We’re pinching our pennies for date night these days, so I was excited to remember I’d bought movie passes on Groupon months ago.
A free movie + conversation over steak tacos = a win for budget date night!
Which gave me a great idea! Because our entrepreneurial income tends to fluctuate throughout the year, I think I’ll buy myself a movie gift card and refillable cash card when times are aplenty, and save them for when times are lean.
BOOM!
I’m full of great ideas.
I noticed that Staci Eastin over at Writing and Living listed her most-viewed posts of 2011, which prompted me to look up what my top 5 posts were last year.
Even though I only have about 30 readers these days (you think I’m kidding), I was still beaming when I saw these posts rise to the top of the list – they’re my favorites, too!
By the way, you should read Staci’s book, The Organized Heart – a really great book on organizing that addresses the heart rather than the methods.
I thought I’d get organized about the books I want to read this year so I created a 2012 Reading List on my Shelfari page.
I’ve come up with 8 and would like 4 more. Any suggestions?
I’d like some more fiction in the mix, but if you have a good non-fiction I’m missing out on, let me know!
Update: Here’s what I read in 2011!
Update: As I add books to this year’s reading list, the shelf above will be updated.
LOVED this quick snippet on writing from Jen Fulwiler on Conversion Diary:
Fellow writing nerds, listen up! I’ve stumbled upon something really interesting that you’re going to enjoy pondering: The critical importance of theme. The way I’ve come to see it, the theme of a story is the underlying element of it that transcends the individual events and touches on the universal human experience. Especially in memoir, it’s what takes your story from forgettable navel-gazing to an expansive story with wide appeal. For example:
- Scene 1 (no theme): Dude writes about eating a tomato.
- Scene 2 (with theme): Dude writes about eating a tomato. He explains that he grew it in his farm’s garden, and that this is an heirloom variety that would have been eaten by the farm’s original owners back in 1812. It is the evening of his 40th birthday, and he reflects on the fact that all the people who enjoyed these same tastes back in the nineteenth century are now gone, and that his own life won’t last forever. As he savors the textures and flavors and aromas of the tomato, he resolves to make the most of each day from here forward.
That’s an example from the memoir The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell. Scene 1 is how he could have written it, which would have been uninteresting; Scene 2 is how he did write it. The themes of “man reflecting on his mortality†and “the importance of savoring simple moments†animated the chapter, and elevated it from a self-centered journal entry to a moving glimpse of the universal human experience.
Fellow writers, heed my example and save yourself a lot of work: A large part of the reason that I am re-writing my book for the third time is that I had not nailed the theme the first two times around. I had not chosen one universal aspect of my experience that I would use to drive the main storyline, and the result was that I could never figure out why it kept feeling kind of flat.
Seven years ago today, this awesome guy (who now strikes me as a Chuck Norris look alike), died from lung cancer:
Gordy & Me. I was about Ruthie’s age.
A few weeks ago Bryan and I watched the episode of Breaking Bad where Walter hears his official cancer diagnosis. I don’t remember all the details, but there was mention of Small Cell or Non-Small Cell lung cancer.
Gordy had one of these, but I don’t remember which one. My lack of memory is maddening sometimes, but I remember he had the kind that is rare for non-smokers to get.
At any rate, I never thought anything about anything as we watched a show about a guy with lung cancer until I heard the words, Small Cell Lung Cancer.
I heard those words like the crack of a whip or the shattering of glass – high and sharp in my ears, while the rest of the show and general ambiance in the room faded into a muffle, like I was wearing headphones.
And then it passed.
The moment was so unnatural that I half expected to hear a sad song with Ellen Pompeo’s voice narrating my thoughts.
Anyway. This picture reminds me that my kids have never been to the cabin.
Blargh.
Fuck Cancer.
11:00pm
I think we stumbled across a new Zug Family tradition this year.
After a party and game night with some friends in the Belltown area, we parted ways with the group and wandered into The Lucky Diner to wait for the Space Needle fireworks.
We sat in the corner booth, surrounded by huge windows that made people watching in that buzzing neighborhood a most fantastically entertaining feature of the evening.
11:30pm
The kids ate Lucky Charms and I shared a Black Butte Porter milkshake with Bryan. It was totally low key, but it felt nostalgic and special.
We never eat cereal. We never stay out late. Everything about it was a treat.
