Seven quick takes
1. A couple of my posts have been featured recently on the site Oregon Women's Report. It's a site that includes writing on a variety of topics by women from around Oregon. Check it out if you're interested. I think my favorite recent posts on the site are "Raising an Oregon Boy" by Erika Weisensee--I, too, am proud to be giving my kids a quintessential Oregon upbringing--and "The Horror of Mom Jeans" by Heidi von Tagen--someday, my hip-hugging but slightly flared at the bottom boot-cut jeans, the jeans that I consider so attractive right now, are no longer going to be in style. And then what am I going to do?
2. I'm working on an article right now that involves calling up local community leaders and asking them to describe their first job. I get a kick out of this--everyone seems so nostalgic about whatever that first job was, and the more low-paying and difficult it was, the better. It's fun to have a war story, I guess, something to prove how tough you were back in the day. My own first job, other than babysitting (which I started at age 11, which seems awfully young to me now that I have kids of my own) was working as an extra helper during the Christmas rush season at the now-defunct Mervyn's department store in Albany. As shoppers madly trampled through the store, it was my job to pick up the clothes and sort them and fold them and hang them all up again. I didn't even get to run the cash register or anything (although I was promoted to that later). All I did was pick up, fold, and sort. It was super-boring. But I felt thrilled beyond all get-out when I got that first official department store paycheck.
What was your first job? Any good ones out there?
3. Potty training. It proceedeth. In some ways, we're doing awesome! She has stayed dried during naptime all three days. Her diaper didn't even seem wet at all when she woke up this morning. Her sisters were twice her age before they could do that. We spent two hours running errands this morning and she stayed dry the whole time. But, when we were just hanging out at home, she peed on the floor three times. We're not there yet, clearly. But we're sticking with it.
4. Beth is done with kindergarten. This means that, at least in theory, I have a first-grader. She's reading books to herself and doing addition and subtraction for fun, elegantly crossing her legs when she sits down, pretending to be a rock star, using words like "irritating" and "possibility" and "antennae." It's like I'm suddenly living with a very small 20-year-old. A very small 20-year-old who also sometimes still cries when I tell her she can't have another cookie. It's an odd feeling. Very odd.
5. Dance classes went a lot better for me this week. A couple of new people joined the class, people who hadn't been there the week before and this knew even less about what they were doing than I did, and somehow that made all the difference. Perhaps it's horrible of me that I couldn't feel any self-confidence about my dancing until I knew that at least I wasn't as bad as that guy...but that's the way it was. It helped. It really did. And once I had a little confidence, I enjoyed it even more.
6. I'm reading: "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" by Louise Erdrich. I'm only about 30 pages in, but so far it's fascinating. It's about a woman who becomes a priest--yes, you heard me, a priest--in South Dakota in 1912.
7. I'm watching: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7. Go ahead and mock me. Meg and I used to watch this show in college, but I never kept watching it after graduation, so I didn't know how it ended. Now she's done with finals for the year and she and Eric and I have been having Buffy marathons after the kids are in bed every night. Tonight I'll finally find out how Buffy (whose hair always looks fabulous, no matter what she is doing) manages to keep ultimate evil from destroying the world forever! Good times.
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4 comments:
Hooray for Buffy! If you want to keep up with the story once you finish Season 7, I'll lend you the Season 8 comics. (But we won't tell anyone.) :)
My first job was washing dishes at my parents pizza parlor. Oh, I hated that job! But my parents told me I couldn't move up to another position until I did well there. Somehow I never did move up... I just moved to working at a different business of theirs, a movie theater... hmmm....
Buffy cracks me up, though I've only seen a couple episodes. We are just finishing season 2 of Lost. We are quite behind!
Ditto on the jeans. I have worn the same style wince they weren't stylish yet, straight and slightly flared. What will we do? I think it's a classic style and will be just fine for years to come. DOWN WITH SKINNY JEANS!
Ditto on the 1st grader. What can we do about this exceot lock them up for the next 12 years. I'm in so much trouble. 5 parents in her class have told me their son is going to marry Maddie!
I was a lucky one, my first job was at the age of 16. I was a teacher's aide for a private Kindergarten in Brownsville! I loved it!
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