Tag: workplace

Midlife crisis, part one: losing my mind

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Midlife Crisis, tweens

I was standing in the kitchen talking to my husband last week, and he told me he was irritated because of something I’d told him earlier in the week that turned out not to be true. 

What was it? I sure don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. He remembered the (alleged) conversation in great detail. As I stood there listening to him recount what I said, I thought, “One of us must be crazy (and it’s not me)”!

I am quite sure that this conversation never happened. He is quite sure that it did. So, we sensibly backed off and let it go, nervous about where this particular road might take us, should we choose to pursue it.

Then today, I got to the parking garage at work and started to gather up my multitude of bags: bag with paperwork and reading material, check. Oversized insulated bag with my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, check. Pocketbook….pocketbook…with calendar, money, scissors, teabags, special cloth to clean eyeglasses, other miscellaneous detritus…NOT HERE!

I think back, retrace my morning steps. I am sure I carried my pocketbook and old navy plastic bag (with extra miscellaneous stuff) to the car this morning, as I stepped over my tween daughter who was sitting on the floor (in full tween drama mode) blocking my exit to flee the house.

Breathe. Breathe.

I call my husband, to share the insanity. I tell him that I can’t find my pocketbook. He says, “It’s right here, hanging on the back of the kitchen chair…next to an Old Navy bag”.

HOW could this be true? Yet I was faced with the undisputable evidence that what I thought I did this morning in no way resembled what I actually did do.

Plus, now I’m worried that my husband was indeed right in the first example above, and I was wrong. Oh-oh.

At this point, instead of “I told you so!”  he then said, kindly: “Why don’t you sit in your car and meditate for  a few minutes?” I did have time to do this now, since I’d come to Portland early to shop at the farmers market, but my farmers market money was home in my pocketbook.

Breathe. So Hum. Contemplate being unconscious in my own life.

The rule of tree…I mean three

by Karen, posted in education, friends, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

So, although I’d been complaining in an earlier post about the homework my daughter’s teachers had been assigning to the parents…I mean, the kids… I have to revisit my resentment some in light of the unexpected gifts that one of these assignments has had for us.

The (dreaded) Tree Project is the assignment to which I am referring (any mother who has had a child attending our local junior high school in the past 20 years or so will be familiar with this). After I heard some of the other moms talking about their efforts to help, like: “I spent 2 1/2 hours one Saturday afternoon driving my daughter around to get leaves!” for example (after I’d walked my daughter around the school yard for 15 minutes, got a mosquito bite, and called it a day), I was shamed off the bench and into the woods to help find leaves.

Toward this end, I asked a couple of work colleagues if they had any interesting trees in their yards that they’d be willing to ravage for leaves, nuts (extra credit!), bark, (same!), berries (same!)…you get the idea.

Well. They sure did.

  1. My friend Jody produced Pin Cherry leaves and then took a chance and loaned us a treasured little book, Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir. Last weekend we read this book together on the couch (with the TV off!), and talked about what it meant to “Be content with your natural beauty” and to “Let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes“…oh yes, and to “Drink plenty of water“…even trees know this!
  2. My friend Sheri produced a Beech Tree leaf with the coveted beechnut to go along with it. She also sent Izzy and me a copy of the tree poem, which I am planning to read with her this weekend.
  3. My friend Doreen brought leaves from a Quaking Aspen tree.  Izzy now has all of her pages filled in her Leaf Project book, which was her goal. The gathering is done!

So, these are the tree gifts: a book, a poem…and remembering what a great gift good friends are. 🙂

Children’s theater

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, restaurants, tweens

Consider taking a break from the movies this weekend. There are shows this summer at the Ogunquit Playhouse for kids of all ages. If you have some free time this weekend, head over to the Playhouse to see this week’s show: Jack and the Beanstalk. The show times are Saturday August 7th at 10AM and another show at 12:00 noon. On Sunday, August 8th there is one show at 10:00AM. The price is reasonable, and almost any seat will give you a good view of the stage.

