Whacky Mom Confession

December 11, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

For those of you who successfully raised kids who are now independent young adults in their 20s and 30s, well done. It’s a heavy lift. From sleepless nights to FAFSAs, it’s not easy. I mean just keeping them fed, clean and alive for 18 years is a major undertaking.

People are understandably proud of their adult kids. They worked so hard to get them to that point!

I think it’s that primal, arduous journey of parenthood that makes becoming a grandparent the most incredible blessing imaginable, and I am not someone who typically uses the word blessing. But having a beautiful, healthy baby grandchild in your arms, smiling up at you, is like walking through a field of flowers on a sunny day with a double rainbow overhead. It’s pure joy. Pure love.

OK, here’s the whacky confession. After spending the day with my perfect baby granddaughter (and her lovely mommy) yesterday, I missed the baby the second I got home. So I requested that my 6-foot 180-pound 23-year old son—MY baby— briefly sit in my lap like when he was small. He obliged. He knows it’s easier to just humor me than to argue.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

December 10, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

I’ve posted about Sally’sBaking Addiction.com before. It’s a great website for free cookie recipes. I’ve tried many of Sally’s recipes over the years and they always come out great. It’s where I discovered my amazing real maple syrup cookie recipe, which people absolutely love!

Last night, I tried making her Soft White Chocolate Cranberry cookies. They looked so pretty for the holidays in her “Cookie Palooza” newsletter. And doesn’t the inclusion of dried fruit make them a tiny bit healthy?

Anyway, they came out great and they are delicious. My only comment is that the dough is pretty crumbly. I needed to use my hands to knead it like bread before refrigerating.

Here’s the recipe in photos, in case the link above doesn’t work:

Here’s how mine came out. I will definitely make them again.

New Logo

December 9, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

My blogging friend Chris (A New Life After Cancer) told me about the free AI Logo Generator in Word Press.

If you can find “Create a logo with Jetpack AI” in the desktop version of WordPress, that’s where you can have your little negotiation with AI.

Based on my site alone, this is the prompt it generated for me: A logo for “50 Happens,” a site dedicated to Gen X moms who embrace life’s challenges with calmness and resilience, featuring a modern and uplifting design that embodies strength and positivity.

OK, but I did not like the colors in this one ☝️ and do I really want to limit myself to moms?

So, this was next: A logo for “50 Happens,” a site dedicated to Gen X women who embrace life’s challenges with calmness and resilience, featuring a modern and uplifting design that embodies strength and positivity. Feature colors like pink, fuschia, purple, and blue

OK, but let’s face it, I’m not this Zen ☝️. I curse and say harsh things on my blog sometimes, especially about Dear Leader, who will be with us for at least four more fucking years. 🤮

Next try: A logo for “50 Happens,” a site dedicated to Gen X women with children and grandchildren who embrace life’s challenges with humor and resilience, featuring a modern and uplifting design that embodies strength and positivity. Feature colors like pink, fuschia, purple, and blue.

OK, NO, this 👆is ugly. Now I’m getting frustrated! I’ll give you one more chance AI. Please enhance the prompt yourself!

A logo for “50 Happens,” [a site dedicated to Gen X women with children and grandchildren] [who embrace life’s challenges with humor and resilience], [featuring a modern and uplifting design] [that embodies strength and positivity] [with an elegant and playful style] [and a harmonious blend of colors like pink, fuchsia, purple, and blue].

Hey, I like that one! Good job AI.

My only criticism would be to make the image bigger within the pink square, but AI really does not want to do that for me. She said enough is enough—this is what you get!

OK, I’ll take it.

Off the rails

December 6, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

Do you ever see wild animals?

I see lots of wild animals around here, but I don’t feel like writing about them today.

Unfortunately I took a peek at the national news yesterday and I’m feeling scared today. It feels as if the country is definitely going off the rails. Humans behaving like animals is going to be the norm.

For the most part, I have not been watching the news since the election, but my husband told me about the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and then my son showed me the horrific video. It was so chilling. I was thinking, “Is this Russia? Is the President-elect somehow involved in this?” I literally thought that…and I am not a whacko conspiracy theorist.

But the reality is almost worse. The overwhelming reaction to this guy’s murder is completely justifiable rage at the health insurance industry. There is very little sympathy for his widow and children. I did a quick check of social media and it seemed the overwhelming consensus to the police’s request for help in finding the suspect is “snitches get stitches.” (So yeah, maybe “the public option” or even “Medicare for All” weren’t such crazy communist ideas after all.)

Animals. We are like animals now.

Then I read a quick article about the animal that has been nominated to lead our Department of Defense—Peter Hegseth. If you think “animal” is too harsh a characterization, please just google him. This guy could be walking around with the nuclear codes as soon as next month. I wonder if he’ll keep them in a pocket near his pro-Crusades tattoo?

