social butterfly or wall flower...

...or a bit of both.

So, today, I socialized. This is not something I do. In fact, just a few days ago, I was invited to go hang out and declined. (Yes, I was out of town, but I was also feeling apprehensive. I wanted to go, but still with the apprehension. Next time, definitely.)

Today, though, was a day to get out, to be a part of conversations, to even have myself as the focus of a few moments of discussion. This is nerve-wracking to me, but I did it and I'm glad I did. (Yes, I realize that I sound like a recluse or someone bordering on agoraphobia, but, well....)

We started the day with family time. Guess how we spent that time. Go on, guess. Did you guess 'walking?' Ding, ding, ding! Yes, we're the Boring Boringtons and we like to take long ambles that occasionally also include roller skating (for a whole ten minutes today...maybe) and retracing several streets in search of lost items (today's was a sun hat).

After that, it was home to change out of sweaty clothes (it was actually quite warm out there) and then on to our social engagements. First, we went to hang out with J and her daughter D. Cardo has been acquainted with J for some time now and she has been asking to meet Pic and myself. Last week, Pic and I accompanied Cardo to J's and we're planning on that being a weekly get-together. Pic has, once again, so wonderfully fallen in love and this makes me happy.

From J's, Cardo, Pic and I headed over to a nearby restaurant to meet up with my godparents, their great-grandaughter and her friend/sister (I'm not sure how the two would define their friendship, so I'll leave it at that). I really can't remember the last time we saw my godparents, and it has to be sometime within the last ten months, but it always feels like forever. These people have been in my life my whole life. They are some of the most loving, warm, accepting, open people I've ever known and I feel so incredibly lucky to have them in my life. I love that they are a part of Cardo's and Pic's lives too. The possibility of being close to them is the only draw for one of the schools I'm thinking of applying to.

I'm not ending this day on a sad comedown that I often feel after spending time in social situations. Rather, I'm happy. It's good to be happy.

a bit of pic

Last week, at a group activity, an opportunity for Pic to dance came up. The dance she chose? The Time Warp.

Excellently well done. Mamma of the Year for me...again.



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Note: I feel the need to point out that Pic has never seen Rocky Horror. I'm holding off until she's at least in elementary school...

a moment with sarah

[Target Women: Beauty Contraptions]

Feels good! Looks normal!

Cracks me up! (The commentary, not so much the perceived need for the products. Just thought I'd clear that up.)

blog sprint

One Minute Writer from Tuesday: What good thing could you have too much of?

Ben & Jerry's S'mores ice cream

I hate to say it, but it's true. Oh, how I wish it weren't.

checking in

Wow. October is looking dismal as far as posts. Also, as far as keeping in touch (that phrase always reminds me of yearbook signatures: v, it was really neat knowing you, K.I.T.!!!).

We have been out of town for a few days now. Pic and I accompanied Cardo on some business and then we spent some quality family time away from the quality family apartment. Okay, so we spend tons of quality family time together. In fact, of late, I have used my family and my family time as a blanket in which to wrap myself as I try to figure out if I'm ready to open the doors and the lines of communication and really have to talk to people about the abrupt departure for far-flung places and the equally abrupt return. It's nice here in my family quilt.

So, anyhow, I've made a decision. I've decided that my thirties will be my years to grow up. Yes, I know that I have a decade of college work under my belt. I've held numerous jobs in those same last ten years. I've been with Cardo for eight years and we've been married for six. I have a four-year-old. You'd think I'd have already grown up, or at least I'd feel as if I had. Not so.

So...my thirties. That gives me a bit more time to even get there and then an entire decade to figure 'it' out. I can do that. In fact, I have a lot of 'it' figured out, just not so much of the dotting of the 'i' and the crossing of the 't.' (Yeah, yeah, I know that was an awkward figurative trip I just took you on. All I mean is that I've got the big picture figured out -- I've had that down for the past twenty-five years or so. Now, I just need to begin filling in the details, hence the dotting and the crossing.)

Possibly pictures later. This means that I'll actually have to charge the camera battery which died at precisely the moment I was going to take a picture of a B&B Cardo and I keep threatening to go to. Ah well, it lives on in our imaginations (and, y'know, in all of its solid glory of actual existence).

Also, possibly a weekly dinner menu soon. We need to grocery shop. I'm hoping that happens tomorrow. Although what we buy might start to look different. Okay, not all that much different. I, along with the help of a certain journalist, somewhat freaked Cardo out today and he's all ready to go vegetarian. First of all, we barely buy meat. I don't really like to cook it. Second, I'm not sure that this new resolution of his, made in the passionate moment of hearing something disturbing, will really take hold.