You can order your tickets online at the Ogunquit Playhouse website (full disclosure: my daughter is in this play!).

Have plans already this weekend? There is one more event for children’s theater this season: My Son Pinocchio. There are 3 shows; the dates are August 28th and 29th (also a weekend).

After the theater, cruise (or crawl…it is a summer weekend in Maine, after all; traffic will most likely be heavy) on down route 1 toward Wells for lunch or a snack. There are so many great restaurants and ice cream shops that your only problem will be deciding which one to pick. 🙂

Despicable Me, the movie

by Karen, posted in family, tweens

I took my daughter to see “Despicable me”  this past weekend and we both loved it. It’s no “Toy Story 3“, but definitely is worth the price of admission (so to speak). 

Promotional Poster

The main character, Gru, is played by Steve Carell, and he becomes a dad after he adopts 3 orphaned girls for bad-deed-doing purposes. He plays the role as a kind of  “anti-dad”…for example, he says out loud the things that some parents may find themselves thinking at the end of a long hard day of work and child rearing, but would never actually say to their children. 

Gru does say these thoughts he’s thinking.  Out loud. There is no censor. Pay attention to the scene when finally, after they beg him night after night, he relents and reads the girls a bedtime story; it’s hilarious. 

Be careful though; make sure you employ your own censor if you are watching the movie with your tween. You wouldn’t want to embarrass her by laughing out loud inappropriately (read: when none of the other parents are laughing) at a movie moment that particularly resonates with you, as I inadvertently did. Okay, more than once. 

It was worth it though. It’s one of those funny movies that manages to move you as well.  Definitely worth seeing at the theater (read: do not wait for dvd for this one).

Late Summer Wish List

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, tweens

Now that summer is underway, I realized that I forgot some of our “must do” activities, not to mention several

that usually make the list but don’t get done (after all, summer is only a few short weeks and getting shorter every year, with kids having to go back to school sometimes in August (what is UP with that, anyway??).

Portland Head Light

So, here are a few more activities to squeeze in if you have time:

  1. Acton Fair runs August 26 through August 29  (consider it a warm up for the larger Fryeburg Fair coming in October). It’s not too large, so you can go in the morning before it gets too hot and the children (and possibly you) get too whiny. Depending you where you live, there are many other fairs over the next several months; find a schedule here: http://www.mainefairs.org/fair_dates.htm
  2. Perkins Cove and Ogunquit Village. There are lots of shops and restaurants in both places; park the car in the middle of both (sorry; most likely you will have to pony up some cash to park, but it’s worth it if you are spending the better part of the day, which you will definitely want to once you arrive) and explore. Once nice thing about Ogunquit, especially with kids in tow, is that there are public restrooms that are (usually) clean and easy to find.
  3. York Beach is another great place to go for a day at the beach. Short Sands Beach is great, again, because if you have kids, you can part once then spend the day. Beach, playground, bathrooms, restaurants, shops (many of which sell excellent fudge!).
  4. Downeast Duck Adventures is on my list every year (like the South Berwick Strawberry Festival) but I never get there.  In the spirit of  ‘write it down, make it  happen’…I’m writing it down. Here’s hoping.
  5. Wells Harbor Concerts run every Saturday night rain (held at the Wells Junior High School) or shine (held at the Wells Harbor Park) and are FREE. Enough of the concerts are both child and adult friendly to make it work for families (hint: bring the BUG SPRAY).
  6. The Wells ChiliFest is an annual event that will be held this year on Saturday, August 28 at the Wells Junior High School. This is a bonus because if it rains (like last year) you can still go and have a good time (hint: bring bottled water, or something to drink; sampling chili works up a thirst).
  7. Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth makes a great day trip; there are walking trails, picnic areas, and beautiful beach roses! Stop at JulChris Cookies for an amazing mid-afternoon treat on your way home.
Beach roses!

