Did you know that I've been a professional expediter?

It's true!

I hadn't thought about that for years, but James texted me this around Thanksgiving: "I wrote this on Nov 9 when I finally got serious about working on our picnic table: 'Mostly because of Laura. She is the driving force in our relationship. And she's going to visit her parents tomorrow to drive forward all their needs, because that's what she does.'"

It's his nice way of saying that I'm bossy, something he has gently suggested multiple times in our relationship. And it's true.

Bitches Get Stuff Done - Tina Fey & Amy Poehler On Weekend Update GIFfrom Weekend Update GIFs

When I lived in Las Vegas, I worked briefly (maybe a year? maybe less) for a small tech firm that operated out of the back of an accounting office. As such, we didn't really have a "front desk," so I wasn't the receptionist. I did answer phones and did some help desk stuff when clients called in with issues. But my main job was to make sure the three techs we had on staff freaking showed up at appointments. I was really a babysitter, but my official job title was "expediter." I drove things forward.

This is a season of my trying to drive things and feeling pretty good about it.

D needed to get to DPS before going on a trip, and while they usually handle that stuff on their own, I was able to cinch a same-day appointment so they'd get their new license before TSA needed it.

I had James send me his references and just started blanketing the town with job applications (figuratively, online). Since December 11, I've applied for 24 jobs for him, he's had 2 interviews, and he has an interview Monday that will likely lead to a job, as they've already issued a conditional offer. Is it a job making about 10% annually what he made in 2023, the last year he worked full time? Yes, indeed, it is. BUT it's not $0, which is what we're bringing in at the moment.

NOW, if I can just work that magic on myself, I'll be pretty jazzed. There's a job that I've applied for before that I know will be opening up at some point in the new year. It's close enough for me to walk, and it's super part time but, again, it's not nothing. So send me some of that good mojo, and let's have a great 2026!

Happy New Year!

Hey, in case you didn't notice, 2024 is over! 

Also, that's irrelevant because the calendar is subjective and we're in the same winter we just started a couple of weeks ago, so calm down.

I was getting over food poisoning on New Year's Eve, so although James took Mal to the store to pick out a bunch of yummy hors d'eouvres kind of things like we normally have, I just ate a bowl of pumpkin pasta and called it a night.

The next morning, I was feeling better and did enjoy a variety of bites for breakfast. We also set off some "fireworks" on New Year's Day because Mal wanted to.

 

That was cool. 

I feel like I've let Mal down a bit this season. Christmas felt kind of off, and because we didn't want to spend too much money... we didn't. I got sick on a short/cheap trip to Waco to use up our PogoPass, and when we got home, Mal told me that I'd been acting "differently," which he said meant more easily irritated. I feel like I was just sleepy and dizzy a lot, but it's definitely been a weird kind of month or so.

I've started a couple of blog posts that I haven't finished because... well, do we really need a whole post about how my hair is curly now when it didn't used to be? No. Just trust me. Here's the abbreviated version, with me and my natural hair back in August versus 5 years ago or so. 

I'm sorry, am I aging BACKWARD??

I have actively resisted New Years Resolutions for most of my life (that whole "calendar" thing, and the fact that any day is a good day to try to start (or stop) something new (or old). So it's totally random, but I've decided to work on disciplining my tongue. I didn't grow up cussing, and I didn't cuss for a long time. I remember the day I did the first time, and it was glorious. I was working at Sam's Club in Las Vegas, and that was a crazy job environment. 

Anyhoo, have never sworn much until the past couple of years when I've just gotten into the habit. And I don't want that to be my default because it's no different than saying "totally" about everything, to the point that it becomes meaningless and sounds like you don't have a vocabulary. Wish me luck, ***... no, I'm not going to say it.

James is still job-hunting. Or is about to get serious again now that the holidays are over. We're still doing fine. The longer he goes, the longer he has to work before we can afford retirement, but we're trying to take some advantage of his off time now to do things together. Mal definitely enjoys having his dad around, and will comment on his not being there when we do little jaunts like we did last weekend. 

Every night before bedtime, James goes into Mal's room for their nightly catch-up. It's a cool tradition they've instituted since Mal turned 9. I hope they keep doing it for a long time.

D is still working retail, and is making plans to move out of Texas.

We'd like to, as well, eventually... but there are a couple of things keeping us here for the moment. Namely, my parents. And the fact that Mal is heading into adolescence with a great core of friends from school and his homeschool group. This middle school age is a time when it's very difficult to connect with other kids (reference point: D when we moved to Austin at about this same age), and he'd miss everyone if we took off.

