Weekly Affirmations

June 26,2011

I was aschool teacher for 18 years. When I decided to leave the classroom, it had little to do with Principal Artigue’s observation: “I could hear you from across campus.”

I stared at him, befuddled. Was he complimenting me or criticizing?

“Yeah, isn’t it great!” I responded as I breezed into class.

No, I left teaching because I was bossing around the bagger at the grocery store. Teaching middle school had made me, well, assertive about how I wanted things done. But this was going overboard.

So, it wasn’t until I was chatting with my colleagues at the county office of education and one of them shushed me that I realized, my voice was on full-volume even when speaking.

It was been five years since I left the classroom and I have re-calibrated the volume on my voice to normal conversation volume.

Unfortunately, my ears have recalibrated too. They expect soft tones and soothing volumes. This has nothing to do with my age or the years of dancing next to speakers at dance clubs or listening to earphones on full blast. It was to do with my evolving sensibilities. I have learned to like the more subtle things in life.

I also am a bit hard of hearing. It has nothing to do with my age, but probably lots to do with the rest of the above list. So when spoken to in a subtle tone, I only catch half of what you say.

I have found that this is fine, because most people really only want you to smile, nod, and laugh when they laugh when they are talking to you and I am great at that.

Unless the person talking to you is your husband, who happens to be not just a classroom teacher, but a coach.

The smiling and nodding and laughing thing does work with him when he’s talking baseball or gambling or boating. Except, because he is sitting so extremely close and is so incredibly loud, mostly I am grimacing.

“Turn down your voice,” I ask politely.

“More ….more… more… good. Now what were you saying?”

I am beginning to wonder if my “assertiveness” had less to do with bossing around eighth graders and more to do with my how dizzy I am because the world is revolving around me and what I expect from it.

Lucky for me, like attracts like.

“You’re awfully loud,” I told my husband while we were out to dinner.

“I know, isn’t it great,” he responded with gusto.

This week I will recognize that close and loud often travel as companions.

June 19, 2011

Guest Blogger, LeAnn, shares a bit about herself:

 For 10 years,  I wrote for a school and city newspaper, and wanted to be a rock journalist.  I spent a lot of weekends in Hollywood, interviewing and seeing upcoming rock bands, until I took a Literature class in college that I loved.  After this, I changed my major to English Literature and read a lot.  When I graduated, I got a job as an English teacher, which I had for 10 years.  I considered myself super-lucky to get a job as a Creative Writing teacher at a high school because I had brilliant students (for the most part- ha!) and was proud to be the advisor for the school’s literary magazine, which earned high praise.  Since staying home with my two daughters, I’ve subbed a lot, ran several creative writing clubs and classes, and keep writing for myself.  Now that my girls are older, I’ve taken some UC Extension Writing courses, have joined a writing critique group, and will try to publish a novel I’ve been working on for 20 years…

                For many reasons, I am a clutter-y person.  I love to save and see memories. My life coach said I have to create chaos for myself when there is none because that is the environment I grew up used to – I would rather read and write than clean. Plus, I have no idea how to organize my crap. 

I read the articles about filing, about keeping memories in my head instead yada, yada, yada, but it doesn’t help.  And I do want to clarify that I’m not a dirty person.  There are no crumbs or dirty laundry lying around my house- there are papers and mementos and kid artwork and girl scout forms and – you get the point.  So, through the years, I’ve learned to put stuff I need to deal with immediately in my calendar but then that starts overflowing and so I make the usual pile on the dining room table and then company is coming so I hide that stuff in a box in a closet so I can clean the surface of my table, living room and visible house.  My family and I have a joke – we refer to our “table” or “house”  in quotes because too often they are virtually unusable as a table or even house, unless a house is meant to hold clutter.  Isn’t this embarrassing?

                Well, I was having a major spring cleaning moment one weekend because I was hosting my sister’s baby shower.  I frequently volunteer to host events or parties because this is the only time I clear up all the clutter.  These “moments” are not enjoyable – I am more manic than usual and go around our house like a crazy momma with five heads and ten hands.  Why can’t I mop the kitchen floor, straighten up my closet, and assign the girls tasks to do with follow up supervision all in the same three minutes of time, after all? 