So that’s my late summer addendum. Hope you try something from this or the prior list.  Have any of you made up any lists of your own for this summer?

parting is such…(insert oxymoronic phrase)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, books, good grief, recipes

my best work friend is moving on to greener pastures in the workforce…happy for her, sad for me.  of course,we plan to stay in touch and have even gone so far as to devise ways to accomplish this (we don’t live near each other), but it is still happy/sad. In The Happiness Project (http://www.happiness-project.com/), author Gretchen Rubin talks about this feeling (she calls it ‘happy/unhappy’ in her book), when the thing that makes you happy also makes you unhappy…one of her examples is eating more than one cupcake…i can relate to that.

how to officially say goodbye? usually at my company we offer up a cake of some sort (although more often than not, my departing friend is the cake baker/procurer) and a gift certificate to a local business.

her favorite cake is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting; guess i’d better get a-bakin’~http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Deep-Dark-Chocolate-Cake/Detail.aspx seems like as good a place to start as any.

how do you say goodbye to (favorite) work colleagues?

what are some favorite goodbye gifts that you have given (or received) under similar circumstances?

here is a link to some goodbye poems (may also be useful  in case any of you are cardmakers or scrapbookers ): http://www.poem-poetry.com/goodbye-poems.html

jumping

by Karen, posted in family, fitness, health, no fear, tweens, yoga

i was at my regular saturday morning yoga class and the teacher taught us a short ashtanga (http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/1366) sequence that involved jumping. one of the women said something like, “kids do it all the time, but how often do adults get to jump in real life? never!”.  i was thinking, “i do! i was jumping just the other day!” i had, in fact, just been jumping two days prior. i was sitting in my cubicle at work and suddenly realized i had been sitting for a couple of hours straight and needed to get up and move…i have a programmed alert in my outlook calendar that pops up every hour, prompting me to “GET UP!!”, but i must have inadvertently clicked on ‘dismiss’ instead of ‘snooze’ earlier in the day. so i stood up, and surprised my fellow cube mates (not to mention myself) by starting to jump up and down. i don’t know where it came from, but it was like the jumping just spontaneously sprang forth from my body, without my prior knowledge or consent. once i started, though, i realized that it felt good and i continued for several more seconds before self-consciousness gained the upper hand and i stopped.

reasons to jump:

1. it’s fun!

2. if you own a trampoline, you can get your money’s worth!

3. if you have a jump rope (come to think of it, i do), you can get your money’s worth!

4. it’s good cardio!

actually, speaking of cardio, money can be raised by jumping. my daughter recently participated in a jump-a-thon  (for the american heart association) at her school and raised $55.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=2360

how long has it been since you jumped up and down just for the fun of it? 🙂

potlucks

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

march is nutrition month, and this year we celebrated it at work by having a potluck. the general overall theme was healthy eating; the underlying challenge was to prepare and bring healthy foods that people wanted to eat, which left quite a wide range open for interpretation.  we had the requisite fruit and veggie tray, and a box of clementines from the no-time-to-shopper…then we had the piece de resistance: vegetable casserole, which was a hands down favorite.  this recipe can be found here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1750,149169-249195,00.html

ahhh, and then there was the bread.

is there anything better than a potluck to improve morale in the workplace? if so, what??

cookie break!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, recipes

and speaking of cookies…recently my coworker was walking around with a plate of her latest offering: homemade cookies. way to boost morale in the workplace!  one of her favorite websites for recipes is www.kingarthurflour.com.  i tried some of the recipes from this website and had great success with them (the blueberry muffins were a big hit with the kids…but that’s another story; today we are talking about cookies).

these are MY favorite cookies at the moment; either homemade (they sell a cookbook with the recipe) or you can go to the Beach Pea Bakery in Kittery and purchase one (or two or three!) already  made:  http://www.beachpeabaking.com/. if you go, check out the fougasse…

do you prefer to bake your own cookies or to have them handed to you?