Here's our December album, if you're interested.

Mal's ready to film "Mal Wars 4," so I have to go be a cameraperson.

It's the Most Weirdiest Time of This Year

I have started to blog about ten times since I wrote almost a month ago. Kind of a lot is going on, and I have many thoughts about many things, obviously, but also I have quite infrequent moments of sit-and-write focusing that are available to me, plus I'm trying to finish two very good and very historically-detailed books that I don't know why I started concurrently... but there you have it.

We are continuing to be affected only in terms of convenience and normalcy by the coronavirus. My grandma has had to quarantine a couple of times since moving to a nursing home; my grand-nephew's dad was hospitalized and released with COVID; and my cousin, her husband, my aunt, and my uncle all tested positive after Thanksgiving. To my knowledge, everyone is on the mend, so that's good news.

My immediate family traveled over Thanksgiving, but did the same thing on the road as we do at home: masks when briefly inside public areas, and otherwise outdoors or only with our "pod." We drove to Port Aransas, eating common meals outside and each family renting a separate condo. It was a nice getaway.

I know people pooh-pooh "the third coast" as not having "real" beaches, but, man, it works for me.

Since we've been back, we've been taking advantage of outdoor Christmas stuff, such as our city's drive-through Christmas-tree lighting and the Wildflower Center's Luminations. We have tickets for Mozart's Christmas show and the Trail of Lights in Austin (it's drive-through this year, too). 

The other day, I got a little wistful when I saw a red Fiat 500 driving into the McDonald's parking lot... I was thinking, "That could be us, from the past, when we used to just go hang out at McD's so Mal could play and we could enjoy unlimited sodas." We're getting out to parks and meeting friends at places like that, but it'll be nice to get back to some indoor blowing-off-of-steam at some point in the nebulous future. Right now, Mal's regressed to his younger days' "nighttime crazies." He used to get SO active and engage in potentially injurious behavior late at night. He stopped for more than a year, but is back to it. I look forward to being able to pack him up in the car and take him to an indoor playground again. Here's hoping 2021 moves us toward that, sooner rather than later...

Resolve isn't all it's cracked up to be

At about this time in 1992, I had resolved to drop some significant weight. I did this because, after a Christmas weekend with my maternal family, my husband at the time seemed to have an issue with how the women in my family aged, in terms of body size, and even though he swore he never would have said anything to me about it, he finally did after I pressed him and wouldn't let him keep shrugging off the disdain that he was unsuccessfully trying to hide.

Side note: When I asked him why he never mentioned his problem with my weight/shape earlier, he said, "Because I was afraid you wouldn't marry me." At some point during this whole discussion, he pulled the car over and, crying, begged me not to leave him. I told him I wouldn't. And I didn't. For more than 5 years. But, honestly, now I see that it's really difficult to come back from the knowledge that your partner has a fundamental problem with something about you that is ingrained in your DNA.

I specifically wanted to share an incident I've been remembering lately.

For Christmas, one of the things James got me was a one pound Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package. Each cup weighs 8 ounces and is multiple servings. It's lasted me a week and I just ate the final bite. I've had it for dessert for most meals since Christmas, and I'm not tired of it yet. Perfect gift.

26 years ago, I swore off of most of the food that I loved. I limited myself to 1500 calories and 7 grams of fat per day. I also committed to exercising every other day no matter what. If you think about it, this is how many people's New Year's Resolutions shape up. I wasn't doing it for the calendar; I was doing it to "save my marriage." Actually, I was doing it to keep my partner from being disgusted by me, which, again, in hindsight, was his shallow problem and not mine. He expressed displeasure, and I had to do all of the "work" to assuage it. How effed up is that? Plus the fact that it lead to years of my feeling like crap about myself. And it probably barely registered on his radar. In fact, he probably felt like he'd done something constructive.

We'd gone to visit my parents one weekend, and I remembered a really good chocolate shop near where I'd worked at a daycare when I lived in town. We all visited, and everyone got chocolates except me. It wasn't my "cheat day." I distinctly remember asking to see my then-husband's white bag, with three perfect candies nestled into paper cups at the bottom. I stuck my nose into the bag and inhaled. I can still smell the rich chocolate smell of those bonbons.

My mom asked me if I was going to eat one, and I said no, that smelling them like that was just as satisfying.

Which, of course, it wasn't. But that's where my brain was at the time.

Now, I did lose a bunch of weight. I got a lot of kudos for my efforts. I was praised for having discipline and self-control, for being "healthy" and for approaching the culture's version of attractiveness.

