jessteronimo

Sweet Sixteen

On a cold, snowy day sixteen years ago, my husband and I joined our lives together in matrimony. It's been a wild ride ever since. We enjoyed four years of just the two of us living in blissful quiet--although we didn't realize it at the time, and hence didn't really take advantage of the situation as well as we would were we to get a do-over. We struggled through long, hard days of school and work and being utterly broke. And just when we finished that phase and started to build up our savings and rest a bit, along came the little ones to shatter our quiet, drain our savings, and sap our remaining energy--and fill our lives with innumerable precious moments, unique ideas, occasional frustration and fear, and general funness and wonder. Thank goodness they grew up quickly. We all are now on the verge of the next big challenging phase of our lives together as the girls approach teenagerhood and the parents approach their inevitable mid-life crises.

Through the ups and downs and many, many changes, we're still figuring things out. But I still think it's all been worth it to get us where we are today. And I still look forward to growing old with this man, my best friend.

Week(Never)End

I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Gurgly

Not feeling so great today. I spent the weekend with people who had recently suffered through stomach flu, so I kinda sorta knew I was in trouble. I felt beat yesterday, but I thought it was because I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. I woke up around 2:30 this morning feeling on the down side of healthy. I went to work until noon today before I threw in the towel. While I haven't been puking up yet, I have spent the day listening to and feeling my stomach's gurgling protests and nursing a headache, eating soft foods so that if worse came to worst, I won't hurt myself. Good times. Hopefully I'll be able to pull myself together for work tomorrow.

Preparedness

I have a computer at work that is slowly dying. I've been able to resuscitate it a few times, but it will soon give out entirely. During its dying process, we've been able to back up the contents and move them off the computer so that when it really won't turn back on, it won't hurt so much. This whole experience made me think of my own computer, my cell phone, and my purse--three of my possessions that are so packed with important information that it would really hurt me if they failed. So I'm making a commitment to myself to take precautionary measures to reduce my pain should something happen to them. And I encourage you to do the same, regularly.

Back to the Spirit

One of my good friends at the post office is sort of on a mission. He's sharing an idea with anyone who seems willing to listen. His idea is to bring back the focus on one of the reasons we celebrate Christmas: nurturing family relationships. He explained to me that he doesn't buy gifts for his family. Instead, he gets them all tickets to a Christmas production, like A Christmas Carol or Nutcracker, and then they go out to eat at a nice restaurant. This way they can all share an experience together without the hassle of trying to pick out a bunch of "perfect" but meaningless presents. I can think of a bunch of variations on this idea, most a lot cheaper than his sounds. The point being that making memories together is a lot more meaningful, memorable, and fun.

Freaking Out and Reverse Psych

My oldest daughter has spent considerable time over the last couple of weeks searching high and low for a lost library book. The book was no where to be found. Her father assured her that he'd deduct the cost of replacing the book from her allowance because she's supposed to be more responsible than that with other people's borrowed property (he's better at life lessons than I). She has been so upset about the missing book, breaking down in hysterical fits several times. Well, today she had to face the music. When she got to the library to confess to the loss, she discovered that someone else had found the book and turned it in. She was so relieved!

I commented to her that all her worrying and fretting over the lost book was in vain. She thought about this for a brief moment--and then she forcefully disagreed with me, insisting that her worrying and fretting was the very reason that the book was found and returned. I can't argue, really. Who knows? Maybe she's right! At this rate, she'll have an ulcer by the time she's 16, but she'll find everything she's searching for. Maybe it's a good trade off.