Ch ch ch changeeesss....

I heard an interview with a woman recently who was talking about some moderately difficult personal experiences and how she kept trying to get through them so that she could get back to her life.  And as time went by, and things evolved, it finally hit her: these experiences, these "unwanted intrusions" into her vie quotidienne, these WERE her life; that life is, in fact, the entire quilt weaving hard and easy, silly and sad, anxiety and contentedness into our collective experience.  Excluding one part as an aberrant event is to miss the whole crazy, inconsistent sine wave that life really is.

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Study Breaking Bread

Oh, Libby,

I’ve been studying a bit recently.  Which I’m pretty pissed about.  Why did nobody warn me 15 years ago that I was picking a profession that requires reoccurring certification and test –taking throughout my lifetime?  Where was that in the career counseling handbook? Because - and this is the honest-to-goodness truth - no matter how many tests I take, or years of school and training I have completed, there is always this looming, horrific fear that this, THIS, will be the test I fail.  This will be the time they ALL finally figure out that I’ve been just sneaking by the whole time, that I DON’T know what I am doing and that I truly am barely employable. 

I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat after a nightmare of walking into some exam, opening the booklet, seeing the first questions and drawing an absolute blank, realizing I had studied all the wrong material or that I hadn’t even known there was an exam.  Apparently, confidence does not come with age.  And, unfortunately, neither does an attention span.

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Chef de Cuisine

My dear dear amie,

Your last letter had me laughing and teary all at the same time.  You are such a champ.  And, just so you know, these last few months of your single parenting have inspired me.  Not to actively seek out single parenting situations - God no.  Just to push myself in my parenting comfort zones.  I finally took the kids to a restaurant by myself (ok, it was frozen yogurt, but still) and took them both swimming at our local pool (probably not to be repeated anytime soon, but I did it).  I even tried to do a bit more in the kitchen during the times Tygh wasn't around to tag-team.  Hence, the following revelation.

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Bread and Butter

Libs,

This month has been a doozy.  Not sure why, exactly, but I feel like even just ADLs (that’s medical speak for "activities of daily living" and includes things like tooth-brushing and deodorant) are all getting the better of me.  I should not be complaining to you about this, I realize, as you full-time work while simultaneously single-parent your way through this winter and spring. 

But that is why bread with butter is the recipe I felt I must share with you right now.  Is that a recipe, you ask?  Barely.  Which is why you need it.  Cause you can make this while yelling at the toddler and holding the baby.

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Breakfast for Babies

Libs,

As you know, I started my new job this week, which is at the same time exciting and exhausting.  Meeting new people (whose names I can never remember), learning new systems while still trying to be efficient and accurate – it’s daunting.

But, as I am sure you will agree, all of that takes a second to the emotional toll of leaving the littles for 12 hours at a time.  My kids have always had a caretaker, because I have always worked.  Full-time with my first, and part-time now, but still – they know what it means when “Mommy has to work today.”

June is great about it – this is old news to her and she knows the drill.  She will still get to go to all of her classes and have her play dates – her day will go on as usual.  And Harvey is a baby – too young to really know the difference.  So it should be easy peasy, right?  Well…

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