.

My mom lives in the same house in the same town I grew up in and I'm more than 30 years old.

Okay, more than 40 but whatever.

I've been driving a long time and when I'm at my mom's I do the driving around town and she likes to tell me how.

For some reason this really gets under my skin.

I might be just a teensy bit stubborn.

Ahem.

Anyway, my mom and I are really good until we're in the car.

She's a nervous passenger and she doesn't like to drive on the highways.

She prefers taking a bajillion back roads thru neighborhoods and such to get where she's going which is fine, if she's the one driving.

I prefer taking the highway or the route with the fewest turns so discussion always ensues.

Since we have no set timetable for reaching our destination and since I'm the one driving I don't understand why she cares which route I take.

She doesn't understand why I insist on driving on roads where there is traffic.

Back in January Daughter2 and I spent a couple of days at my moms and the three of us were in the car going somewhere.

My mom and I were having our usual back and forth about my driving and I whispered to Daughter2 that I didn't understand why my mom cared what road I took.

Sweet, smart Daughter2 whispered back-

"You know mom...sometimes you just need to do what your mom says."

Then she added-

"That's what you tell us."

Ker-pow!!

Oh don't you dislike it a lot when your children throw your very own words right back at you?

Last week as my mom and I were having our usual, 'You know this lane ends don't you?" "You know this road is only 25 mph don't you?" "You don't want to get on that road, they're working on it" nonsense, I flashed forward thirty years.

I thought, 'This is going to be me'.

I am so my own mother.

And Daughter2?

Well she'll be me.

Because she is.

Oh boy.

Why can't I take the bajillion back roads and go the long way round sometimes just to make my 80 year old mother happy?

Why am I so stubborn?

Pay attention Daughter2...don't be like me when I'm my mother!

Because I think we both know I'm pretty much already there.

Some people call me Maurice....

I've been at my mom's since Tuesday which explains why I've been mostly incommunicado from the blogosphere this week. I faked you out with my Hodgepodge posts, didn't I? Can't let the criminal element know I'm out of town....I'm certain they sit around reading my blog.

Anyway, I'm home now and it's Friday afternoon and I've opened my email inbox and my blog inbox and my facebook and WOW!...a lot happens when you don't check in regularly. I'll catch up this weekend but today I wanted to join Flashback Friday over on Linda's blog. You can read the full prompt here but essentially she's asked about what sorts of fads and expressions were popular when we were growing up. Since it's such a huge topic I've decided to focus on the expressions because I'm kinda all about words here.

I consider myself a child of the 1970's. My birthday and age aren't really a secret since I wrote a post or ten about my BIG day back in September. I'll go ahead and save you the trouble of doing the math and tell you I turned 10 years old in 1970. I'm sure my undying love of music from that decade is all tied up with the fact that it was the soundtrack to my adolescence. And also because it's the best music ever. Period.

When I read the prompt I started thinking about what words and expressions were popular back in the day and there were zillions. It's possible a few of them seeped so deeply into my vocabulary that I continue to periodically throw them out there today, not so much in public but definitely in my own home.

I asked my hubs what expressions he remembered and the first word that popped out of his mouth was, guess what? Psyche! I already wrote about his love of that term here so I won't rehash it now but wow, has it been around for 30+ years? Were the 70's more than three decades ago? Am I old?

C.B. radios were a big thing back in the 70's and came with their own lingo, some of which spilled over into everyday speech...Hey Good Buddy, Smokies (police officers) and especially 'Keep on Truckin' although I am pretty certain I never uttered the words, 'Keep on Truckin'. I mean, C.B. radios were big out on the interstate highways but not so much in the leafy suburbs of southern NJ.

The television show Saturday Night Live debuted in the 70's and many popular expressions made their way into our everyday speech as a result...'Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!' was huge. Steve Martin used it regularly and thus so did teenage America. He also used the phrase, "Everything copasetic?" and I still like that one.

Another word you heard a lot in the 70's was 'turkey' as in, 'Don't be a turkey.' Insulting, but usually meant in a joking way.

We could still take a joke in the 1970s.

How about the word, 'bummer'? Do people still use this word...besides me I mean? I definitely used this one growing up...'that's a bummer', 'what a bummer', or just plain 'bummer'. Oh, and also ripoff...that was huge. Because when you're a teenager and parents put the kibosh on your fun it felt good to shout, 'What a rip-off!!!' as you were sent to your room.

Another word that was huge back in the day was 'duh' or even better, 'no duh'. Said whenever someone stated the obvious which must have been often because I remember it becoming really tiresome. And it had to be said in a particular tone so that the person on the receiving end would be made to feel like an idiot.

Evidently Charlie Sheen is bringing it back, as in-'I'm a winner, duh.'

He's seriously not right.

No duh.

Speaking of drugs, ahem...when it comes to words the drug culture of the 70's also added to our vocabulary. I have a crystal clear memory of riding somewhere in the car with my sweet mom when Steve Miller's-The Joker started playing on the radio. My mom looked at me, her innocent and naive thirteen year old daughter, and asked, 'What's a toker?' I remember feeling nervous and embarrassed as I did my best to explain. Did I even know?

More importantly, what's 'the Pompatus of Love?' and why didn't she ask me that one. Isn't that the question most people ask when they hear The Joker? I still can't answer.

I could go on and on but I need to book. This was cool-city and I was stoked to be part of Flashback Friday today...it rocked to the max. I hope your weekend is decent and you get to hang and chill with your peeps.

Oh seriously, I never talked like that.

Okay, maybe that last bit might have been me but for the most part while I didn't use a lot of slang I did hear a lot of slang and those words and expressions are all tangled up with my childhood memories.

Have I mentioned my favorite thing about the decade was the music?