Parenting

The next generation

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What is your career plan?
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I’m retired (I think) and looking forward to becoming a grandmother and doing some meaningful volunteer work. So, I’m going use this prompt to provide an update on the next generation.

I’m extremely pleased to report that my son landed a job! He’s a senior in college and this is his first post-grad position. I’m super proud of him!

The college class of 2024 (high school class of 2020) has not had it easy. They had their senior prom, graduation, senior spring sports seasons, and numerous other rites of passage cancelled due to Covid. In addition, many of them (including my son) took their very first semester of college classes remotely from home. MAJOR bummer is an understatement! His second semester, though not remote, was not at all normal. Masks, testing, and Zoom classes from dorm rooms are not fun. My son got put in isolation for TEN DAYS over Easter because he was exposed to a bus driver who tested positive. (My son never did.)

Sophomore year was somewhat normal and thankfully he had a terrific semester abroad junior year. And now, the famous final scene…the last few weeks of college.

So here’s to these very resilient young people. GenZ is in the house and they are going to do things differently. We’re handing them a broken world, but I have faith that they will improve things in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Cheers 🍻 to my son and the Class of 2024 ❤️

Rain Camping

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever been camping?
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Yes, I have been camping. And not just regular camping, but hike-up-a-mountain-with-everything-on-your back-and-sleep-in-a-tent-in-the-rain camping.

In addition, I have taken young children camping—also in the rain.

Anyone can camp in good weather. The misery of hiking, cooking and sleeping outside in the rain requires fortitude.

WordPress, I demand an A+ on this assignment!

White Mountains, New Hampshire, 1991
Kids do not care if it rains while you’re camping. They think it’s fun to eat dinner in their sleeping bags.

Related post:

Beach v Mountains

MAJOR News

~ MaryG ~ 27 Comments

When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?

I quit my job last November. So far, it’s working out well, but my husband is still working part-time, so we haven’t really hit the “fixed income” phase, which I think of as true retirement.

And people, I have extremely exciting news! My retirement is about to get a whole lot better. My beautiful daughter has informed me (via coffee mug) that I will be receiving THE BEST PROMOTION EVER in 2024!

She did an adorable gender reveal on Easter. There were yellow peeps in three Easter eggs. The fourth (mine!) had the big news.

The Pink Peep 🐥 😀
These two are going to be great parents.

💗

Sunny Orlando

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?
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Sun makes all the difference, right? Cold and gray is so much worse than cold and sunny. I know one family that left Seattle (including a tenured academic position) after 10+ years, due to the infrequency of sunny days. I’ve never been to Seattle, but that does sound rough.

New England winters are LONG. It’s best to break it up with a trip south, if possible. For years, Orlando (Florida) was our top family destination for school vacation weeks. My sister-in-law lives there, so we’ve been many times. Don’t knock Orlando ‘til you’ve tried it. They’ve got something for everyone.

It wasn’t always hot when we went to Orlando in February (or even in April), but it was always sunny.

Related posts:

Summer is our Glory in New England

Leaving on a jet plane

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
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If we’re talking about my country (the U.S), I’m going on an airplane. The days when I may have fantasized about doing a Jack Kerouac/Hunter S. Thompson/Bob Dylan/Route 66 Great American Road Trip are over. It always sounded cool and like something you should do at least once in your life, but I never did it. I once drove from Massachusetts to Florida with a boyfriend. We had no particular plan. It was spring break and we just wanted to get warm, so we headed south. I think we made it to Daytona Beach before heading back.

Driving all the way to California from Massachusetts would’ve been a great adventure in my twenties, but I won’t be adding it to my bucket list now. I’m too old for that shit. And a bus would be even worse.

Actually, my mother took a bus from Massachusetts to California with two of her friends (one from high school and one from college) in 1960, between her junior and senior year of college. This was before women could get birth control or hold a credit card in their own name. They got jobs in Los Angeles and stayed for the whole summer, then took the bus back. They just wanted to see the country and have an adventure. I’ve always been impressed that my grandmother allowed her to plan that trip and that she had the guts to go.

Los Angeles in 1959 (photo by Railroad Jack on Flickr)
My mother in the 1950s

I suppose you could take a train across the United States, but nobody I know has done that, so perhaps it’s not that great of an experience.

Six years after my mother’s adventure, I was born. Two years after that, Peter, Paul and Mary wrote Leaving on a Jet Plane. I always loved that song.

My daughter

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Who is the most confident person you know?
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My entrepreneurial daughter has a quiet confidence beyond her years. She’s not a loud extrovert (that’s more my lane), but she knows herself and what she wants, and focuses on it calmly and deliberately.

She’s in her late twenties and holds down a full-time (remote) job in the biotech industry and runs her own business.

