Tag: life

You say Valentine’s Day, I say Monday

I was going to make this a sweet little post to my DH about how I love how he and I make we.  I found this cute photo here:
Then I threw up in my mouth a little.
I’m not a Valentine’s Day Hater.  Really, I’m not.  I’m all in favor of a holiday that encourages the giving of gifts, especially one where women a clearly the intended recipients.  Still, Valentine’s Day is just the 14th day in February. I’m not saying that because I’m married either.  I’ve come to believe that how you choose to demonstrate your love for someone else, shouldn’t be reserved for one day of the year. If you’re loving someone all day everyday, there wouldn’t be a need for over-the-top declarations, proclamations, exclamations and consummations of love.  
Call me a prude, but PDA (public displays of affection) makes me cringe. I’m a closed romantic, as in I keep my romance behind closed doors.   Certainly, if you feel compelled to put your heart on your sleeve, send singing telegrams and have Shakespearean sonnets spelled out in the sky, go for it.  Expressions of love can range from the far-out, uber-public to the private, thoughtful and just-between-us.
After I got engaged, my brother asked me how I knew that DH was The One. How did I know that I loved him above everyone else?  I’m no Voltaire, but every once in a while, I can truly wax philosophical.  The little love nuggets I passed to my brother were totally on the mark.  How do you know you know you love someone — and when I say love, I’m talking romantic love?  When you realize they aren’t the person you can live with, but that they’re the person you can’t live without.  
I know, I’m deep. 
So, even though Hallmark has the market cornered on Valentine’s paraphernalia (sorry American Greetings), they won’t be getting my business this year.  And too bad for you, dear reader, as you won’t be privy to what goes on between me and my Valentine, either.  Conjure up your own best ever Valentine’s Day scenario and just insert us as the characters. Keep it PG, people. 
Side Note:  I helped Morgan and Coever put together their Valentine’s to hand out to their classmates.  The selections at the store were overwhelming. Gone are the conversation hearts and in their stead you could have temporary tattoos, pencils, all manner of chocolate confection, Silly Bandz, stickers, and lip-glosses.   There were singing bears, kissing bears, hugging bears, and for the grown-ups, bears promising naughty favors all in the name of love.  There were heart shaped garlands, Cupid shaped garlands, streamers, balloons, and assorted party products.  Every major character got into the act — Hello Kitty, Tinker Bell, Woody and Buzz, Barbie, and Lightening McQueen.  The girls made their selections, though it was not without several changes of heart before we made it to the register.  Morgan kept insisting that we needed more stuff.  I couldn’t figure it out.  We had gotten her Valentine’s. She and Coever both had stickers at home, chocolates, too.  What could she possibly want or need? 
“We need to decorate!” she declared.
“Why would we need to do that?” I asked.
 “So that Cupid will know where to find us.”
 Yeah, I’ll get right on that. 

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IN: ON: February 14, 2011 TAGS: , BY: Hilary
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Growing Up Is Hard to Do

I went to a bridal shower for one of my sorority sisters this past week-end.  The bride-to-be is one of the youngest of my sorority sisters from my pledge class.  We used to joke her that she was the baby, that we were bringing her up, bringing her along.

At her shower the other day, I noticed that she, her sister, and her bridesmaids are still in their twenties (late twenties, but twenties nonetheless).  Other guests included her mother, her aunts, her grandmother and other family and friends that were older than me.  Two other of my sorority sisters, one the same age as me, the other slightly younger, were also in attendance.  Talk turned to weddings, parties and receptions.  One remarked that if she were to do it again, she would love to have another big wedding.  The other said that if it were her, she’d keep it small and quiet.

“Why have another big wedding?” I ventured.  “Let’s just have a big blow out party just because. Or let’s do it for the next big birthday.  What’s that going to be anyway?”

*Pause*

“Thirty-five,” we said in unison.

Wow.