                So, in the middle of all of this, my hubby Dave (who deserves a medal of honor, by the way) sat me down and made me eat, take a breath, think things through, when I have my sanity-saving idea.  By this time, I had gotten the clutter that stands between my normal living standard and my standard of a perfectly clean house to one pile of stuff in the corner of the dining room when I noticed that if this one pile was gone, I could finish polishing the wood floor and pretend that my house was clean inside and out.  Yes, I was enabling myself. 

The last time we had a big party, I hid everything in my RV and that worked well for a long time.  My family referred to the RV as my clutter office. But, wouldn’t you know it, one of the shower attendees was coming from out of town and had to stay in the RV.  Yikes!  I then recognized the downside of hiding crap in a place that is supposed to be usable – there will eventually come a time when  it all had to be dealt with.

                Panicky, I told Dave that if he would buy me a big storage box that happened to be on sale at Target, it could temporarily house the offending pile and bring me peace of mind, end the cleaning frenzy taking over our abode, and restore our marital tranquility.   He was skeptical but he did it because who doesn’t want marital tranquility?!?  He was probably wondering, “How will this large box be different than the several smaller boxes that are full of stuff in the attic, carriage house and every closet in the house?” Believe me, I would have thought the same thing, if I hadn’t been temporarily incapacitated by my need to clean.

I’ve often thought that all the boxes full of stuff could be thrown away or set on fire with no consequences whatsoever, but it’s not actually true.  Just last week, I had to find a creative writing assignment I used 12 years ago in the box upstairs so I could use it in a class I was subbing.   Yesterday, I found a paper my daughter needed for girl scouts on the right side of the 3^rd box that was being temporarily stored in the RV, and I could go on and on with examples  because, this is the really amazing thing… even though I have lots of stuff in lots of different places,  I know what’s where.  With time, I can find any picture, video, paper  that anyone needs.  It’s freaky and frightening… it really is.

                After putting everything in the box that Dave bought and finishing the inside cleaning, my house looked great.  Of course, the family knows that the house will stay like this until the party and then slowly slide into chaos again.  But, it’s a good chaos. I console myself knowing that our girls are creative and imaginative because I focus on them and family “museum” walls and life adventures more than cleaning my house and throwing everything out. 

I didn’t leave the working world to be a maid… I left teaching to be a mom who taught my own kids and this involves a lot of paperwork and pictures and plans and, well, stuff. 

I thanked Dave for my box and told him when stuff is “outta sight, outta mind”, it makes me so happy.  When it dawns on me that “osom” can be phonetically pronounced as awesome. 

How appropriate.

Suddenly, I had an OSOM/awesome box.

 Three months later, it still houses various family treasures outside and outta sight for me.  I say I’ll clean it out this summer to use it for swimming pool storage instead, but who knows?  Just last week I dug out a PTA roster from and yesterday I retrieved a paper needed for my dog’s registration. Yes, it’s in a box stored in the backyard, but I know exactly where everything is.

 Who says a clutter-y person can’t be efficient? 

This Week I will rejoice in my efficient clutter.

June 13, 2011

Every week I wonder, what will I write about this week… And usually something comes to me, but only after I have convinced myself that I could take  week off and no one would even notice, except maybe my mom.

Writer’s Block really is just about the pressure, the pressure to be clever and entertaining and to believe that I have something in my life worth musing over.

Then there is a week like this week when I am confronted by someone else’s blog and laugh out loud at it (thanks Jennifer) then spend the week wondering if I could just rip off her ideas (plagiarism is the highest form of flattery … but losing credibility in the  eye of your peers is the lowest feeling of shame – ah to strike the right balance).

So, tonight, I am giving into the desire to beg off, and steal.

Thank You Jenna Marbles, I hope you don’t mind… but for my regular readers, remember, not everyone finds the same things funny, so beware….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpwAtnywTk

Enjoy.

This week I will overcome my writer’s block so I can entertain my faithful readers next week.

June 5, 2011

So, the cherub graduated high school this week. And it made me begin to wonder, when exactly do I have to stop referring to my baby as my cherub?

I also wondered why other parents are sad when their children grow up.

I have friends who cried their kid’s first day of kindergarten. I, on the other hand, relished the idea that he was actually in the care of a competent adult who understood small children.

There was that one day, though, when he didn’t come home from the bus stop. I walked up and down our street a few times, then called the school to find out that the bus was on-time and had already dropped off my cherub, who sauntered home an hour and forty-five minutes late to announce that this all could have been avoided if I would simply give him a cell phone so  he could call if decided to go to a friend’s house after school.

