Juggling Life

It's a Christmas Post! Which is a Christmas Miracle!

This picture is a couple of years old, but it popped up in Google Images when I was searching for a link and I really love it so what the hey.

I decided to gift my poor neglected blog a post. What I have been up to? Had a phenomenal Thanksgiving with MVP and Mandy here (everyone but Danger Boy was home) that was low-key immediate family (including my 21-year old nephew who is living with us) which felt just right. The day before is actually my favorite day because I love the warm camaraderie of the bustling kitchen, although our new tradition of a day-of bike ride and the dreams of a lottery-win-bayside homesunder a sky drawn with cornflower darkening to cerulean has its charms. As do the tables in the sand set with holiday-themed floral arrangements.

I got new running shoes when we visited our local Road Runner outlet and wore them exactly once the Monday before Thanksgiving before falling victim to a chain of maladies that has kept from exercising for almost a month. I think I might be over it. Holding my breath.

Work is insane and fulfilling. My second job is the same. I am working hard with International Eating Disorder Action --we now have a website along with our blog (that's the kind of thing I mostly write these days), Twitter (@IEDACtion) and Facebook group. We are loosely organized to be more adaptable to react quickly than a group like F.E.A.S.T. (which is hands down the number one family resource I recommend); I think we can complement each other and magnify our respective voices.

I am also stoked to be receiving and providing support with a new FB-based parent support group--Eating Disorder Parent Support or EDPS. It's co-ed, well-moderated and for carers only, which is important to me. Once you learn enough to start following the money, you recognize the value of independence from those who profit (irrespective of the good they do) from treating eating disorders. Of course this is not to say there cannot be incredible collaborations, it's just a consideration. I am thrilled to be working with so many smart, passionate people.

Though it seemed an iffy proposition for a bit, we will have a respectable semblance of Christmas here. Thank you Amazon Prime. We are almost tree-only on decorations this year (my 40-year old self is appalled; my 50-year old self is giving that self the finger).

Christmas Cards are out though no letter--posting to FB I think. The cinnamon rolls were a breeze this year--Social Butterfly was a lean mean dough-rolling machine today. As well as a remarkable cleaner upper. I covered the bar and dining room table with peanut clusters, put them in bags and realized that left us with none so I will be reprising that activity in the next couple of days. 

The last three weeks, with the one week of back jacked-ness and another two of super-cold, have made me very aware that lack of productivity makes me cranky. Me no likey.

I missed Mr. Fix-it's work party, but am going to make at least three that I am really looking forward to. This is the time of year when my friend Sandra and I sometimes (not every year) find ourselves closing a party down and paying for it the next day. It's always worth it. Nothing solid for New Year's Eve, but I can be really happy with a movie and sushi. 

I cannot believe SB is going to Australia in two months (I am also insanely jealous) and DB has one semester of college left. Mind Blown. Truly.

So that's the post-7% beer followed by a hot bath state of the state from me. I am nostalgic over the days of Jen's Holiday House Tour, but the only constant is change and I accept that. If I don't post here before 2015, my wish for you is a holiday and a new year filled with fun, family, friendship and fulfillment. 

 

 

 

 

 

DC: Post the Beginning

It seems like a lifetime ago I touched down at Reagan in Washington DC late on a Friday night. Because it's how Barbara-Jill and I roll, the plane was early and the traffic bad so I got to hang out for a bit (which meant I got to take a photo for a mom visiting her daughter at Gallaudet for the first time--her welcoming party was foiled by the early arrival, but we pretended her daughter and friends had been waiting with their signs). 

Any trip with the two of us (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) is a comedy of errors worthy of an I Love Lucy episode; just getting checked into the hotel was an adventure--after we navigated through the throng of well-dressed, national-fraternity-conference-social-night celebrants clogging the surrounding streets, we were told there was no parking for us at the hotel. Luckily, Union Station was a 1/2 block away (oh, Hyatt Regency bell captain you are probably stilling chuckling over that mischaracterization).

Foiled again in our attempt to get out of the Union Station parking lot and walk the mile to the hotel!

A bright light in our Union Station interlude was a guy who was similarly aghast at the thought that we, paying hotel guests, were kicking our vacations off by schlepping through a train station parking structure. He gave us great info on a late night tapas bar and then--more luck--when we almost abandoned our quest to said tapas bar as it took us through a dicey street landscape, he and his party showed up to let us know were walking past a homeless shelter and Google wasn't lying about how to get to the tapas bar, but we might want to consider a longer, alternate route on the return trip.

