Musician's Widow

I just found a new twitter feed to follow. One that has had me laughing my butt off for the last ten minutes. FakeAPStylebook If you were a journalist, are a journalist or know anything about journalism, go follow it for some much needed laughter at yourself. And the AP. Which is perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, a post this afternoon sparked a memory for me:

My husband and I spent our first Halloween together in an apartment.  We had no idea if we’d get any trick-or-treaters, but just in case, on Halloween, we made a run to the store for candy.

We picked up a fairly large bag of mixed flavors of candy, and then we wandered around the store browsing. My husband remembered he needed new razor blades, so he grabbed those as well.

It wasn’t until we stood in line at the check-out that we realized we had bought that bad-guy combo: razor blades and candy. We literally half-wondered if anyone would raise an eyebrow at us as we checked out. Instead, no one was even remotely phased by it! My husband even pointed it out to the checker, and still she gave us a blank stare that said, “So?”

As we left, I still waited for security and cops to descend upon us. I waited for the questioning of why we would want to harm little children dressed up as goblins, princesses and purple dinosaurs.

But instead, there was nothing. I was half relieved, half alarmed. We could have been criminals in the making! Razor blades and Halloween candy! These are two things you shouldn’t be purchasing in tandem! Quick someone come and question me about my motives!

We climbed in our vehicle without anyone even giving us a second glance. We drove off with our bad combination in hand.

We didn’t have a single trick-or-treater that year. We gave a neighbor’s kids a bag of candy, and we left some pumpkins with candy in them outside a few other apartment doors. Our candy didn’t go to waste, and my husband was able to shave just fine. But still, every Halloween we laugh about our first shopping excursion and our accidental combination purchase. An amusing memory from our first year together.

As an aside, parents definitely have to be careful every Halloween, and I know I will be when its my turn to take my kids trick-or-treating. The thought of razor blades in candy makes me shudder, and I wonder why someone would do something so awful to someone so innocent. :(

I spent all day yesterday cleaning my house. Our landlord emailed me the other day saying they’d like to do a walk-through this weekend. Not a big deal, but I’d not done a good house cleaning in weeks. There was no way I could let our landlord come through with over a weeks worth of mail on the kitchen table, folded clothes on the couch, and a good layer of dust on every surface.

So, I got up and started cleaning. I even made a trip to Target to pick up more cleaning supplies. My cat, probably fearing that I might vacuum him (or use him as a duster), hid all day under the bed.

As my cleaning for the day drew to a close, I stripped our bed to wash the sheets.

There is nothing like fresh sheets, I say. I think if I could feasibly have fresh sheets every night, I would. But its not feasible, so I make due with about once a week.

I waited with anticipation for my sheets to get finished washing. I threw them in the dryer, and then ran to jump in my freshly cleaned shower.

That is part two of the epic sleep experience. Freshly showered, plus fresh sheets (throw in a thunderstorm — which I didn’t have, but that’s what the Lightening bug application on my phone is for) and you have most epic night of sleep. It seriously doesn’t get any better.

Okay, maybe you could throw in a back massage. But I don’t want to be greedy.

The dryer buzzed, and I pulled the warm, soft sheets out. I took them to the bedroom and started to put them on the bed. My cat came out and watched me. I gave him an evil eye. Last time I put sheets on the bed, he decided he needed to check out the fitted sheet personally for me before I could continue. He left a nice clump of white fur behind before I could shoo him off.

(Sidebar: putting on sheets makes me miss my old cat, Sully. He always made a total pill of himself trying to “help” me… and I’d always get mock-mad at him. Usually, we’d end up wrestling with the comforter. Good, good memories.)

I finished the bed without any problems, and, as I expected, my cat jumped up and curled up in his favorite spot: right below my pillow. I patted him on the head, and I took the laundry basket back to the laundry room. I grabbed a few clothes that needed to be put away and took them to the bedroom. I hung up the clothes, turned around and then saw it.

MY CAT HACKED UP A HAIRBALL ON MY BED.

I may or may not have uttered a few choice curse words. That’s between me and the cat. But he did a good job of it, and I decided it was payback for scaring him all day long with my cleaning. The wetness of it had gone through the comforter onto the top sheet. THANKFULLY the fitted sheet was unscathed, but it didn’t matter that much. I still ended up re-stripping the bed and shoving my comforter and top sheet in the wash.