Well, I just wanted to get back in the habit of actually posting here. I like the habit. I like the space. It's a great place to come to both vent and avoid all at the same time, a great place to put myself out there and to hide. It's my kind of space. Thanks be for the interweb.

notable days?

That question mark is there because I've been so tired that I've noted nothing here. Oops.

A year ago yesterday (the 10th, it was a Friday), this is what we were dealing with around La Casa B. Not fun times. Things have been pretty calm since Cardo's five-and-a-half day stint in the hospital. He's still on medication, and he might be on that for years or forever. He might be off of it soon, if he ever has another follow-up with his cardiologist (he was telling me yesterday, he needed to schedule a check-up).

A year ago, I was relying on friends to help out with Pic so that I could go watch my partner lay in a hospital bed, trying not to beg to go home. He was miserable and I'll be glad if he never has to go through that again. I am glad that he hasn't gone through it since and that he came home. I'm still glad that we have health insurance. We're still paying the bill, but instead of another ten years, we have about another year to go.

On to not-so-daunting now? Okay. Yesterday or the day before, I don't even know for sure, was my ten-year high school reunion. I didn't go. (I hope that if I had, I'd at least know when it had happened). I thought about it for so many years (hey, I tend to live in the past and the future, which I'm working on, along with so many other things) and thought that I wanted to go. In the past several months, though, I wasn't so enthusiastic about it. There are definitely people I would have liked to have seen in person, to have caught up with, but only a handful or two.

We'll see if we make it next time around.

i may look like a kid...

...but I'm definitely not. The other day, at Costco, I got carded. Cardo was buying some riesling, his new favorite wine, but because I had used my Costco card at checkout, the cashier asked for my ID. As usual -- yes, this is a somewhat frequent occurence, although it's becoming less so -- Cardo joked with the cashier about how young I look and how people must think he's a dirty old man (his phrase). The cashier said I looked twenty and Cardo and I both immediately noted how at least I was looking in my twenties now. Then, the cashier admitted that she thought I was younger than that, but assured me that when I'm in my forties, I'll be loving this. I don't mind it now. If I stop to think about it, I find it amusing. I've found there's not much I can do about others' perceptions. Even when I trade my glasses for my contacts (which isn't that often anymore) and even when I dress up and wear makeup, people still think I'm much younger than I am. I don't see it. When I look in the mirror, I see how tired I look. How I look so much older than I did in my senior class high school picture (okay, so I was seventeen and looked about twelve). But, I'm so bad at guessing people's ages that I've just given up.

Yesterday, I was talking to my older sister and she said something about Rebecca Romijn, referring to her as a young woman (I had asked her if the stars of a new show were teenagers, and she told me they were young women). I told my sister I thought Romijn was in her forties (because I'm apparently clueless). Let me just pause a moment and say that I, by no means, think of forties as old. I would just describe a forty-year-old woman as 'a woman' and not 'a young woman.' Okay, then. Anyhow, my sister said Romijn was in her thirties, somewhere between my age and my sister's age.

And, wow, I thought, 'How close I am to being in my thirties.' I have this thought a lot. I'm not sure what to do with it. It's not like it really means anything significant, right? It just means my age will start with the number three instead of the number two. However, I do feel like it should mean something. Something like, I'll be a grown-up and I should have things in order, I should have things figured out. Perhaps I should. Perhaps I will. Perhaps that whole 'having things figured out' deal kind of scares me because it feels like settling or tying myself down or something. Finally, perhaps I should realize that I do have things figured out. I know where I am right now. I know where I want to be in a year and then five years after that and even five years after that.

Perhaps I'll focus both on that and on where I am right now: this place where I get to wake up every morning to Pic's demands that I get up let her watch a little tv because her room is clean; this place where Pic and I take long walks to the post office, the coffeehouse, the library, the park; this place where I get to spend this one last year with her before she's caught up in the whirlwind of school that, for some, lasts for decades once it's begun.

I've probably said this here before, but I'll say it again. Both in my life and here in the pond (ha!), I am trying to focus more on what's good, more on what I have right now. I often use this space to purge all the ugly going on in my head, but then it's out there infecting everyone else. I apologize for that. I'm not promising that I'll stop doing that, but I'll make a concerted effort to not do it so much. I'll also be making an effort to not mentally compare myself with everyone else and to not wallow in the results (because I can often only see the great parts of others' lives). And, if I stop putting so much energy into all that ugly, perhaps I'll be able to funnel that energy into reaching my goals. Duh, I know, but sometimes I need to write it out for myself to be able to really see it.