Oyamel, where at 1 a.m. I channeled my inner West Wing legisltative aide and drank delicious tequila and ate a cactus paddle and it only cost me half my food budget for the whole trip.

Barbara-Jill is the BEST person ever to sight-see with--she is a travel agent by trade. I don't believe the Old Town Trolley people really thought you could do the Orange, Green and Red lines in a day, but we did it!

 Also? We had mega-fun doing it AND the next day when we took a more leisurely tour of some museums. 

 Of course, we also had an incredible time just sitting and talking for umpteen hours (as one does with a lifetime BFF who they don't see in person very often). I am stoked for next summer's meetup in Denver to take in a Red Rocks concert and meet Barbara-Jill's new husband IRL. 

I actually took my big girl camera with me and was able to indulge my love for all things texturey and patterny in architecture . . . Barbara-Jill was quite patient with me and my penchant for pointing my camera at ceilings--especially ones with a Greek Revival motif.

 San Diego has a lovely botanical garden, but it doesn't have a very cool metal sculpture garden--note to Mr. Fix-it, doesn't metal work sound like a lovely hobby . . .

When California Barbie and new New Jersey Barbie get-together, great times happen. Every. Single. Time.

 

 

The Dark Side of "Teaching" a Healthy Lifestyle

Let me preface this by saying I am a mom who made all my own baby food, made sure our milk and chicken were antibiotic-free and didn't allow TV on weekdays, the better to be outside running around after school. Added to that, as a parent volunteer and a teacher, I've seen far too many lunches that consist of two bags of chips and a soda. Don't get me started on the loss of daily P.E. and adequate recess in our schools.

I am VEHEMENTLY opposed to any type of specific nutritional education and BMI/Fitness testing in our schools.

Whaaaaat? You ask. Whyyyyyy? You ask. Let me tell you, I reply.

Because in addition to the above, I am also the mother of a daughter in recovery from anorexia. Because I know things I never knew before about eating disorders and genetic predispositions and at-risk personality traits. Because nutritional education is likely triggering eating disorders in younger and younger children. Because the obesity epidemic--a complicated intersection of agricultural policy, urban design, and social and educational policies, and a dieting culture is not going to be solved by teaching kids that sugar or fat are bad. Not for that child and not for all children.

Because all this talk about good and bad foods, healthy and unhealthy behaviors, and the attendant fat-shaming as you share cautionary tales of unhealthy lifestyles, harms and kills kids. And while obesity might kill your child someday, anorexia is happy to do it today.

For children who are people-pleasers, who are perfectionistic, who are black-and-white thinkers, that nutrition unit is a finger firing a trigger on the loaded gun of genetic predisposition.

Talk to the parents of an anorexic (there are other eating disorders of course, but this is where my expertise and experience lie) and the stories sound so similar it would be comical if it was at all laughable. 

It goes like this: their child decided to follow some rules about food and exercise-rules their teachers and parents taught him/her. (This is where that personality profile comes in--children who go on to develop anorexia are generally really good students and overall terrific kids--smart and creative are common adjectives. They want to make you happy and they want to do things right.) At first, you usually congratulate yourself on parenting that mythical unicorn of a kid--the one that loves an apple better than a cookie, the one that would rather take a walk than watch TV. High-fives all around.

If you're the parent of a little, you probably pick up some issues right away. If you're the parent of an older kid, it may take awhile. One day, you realize you are scared out of your motherfucking mind because you CAN'T get your kid to eat. CANNOT DO IT. If you're lucky, as I was, you have a great pediatrician, a phenomenal program nearby, and insurance that does what insurance is supposed to do. If you're not lucky, you struggle to find help as your child gets sicker and you deal with clueless clinicians and then when you do find help, you have to mortgage your house to pay for it. If you're lucky like me, your daughter is alive, in recovery, and goes to college. If you're not lucky, your son is dead; many sufferers die of medical complications and suicide while waiting to access treatment. When treatment is available quickly, the 20% mortality rate plummets.

