Tag: postaday May

Categories
Being a girl Exercise Memoir Nonfiction Self improvement

A letter to High School Me

If I could go back in time and tell High School Me one thing…

www.westwood.k12.ma.us

…it would be to take advantage of Phys Ed.

I would rejoice if, at this point in my life, there was an hour of every weekday set aside for exercise, complete with someone shaking it up every few weeks and introducing a new unit (archery, then softball, then tennis, then weight lifting). This would happen at the same time every day, preferably in the morning before the rest of my classes– I mean, before work. A relative stranger would intimidate me through warm-ups of jumping jacks and crunches. I would have very little excuse or reason not to go, because at the end of the year I would get a grade, based not on my physical fitness, but on how hard I tried this year.

And in high school, we took all this for granted. We cheated our way through running the mile, and we opted to play badminton (or even ping pong!) instead of tennis because, let’s face it, a bunch of people trying not to move too much can play badminton pretty easily.

I mean, all the other mistakes I made and stupid things I did in those four years don’t really matter. You know, they shape the person you become, etc etc. I didn’t make any mistakes that ruined my life or anyone else’s (as far as I know). But it might have been really useful if someone had just enlightened me as to the fact that one day, I would pay a monthly gym membership for the chance to run on a treadmill and lift weights. And maybe that same person could point out to me the comparisons between a gym membership, and a Phys Ed class.

Categories
Beginnings Drew Home improvements Pregnancy Sentiment

Cribs

We keep telling ourselves we have plenty of time to get everything ready for this baby, and that’s kind of true. But we had our crib just sitting around in the box, so today we put it together.

Here’s the “before” shot:

This was an exciting moment – realizing we didn’t need any additional tools and that all the pieces are carefully sorted and labeled for you!

So step one is to…dump all the pieces out onto the ground in a pile. (Bonus points if the pieces are about the same color as the carpet.)

After a false start or two, we got our sea legs and things started coming together.

Love the finished product! We still have 80% of “nursery” stuff to go – including a crib mattress – but if the crib is the centerpiece, then we made some real headway today.

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl Dollars Memoir My name

Change is inevitable

Among my habits that annoy Drew, “saving” is probably pretty high up there. I “save” all kind of things. I save up recycling rather than throwing it away, even though we don’t have a recycling dumpster at our new place. (C’mon… seriously? This is California!) I often have a box going for stuff (clothes, books, anything really) that I mean to take to Salvation Army or Goodwill…eventually.

And I have this irrational fondness for collecting coins for months in an old Nesquik container. Then one night, I dump them out on the carpet and watch TV and roll them into actual, exchangeable piles of money.

We had some rolled coins still sitting around from a few months ago, and then a bunch of new loose coins. So the other night, I flopped down on the carpet to roll the rest of them, and Drew sat down with me. I don’t know if he enjoys it at all, or if he just recognizes the value in turning this sort-of-forgotten money into bank-account money.

We ended up with $65 altogether – $10 in quarters, $10 in nickels, $10 in pennies (this is weird, right?), and $35 in dimes. That’s right. Those skinny little dimes, that I don’t always bother to pick up when they fall on the ground, added up to $35.

I took this Safeway bag full of money into the bank this morning, where shifty-eyed tellers immediately assessed my intentions and each tried to pass me off to the next person. The first guy said, “Tell you what we’re going to do, my coworker over there is going to help you because I have to…go do something.” (Seriously.) Then the girl he passed me off to said that her drawer wasn’t big enough for all of it, so I’d have to go over there. The third guy had been sneaking a look at a text message and so he didn’t have any excuse ready to go, and he wound up dealing with me.

But here’s what I want to know: is it so weird that I do this? I mean, it’s money. What am I supposed to do, go to a Coinstar and let them take almost 10% of it? That’s $6 saved right there.

And this is a bank. This is a branch of one of the biggest banks in America, and I’ve been a customer there for 10 years. So what if once a year I come in and make someone count rolls of change? It’s just counting. You learn that ish in elementary school.

To add insult to injury, the guy finished up our conversation by telling me how my name should be pronounced, which I’ve decided is one of the most annoying things that people persistently do. I don’t tell you that your name is spelled wrong, Kriss. So how about you give me my receipt for my $65, and let me get out of here.

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Children Friends Love

Masterful suspense

My bff Liz, who is 19 weeks pregnant, is currently in the doctor’s office finding out whether she’s having a boy or a girl. All day long I’ve been getting texts and emails from her, saying “We find out today!!!” “3 more hours!!!” “An hour and 45 minutes!!!” etc.

My excitement is growing, even though technically whether she has a boy or a girl doesn’t affect me. Knowing that she is literally in the appointment right now is very suspenseful. She promised to call me immediately afterward, but I don’t know when that will be exactly…it could be in 10 minutes, it could be in 40 minutes. Appointments are weird.

She told me this morning to “call it” – to guess whether it’s a boy or a girl. I had to admit that I’ve been picturing her with a boy, although I don’t know why that is. A few months ago I was thinking that a girl would be more fun to shop for, but after spending time in baby stores and on baby websites, I now feel confident that there are adorable gifts to be had for babies of either sex.

I know that really, every parent just wants a healthy baby, and whether it’s a boy or a girl is of little consequence. I wonder though – if you really want a boy and it turns out to be a girl, is there more potential for (slight) disappointment in an ultrasound situation, as opposed to a delivery room reveal?

I guess this also leads me to think about loving your baby – when that shift happens. But that’s probably a completely different post.

Categories
Awesome Family Sentiment

Playing Favorites

Do you ever have conversations in your head with someone? The other day, Imaginary Drew was asking me which of my parents was my favorite. This may be an actual conversation that’s happened out loud at some point. I thought I would have an answer for Imaginary Drew (I don’t like getting into fake conversations when I don’t know exactly what my platform is), but it turned out I had no idea which is my favorite parent.

I thought I would have reasons for why I favor either parent in a certain situation, but I couldn’t even make that work. Really what it comes down to is that I adore both my parents and that has nothing to do with the scenario. I am equally happy whenever either of them picks up the phone. (And I am basically over the moon if they actually pick up the phone before the answering machines picks up.) When I’m home for the afternoon or the weekend, I prefer it if they stay in the same room so I can stay there with them – if they split up it gets complicated.

I have a vague memory of being a kid, and of having divvied them up, into the times of day I preferred each of them. (No offense, parents, this is a weird little kid memory, and I was probably hopped up on Ovaltine.) I think I remember, but I could be wrong, deciding with my brother that we liked playing games with my dad during the day, but my mom was better at tucking us in at night.** Does that even make sense now? I don’t know. Would Robb back me up? Probably not.

Once I’d realized that I really don’t have a favorite, I realized how lucky that is. Lots of people don’t even know one parent, some people hate one (or both) of their parents…and I get two parents. Still together after all these years, and still as interested in me as I am in them. (I presume.)

Imaginary Drew, by the way, agrees with me that it’s impossible to name one favorite parent. This is corroborated by Real Drew. And really, haven’t we totally beaten the odds? By having two sets of parents who are still happy together? I mean, what are the chances? Hashtag lucky!

**A memory: I went through this phase where I had this deep fear that the toilet seat would be left up and one of our cats would fall in. This horrified me, and every night I would have to ask the parent tucking me in to double check that the seat was down. But I was too embarrassed to say the word “toilet” (I had the weirdest, shyest neuroses) so we made a deal that I would just sign the word for toilet and they would double check. Such patience!