Binkytowne

Love, Grandma #best09

Grandma D is my husband's grandmother. Like most grandmothers, she has a rich history, not mine to tell. Today in her eighties, she still always shows up; She always has her hair curled, her lipstick on and always has a snazzy broach on her sweater and socks that match her slacks. Once I went to her house for lunch and she made us soup and hot dogs. A + grandma material. 

In the ten years that I have known my husband, she has continued to send cards for birthdays and holidays. The best part of receiving these cards is not the two or three one dollar bills tucked inside, it's the flowy cursive script of her handwriting and the gems she has written over the years, including:

"I'm eighty three years old, I haven't been sick lately, I've had all the germs."

"It's a good thing so-and-so is pregnant, she almost missed the boat!"

She's also written lovely testaments to my beautiful boys and love of family.

As the years have progressed the notes have become more brief. I'm not sure her sight is what it used to be. Our Christmas card this year only included a line or two and it wasn't until I saw it that I realized how much I looked forward to the longhand, sometimes rambling, letters she used to write on the front, back and insides of the cards she picked out, signed and mailed to us.

Always signed,

Love, Grandma  

Today's prompt is stationery.

Love, Grandma #best09

Grandma D is my husband's grandmother. Like most grandmothers, she has a rich history, not mine to tell. Today in her eighties, she still always shows up; She always has her hair curled, her lipstick on and always has a snazzy broach on her sweater and socks that match her slacks. Once I went to her house for lunch and she made us soup and hot dogs. A + grandma material. 

In the ten years that I have known my husband, she has continued to send cards for birthdays and holidays. The best part of receiving these cards is not the two or three one dollar bills tucked inside, it's the flowy cursive script of her handwriting and the gems she has written over the years, including:

"I'm eighty three years old, I haven't been sick lately, I've had all the germs."

"It's a good thing so-and-so is pregnant, she almost missed the boat!"

She's also written lovely testaments to my beautiful boys and love of family.

As the years have progressed the notes have become more brief. I'm not sure her sight is what it used to be. Our Christmas card this year only included a line or two and it wasn't until I saw it that I realized how much I looked forward to the longhand, sometimes rambling, letters she used to write on the front, back and insides of the cards she picked out, signed and mailed to us.

Always signed,

Love, Grandma  

Today's prompt is stationery.

DInk De Dink #best09

I'm sitting up late, messing around on the computer. I bought some patches last year, maybe the year before and I can't remember where I ordered them from. It's Sunday night, almost ten. What the hell?

I open TweetDeck and type:

"Anyone patch the knees on blown out kid's jeans? Need cute patches"

In less time that it takes me to alt-tab back to Amazon, I see I have a mention on Twitter. Clicking back I see it's my old friend @GracieDesigns. She has a suggestion. A couple of minutes later not only do I have a place to look for patches that I hadn't thought of, but I feel lighter, taking a stroll down memory lane to when we used to work together and remembering that I haven't laughed that hard at work since she left.

I know this is no revolutionary moment in social networking and millions of people are experiencing the same thing as I type this, but it doesn't make it any less cool.

Today's prompt: Social Web Moment.

*Dink de dink is what we use to say to each other over email when we were making it look like we were working but were totally goofing off. I can only imagine the hilarity that would have ensued with IM or twitter had we had it back in the day.

For Real Life #best09

This year I was not:

Thinking about getting pregnant, trying to get pregnant, waiting to find out if I were pregnant, counting the weeks waiting to see if the pregnancy would stick, sweating through months hoping the other shoe wouldn't drop, chopping through the post-partum fog and re-learning everything I thought I new about life.

Waiting and pondering and considering doing it again, or,

Doing it all again.

Those days are behind me now, behind us, my round numbered family of four. Baby-making requires a tap of the pause button. Career plans, what you what to do or be seem to get clouded by what you are and that thing you are doing.

This year had clarity. There would be no more dreaming, planning or gestating. I wrapped up those years with a pretty bow and placed them lovingly in the back of the closet, blowing them a kiss as I walked away.

Instead of thinking about what could be, I could really give my full attention to what was. For (my) real life.*

For Real Life is my almost five-year old's current and this year's most uttered and adorable phrase. In order to say it right it must be uttered as two words, as in: fa'real life.

I don't care who knows it #best09

Every day, I order something that requires five minutes of my life just to recite. For the record, its a Grande, non-fat, two pump, iced, green tea latte. It's also magnificent, tastes heavenly, gives me a boost that is not as harsh as coffee and keeps me satiated until lunch time. I have one almost every day. I want to support the local coffee houses, I really do, but I can't find one who makes anything close to this. (Alterra, please? I want to give you my money, just hook me up..)