Back to my original point: think about this--you take a kid who is a rule-follower and a people-pleaser and a perfectionist and a black-white thinker and say:

Sugar is BAD

Fruit is GOOD

Fat is BAD

Vegetables are GOOD

Soda is BAD

Water is GOOD

Being sedentary is BAD

Being active is GOOD

The fun, creative, kid you love more than life itself takes this information to heart and begins to restrict eating and starts exercising for fitness. And they are GOOD at it--oh, so good; no days skipped, no cheating--it's impressive initially. At some point, the period of malnutrition and/or weight loss flips the switch in their brain and they no longer have control over what and how much they eat--the disease now dictates food consumption and exercise--and your life as you knew it is over and so is your child's.

You can have immediate access to the best treatment in the world as our family did and you are still looking at a minimum of two years before you can quit holding your breath. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness for a reason; anorexia is a bitch of a disease and tenacious beyond your wildest nightmare.

This is my plea to you; mother to mother, teacher to teacher: MODEL balance in your food choices and your activity level and keep your mouth shut; let your actions speak for you as you eat balanced meals and go out for ice cream now and then and take family bike rides or walks. If the obesity epidemic is your issue, I get it. But tackle it among adults, not among kids: advocate at all levels of government for changes to our agricultural policies that affect our food supply, for urban design and public transportation interface that give us walkable cities, for reintroducing movement and nurses into schools--these are ALL important issues and I support your work.

But please, LEAVE the children out of it--it might be your daughter who goes from being the adorable third--grader who delighted both you and her teacher with the outline she drew for reading and writing her first chapter book report in third grade to the 17-year old who missed the last semester of high school because she decided that she could avoid the Freshman 15 in college if she got a head start on adhering to reasonable "healthy eating and exercise" rules.

I encourage a dialogue about this and welcome your questions. There is a lot of common ground on what we are #FedUp with and we all have the same common goal--to safeguard the health and welfare of ALL our children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Which 50 is Fabulous Beyond Belief

I really, really was content with a quiet birthday celebration for my fiftieth. Lots of time with friends the day before my birthday, texts and phone calls from my kids, and a delicious dinner in a stunning setting with Mr. Fix-it had me feeling very blessed.

Nothing to complain about here. It was going to be a selfie, but a dog-walking teen kindly offered to take the picture; kids today!

I would have stayed at the beach a little longer, but Mr. Fix-it was chilly (in retrospect, possibly a smidge suspicious). 

It turns out that Grownup Girl--with help from The Pinup Girl who is a party thrower extraordinaire--and Social Butterfly were behind all of this (with a generous budget from Mr. Fix-it) and they rocked it completely. MVP and Mandy flew in from Chicago Thursday night, SB and her friends got up early Friday to drive home and they all chipped in on party prep and the transformation of the house once we were out to dinner. Danger Boy couldn't make it--the East Coast makes a turnaround trip like this a bit of a nightmare; he made up for it by texting me photos of himself and his date at a dance--so I did get to see both my handsome sons looking spiffy. 

  

This video shows my shock and joy when I hit the light and saw 40 or so friends leap up from behind the bar, yelling "SURPRISE!" I believe the phrase "Oh, my god!" was on loop for about five minutes. I don't need a photo to remember in striking detail their faces looking at my face and them looking thrilled at my happiness. Seeing MVP and Mandy and Social Butterfly and her roommates and SB's good friend Nicole from UCSB was like icing upon icing on my birthday cake. 

I am a Girl Scout at heart:

Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold. A circle is round, it has no end, that's how long I want to be your friend.

(That photo on the bottom right? We are having "orgasms'--you hollow out a chocolate covered strawberry, fill it with amaretto and add whipped cream. You'll understand why we had multiples!)

The Pinup Girl and her fiance bought a program that they will use at their wedding and set up a photo booth on a laptop; what you can do with creativity, PVC pipe, spray paint and fabric is stunning. The invitation will give you an idea of what went into this party. They had a dress and jewelry for me! The Mod, Mod world theme was incredibly fun. 

Mandy took setup photos. Is this not fab? In the kitchen are Grownup Guys parents, in from Chicago.

 

I always love my house, but I really love it full of people. To be able to have a houseful of guests with beds and bathrooms enough to go around makes me very happy.

It wouldn't be a mod, mod world without a mod, mod bar--featuring all your favorite Mad Men drinks! This is Pinup Girl's fiance and he mixes a strong and tasty drink!

