“Give me the estimate and let me see if I’m still breathing after I see it,” I said to the carpet guy at Home Depot. We were going to have to replace all of the carpet in our rental house. Slowly he turned the monitor and pointed to the number. “Okay then,” I said calmly….
We’ve been in the process of moving to my mother-in-law’s, ya know. That means chaos –a mess at our house and a growing pile of mess at her house. For this girl with strong obsessive-compulsive tendencies, it has often made me feel just a little crazy. But today I type out these words to you…
Ten people. Two bathrooms. One fridge. Five nights. That’s a recipe for something. Fourth of July forever and always means a trip to my mom’s in Wyoming. This year we threw my daughter and her husband in the backseat for the 12-hour drive that turned into 14 hours because of two unfortunate meal stops in…
Matt and I are very smart people. We make it our goal not to own anything too complicated or fancy, because with the ownership comes breakdowns and repair bills, which we cannot afford. For example, it’s good to know someone who owns an expensive boat and maybe sometime they’ll invite you to go to the…
This week, whew. One of those weeks at work, you know? I gave a test and thought I would run out of red ink before I was done grading them. Sent me into a spin trying to figure out if the problem was me or the students? Were they not working hard enough? Was I…
For the next two weeks, I’m taking a rest from writing and am enjoying the holidays with my family. (Isn’t it good to rest from our normal routines?) But I have pulled up a few blog posts from the archives and have enjoyed tweaking them a little. I thought this was a good one to…
As I’m writing this, I don’t feel good. Maybe a sore throat? I don’t know. Catching a cold or just tired? Can’t tell yet. Don’t teachers usually catch a cold in September? All those sniffly kids. In medical terminology, they call it malaise –a general feeling of discomfort, sickness, or uneasiness that you can’t quite…
Yesterday I thought my brain or my heart might explode. One or the other or possibly both simultaneously. It’s when you have your baby about to graduate. At the same time you sit in a courtroom to watch your friends officially adopt their 4-year-old foster son. At the same time your job changes a bit…
There have been times when the disappointing turns in my life have been a neck-wrenching 180 degrees–like when I was just sure I would get a teaching job in Killeen, Texas when I graduated from college. There were dozens of positions open. The lady interviewed me and turned me down flat. She told me those…
My calendar made me hyperventilate on Saturday morning. Well, the calendar didn’t make me –because it’s just a Wyoming Wildlife calendar with a picture of a great gray owl on it for the month of December. It was all my scribbles on the calendar that sucked the essence of life right out of my lungs,…
I am not one to scream, but that lawn mower… Sixteen years in service, and I suppose it had the right to stop dead in its tracks on only the second pass around the yard, although this seemed unjust after the numerous, shoulder-separating yanks I gave just to have it sputter reluctantly to start. I…
I’m not known for pristine countertops anyway, but if you make it a Friday afternoon and mix in a wedding reception craft, papers to grade, a few lunch boxes from the boy, and a stack of bills, it’s an end-of-the-week disaster. So there’s that preacher man of mine with bachelor party gift in hand. Let’s…
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