11:45pm
Thomas is the night owl. He was chatty all evening & even during the car ride home.
Ruthie is an early riser, and despite an afternoon nap, she still didn’t quite make it.
midnight
Just before midnight we stepped across the street for a better view of the Space Needle. And also, Thomas wanted to hear the [insert Thomas making firecracker sounds].
After a month surrounded by lots of people and busy activity, an intimate family evening out on the town hit the spot.
Happy New Year, everyone. 2012 is already the best ever.
Medium on the lid, dark on the fold, light on the brown bone.
While most midlife crises involve sports cars or diamonds or younger men, mine apparently involves eye shadow.
My whole life it felt like the entire world knew how to apply eye shadow, but I just couldn’t make it work. My eyeballs bulged out like Marty Feldman, the skin above my eyes folds down funny over my lids, and I had no deep sockets or crease to work with.
I’d go to the make-up counters at the mall for advice, but everyone there put eye shadow on me the same way they put eye shadow on everyone else.
So I pretty much gave up on eye shadow.
Then for some reason when I got my bangs cut in October, it launched me into an obsession with eye shadow. I don’t know why, but I went from the Wake Up And Put My Hair Into a Ponytail Girl, to the Wash, Blow Dry, Style, Get Dressed Beyond Yoga Pants, & Wear a Full Face of Makeup Girl.
The trouble is, I still haven’t figured out how to wear eye shadow, and it’s because of that damn fold of skin and my bulging eyes.
So last night I went down the internet rabbit hole of makeup tutorials and came across all this. Four hours later at 12:30 in the morning, I was more confused than when I started.
Here’s why:
I did my makeup after midnight last night because 1) I’m on vacation, and 2) If I didn’t try *something* after reading all that research I might never have fallen asleep.
Today I’m wearing enough eye shadow to paint the town.
Somebody… please save me from myself!
This tree is at the turn-around point on my morning walks with Sally. It stands on a grassy knoll overlooking the water, solitary and content.
I love my kids.
Some days I have to convince myself more fervently than others, but the fact remains: they’re pretty awesome.
I say this tonight in particular because, well, it was one of those nights, and I need a little reminder that they do things other than yell at me and say they want to live somewhere else where they can do whatever they want.
(By the way, if you’re inclined to let them do whatever they want, I’ll drop them off on Thursday. They’ll be ecstatic.)
Finally I shut the whole thing down and put them to bed at 7:30. Which is awesome, because their room is still not clean and we’ll have to do this all over again tomorrow.
But still. They’re pretty cute.
Right?!
Kind of excited about my latest techie adventure. A few days ago I shot two video clips on my iPhone, then I downloaded the iMovie app and edited the two clips together.
I think I’m inadvertently amassing a diversity of skills and tasks I can perform while in my pajamas watching 30Rock, and having an iPhone makes this much easier.
If I wanted to, I could have published the finished video to YouTube right from my phone, then posted it to my blog using the WordPress app…. RIGHT FROM MY PHONE.
But I wanted to add intro titling, and the iMovie app doesn’t have this function so I downloaded the edited video to my laptop and added the titling there before posting to YouTube.
Pretty fun. Except I have no idea why the size formatting is off. Will have to figure that out for next time.
It was Tuesday, and Bryan surprised me with tickets to Mike Doughty at Neumos.
I knew we’d be up late, but I got a little wide-eyed when I saw what time he’d be on stage. You see, on most nights around 10:15, I’ve already fallen asleep in the middle of a 30Rock episode.
But thanks to a yummy drink (or two) at the Lobby Bar and a street vendor hot dog, I stayed awake.
AND we scored this awesome wide open vantage point from the side, because standing on my toes to see over the 6 foot tall guy blocking my view and elbowing the drunk chick out of my personal space is SO 10 years ago was never my thing.
And THEN Bryan spotted Little Miss Sunshine – that chick in the front row who looks like she’s plotting twenty five ways to castrate her boyfriend.
Lighten up, honey. It’s a rock show, and you have the best seat in the house!
Shortly after I snapped this photo, she pulled her phone out and started texting. When Mike Doughty saw this, he reached down, grabbed her phone, and shoved it in his back pocket.
Reason #42 why that man is brilliant.