“Or you could be a normal five year old and come straight home from the bus stop because your mother is the center of your universe and you can’t wait to see her after being gone for three whole hours,” I responded quite calmly.

He just shook his head like I was speaking jibberish.

And perhaps that is why there is no sadness in my heart at this huge milestone in his life. We have both understood since he bit me while breastfeeding, that we were negotiating parting ways from the moment he was born.

There was the day soon after he was born when I said to my husband, “I wish he was back in me so I could take better care of him.” Dearest hubby wondered more to me than to himself if I hadn’t better see the doctor about post-partum depression.

But, that is the hard truth. From the moment the cherub entered this world, my job has been to prepare him for being on his own. Sure, I have done the same tightrope walk all parents perform trying to balance between caring for the cherub and pushing him to take care of himself in age-appropriate ways.

Though there is little agreement about what age-appropriate ways actually means. Many consider meindulgent though I always point out that if I lived in Italy, I would be harsh in my parenting – so it is all relative and I am not one to judge another’s parenting decisions, nor their emotions about graduating.

All I can speak to is my own decisions and emotions.

So, as public school becomes a memory I prefer to be grateful for the great memories, thanks especially to Mrs. DeWees, Mrs. Boatman, Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Horn, and all the coaches at YHS. I also prefer to be excited about the future and the cherub moving ever closer to becoming a self-sufficient adult.

Of course, part of my lack of sentimentality may have to do with denial. When I announced to several colleagues that my baby was graduating this week, they asked “kindergarten,” “eight grade”? When I told them high school, none of them commented on my calling my 18 year old a baby, at least not verbally.

He is still my baby, though he is a grown man. And he is still my cherub, mostly because of that denial thing.

This week I will enjoy being in a limbo between being the parent of a high schooler and a parent of college student. It is summer vacation for someone, after all.

May 31, 2011

As I was driving around town last week, I saw this sign: “Take 20 years off your marriage” with a phone number below.

Now, that caught my eye. Instead of the usual posters about looking for a real estate student so the teacher can invest all your money in properties but since she’s the teacher, she gets the majority of the rights to the place or about making over $500 a week from home after you invest over $2,000 and only after you’ve been hitting up friends, relatives and complete strangers to buy your shake product, this poster intrigued me.

As I continued to drive, I lamented the fact that whoever hung the poster did not hang it at a stop light, but rather on a telephone pole in the middle of a street carrying fast moving traffic. I didn’t have time to even read the phone number, let alone write it down.

I wondered if there was a website I could visit. Something like 20yearsoffyourmarriage.com. I wondered what would be on that website. I started to imagine what I would put on the website if I had come up with this brilliant idea. I mean, after 25, soon to be 26, years of marriage, I think I should know what would help to bring it back to year five or six. Here’s what I think has kept my marriage – fresh, young, away from divorce court:

1. Secrets. Yes, I know that all relationships are built on mutual trust and open communication, but seriously, there are some things you should keep secret. Like, hemorrhoids. I do not ever need to know about that. Go to the doctor, take care of it. Keep it to yourself.

2. Separate bathrooms. Nothing adds mystery to a relationship like separate bathrooms. I get to be left wondering how exactly it is that you keep your face so cleanly shaven, and everything else that goes on in a bathroom is kept a mystery… including exactly why you burn candles so often.

3. Unexpected gifts. It’s probably best that your spouse not buy these for you, unless you want to end up with CD’s of music you don’t like or bikinis that are too small (better than too big, yes, but still!). I have found that buying yourself exactly what you want, wrapping it up and putting a card on it to yourself from your spouse is the best unexpected gift to receive. Your spouse does not expect to have given you exactly what you wanted, and can be rather pleased with himself, or herself, for being so thoughtful. When the VISA bill comes in, just reminder lover that he or she needs to pay for that thoughtful gift, and everyone is happy.

4. Broken glasses. The hardest thing to overcome is how we just don’t look like we used to. But, poor eyesight helps that tremendously. “Accidentally” step on those glasses and suddenly all you will hear from your spouse are compliments about how great you look. He or she may have a few black eyes or broken teeth from running into things they can’t see, but that is a small price to pay.