I prayed my comforter survived the ride.

It kind of did. One corner had some batting sticking out when I pulled it from the wash, and I had to go find a needle and thread to patch it up before drying. That was fairly painless, and I did eventually get my bed reassembled. But somehow it all seemed like a lot just to get that epic fresh-sheet sleep.

Worth it?

In a word: YES!!

I’m sitting here staring at my computer screen. I know exactly what I want to write a blog post about, but the focus and urge to actually DO it isn’t there.

I keep glancing at the clock. One hour. I have one hour to get a post in to count for “today.” How can I write anything of substance in that amount of time? How can I truly give my topic the attention it deserves?

Some days are like that, I guess, and I can’t beat myself up for having a day of not wanting to give my blog the attention it deserves. I just can’t let that happen too many days in a row.

So here I am. Feeling a little over whelmed by my want to write, but lack of ability to write. Luckily, I know others go through it as well, and I hope those that have felt this way will commiserate and nod in understanding. You love what you do, but sometimes you find yourself fighting an internal battle with yourself.

Do it!

I can’t!

Yes you can!

Okay, I can, but I don’t feel like it!

What-EVER.

I find I write best when I feel like it. Better yet when I am feeling what I am writing. Feeling it makes what you are writing come to life much more, and when you feel it, your reader feels it. So here I am telling everyone, “I don’t feel like it!”

Yes, I am writing about not feeling like writing.

Anyone else confused right now?

I’m being one of THOSE people today. You know the kind. Those people who go to a coffee shop with their laptops, sit in the corner, and type furiously. The ones you wonder if they are writing about you or a term paper. Why do they have to do that in public? How… pretentious!

Well, first off, I AM writing about you. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) Second of all, its not pretentious, its just me needing to get out of the house! Yes, I could do this from home. I have been for the last week! But its lonely at home. My cat does not hold conversations very well. And, seriously, as much as I love my house… I can’t handle being in it almost non-stop for seven days.

See, my husband in right in the middle of a two-week run to the west-coast. And I am just WAY out of practice of his being gone so long. I’m used to a maximum of maybe four days out, then home for at least a day or two.  Not this run. Two weeks solid. And talking on the phone only gets me so far in the sanity department.

I’ve wanted to come down to Starbucks for awhile now. It’s kind of a no-brainer. Its barely three miles from my house, in fact. But I just couldn’t justify the cost. I have coffee at home. I have internet at home. I even had cupcake mixes at home!  But, you see in that picture above, the card? Yeah, that card pretty much gave me back some of my sanity. My cousin sent me that with a little treat inside that resulted in my gleefully hitting Starbucks today for a Grande Vanille Latte and a big, fat slice of banana walnut bread. So. Very. Yum.

So here I am, right in the corner of my local Starbucks, sipping my latte, people-watching and eavesdropping.

My favorite thus far has to be the guy who, for what ever reason, had to sit at the table right beside mine. Even though there were probably 15 empty tables in the building. And he’s not having anything. He’s just sitting at the table, playing with his phone. Interesting. Seems to be a soldier, in full army fatigues. Maybe he’s waiting for someone to end their shift. Or maybe he’s waiting to meet someone. Who knows. But he proceeded for have a ten minute conversation on his phone in which he kept saying, “Oh, she went home already? Are you sure she went home already? That’s what she said, she went home already?” After about the eighth time of this, I almost looked over and went, “Look! She went home already! Deal with it!” But, you know, I thought that might be a little rude. So I didn’t.

Another fun one has to be the girl on crutches whose friends didn’t bother to get up and get her coffee order for her. They watched her struggle to get up, then once she did went, “Oh I guess I could have gotten that for you.”  *facepalms* Teens.

My final favorite was watching a lady come in, order a drink, then sit down and proceed to pay her bills. Then for each bill she paid, she’d rip the statement in half and throw it away. Don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t seem like the safest way to protect yourself from identity theft. But, hey, maybe Starbucks trash cans have some sort of super-sonic-bill-destroyer-system in them.

Or maybe not.

This, folks, this is what that “pretentious person with laptop at the coffee shop” wonders. That’s deep, man. Deep.