Some things seem like a good idea at the time--I blame this on the fact that a dare was involved. Maybe I am just a college kid at heart :)

The Pinup Girl, Grownup Girl and Julie:

Partners-in-crime for so many years and now they are reunited in San Diego and busy launching their lives. It's so much fun to watch!

I definitely partied like a rock star and went strong until about 1 a.m. The next day was brunch with Grownup Girl and Guy and his parents, an extended time doing nothing but watch from the couch as The Pinup Girl and her man and Mr. Fix-it put the house back together and then a burst of energy in which I got some of the laundry done and cleaned my bedroom and bathroom. All the young people spent the day at the beach-a wise choice since it was stunning weather--and then MVP made a pasta feast for us all and we ate and talked and laughed and ate leftover cake (it is deadly delicious). 

Sunday was largely spent saying goodbyes, writing thank you cards and doing the happiest laundry ever--the sheets and towels generated by houseguests.

My house is full of flowers and memories.

I really don't have the words to express what an amazing gift this was, but I think this text from a friend--the one that shot the video-- says it well.

I FELT adored and I also feel so proud that I had a part in forming these incredible adults who are my children. I am honored and blessed to have amazing, warm, fun, interesting friends who were made happy by making me happy. And this guy . . .

I am sure glad I trusted my 16-year old self to know what she was doing when she told me--upon first meeting him (at the mall, natch)--that he would be the man I married. It's working out. What a life--I am loving every minute of it. My birthday wish is this kind of joy and contentment for everyone.

 

Finally Fifty

This is 50. Well, actually 49, but I think I will look much the same tomorrow. I don't believe in editing age out of photos, but maybe one day I will change my mind. I hope not.

Damn, I have been talking about this for a long time. Definitely had a lowkey midlife crisis for a few months--but it's ridiculous to continue to squander valuable and limited brain real estate on something you can't change. So better to just work on things you can change. That's what I will continue to do.

I have always admired Sandra Day O'Connor for having an outstanding career after raising her family; I hope I continue to have the kind of energy that takes. Being an activist suits me and I am going to work my hardest to "re-brand" eating disorders as serious illnesses that deserve society's support. The funding inequalities are astonishing; I think greater public EDucation will help change this. We're not getting our piece of the pie. That needs to change.

My juggle now is to find my voice. I can't be quite as unfiltered as is my style, but part of what makes me effective is to say things others might not. I really appreciate all the support I am getting and am hoping to partner with some cool new people on the Twitter front. Stay tuned.

I highly recommend a day filled with all your favorites the day before a big birthday. Had a relaxing and wonderful sleepover with my good friend, Michele; I made a nice pasta, salad and bread for dinner last night and she and Mr. Fix-it and I watched American Hustle. I stayed up until 11 p..m. on a school night! This morning we had mimosas while watching Blue Jasmine (LOVED IT), then massages at a day spa to which I will definitely return--pampering without snootiness. Skype call with my PITAs and then book group with my water polo moms. Coworker lunch date and lans for a nice dinner out with Mr. Fix-it tomorrow night.

It's a good life; I enjoy living it. I hope I get to do it for a lotta more years.

P.S. If you know anyone that wants to put me on the TV or radio, I really enjoy doing it; I feel like I am connecting with people and getting the message out. I can't embed the tape of my radio interview, but here's the link. Boy, I am meeting really nice, ethical people--it's restoring my faith in humanity. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 3

As a nurse surreptitiously videoed Jenny's room we tiptoed to her doorway, until she caught sight of us . . . Jenny was in utter shock! Enough to hide under the covers, probably thinking we were ghosts!   It would have taken wild horses to hold us back, especially Alyson and Denise, from bee-lining it to Jenny, embracing her, stroking her hair, her face, her hands.  To meet her in person, experiencing the elements of touch, sight, sound and reality, was overwhelming for all of us . . .many tears were shed, and no words will ever be able to convey the magic in the room that night!

Faith, Alyson, Jenny, Denise (aka Jenn)

And to make this visit complete, much to Jenny's dismay, a meal was in order! We went to the cafeteria together. How could we not?   After months of Skyped meal support, It was time for the real deal--macaroni and cheese, french fries and a smoothie. We ate, we laughed, we loved on Jenny!