I thought of a few other things that were triple x rated, then embarrassed myself thinking such things and felt twenty years younger, and a bit flirty when I got home that night.

I was determined to find out the advice given for taking 20 years off your marriage, even contemplating how much money I would spend to have these secrets divulged.

The next time I was driving in the area, I was prepared. My notepad and pen lay ready on the passenger seat. I drove in the slow lane and wore dark sunglasses and a floppy hat so no one would recognize me, instead thinking I was a frail driver going so slow. I pulled along the curb and looked up.

Much to my surprise, the sign read, “Take 20 years off your mortgage.” Really, how very boring!

Then I got to thinking. Twenty years off my marriage is probably not such a good idea since all my good ideas for being happily married came from those twenty years of trial and error. Who wants to start all over again?

This week I will enjoy the predictability of my marriage and be glad for the twenty plus years that have gotten us here.

May 23, 2011

I listen to motivational tapes occasionally, usually when I feel like I need some motivation. I learned a long time ago that if you learn one new thing, then the price of admission was worth it.

A few weeks ago I purchased Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” (www.thesuccessprinciples.com) and I learned one new thing.

I didn’t learn about how perseverance is the key to success. I knew that.

I didn’t learn that it’s important to be very clear and precise about your goals if you want to reach them. I knew that.

I didn’t learn how it’s important to do at least five things toward your goal each day. I knew that.

What I did learn is that I am pretty mad at gravity.

Jack was trying to impress on me, the reader or listener, that it is important to accept the facts of my life and move on from there. He did a great job of  using the analogy of how no one every gets mad at gravity; they just accept it and move on without grumbling or grousing about it. It is what it is and we deal with it.

I don’t think Jack has met an overweight middle-aged woman. I don’t think Jack has met me.

I’m pretty mad at gravity, first about my weight.

Did you know that at higher elevations, there is less gravity? I feel sorry for my friends living at sea level because gravity is what causes us to “weigh” anything and stronger gravity means you “weigh” more. I have taken advantage of this little known fact and live well above sea level – about 3200 feet above – and am working on my plan to move higher into the mountains to lose a few pounds.

Just think, without gravity, there would be no such thing as weight and I wouldn’t have to search through People and Star magazines looking for famous people’s weight so I could feel either good about myself or bad about myself, depending on whose weight I find.

Yeah, I could do without gravity personally, and not just because of the whole making me “overweight” thing, but also because of the whole saggy body parts thing.

At the age of 45, I have a fabulous body, in the spa or pool when everything is magically lifted back to where it was meant to be. Seriously, if God wanted us to have saggy body parts, we would have been born with them.

Therefore, gravity is the work of the devil!

And, I think there are plenty of women who agree with me, and plenty of plastic surgeons making a killing off this whole mad at gravity phenomenon.

So, sorry Jack, I’m willing to accept the circumstances of my life, like how I have some extra wrinkles because I tanned too much as a teenager and how I have cellulite because I love chocolate chip cookies. But I do not accept gravity. Think about it.

When people talk about being elated, they walk on air. When people talk about disappointment, they are brought back to earth.

So, I think lots of people are pretty mad at gravity, it’s just one of those slow burning resentments that people outside the family don’t recognize like how my mom loves to point out the time in third grade when I told her at 8:30 at night that I had volunteered to bring cupcakes to school the next day.

Everyone who hears the story for the first time tells me, “She’s just kidding.” Yeah, she’s kidding like I’m loving gravity. People in the know, know.

So, Jack, you might want to consult with some middle-aged women before you pick  your analogies.

Your book was worth the price, because I did learn one thing. I learned that I am actually pretty mad at gravity and plan to focus my midlife crisis on escaping gravity. I wonder if NASA needs astronauts.

This week I will recognize the simmering resentments I hold for things that I can’t change, and choose to make fun of them instead.

May 15, 2011

I remember clearly, several years back, watching my husband flirt with our young, beautiful waitress and watching her try mightily to conceal her disgust.

My husband and I are both big flirts. I remember when we were first dating - as we were walking past Mrs. Fields Cookie shop, he told me to wait right where I was.

I watched him walk over to the counter, talk with the young woman working the front counter then walk back over to me with a cookie, just for me, procured simply by flirting. I was amused at the time (it took years for me to fully reflect on the scene and come to terms with the fact that I had married a man willing to sweet talk his way into most things free rather than just pull out his damn wallet … but that is another blog!).

