All in Musings
I vowed to blog daily for the 40 days of Lent, but I’m honestly too sleepy to string together more than a few coherent sentences. Work was long and hard, the boys had baseball practice, Ollie needed help practicing his recorder, and Jason had to go on a plumbing emergency service call. This Monday kicked my ass.
I must be a glutton for punishment because I’m an active LinkedIn user. After years of recruiting, I suppose it’s a habit to log on daily, but some days I wonder why I put myself through the torture.
Instead of buying into the “new year, new me” hype of making promises to myself I’ll never keep, I’ve spent some time reflecting on things I did well in 2019 and will continue to focus on improving in 2020.
Now that it’s December, many of the people I follow on LinkedIn and Twitter are talking about 2020 goals. It’s December 2nd! I get that we’re only talking about 1/12 of the entire year, but the way I see it we still have a little bit of productivity to squeeze out of 2019. Sure, there is value in planning and setting expectations, but it’s too easy to get caught up in thinking ahead. If you’re always looking off into the distance, you’ll never notice what’s right in front of your face.
I didn’t set out to take the month of November off from blogging. After writing every day in October I was looking forward to taking a bit of a breather. Then one day turned into two, two into three and before I knew it thirty.
This morning as I was driving my boys to school Ollie, who turned 11 yesterday said, “The thing I hate about getting older is all the projects.” My immediate reaction was to bust out laughing. He was referring to the increasing number of school projects he’s been assigned in 5th grade in comparison to prior years, but I couldn’t help laugh at an 11-year-old opining about aging.
Since I started Midlife Pickle a little over 6 months ago, I’ve had almost exclusively positive comments from readers. That was until last Wednesday when I posted a blog entitled “Where Were the Heroines” exploring the revelation that nearly all of the literature I read during my 12 years of public school education had male protagonists. I shared links to this piece on my social media accounts, just as I do with posts I think may be of interest.
When I first started Midlife Pickle I spent some time searching for and making silly memes about midlife. While I realize most of these are cliche and groan-worthy, my dorky sense of humor can’t help but laugh.
I spent the evening at Sherlock’s Escape Room with some of my St. Mary friends. I got to know these women through a church retreat that then led to a year long exploration of faith and Christian community. The experience was a big commitment, but definitely worth the time and effort. I’m not sure I grew my faith as much as I wanted, but the connection I made with the group is undeniable.
It occured to me that in all 12 years of my public school education I was only required to read two books that had female protagonist—To Kill a Mockingbird and The Scarlet Letter. Thank goodness for Scout and Hester or I would have assumed women did nothing noteworthy. On second thought, TKAM is really about Atticus Finch and Hester Prynne served as a cautionary tale of what would happen to young ladies who dared to step out of line or make a mistake.
It’s been one of those days where self doubt has crept into my internal dialogue. Coming back from vacation means I feel a bit out of the loop, out of sorts and out of practice. I could have given myself a little slack, but that’s just not how I roll.
The first time I ever went to the airport was when Jason and I first started dating. We went to pick up his grandmother and her husband, Ivo, who were visiting for Christmas. This was long before TSA, so a boarding pass wasn’t required to go through security. We got to the airport early so we could watch the planes take off and land while sharing a soft pretzel and a coke.