Periodically, my husband and I have had troubles with our air conditioning duct work staying in tact. This summer, the heat has really wrought havoc on them. It seems at least once a week, we’ll realize one of our vents is blowing hot air, which means going up into the attic, reattaching the duct to the unit, and then duct taping like crazy. No need to cool the attic!

So last night, my husband decided to look over the duct work before he left out on the road. As he went to the attic, I bit back, “Don’t fall through the ceiling!” I figured it would be both a funny joke, but also a terrible jinx on him. So instead, I started vacuuming the living room.

I heard a bit thud from above, but I figured he was probably just moving the ladder and I paid it no mind. My parents are visiting for the week, and my mom happened to go to the guest bathroom. She called at me and motioned for me to come over. So I turned off the vacuum and went over.

“Look!” she said.

I opened the door, looked up and saw… a leg.

Immediately I went, “Are you okay!?” and started pushing up on the bottom of my husband’s foot which had, yes, come through the ceiling in the bathroom. Insulation all around on the floor, I didn’t know if I should be scared or start to laugh. Upon confirmation that my husband was indeed okay, I couldn’t help but start to laugh at the situation.

My husband’s pride was wounded and, of course, concern over having to have it fixed settled into the equation. But ultimately, it lead us to a lot of laughs — as well as a series of hilarious comments on his Facebook status update for last night. Everything from “Money Pit” references to requests for pictures.

Sadly, no, I don’t have any pictures of our temporary leg light fixture (I was too shocked to think to grab my camera, not to mention worried that my husband was seriously hurt!), and at the moment the hole is covered by a square of cardboard my dad helped us put up. We’ll get the ceiling fixed soon, and it’ll give us an excuse to slap a new coat of paint on the room. Looking on the bright side of things, you know.

However, today’s topic of conversation has consistently come around to the previous night’s adventure in ceiling destruction. Come to find out, a LOT of people have similar stories! So here I am to ask: Anyone else out there have falling-through-the-ceiling stories to share??

School supplies are already out in the stores as students and parents begin gearing up for the next school year.

I am 11 years out of high school, and 7 years out of college, and I still LOVE new school supplies. Brand new spiral notebooks. Packs of pens. Crayon boxes. Folders with fun designs on the front. 200-sheet packs of lined notebook paper.

I repeat, I LOVE new school supplies.

Last night, I found myself poking around Target and their back to school section. I couldn’t resist grabbing crayons, markers, and spiral notebooks. (They were on sale!) I poked around the shelves full of folders, paper, dictionaries, and globes. I found myself musing over all the cute little desk organizers, trying to remind myself I didn’t need anything.

Memories of new school years came back to me. How I’d fill a three-ring binder with notebook paper, and I’d itch to write my name on a sheet of paper. Organizers for my assignments would have name, address, etc. filled out weeks before the first school bell rang. I liked school, but I liked new supplies 1000x more. It was like literally being handed a clean slate for the new year.

Today, its not “school supplies” but “office supplies.” Post it notes, printer ink, and staples just aren’t as much fun as three ring binders, erasers, and graph paper. So, I find ways to justify my visits to the back to school supply sales.

Coloring is a great way to relieve stress, but I also happen to really like making my own cards and wrapping paper. If I am shipping a gift to someone, because I can’t be there, it lets me make sure it is a lot more personal! So, I always keep boxes of crayons and markers on hand. (Stickers and glitter, too!)

Spiral notebooks are the best way to jot down ideas for blog posts or to keep to do lists. Unfortunately, with all my husband’s traveling, I am never short of ballpoint pens. He brings home plenty from hotels around the country!

I still carry my backpack from college as my carry-on on flights. I’ve read many articles on how you should present yourself professionally at all times; you never know who you might run into and when. A backpack just doesn’t look professional. But its SO handy and carries everything I need with ease, so I don’t care decide to go with usability over presentation. Plus, there’s the odd comfort level there with it. Its almost like a safety blanket that carries my laptop, magazines and some snacks.

I know its not necessarily rational, but I really do love school supply shopping. Maybe its some strange way of holding on to my youth. When we have kids, they’ll probably end up hating school supply shopping simply because I’ll end up embarrassing them. I’ll be that mom going, “Ooooh!” and grabbing glue, pencil bags, and note cards like it’s a shoe store with a sale on high heels. I’m weird that way.

I can’t wait!