I don’t know if my other two sorority sisters felt what I did just then. It was this odd sense of being in an age limbo. Not quite as young as the bride to be and her attendants, but not quite as mature as the mother of the bride and her guests.  Maybe I’m over-thinking, building up that mountain out of nothing.

I never have given much thought to how old I am.  I don’t feel old. I don’t look old (at least not according to the bartender at McCormick and Schmick’s).  And yet, discovering that my next big birthday number is 35 was jarring.

Fact: I’m closer to 35 that I am to 30.  
Turning 30 wasn’t a big deal for a several reasons. 

1. Like I said, I’ve never given much thought to how old I am
2. Now that I share my birthday with Coever, truly, it’s her birthday, not mine.
3. 30 for me fell on the first day of school for the girls and my priorities were elsewhere.

When I turned 25, I had a big blowout at our house.  We hired a DJ, had it catered, had all manner of friends and family.  Truth be told, I liked the planning and the execution of the whole thing. I love getting together with family and friends; I wish we did it more often and on such a large scale.  I’d do it again for 35, but I think it would be more poignant for me because I, in fact, would be turning 35.

When you’re mistaken for 17 one day and then realize you’ll actually be twice that age in a matter of months, it’s easy to see how your nose can get out of joint.
What do you see here? 
 I’ve been blessed with good genes that will serve me in good stead as I mature.  My parents are into their late sixties and are often mistaken for being at least 10 to 15 years younger than they really are.  My brother, well, he’s 9 years older than I am and yet, there have been times when I’ve been mistaken for his older sister. I swear, he’s got a portrait of himself squirreled away in his attic. 
I do have to laugh at myself, though, because I’m sure I’ve lead to you believe that I’m going to be 35 this year.  
Not quite. 
More like in 2013.
 But hey, I’ve always been a planner. I’m just thinking ahead.  You know, as you get older, the mind’s the first thing to go. 
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IN: ON: February 7, 2011 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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February. Feet. Five-year old wisdom.

Yesterday’s insanely warm temperatures (hello, 71 degrees) had me wanting to shed the multiple layers that have been cocooning me against this winter’s nastiness.  Certainly, I wasn’t about to strip down to a tank and some shorts, though I did see some crazies out there attired as such.  I was about to swap out my Danskos for a pair of flip flops for the short walk to get the kids from school. Then I took off my socks and looked at my feet. 
Ugh.
I have some funky looking feet.  I know, I know, I said I was going to be nicer to myself, but truly, I’m just stating facts here.  The last time I painted my toenails, I only did so because we were going to a Christmas party and I was wearing peep-toe shoes.  Even then, I only painted the two toes you’d see through the peep hole.  Yeah, I’m that girl. 
I’m rough on my feet. I’m on them most of the day. I work out pretty vigorously either doing cardio training or pounding up and down the tennis court.  My feet don’t stink, but they do sweat. I’ll even ‘fess up to having a corn and what looks like the beginning of a bunion. It’s atrocious, but I’ve earned it with all the pointy toed shoes I’ve worn over the years.
Add to that, the genetic quirk in our family known as the Bennett Toe.  Left foot, second toe. Graciously passed down from my maternal grandmother, to my mother, to me, the Bennett toe, used to have me studiously avoiding open toed sandals during the warmer months. The toes just refuses to lie flat.  The nail is a speck of calcium that refuses to grow flat, but instead rises out of the nail bed like a cone. 
 It looks like a boiled turtle head wearing a party hat.
Anyway, no flip-flops for me yesterday. I wasn’t ready to turn people to stone by having them cast a wayward glance at my hooves.  
Last night while paging though pins on Pinterest, I kept seeing lots of tattooed feet.  Words, phrases, names, world maps. All inked on the tops, sides and insteps of feet.  