All too soon, our visit came to an end.  Our goodbyes were quick.  But the afterglow and the impact of that visit lingers till now, and for what will be a lifetime.  A day that forever bonded three PITA Moms and their PITA daughter, that, in a sense, completed a journey from cyberspace to reality.  Nothing can ever take the place of reality . . .a real touch, hug, an eye-to-eye gaze. We hold those moments close to our hearts as we move back into our lives and realities.

Jenny and PITA Mom Denise having a moment/Photo by Faith.

We rejoice that our goal of treatment for Jenny was accomplished, knowing that it took the full efforts of 13 dedicated, fearless and tireless women and all they brought with them, including supportive spouses and families. However, we all agree that this is just the beginning of something way bigger than our original singular goal . . . there really is a method to the PITA madness.  And madness it was at times, but the madness worked and it can work for others suffering from an eating disorder who are unable to access treatment in a conventional manner.  So with Jenny tucked in safely in treatment and PITA moms recovering from caring for her, we are working towards our long-term goals and mission(s).  

One thing we know for certain . . . life will never be the same for any of us again!   We are forever the original PITA Moms!

Like you, we are imperfect, and, like you, we are enough.

 

Meet the PITAs . . . Jen

I asked my fellow PITAs to contribute written snippets of this incredible, exhausting, magical happening of which I have been part (plus it will help with the book :)). Thank goodness, Mama Jen took me up on it and picked just the right snippet. 

Please leave her some comment love!

Jen: She lives in the U.K., we share a love of shoes and bubbly and a devotion to our children. She's finally going to be in my timezone Sunday when the PITAs do a Sunday Skype-with each other instead of Jenny. Clealy, she's fab.

Moma Jen's contribution for Denise's 'Juggling Life' blog 

It was D-Day. Or maybe I should say R-Day – Recovery Day. But we'd been here before – so many times Jenny had been in medical hospital with the vague 'promise' that she would be transferred direct from there to Rosewood Ranch, the eating disorder treatment center that had been pinpointed as ideal for Jenny's complex needs. So I was trying to tell myself not to get too excited.

But actually, it felt different this time. Far more positive. Firstly, Jenny was in a different medical hospital that actually seemed to care! All the nurses were doting and caring in Memorial Hermann Hospital where Jenny had been for a couple of days. The doctors seemed to not only care far more for Jenny than previous hospitals, but they were keen to learn about how to treat someone with an eating disorder, rather than getting her only just medically stable and then discharging, often late at night.

So here I am, sitting almost five thousand miles away, in a teeny tiny, quiet village in Oxfordshire, UK, alternately huddled over my laptop on my round glass table or pacing around the room, thinking:

“WHAT'S GOING ON?!!!?”

I know that Cherie is on the plane from Florida to Houston. I'm opening up real time views of Cherie's flights to see where she is. Nearly there.

I'm watching all the threads, seeing the discussions, heart in mouth, waiting to see when Cherie arrives at the hospital, and seeing Jenny talking to the rest of us PITA Moms who are all doing the same as me. Watching and waiting, impatiently. Jenny's telling us that she's not stable enough to fly. But we know full well that she's just scared, despite wanting to recover so much. The discussions on all our different threads (they all have names, one quite rude where we can vent!) are chaotic at times and all over the place as we're all chatting to one another, guessing at what will transpire and how. All of us are waiting with baited breath.

Then we see a picture pop up on a thread of Cherie with Jenny! She's there, sitting on Jenny's hospital bed, scooping her up to safety. But I'm still not ready to celebrate quite yet – there's still a flight to Phoenix to go, and then meeting up with Denise and Alyson, aka Thelma and Louise, who were driving from San Diego to Phoenix to meet Cherie and Jenny at the airport. The plan was to then eat out, all together for the first time, and then drive Jenny the 90 minutes to Rosewood.

We see that Cherie is helping Jenny to sort all her stuff out. She has a LOT of stuff! Eventually we hear that they're at Houston airport, on their way to Phoenix. Another photo is posted by Cherie of the two of them on the plane, later followed up with a picture of Jenny sleeping. Bless. One of the mom's – Lisa I believe – commented that that will be a picture to show together with baby pics at her wedding, or some other big celebration that we ALL intend to take part in... :-)

Jenny is not planning on returning home, so she had stuff. Oy, did she have stuff!