After college, she took her passion for astrology and turned it into a legitimate, profitable business, including all the necessary paperwork like setting up an LLC. Her business is successful because of her hard work and creativity. I’m always impressed with the way she speaks so clearly and confidently in her videos.

If you’re into astrology, check her out on Instagram or TikTok (@lunarxluci).

She and her boyfriend were able to buy a house last year, because of their hard work and determination.

I take no credit. I’m not entrepreneurial. She really did it all on her own. I did read her a lot of books when she was little. She especially loved Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat was one of her all-time favorites. She called him “hat cat.”

Come to think of it, Cat in the Hat was a confident, creative, multitasker…maybe he had an influence?

In case you’re curious, I’m a Gemini ♊️ and she’s an Aquarius ♒️.

Her website: Lunarxluci.com

Honor Thy Mother

~ MaryG ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
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I’ve posted before about my double name: Mary Sue. Sue is my mother’s name, so I like it. Most of us get our last names from our fathers (because patriarchy), so it’s nice to get your first and/or middle name from your mother, or your mother’s side of the family. We followed that tradition with our kids.

I kept my own last name when I got married (even though it’s much harder than my husband’s to pronounce and spell). This could’ve caused a fight about our kids’ last name, but it didn’t, because I’m a pragmatist and a feminist. 😉

My mom and me, late 1960s

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Related post:

Freaky Friday

Keep on Moving Forward

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
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Sometimes failure is just failure. The plays I didn’t get cast in, the rejection from my first-choice college, the math class I dropped because it was too hard, and the fellowship and jobs I didn’t get, are all examples of times I objectively failed.

People talk a lot about “grit and resilience,” usually in the context of blaming today’s parents for being too protective and helicopter-y. Well, failure forces you to build those qualities, even if your parents somehow messed-up.

What other choice do you have in the face of failure? You gotta keep going.

“Keep on Moving Forward” by Emma’s Revolution is my all-time favorite protest song. I think it inspires personal fortitude, as well as strength to keep fighting for a better world.

KEEP ON MOVING FORWARD
© 1984 Pat Humphries
Moving Forward Music, BMI
www.emmasrevolution.com

Gonna keep on moving forward
Keep on moving forward
Keep on moving forward
Never turning back
Never turning back

Gonna keep on moving proudly
Gonna keep on singing loudly
Gonna keep on loving boldly
Gonna reach across our borders
Gonna end the occupations
Gonna stop these wars together
Gonna keep on moving forward

Pat Humphries and Sandy O (Emma’s Revolution)

IT’S SUPER TUESDAY in the USA. Don’t waste your right to vote.

Alabama
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Maine
Massachusetts
Minnesota
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia

Gadgets (and a brief survey)

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What are three objects you couldn’t live without?
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I’m assuming nobody wants to hear about how dependent I am on my phone, car and TV. I’m thinking favorite gadgets might be more interesting?

Per Merriam-Webster, a gadget is “an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use, but often thought of as a novelty.”

Based on that definition, my top three gadgets du jour are:

My Ember smart mug, which is pictured here. It keeps my coffee warm for a very long time. No need to nuke it* over and over again.

My Oxo citrus squeezer, which is pictured here. I bought it at Whole Foods. It’s the perfect size for juicing limes, specifically.

My Pure Enrichment tabletop humidifier. I like it because it also has a calming blue light. I bought it for $35 at CVS two years ago, kept the receipt, and the company sent me a new one this year when the original developed a slight crack. I like a company that stands behind its products.

*Nuke it means “microwave it” in the above context. My GenZ son thinks that my husband and I made this up and that nobody else in the whole wide world says “nuke it.” If you would kindly let me know whether or not you say “nuke it” when you mean “put it in the microwave oven” and (if comfortable) your approximate age and home country, I would be very grateful. (The results may be used to convince my son that I am not weird.)

TYIA

Under One Roof

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

There’s a phase of life that ends before true empty-nesterhood begins. It’s the “under one roof” phase.

As a young mother, it’s hard to get to sleep at night until all your kids are home in their beds. You want the whole family under one roof – safe. This gets more challenging as your children grow up. They’re out with friends and it gets late. They say they’re on the way, but what if something happens? Sleepovers, camp and other things sometimes require you to go to sleep with your kids NOT under your roof, but in those cases, I always made sure the ringer on both the landline and my cell phone were turned on high. If someone called, I wanted to hear it.

The “under one roof” phase inevitably ends and you just have to accept it. It’s very hard at first. What if they’re not safe? What if there’s an accident? Eventually, with practice, you can get to sleep having no idea where your offspring are.

As Hillary Clinton once said, “having a child is like deciding to let your heart forever walk around outside your body.” Letting go of the “under one roof” phase is just another step in the process.