A friend of mine recently had her deceased grandmother’s name inked on her instep.  She had saved her grandmother’s signature and had it transferred onto her foot as a tat.  Very cool.  
I go back and forth about getting some more ink (yes, I said more).  I don’t think you’re ever too old, though DH would beg to differ.  Still, I’m at a point in my life where the places I may have put something when I was in college are not the places I would put something now.  
Morgan just looked over my shoulder as I was typing and remarked, “I’m never getting a tattoo because God gave me this skin and it’s beautiful just the way it is.”
Clearly, I’m doing something right, but just in case she changes her tune,  I am SO printing this out for future reference.
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IN: ON: February 3, 2011 TAGS: , BY: Hilary
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Grrrrrr!

So that funk I was telling you about? Yeah, it’s decided to settle in for a while.  I’m still trying to beat back the blues, keeping up with my favorite things, but I’ve hit the wall.  I really want to write, and yet, I’ve got nothing to say.  I used yo do this exercise in my journals where I would just write, “I have nothing to say. I don’t want to write. What am I talking about,” and inevitably, I would end up with pages of verses and paragraphs that I would string into poems.

I think that’s where I’m headed today.

What started as a”I don’t really have much to say” type of post has morphed into a “Let me tell what happened to me” type of post.  So, let me tell you what happened to me.  I sliced off the tip of my ring finger cleaning the tub.  Yes, if you draw blood with doing housework, it’s time to get someone else to do the housework.

Yesterday, in a fit of insanity, I decided to clean the bathtub. I was already wiping down counters, vacuuming carpets and sweeping floors like my name was Cinderella.  I was in the girls’ bathroom, scraping dried toothpaste from the sink and turned to give the tub a wipe.  Then I took a good look at the shoddy lick and a promise method I’d previously employed and decided to get serious with the Soft Scrub.

As I ran my cleaning rag around the rim of the tub, where the tile meets the tub itself, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my finger.  Then, I noticed red spots dotting the newly cleaned bathing surface.  I looked down at my hand.  Hmmm, you’re missing part of your finger there, chief. What the what? Turns out, a piece of tile close to the faucet some how cracked and separated from the wall.  In my zeal to clean, I just ran my hand around and basically scored the top of my finger off. Nice.

Still, I’m not going to let a missing fingertip slow me down. I’m not Jamie from Top Chef.  I had a lot of momentum going behind this cleaning binge and it was going to happen now or never. I grabbed a washcloth, wrapped up my finger and kept on cleaning.  The bleeding eventually subsided, but I found myself in a situation like when I sliced off the tip of my other finger using that flipping mandolin to make onion rings.  Yes, there is a lesson to be learned in all this.

I need a housekeeper.
And a chef.

Oh, and a transcriptionist (yes, that’s a real word)  to get all of these thoughts down while I tape up my finger tips.

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IN: ON: January 27, 2011 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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Rant

I have often read how writers have a designated time of day where they can write without interruption.  Writers who work from home have routines whereby they get up, get their families ready and out the door, and then write in blissful, contented silence for the better part of the day.  Sounds like nirvana to me.  As luck would have it, I have to write when the mood strikes. Even if I had an office in which to lock myself, designating the hours of 9am to 3pm to just write — however delicious that seems — is setting me up for a major fail. If I feel like writing, I write.  Of course, that means, if I’m in the middle of washing dishes, I stop, flip up the laptop and go.  There can be several pans on the stove, the whites in a for a soak or a cupcake pan that’s only half filled; if I’ve got an idea, everything comes to a crashing halt. I’ve got to write. When I’ve poured out a few paragraph, I pick up at whatever task I’d left off and keep it moving.  It’s getting increasingly frustrating to keep up that routine, though.  

