Life in the Slow Lane

For my 30th post in 30 days, I am bringing up an old post just because I have nothing better to say. Besides, isn't it every woman's dream to stay 29? Thanks for my loyal readers for sticking with me for 30 days. Hopefully you will see some new posts again on this blog before my next vacation and/or birthday. Periodically, when I need a paperclip, I reach into my handy box of paperclips and pull out one, only to find an entire chain of clips trailing behind. 
I find this surprisingly irritating as it automatically impedes the normal rhythm of my day, as I must carefully unhook clip after clip. I couldn't understand who had the time or the necessary boredom to link the clips together and then the rudeness to leave them in the supply area where I occasionally went to grab another handful of clips.
 I am too embarrassed to confess how long it was before I realized that it was  I  who linked those clips together.
 Someth...

For today's post, I was going to give you Ten Reasons to be Glad for Small, referring to our little studio condo. Friends frequently ask us whether we are still in our little 473 square feet house with our growing boy, and I was going to offer up an extensive defense for why we liked it that way. But then I realized that numbers one through eight all had to do with having less to clean/keep organized, etc. (Not that this means I am on top of cleaning and organizing... but, you know.) So without further ado, I give you Three Reasons to be Glad for Small: 1) Less to clean 2) When your toddler runs through the house turning all of the lights immediately after you turn them off, you only have to worry about the kilowatt hours of four lights rather than a mansion full. 3) You have the most convincing reason as to why you really can't buy a train table complete with several hundred pieces of train set for your train-loving toddler.

For today's reading, I share with you excerpts from three emails off my desk: 1) Subject line: Please your very reply urgently? Excerpt from body of email:  Why are you so dealt to respond Dear? I would like to kindly have your internations in your reply Dear? 2)  Whenever I get a job in my hands, it just slips away from my hands. 3)  Women in our society are seafaring with poverty...

How do you measure grief?  The answer, of course, is that you don't. But in some misguided attempt to shield myself from pain, I occasionally find myself trying.  How much would I hurt if I lost this love? How could I continue on if this were taken from me? Part of this, I know, comes from a deep-seated hatred of possibly-permanent good-byes. I won't attempt to describe the far too frequent times I've ducked out of sight instead of formulating the final words, the "have a nice life" sort of moments. And I know, too, that some of this stems from a twisted view of the Divine. A fatalistic certainty bids me not care too deeply for anything or anyone, for certainly that will be what God will take. Whatever the root, the outgrowth is a slowness to love; fear is a choking, crippling tyrant. The first few months I put my baby in bed, I'd think about all of the threats that might prevent me from having him with me in the morning, and I would try to convince ...

Yes, I'm cheating on my way to 30 posts. Shh.

I have a bad propensity towards being penny wise and pound foolish. Every once in awhile, as a sort of penance or self-instruction, I play a game with myself where I exaggerate the tendency towards its ridiculous end. Observe: The Penny: A while back, SOS and I found among our plastic bag stash the perfect bag to line our bathroom trash can. It fit so perfectly that while our usual habit is to empty the trash by pulling out the bag, we could not bring ourselves to throw out such a perfectly suited bag. And the worst of it is that we didn't know where we had picked it up! So we just used the dump method rather than the "bag it and toss it" method. But finally, as all things must come to an end, we sadly bagged our last trash with the perfect liner and exited it stage left. The Pound: We discovered where we found the perfect trash bag: the hobby store. Look! We can get free trashcan liners perfect for our needs. We just need to make a small purchase at the hobby...

I'm having a hard time tolerating any sort of politicking this year. I think this is mostly true because of my visits to our neighborhood park. No, there are no political signs there. I've not engaged in any political debates or narrowly avoided heated rants.  No, none of this. It all comes down to park ethics, or the lack thereof. How do we possibly think we can work together for the benevolent governing of the United States and overseeing a robust foreign policy when we can't even use the same park well? This isn't just about kids not sharing the slide. I'm remembering the parent who spent significant time convincing his sons that the toys they found left in the toy box were actually theirs they had forgotten a week ago and didn't know they had. I'm thinking of the ground-shaking party held in the community center next door and the 15-20 kids aged 3-12 who escaped to come play in the park without a single adult. I'm horrified thinking of the mo...