Today's prompt is best tea. I missed yesterday, which was best packaging. I've got nothing.. wait...nope, still not a clue.

Best Moment At Work #best09

I was at work on January 20, 2009. I was sitting in a giant conference room, my laptop warming my legs. We all brought them down to make it look like we were working, but no one was. I don't know about the rest of them, but I couldn't take my eyes of Barak Obama, larger than the huge floor to ceiling screen he was projected onto, being sworn in as President of the United States.

When it was official, the whole room, analysts, supervisors and cafeteria staff erupted into a rousing roar of celebration. I will never forget this, I thought, watching the celebration here and there, looking at the world with fresh eyes.     

(Today's prompt is RUSH)

Starlight #best09

  My home is a lovely summer home. We have lots of windows, lovely cross breezes, flower gardens and a screened-in porch off the back. If this house hadn't had this porch, I might not have given it a second look, but there was something so seductive about having a porch. A porch is something to enjoy all summer long and something to dream about when cooped up inside from October to May.

I hung these lights right before our Fourth of July party. They are just one strand, balls of wicker strung around white lights. As the weather changed I left them up, not seeing the point in removing them only to string them back up again next year. Or because I was too lazy to take them down. Anyway, they make me happy. Even when not lit, I liked the idea of them, so they stay.

Unfortunately, my home is not the coziest winter abode. It is often drafty and dark a lot of the time. But the other night I stepped out onto the cold, dark porch to let the dog out and much to my surprise, I was standing under a shower of my twinkling wicker lights. My husband surprised me by connecting them to a motion sensor.

I now have my own personal canopy of stars to greet me each time I step out of, or in to a winter's night.  Whether taking out the garbage or coming home from a stressful work day, I am reminded of brighter days.

 

Instant Happiness #best09

Today's prompt is New Food. Which would be a whole lot easier if I you know, tried new foods, any of them, at any time, except I don't.

My entire food repertoire exploded exponentially in my late twenties and then halted with a screeching stop. I eat spicy thai noodles and I love falafel and I enjoy a kick-ass burger hot off the grill in the summertime (sometimes with bacon AND cheese. Hell yeah.) I do not feel deprived. I just don't feel like there is anything left to try that I haven't already sampled. I am not interested in eating fish with the head still on or liver (gag) just for the sake of saying that I did. I'd be much happier eating a bowl of popcorn.

Instead of a new food that I tried, allow me to clue you into a new food trick I used this year. Buy a vanilla bean, a real one. You don't even have to slice it open, just put the whole thing in a jar of sugar. How strong you like vanilla should dictate how much sugar is in it. Just let it hang out in there and replenish the sugar once in awhile with a few fresh scoops. This is beyond delightful in a cup of tea, sprinkled over baking banana bread or inserted in your favorite cookie recipe. I usually substitute half of the sugar called for in any recipe with my vanilla sugar. Hasn't failed me yet.

Sometimes I forget about it and when I'm digging in the pantry for who knows what, I'll open it up and take a big whiff and am instantly happy.

Dreaming #best09

The best place.

I wake up and look forward to the moment I get back there.

(Photo taken from the Pottery Barn catalog. If this were my bed there would be cracker crumbs and juice spills and mis-matched pillow cases. I don't care, I love it. Every sticky, wrinkled, tissue crammed corner of it.) 

Viva la Blue Eyes #best09

Sorry Frankie, this one's not for you.

It's for you:

(and the rest of those guys too, but mostly you.)

I picked up running again this year after a long absence due to pregnancy and subsequent general, post-baby laziness. I used to use play lists as my running soundtrack, but one day, for whatever reason, I couldn't get to my iPod to shuffle through something I'd grown tired of. My fingers slipped and Viva La Vida began to play. I wasn't even that fond of it at the time, (I prefer X&Y or Parachutes) but since I was focused on running and irritated by messing with my music, I just let it play. From start to finish. It was awesome.

I like Coldplay because they play melodies on top of melodies. You can zone out and follow the base line, the drums, Chris's singing (we're on a first name basis you know) or all of it together. The pace is good. It has up tempo and down tempo tracks that are arranged just right for a run; not too many of one or the other.

I've spent the better part of the year listening to this album three or four times a week and I'm still not sick of it. I've actually developed a Pavlovian reaction to it. If I'm making dinner and Strawberry Swing comes on I will feel the urge to squint my eyes because that's when I'm usually passing the lake and the sun gets in my eyes.

It's not the most cutting edge, most brilliant, new, hot thing, but it has been such an integral part of my year that I'd be amiss for not listing it here. It has truly rocked my world, one sweaty chunk of pavement at at time.