DH said “Let’s go out,” when he came in from work the other day, but the nuances of life crept up on us.  The girls got busy coloring, he got busy surfing the ‘net and I was sifting through mail and magazines. Everyone was occupied, and a little nugget of a potential post started to grow.  I put down the mail, fetched the computer and started writing. I was typing furiously. The sun started to set, cars started turning into driveways signaling the return home from the end of another day.  Kids playing outside were, one after another, being called in for dinner. Our kitchen was growing dimmer in the fading light.
The kids were still playing. Coever was singing, Morgan was banging on a toy drum. The decibel level was steadily creeping towards 140.  I couldn’t write like this. I was making mistakes; I lost my train of thought, jumped back on and was tossed back off. Trying to concentrate was harder than trying to make a left turn into the mall on Black Friday.   Suddenly, Morgan announced that she was hungry. Coever chimed in with her constant refrain as well.  But guess what?
I wasn’t hungry. 
I’d had a big lunch and a Coke Zero in front of me that I had been nursing for the better part of the afternoon.  
But my girls were hungry.
But I was writing. 
What to do? What to do? 
DH was deep into whatever he was doing, his Mac and his work computer like conjoined twins in front of him.  My audible sigh went unnoticed (at least I think so).  The offer to go out to eat hadn’t been repeated, so I saved my work, shut the laptop,  got up, and I. Made. Dinner.  

I opened the freezer, the fridge, the pantry and started creating something out of nothing.  I had pans going, oil popping, water boiling and within 20 minutes, a very nice dinner. 
But I still wasn’t hungry. 
I just wanted to finish writing.
DH, bless him, came into the kitchen to ask what he could do to help, just as I got popped in the forehead with some stray oil spatter. Now,  I was angry that I had had to stop what I was doing. I was angry that I just got scorched. I’m a woman who will say, “Nothing,” through gritted teeth when asked “What’s wrong?”.  So, it should come as no surprise that I was considerably less than polite in my response to him. I just wanted to finish what I started. 

Dinner was made, presented lovingly in Tupperware so it could go from table to fridge. No mess, no fuss. I even leapfrogged over the inevitable, “I don’t like this”, and I made Coever a separate dinner of a cheese stick, grapes and turkey slices, just so that she would eat it and we could avoid drama.  Yes, I am officially a short order cook.  
And now here I am, about to clean up the very dinner I have not even eat because (say it with me) I’m not hungry, and I’m struck by this, this situation.  If I’m not hungry, do I still have to cook? If I’m in the middle of something do I still have to get up and wipe a butt? What if I stop mid-sentence and lose the thought,  that million-dollar idea, that would make us independently wealthy?  I mean, I’ll stop if we’re talking blood and broken bones, but for all the times there’s been a primal yell for me to wipe a nose, tie a shoe, wash some hands, or dress a Barbie?  Yes, these formative years and precious moments will be behind me before I realize, but in the here and now, the very moment in which I’m living . . .I. Just.Want.To.Finish.My.
Hang on, somone’s calling me.

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IN: ON: December 1, 2010 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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Behind the Lens

DH and I have been busy, very busy.  We have developed an all natural lip care product and a coordinating line of t-shirts that are inspired by the act of and the passion surrounding kissing.  We’re called Rediscover the Kiss. Check us out on Twitter (@rtkfeelsgood) and on Facebook (RTKFeelsGood). 
After an extensive model search, we had our first photo shoot for our products and apparel this past week-end in New York. 
Although my modeling days are behind me, the camera and I were still very much involved.
I was the photographer.

It went really well considering this is my first foray behind the lens. I did some homework before hand, picking the brains of various photogs that I know.  I read some books, and drew upon my own knowledge from my stint at a model.   There is still so much to learn, but it’s fun and I’m off to a great start.   I think of the 624 shots — yes! — we certainly got some good stuff, and the editing I will do can help where we’re lacking.  I’ve got some work ahead of me, but I will definitely post them when I’m done.

You know, my big hair is what got me into modeling, what kept the bookings coming, and since I’ve cut it, I haven’t heard much.  At first, I was kind of ticked, but now I’m getting all Zen.  What if my modeling experience was just the first step towards where I am now, behind the lens? What if that experience then, that experience yesterday is lining me up for where I’m going next?  I don’t know where that will be, just as I didn’t know where the modeling was going to take me.  Still, I’m going, one foot in front of the other, camera in hand.

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IN: ON: September 5, 2010 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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