More waiting. More chatting. I'm trying to focus on doing things around the house. Write a blog. Prepare dinner. But always with half an eye on the laptop, our chat threads. Our lifeline threads. 

Suddenly there's lots of chat as we see that they've landed, met up with Denise and Alyson and are finally on their way to Rosewood! By now it's around midnight my time and I have to get to bed. So first thing next morning I'm up, logging on quickly to see what's happened and see the chat threads have hundreds of comments on them! 

Part of this extraordinary journey of helping Jenny throughout her illness is the morning ritual, for me, of reading through the threads from the day/night before because of the 6-8 hour time difference. The threads can take an hour or more to read sometimes! Frequently I would have to scan read them – look out for pertinent comments from people and scan over the 'chat' (which can get quite personal and fruity, I can tell you! Well, we're sisters now, what would you expect?!). Certainly this particular morning there was more than enough to read through, but early on I quickly noticed a beautiful picture of Jenny with Cherie, Denise, Alyson and Shannon at Rosewood. She's there! She's safe.

Denise (aka Jenn @ Juggling Life), Alyson, Jenny, Cherie, Shannon

Now we can breathe. Relax, take stock of ourselves, learn to self care again and live our lives. Because this journey has been so all consuming that even our own husbands and partners have been neglected. So now it's time to show them the love they all deserve, and adjust to our 'normal' lives again. But always with Jenny in our minds, just waiting to see her again when she's finished treatment. Or even during, if it's possible, for some of us.

We PITA Moms are sisters now. We will always be there for one another, and, especially, for Jenny.

Happy Birthday to the No-More-Babies Baby

 

Those eyes, that smile and, most of all, that sparkle.

Today is Social Butterfly's 19th birthday. She will celebrate with her roommates at their favorite breakfast place--Martanne's Burrito Palace. (The most gratifying part may be that SB has a favorite breakfast place.) And no school for her--she has educated more than one person to the fact that Veteran's Day is 11/11--and not some second Friday of November nonsense.

This will be our first birthday apart as last year she was home wedding dress shopping on her birthday weekend. We had a pancake dinner because she's clearly a liker of breakfast foods. It's likely we will miss one another--I will certainly miss my baby. And then there's the fact that every time the baby meets a milestone, it's the last time that particular thing will happen in a family. In 365 days, I will no longer be the mother of any teenagers. I'm not saying that's a bad thing!

I am so proud of the young woman she has become. It's such a crazy phenomenom that there are times in life when something terrible happens to you and it makes you a better person--I know that is true for all of us in this family, but especially SB. I would bet that when you've beaten a life-threatening illness before you've left your teens, there are not going to be many things that you consider "too hard."

She has an amazing career goal--which I am not going to tell you about, but you will read on Thursday when I link to our The Eleanor Project feature--we are both so excited to be profiled. Word of advice-have a tissue ready because my daughter (the one that used to say she couldn't write) is a writer. Good sigh.

So to my snuggle-bunny, the baby whose first word was "mine!" (in reference to me), the girl that put the "born" in stubborn 19 years ago today--Happy Birthday! 

Because it's always, always been about the personality with this girl . . . 

 

On, or about, the occasion of her 3rd birthday--one of my all-time favorites of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flagstaff: There and Back

This past weekend was Parents' Weekend at Northern Arizona University, so Mr. Fix-it and I made the easy 7-hour drive up on Friday and back on Sunday (or maybe it's just seems easy 'cause he does all the driving).

We had a very fun dinner out Friday night with her roommates Erin and Tara and Tara's mom, grandma and long-suffering, but game little brother. We wrapped dinner up around 9:30 and took the girls back to the dorm so they could hit a party. I swear to you the thought of starting my night at 10 p.m. exhausts me too much to even contemplate.

(I have this really funny story to tell that happened at dinner, but it requires you to have seen this Jimmy Kimmel/Justin Timberlake skit, to understand that when I showed that bit to Mr. Fix-it I had to explain Twitter and hasthags (more than once) and then I would need to use hand motions to do the part where I saw a kid in a t-shirt that said #TrueBlueNAU and I said, "Hey! (insert hand motion) Hashtag TrueBlueNAU and Mr. Fix-it responded "(insert hand motion) Hashtag funny!" and the whole table cracked up.)