It was all bull, of course, because I was not healthy. I was obsessed with food, obsessed with maintaining a lifestyle within a hamster wheel, running to retain the supposed love I'd earned with my efforts.

Worst of all was this: Anyone who knows me knows I adore chocolate. It and pizza are the foods I could eat for the rest of my life and not get sick of them for at least a couple of years. You guys know that. James knows it. I'm certain my ex-husband knew it. But he was okay indulging in something I would have very much enjoyed while I abstained out of loyalty to his desire for how I should look.

Do you see how messed up that is?

Every time we went out to a restaurant when he got off of work and he ordered steak and potatoes while I ordered nothing because it was after 6 PM, and the waitress asked repeatedly if I was sure I didn't want anything at all... he never encouraged me to eat if I were hungry. He knew my rules and enforced them with his quiet approval.

He was allowed access to things that would have brought me joy because his body was naturally smaller than mine. And he never once advocated for my pleasure as a whole person. He was more invested in his own social currency, having a trim wife.

MESSED UP.

As we launch this new year, if you feel the motivation to make life changes based on the very arbitrary changing of the calendar, then I urge you to examine your motivation for doing so. Trying to become the best version of yourself possible is admirable, and it's hard work. I'll never believe that shrinking is tantamount to "better" nor will I ever again buy into the notion that making fundamental changes to oneself in order to obtain or hold on to the affections of another person is a productive goal.

In 2019, be kind to each other and be kind to yourself. And if you encounter someone who is not extending you the same respect, it might be a good exercise to look into that, to have difficult conversations, and to set boundaries. Best wishes to all.

New Year, new adventures!

As is probably typical this time of year, I've been thinking about the passage of time. There is a song out right now that talks about a nostalgic desire to return to the "good old days." Man, I've never understood wanting to go back in time. I think it gets better and better as I move forward, so I'm super jazzed about 2016.

For instance: Just this morning, Mal and I got out and went to Best Buy to make a return, then to Chick-fil-A for (free) lunch (woo hoo!), then to the library to return and check out a couple of things for James. I remember very distinctly when doing any one of these things would have felt like a major accomplishment. Doing three stops today? No biggie. Fun. Love it. My boy is growing up, and I'm so happy about that!

Traveling on a plane and driving a few hours with him in the car over Christmas were all fine, too. A year ago? Stressful nightmare! We had some stress on this trip, but it wasn't because of my little guy.

He's starting to sign a bit, too. "More" was his first, then "all done." He also signs "shoes," "tree," "banana," which he uses for pretty much any fruit, "dog," and he made up a sign for "wash my hands." I've tried to teach him the sign for "nurse," but he doesn't do it on himself. Instead, he bangs his palms into my breasts, which isn't incredibly subtle. Oh well. Baby steps.

I'm pretty awesome.

He can also shake his head appropriately for "no" and "yes." If I say, "Look at Mommy, please," he literally never ever does it because he knows I'm wanting to make sure he understands something he's not going to like at all.  And he's finally gotten the bit about waving goodbye!

He says "Daddy" all of the time, but only "Mom!" or "Mama" if he's upset. *sigh*

Mal has gotten cuddly. He loves to hug and put his head on people's arms and shoulders. My mom brought him a doll for Christmas and he's had fun playing with that, changing her diaper, giving her hugs.

Daphne... well, I can't post pictures or tell you much about her because she asks me not to. She likes to keep her online presence at a minimum, and I respect that. I will say that so far, fourteen is going really well. I love that kid.

James' job got crazy right before Christmas, so we were extremely happy to have a full week with him! His office actually closes between Christmas and New Year's, so the whole week was a holiday, no vacation time needed.

We were planning a big trip in the fall but have decided (since airline travel period is stressful, regardless of how well everything goes, since the stupid pointless regulations are cumbersome and for some reason James always gets selected for the "personal" treatment... except on the way home from Phoenix when they pulled our our baby food because it looked "suspicious) instead to try to take advantage of the Texas things Texas has to offer.

For instance, we've never driven into Mexico. James has never been to the Space Center. None of us has been to the McDonald Observatory or Marfa. And it's been a couple of years since we went to the State Fair. So 2016 is our Year of Texas. We're going to take some long weekends and a few days here and there to explore.

(I just read the government's info on driving into Mexico; we might have to fly over and get away from the border a bit. Holy cow!)

Anyhoo, just a little update to let you know how we're doing heading into a new year. We had a great, healthy 2015 (no one went to the doctor the whole year!) and are looking forward to an even better 2016. I wouldn't ever want to go back to any other point in my life. These *are* the good old days.