And, I didn’t feel threatened because I happen to enjoy flirting myself.

So, I recognized with a tinge of regret that fateful day in the restaurant that our waitress saw my husband as a dirty old man flirting, probably assuming he had bad intentions, and he may have if you count sweet talking his way into an extra order of onion rings as bad intentions.

As soon as we were alone I leaned over and told my hubby, “She thinks you are a dirty old man. Quit flirting.”

To which he replied, “No she doesn’t,” happily munching on his free onion rings.

But I never thought the tables would be turned.

I never thought that I would witness a man’s face twist into the hideous shape of a smile hiding absolute disgust.

Yet, the tables are turned and though I may not have witnessed the hideous spectacle described above – my failing eyesight and all – I am self-aware enough to know that my flirting is making others a bit uncomfortable.

Recently I teased a man that he had beautiful eyes. This may or may not have been true, remember my failing eye sight and I was not close enough to the man to be able to see his eyes that closely. What prompted the comment was his comment that he had been out late the night before and his eyes were so blood shot.

“Oh, you have beautiful eyes,” I said, really just trying to make him feel better.

To which he replied, “My wife thinks so, too.”

Really?!? Does she think you don’t know how to properly respond to a compliment, too? I wondered.

Then later, when I thinking about how odd his reply was, I realized, this man thought I was flirting and was making it loud and clear that he was not interested in … whatever he thinks flirting leads to. I think it leads to some nice giggles and maybe a wink, but nothing more. But, he wasn’t even interested in that – whatever! Especially since I was not even flirting with him, just being blandly nice to wrap up our conversation since he reeked of his night before that gave him those blood shot eyes anyway.

But, then, recently, a colleague I hadn’t seen in months was passing through the hall, saw me, stopped and told me hello.

“Well, you look great,” I told him because it had been months since I had last seen him and not that he didn’t look great the last time I saw him, but at our age things can turn for the worse rather quickly, so it was more about acknowledging  that he was still keeping up. Okay, I may have been flirting a tad.

This still looking great man then launches into a long story about how he and his wife are working out and really loving it, blah, blah, blah.

All I really needed was a “thanks” and maybe even a “You look good too” but apparently what I was asking for at my age is a dissertation about the man’s marital status.

Yikes. Yet, there is no one in my life to lean over and tell me, “He thinks you’re a dirty old woman.” Not that I’d believe that person anyway. These are things you have to figure out for yourself.

This week I will keep my interactions with the opposite sex purely neutral of compliments or suggestions to avoid the implications of flirting.

May 8,2011

For the third Mother’s Day in a row, I spent the morning at the grocery store. But.. this year my hubby came with me. Not because it was “my day.” He kept reminding me “You’re not my mother!”

Nevertheless, three different gentlemen made direct eye contact with me and wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. One man even helped me load the 40 pound bag of dog food onto my cart.

Where was my hubby during all of this? How should I know? I’m not his mother.

Actually, he was at the meat counter planning our Mother’s Day feast while I shopped for the week.

And it was a pleasant surprise. If you remember, the last two years at the grocery store, I lamented on this very blog about how bothersome it was that the store was full of women on Mother’s Day. This year, except for a few other women, it was mostly men. Of course, they were men who seemed intent on wishing me a Mother’s Day, even though clearly I am not their mother.

Perhaps I just have that mother look. You know, the dark circles around the eyes from years and years of a lack of sleep – actually I go to bed like clock work at 8:45 and don’t  even wake until the next morning to look bleary eyed to the driveway to see if my cherub even came home the previous night. My dark circles are from drinking too much caffeine, which I deserve because I am a mother.

Perhaps it is the maternal glow I have about me, you know, that glow that settles around your waistline and in the jowls of your face. Or maybe it’s just that instead of dealing with my feeling of maternal inadequacy I eat chocolate chip cookie dough.

Perhaps it is that perpetual smile I have on my face, you know the smile that comes from knowing that the gift you have given the world is a kind human being who will contribute to the world in positive ways. Or maybe that smile is really a sh*t-eating grin because my cherub is graduating in a month and, despite what everyone keeps telling me, my job as a mother is almost over, or at least predicted to get a whole lot easier.