I should have taken a picture Friday night because the rest of the weekend the girls were not in a picture mood. Not even when I made my lower lip quiver. Sigh.

Erin, Social Butterfly and Tara's pretty blue eye. Somewhere around move-in day and swiped from FB.

Saturday Erin joined us for breakfast at a place so amazing that I can unequivocally say that it was worth the 1 +1/2 wait for a table and the additional hour for the food. OMG! Best breakfast of my life. And I am not young, so that's a lot of breakfasts. 

If you are ever in Flagstaff, you must have breakfast at MartAnne's Burrito Palace. Must. The servers wear Dia De Los Muertos aprons bought off Etsy.

Saturday afternoon the girls napped and Mr. Fix-it and I saw Don Jon (incredible social commentary on misogyny, porn, and "The Rules"). Saturday evening we ended up rocking it low-key with just the three of us, a movie, and pizza and beer in the hotel room. I may have had to prove that I can still chug an entire beer. 

Graininess aside, I adore this photo. #1, happiness and silliness personified. #2, my bra is doing it's job.

Sunday we had breakfast with the girls at Biff's Bagels--it is 100% granola Flagstaff at its best, and then we lit out for home. But not without me unwittingly leaving my jewelry behind. 

The terror in my heart when I went to get dressed Monday morning! The relief when I called the hotel! The apprecation I have for the honesty of Candace! The TripAdvisor review and emails to management I am writing this weekend!

It was a quick but really fun trip and Social Butterfly is doing phenomenally well. I read an essay she wrote that knocked my socks off. She's changing her minor from Psychology to Forensic Psychology and she and Erin are looking at doing a study abroad in Australia or Fiji--and I am optimistic this will happen. Very optimistic.

A lot of things are coming together re: eating disorder activism and they are very exciting. I'm going to wait until things are further along to share. 

I am really missing all your blogs! Work has been like running full-tilt on a hamster wheel, but I think next week will be better and I will be visiting all of you.

 

 

 

 

 

When a 100-yr flood coincides with a once-a-summer visit . . . Part 1

Let me say first that I have nothing but empathy for the denizens of Colorado--what they're enduring is terrible. My up-close brush with a natural disaster was with a wildfire, but I know what a terrible and surreal experience it is. I hope this is the end of the flooding and I wish them godspeed in getting their lives and communities back to normal.

That said, I experienced the flooding from a much safer distance and this is the experience I had. 

For our 26th wedding anniversary (August 1), Mr. Fix-it and I gave each other a trip to Fort Collins to see MVP and Mandy's new digs. And also just because we think they are very cool people and we want to spend time with them. I booked the trip (on points! praise be to Southwestern's Rapid Rewards program) for Mr. Fix-it's birthday weekend. 

Thursday night's plan was for me to get home at 5, pack quickly and head to the airport for a 7:20 flight. The amended plan (praise be to getting a text message your flight is delayed before you've left for the airport) included renting a car, leisurely packing, a moderate amount of housework and a home pedicure before heading to the airport for an 10:50 flight. 

Budget was out of the compact rental car I'd reserved, so we got a Ford Expedition (which is a vehicle I pretty much hate due to its terrible gas mileage and the need to hoist oneself in and out of it). Sidenote: I tweeted about this and got a $20 credit from Budget.

Around 4 a.m. we were trying every route we could think of to get to Mr. Fix-it's place, but all were closed due to the flooding. Sidenote: I learned lots about the way the Poudre river runs. Eventually we stopped to ask a police officer for directions (I was fairly insistent at this point) who directed us to the very route that was next on Mr. Fix-it's list to try. If only I knew.

At this point, we decided to go to breakfast so we could legit say we pulled an all-nighter for MFI's 51st birthday (also, you know if you wake someone up at 4 a.m. they won't go back to sleep). We had the best food I've ever had at an iHop. The cook was great and we got to know a lot about the waiter working the night shift and was pretty hungry for intelligent conversation. It was a fitting segue into life in Fort Collins.

When we did get to MVP's place, and after a few hours shut-eye, we were pretty impressed with the view.

I'm a sucker for tree-filled view and a blue sky

It strikes me that as this is now at 453 . . . 454 . . . words, I'm going to save the rest of the story. I think you'll like the rest, so do come back.