Every Tuesday the silly boys go to a Cub Scout meeting so Ruthie and I get some crazy serious girl time. And as you can see, monochromatic pedicures are for the not exciting people.
And when our toes were properly polished, Ruthie set to work on a new “tattoo,” and she told me she wanted to be a tattoo artist when she grew up.
First of all, Duh.
Then I was all, “You know you have to draw what other people want on their bodies, right?” because she’s not so much about design collaboration.
All I got was a shrug.
On Sunday last week I started wearing contacts again for the first time in two years.
On Monday, Ruthie poked me in the eye and my contact disappeared. Into thin air.
Gone.
Usually when my hard gas permeable contact lens pops out, I hear a little tick as it hits the floor. Or it lands in my lap or I find it in my bra. For twenty-five years I’ve been that Drama Queen who yells, “NOBODY MOVE!” when the tiny plastic disk hits the floor, and then it’s miraculously found among the dust bunnies. Only a couple times in the 25 years that I’ve worn contacts has it completely disappeared.
But last week as I did my usual sweep over my sweater, in my cleavage, on my lap and the floor beneath my feet, I found nothing. Ruthie whined, “Mommy, can I move? My arm hurts.” Thomas giggled. My kids sat frozen in place, literally not moving as I had commanded.
One by one I brushed my hands over their arms, their legs, and the ground near where they sat, all the while listening for that familiar tick of the contact hitting the hardwood floor, brushed loose from an unsuspecting piece of clothing. But the contact did not turn up.
I checked under my chair, under the cushion, in the laundry basket that sat next to us. I repeated all of the above several times. Nothing. It was gone, probably carried away by Murphy and his fucking Law, who was likely sitting by the pool at a Vegas hotel, smoking cigars with the tooth fairy who, by the way, never shows up around here.
It was an accident that Ruthie poked me in the eye. She was sitting on the arm of my comfy chair, playing with my hair as I searched for something on the internet. As she brushed a piece of hair from my face, her pinky grazed over my eye and I never felt a thing.
But the next time I blinked, I couldn’t see my screen.
“What just happened?!” I yelled.
As the search went on for my missing contact, I became more agitated. I was angry that it would not be found. I was angry that I can’t seem to have nice things. I was angry at Ruthie for “causing” it to happen. I was angry that I can’t afford to replace the contact lens.
There was nothing I could do about it, and this infuriated me. There was no one to blame for it, but my rage needed a target.
After hearing Ruthie’s voice echo in my ears again, “It was an accident!” I realized I’d been barking all my frustration at her.
“I’m sorry, Ruthie,” I said. “Sometimes when things don’t go my way, I want to blame somebody for what happens.”
“Like I do sometimes?”
I smirked. Surprised, and yet not, by how easily she made the connection. “Yeah. Exactly. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
We hugged and I calmed down and put on my glasses, resolved to be spectacled forever.
The next night Bryan and I were out late, and when we got home the kids were in bed. And because I can never seem to accept defeat, I lifted up the chair cushion to look for my contact one more time.
I swear I’m not making this up, but it was sitting right there. Right next to the pink pencil, Z-bar wrapper, and roughly $1.42 in change (among other disgusting things), not at all obscured from view.
It absolutely WAS NOT there the day before. I’d looked several times, feeling for it all around the couch crumbs and on the bottom of the cushion.
I should have taken a picture of it, but I was too exasperated to do anything but roll my eyes to the ceiling and beyond and yell, “THAT’S NOT FUNNY, GOD.”
I feel overwhelmed this week. Weighty things are on my heart, and a busy schedule intensifies the emotional stress. In addition, several friends are in the midst of weighty circumstances as well.
My first reaction is to want to do something – about their circumstances and my own – but there is often nothing I can do fix or change the circumstances. This is not an easy pill to swallow for a task-oriented person.
Recently Thomas and I were talking about things that were opposites, and he blurted out that Jesus was BIG and outer space was small.
It was so great how matter-of-fact he said it.
This is the child-like faith God desires for me to have – a faith not jaded by cynicism and chronic eye-rolling, or even by my own expectation of how God should solve the problem.
Most of the time my ego is too proud or my fears are too dark or my anger too festered to rest in his peace. But Thomas would think this is silly, for how can my anger be too big for God, my grief too deep, my circumstances too weighty?
I wish I were more like Thomas.