Perhaps it is the fact that I did not wear a wedding ring and these men were actually thinking they might be able to take me home to meet thier mom so she would quit worrying about them.

Whatever it was, I was pleasantly surprised at this change of status at the grocery store. And am expecting that the rest of my year will continue to surprise me

This week I will enjoy the rewards of motherhood,

May 1, 2011

Imagine my excitement when I saw this notice in my SPAM folder, “Bill My Parents.”

Immediately I began dreaming of things I was going to purchase then send the bill to my parents, things like a face lift. I mean, really, they should pay for that. Sure, sure, my mom warned me about the damaging effects of too deep of a tan, but she did NOT hold me down and apply sunscreen like any self-respecting parent who doesn’t want to be billed later for a facelift would have done.

Then I thought about billing my parents for a full-time, live-in cook. Of course they were my full-time, live-in cooks while I was living at home and this is exactly why I should be able to bill them for this service now. Seriously, if they wanted me to learn to cook, they should have let me starve a few meals so I would be motivated to learn how to cook. A feast of pancakes cooked by Dad on Saturday mornings, so that I ate so many I went back to bed to read until I could move, and weeknight dinners with mashed potatoes and roast and rolls and salad by Mom, really, why would I even be motivated to learn how to cook in that paradise?

Or maybe I would bill my parents for all the charges I ring up at the local bookstore. Seriously, what were they thinking instilling in me the love to read? Yeah, it’s true that Mom took me to the library, but it’s also true that I love my books so much they become part of my family and I can’t bear to “borrow” something as precious as a book. Yeah, they should be billed for that.

Or, I might just bill them for the vegetable garden I’ve been wanting to put in, and hired help to take care of it. If they didn’t want to be billed for this expense, they should never have exposed me to fresh vegetables out of the garden. What do they expect, me to enjoy store bought radishes rather than fresh from the garden and washed-off-by-the-garden-hose-to-savor radishes?

Then I opened the email and realized that the site was about managing your credit cards so your kids couldn’t bill you for things you didn’t want to pay for.

Darn!

But, come to think of it, there should be a site called Bill My Kids, and it should be is a monthly billing service for all those years of providing home-cooked meals with fresh from the garden vegetables and trips to the library, sometimes twice in one week, and advice-not-taken fees or whatever it is we owe our parents.

Thanks goodness there is no such service, because I’d have to get another job to be able to pay back my parents… as if that is even possible.

This week I will be grateful for all my parents provided me so that I don’t have to bill them for anything now.

April 25, 2011

I spent the last week repeating the mantra, “I’m sick of being thrown a bone. I want the whole steak!”

Then, alas, I was thrown another bone.

For most of my life, it has felt like I never get the steak, just someone’s leftovers.

While running in high school, I earned the county record in the two mile, only to have it taken away the next week by my own teammate.

Also in high school, I was voted to the Homecoming Court, only to get second place.

In college, I was on the dean’s list, but never on the earned any special awards list.

In my profession, I have been nominated for awards, but have never come away with the prize. I have applied for premier jobs, but never got them.

In my writing career, I have published, but never hit the success mark I’m aiming for.

So last week when I got notice that I had not been chosen for a fellowship I applied for, it came as a bit of a disappointment, but no surprise. What did come as a surprise? Since my application was “excellent,” I was thrown a bone.

I was offered, and accepted, a scholarship to one of the writing colony’s week long seminars instead. Which I gratefully accepted, then realized, once again I was munching on a bone and no steak. (One friend did point out it was more of a drumstick than simply a bone, but steaks don’t have drumsticks… so I’m not going to muse on that point.)

I told this story to a wise sage, okay one of my friends with better perspective on my life than I have, and she told me, “Collect those bones and pretty soon you’ll have a whole skeleton.”

Since I am always looking for an angle, I’ve decided to take her advice and collect my bones, create a skelton and sell it to the local museum. I probably won’t make a lot of money or become famous for it, given my past experiences, but it is one more feather in my cap… wait, now I’m mixing idioms and am becoming thoroughly confused….

Being thrown a bone so I can stick a feather in my cap isn’t so bad, at least I’m not being thrown a fast ball I can’t catch, getting hit in the face, ending up with a broken nose and needing surgery …. though I could use a nose job… according to my loving husband and son.

This week I will be happy with the bones thrown my way and hope for a steak in the future.