I’m back from 10 days of me-time in California, and I’m shocked at how well my husband has done as Mr. Mom. Shocked! I don’t know what I expected – to see the house in a shambles, possibly even burned down? People fainting with relief ...
It's sad, when I think about how there really isn't anyone on my side of the family for my children to "know" (because my parents died, and the rest of them live in far-flung countries, and my sister lives across the country...). My husband's family ...
I’m picturing me alone at home, having dropped my children off at school and seen my husband off to work, when an F5 tornado hits. I’m picturing the fear and terror I feel about where my children are as I crouch in the basement and worry about them and my husband. When it passes, I climb out to find that my house is gone, my car is gone, the entire neighborhood is gone – everything I know is gone – replaced by an eerie, sunny silence. I have no idea how I would get from my house to my children’s school or what I would do then. Walk? Run? Catch a ride with a neighbor? Would I have a cell phone with me? Would my cell phone even work? The fear and panic and terror I would feel as a mother – on my way there…
The Plaza Towers elementary school was pancaked. They are still pulling people out of the rubble and there are many parents who are desperately searching for their children right now and my heart goes out to them. I can’t even begin to fathom this devastation.
If you want to send a $10 donation to the Disaster Relief fund via text message, you can do so by texting the word REDCROSS to 90999. You can donate as many times as you want.
Fi and I are going to California next week for a field hockey tournament with her school’s team. One of the activities that parents are encouraged to participate in is the hike. “An arduous hike.” Read the Rest »
I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday, but here it is again because for me, this is big.
Ohmygosh! OHMYGOSH!
You may know that my parents were immigrants from far-flung countries transplanted to California so I never had any extended family around, and very limited knowledge of our family tree. I always longed to know more about my family but my my mother closed the door on her Eastern European past and kept it bolted shut, pretty much.
Well…! Read the Rest »
This is an update to the post Hold On, I Have to Breathe that I posted about my old friend from high school, Tom, and his wife Heidi a while back. Tom isn’t doing too well – he is in hospice. Read the Rest »
I was just reading everybody’s status updates on Facebook and was reminded by my friend Sperk* that today is the 60th anniversary of the death of Maria Montessori. As I was reading her status update, by the end of the first sentence I said to myself Ado? You’ve got to share this post about Montessori on your Facebook page. (-: Read the Rest »
From my “How My Kids Make Me A Better Person” file.
This year I had no idea it was Earth Day until Ella came home from school and reminded me that it was. I think I was sitting down to get on my computer or something and she tugged me by the hand, said “Come on,” got a trash bag, and had me go outside with her to “clean up the Earth.”
It’s been a while since I last posted. To be honest I’ve been off the blog for so long that I was afraid what I would see in the comments when I got here. If I take a break from the blog, spammers flock to it like flies to shit. They seem to have a sixth-sense that you’re not there checking your comments for spam, so they come in droves, like this one from “Men’s Hair Removal Cream”:
I wonder if the Duggarmoms are after that poor spammer, too?
The other reason I’ve been off the blog is that my husband and I were talking about his career (he recently got a promotion which means that I now have to schedule time with him via his secretary, like Samantha on Bewitched!). So we were talking and I asked him what his Biggest Dream is. Because he is ambitious and we were discussing his career path, I assumed he would say something like, “To be General Manager of IBM,” or, “To retire at 55 with two Swiss bank accounts and a Leer Jet.” But he didn’t say anything remotely like that. He surprised me. You know what he said? He looked me straight in the eyes and said: “My biggest dream is to read your published novel.”
Me: “Are you kidding?”
Him: “No.”
Now, my husband is not a soppy romantic. Warm fuzzy words do not come tumbling out of his mouth very often and I like that about him. What he says isn’t by rote, he means it. His words stunned me, and got my attention. He has always supported my writing. He was there with me for the nearly six years it took me to finish writing my first novel. He was one of the first people who read it cover to cover, and he loved it. He was beaming with pride when I got a literary agent (not an easy thing to do!), and when Audrey Niffenegger agreed to write my cover blurb for me (!). He was there when we started getting feedback from editors and then: rejections. Audrey even brought my novel to her editor for me, and personally asked them to publish it.
