Frazzled Reflections

I love Christmas. I always have. As a kid Christmas meant decorating sugar cookies, twisting a perfect candy cane cookie, watching White Christmas , trips to my grandparents' farmhouse, for a couple years trips to Toronto to visit my other grandparents, time with family, and presents. As I got older not a lot changed. In my teen years I added gift exchanges with friends, Christmas dances, and plans for New Years gatherings. In college Christmas meant a break from school, a semester completed, and a 600 mile trip (1200 miles round trip) to see my boyfriend and my parents and sisters. In 1999 it meant a flight home from Europe on the eve of Y2K. And two years later it meant a wedding day complete with six inches of lake effect snow. Now it means watching my excited children unwrap the gifts they find under the Christmas tree. I love Christmas, but as I get older I have to admit it has lost some of its "magic." What happened? I became an adult and suddenly the responsibili...

We didn't buy the house with the intention of staying. It was a second starter home purchased as part of a move. The intention was to live in the house long enough to get our finances in really good shape so we could sell the house and move up. We would get a bigger house, a nicer neighborhood, and then stay in the new house until retirement. In a good market that plan would have worked. We watched the market take a downturn and when we were informed of a possible job transfer that was most likely going to happen, we watched the market crash. So much for our "investment." We moved three years ago and our Indy house is still our house. We are thankful that, unlike many, we have managed to keep our house payments and financial credit mostly intact. There have been a couple missed payments which had to be made up along the way and we still have little to no room for error, but two renters into the three years and we are still making our payments and chipping away littl...

To my precious little girl, I am so thankful that you are still my little girl. I am thankful that you are too young to know the uproar that was caused last weekend when yet another starlet "shocked" fans and parents of fans. I am thankful that you are still too young to ask for permission to watch an awards show on television that I know will expose you to material that is too old for you, material that will challenge your innocence. I am thankful that you are too young to have witnessed a grown man singing about having sex while dancing with a young woman nearly half his age. And I am thankful that you did not have to witness the backlash against the young woman and the delayed response to the actions of the grown man who should have known better, who should have acted better. I am thankful that you are too young to read and understand stories of judges who give less than a slap on a wrist to a grown man who takes advantage of a young woman. I am thankful that you are t...

It all started with a quiet crash. I was cleaning, the kids were quietly playing inside the house and my husband was outside mowing the lawn. Since the kids appeared to be ok and the dog was in her typical do nothing pose, I figured it was from our neighbors. Then Jeff came inside. "I need you to come outside." "Why?" "Just come outside. Kids stay inside, ok?" Somehow he had managed to hit a small rock with the riding mower that then flew up into our daughter's second story window. Thankfully the rock only went through the outside window, leaving the inside storm window intact. We cleaned up as much as we could and took stock of the situation. Over the course of three years we had come to the conclusion that our old, wood Pella windows were not nearly as good as they had been when they were installed years ago. We knew we needed new windows but we were going to put it off as long as we could. There were other projects that we wanted to comple...

As a kid I always had an overactive imagination. I loved dressing up, I would play games on my own that were often inspired by movies and television shows I had seen, and I had many conversations with people who were very real to me but could not be seen by the naked eye. I remember making up songs and picking flowers/weeds out of the grass in our Detroit backyard after watching Rumpelstiltskin with my family. For awhile my imaginary friends were Michael, John, and Wendy after watching Peter Pan . For years I was scared of our basement because my parents thought it was a brilliant idea to take their 3-year-old to a re-release of Snow White (sorry, but the Wicked Queen is SCARY). And many of my games for several years were inspired by my love for She-Ra . It should be no surprise that my little girl, my little clone, operates much the same way, but her adult mother still finds herself confused, amused, flustered, and occasionally frustrated by the imagination that occupies my daught...

We were living in Wyoming when OJ Simpson drove his white Bronco through southern California in a televised police chase that riveted the country. I was a teenage girl more interested in music, theatre, and boys than in football, so I was clueless as to the identity of the panicked driver. My parents, however, were shocked. Most of America was shocked. Here was a likable football player, loved and respected by his peers and fans, who was being chased down and arrested for the murder of his ex-wife and her male companion. The whole country watched the case unfold in an age before the Internet explosion, before Twitter and Facebook, before everyone with a computer or cell phone believed they had to the right to publicly comment on a case about which they knew nothing. And I sat in chemistry in a classroom full of my white classmates as we watched in shock and awe at the "not guilty" verdict that was announced in real time. It didn't seem right. It didn't seem real. All ...

I remember when I was three or four. I know it had to be then because there were only two of us girls and my sister was really young. My parents, still young 20-somethings, decided it would be an awesome idea to drive to Windsor to watch the fireworks. And why not? We lived in Detroit and the Canadian border was still easily accessible to American citizens. No passport necessary. Just state your business (watching the fireworks and then returning home) and cross the bridge or tunnel to get to the other side. I don't remember much about the fireworks, but then I've seen many displays in my lifetime so it probably makes sense that this event doesn't stick out to me. But I do remember sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the car while my parents slowly made their way back across the border. I know we got home LATE, but I don't believe that I was any the worse for wear for the event. I'm sure I caught up on the sleep I missed and was back to myself in no time. Yeah, I can...