Animals. An animal is nominating other animals to help him debase this country to a level we could have never imagined 10 years ago.

Pop quiz

December 5, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

A year ago this week we were wrapping up a bucket list trip to Paris. I loved it and posted many times about it, with lots of photos.

Below are four iconic works of art we saw there.

Just for fun:

Can you name the artist or title of each work without the help of Google or ChatGPT?

If you took Art History 101 and 102, you really should get 100%. If you weren’t a scarf-wearing liberal arts major in the 80s (like me), I think you should still be able to get a 50 or 75.

Good luck.

Five skills

December 4, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

Share five things you’re good at.

I attended a three-hour business zoom meeting last night for my church. We are an elected, unpaid executive board. Someone else was running the meeting and honestly, it was pretty bad…poorly organized and inefficient. We spent an excessive amount of time on non-issues and didn’t even get to the important items until 9:15pm.

I’m realizing that even though I’m good at it, I don’t want to do volunteer roles like this. If I’m going to do “work work,” I want to be paid. If I’m going to volunteer, I want it to be fun.

I still managed to accomplish several things for the church during the meeting using my business skills:

Perceptiveness (understanding situations clearly)
Prioritizing
Speaking directly
Writing succinctly
Getting shit done

I have fully recovered from whatever Imposter Syndrome I may have had when I was younger (see yesterday’s post).

Acceptance

December 3, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

What is one thing you would change about yourself?

One great thing about growing older is that you finally accept yourself. I know a lot of people want to lose weight and that sort of thing after 50, but for the most part, you’ve accepted who you are as a person by age fifty.

If you were a dutiful oldest daughter for too long, you should be fully over it by age 50. Even if your parents are still alive, their guilt trips should no longer hurt you. If you got raised in a repressive church, you should have escaped it by now and realized that you have agency. You are the captain of your own ship. Whatever you feel is correct. You don’t have to be nice all the time. You can say no. If you’ve been feeling anger over what’s been going on in this country since 2016, that’s fully justified. If you are angry and fearful about what’s coming next, that’s also fine. No need to apologize to anyone for anything you say or do, women especially.

So no, I’m 59 and I’m perfect. There’s nothing I would change.

I’m so perfect I could be a Disney Princess. (AI image generated by my daughter, who is also perfect.)

Sunrise, sunset

December 2, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

Are you more of a night or morning person?

If the title of this post makes you immediately start humming Fiddler on the Roof (original Broadway cast album starring Zero Mostel), then you are my people.

I searched my photo drive, for “sunrise” photos and found just ONE (and I have thousands and thousands of photos).

This is sunrise over Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Whereas I’ve got sunset photos up the wazoo (in America, that means more than I could ever use). I could make sunset photo calendars every year for the rest of my life and still not use them all.

So, I’m going to use this hard evidence to conclude that I am not a morning person.

Here’s a sunset photo from the same vacation in Rhode Island. This is Westerly/Watch Hill. Taylor Swift has a house nearby.

Fromage, my true love

December 1, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

What are your feelings about eating meat?

I wish I could envision being satisfied without ever eating meat, but I can’t. Sometimes I choose the vegan option at church lunches, but I’m always still hungry immediately afterwards. I could potentially go vegetarian (no meat, but dairy OK), but I’m pretty sure that would result in me eating such massive amounts of cheese, that my cholesterol levels would go through the roof and they are already too high.

I think I have to include chicken and lean beef in my diet in order to keep things balanced. Otherwise, I’d be dreaming about cheese glorious cheese day and night.

Two thumbs up for Wicked

November 30, 2024September 18, 2025 ~ MaryG ~ 8 Comments

I’m going to go ahead and give Wicked (the movie) two thumbs up. Five stars. A standing O.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. The two leads (Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba) are captivating and the movie magic is off the charts. It’s sort of Harry Potter meets Willy Wonka meets Legally Blonde, yet it retains all the heart of the original, beloved Wicked Broadway musical.

If you know the Broadway musical, the movie is Act One only. It ends when gravity is defied. Part two will be out next year and I will most certainly be getting a ticket.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone so I won’t describe my favorite scenes or the very cool cameo appearances, but I will tell you that our movie theater of 300+ seats did not have an empty one last night and people clapped at the end. Even straight men seemed to like it. My husband described it as “good!” and said he liked the story (a rave for him, for a musical).

Despite the ban, I did sing along quietly in a few parts, but with the “Dolby Atmos” immersive surround sound, I don’t think anyone heard me. Hollywood pulled out ALL the stops for this one. Go ahead and see it.

50 Happens

Gen X Mom Keeps Calm & Carries On

GenX