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Just wondering while I wander
A few questions I mulled over on my chilly walk to the store today:
~ Does putting on exercise clothes first thing in the morning and wearing them most of the day (as I did yesterday) count as a workout?
~ Should I be proud or ashamed that I have played 119 games of computer spider solitaire this month? Does it change your answer if I tell you I won 88 of them? I could claim productive neglect but, truthfully, it's not productive. It's just neglect.
~ Does a peanut butter, chocolate & banana panini count as a balanced dinner? (This was actually created and eaten by G, not me, but it looked really good. Okay, I admit it, I had a bite. The new panini maker may become our new version of our newlywed FryDaddy, which is a little alarming. Those little appliances are kryptonite to my super healthy intentions.)
~ What is the expiration date on outdoor Christmas decorations and how does one tactfully notify neighbors of this? [Edited to add: Oh dear, I didn't know that was going to be controversial. By decorations I mean blow-up Santas, dying wreaths with red bows, glowing plastic reindeer on the roof, colorful lights-in-motion displays that are still turned on. These tend to make me depressed as we head into February & March and also make me think of the aging Miss Havisham in her decaying wedding dress. You are exempt if you have lights on your house rooftop. You can, I think, have them as long as you want & I won't say a thing. As my mom reminded me, I come from a background of year-round light keepers. These are my complex and admittedly inconsistent personal Christmas decorations beliefs. What are yours?]
~ Why oh why are high schoolers allergic to wearing coats (and why does this bother me so much)? At what point on the New England winter thermometer does it become parental duty to insist that Lauren must wear one, even if no one else wears coats and it's "not that cold"? {Although insisting doesn't really work. One day I happened to be doing dishes & looking out the window at the moment she came home from school through the back yard. She walked into the yard in shirtsleeves, stopped just inside the gate, pulled out her coat and put it on for her entry into the house, I guess to appease me. Busted! We both laughed.} And why oh why did she ask for a nice new coat for Christmas (or, more to the point, why did we buy one)?
Your wisdom on these matters would be greatly appreciated (feel free to add questions of your own).
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Reader Comments (9)
Lovely photos, and I'm not here to share wisdom on the coat issue, just to commiserate! Robyn is the same!
Yes. Wearing your cross-trainers and spandex burns more calories than boots and jeans. Just as eating the brownie "trimmings" uses less calories than eating one regular size brownie. These facts have kept me painfully thin.
I also would like to take down neighbors' Christmas decorations. Come on people, its almost February for crying out loud! My boys are only 3 and 5 and they boycott coats. I am in serious trouble.
Having a 12 and 15 yr old.....I can say I totally understand the angst over the coat issue. Best I can see, coats are just another "responsibility" to cart around and keep track of, for teens that is.....and responsibility is the primary neuronal pathway to pain, in their minds. I have to admit, one of the great things of life....never to be recaptured, perhaps, is the freedom from responsibility in youth. Responsibility enshrouds us as adults to the point of suffocation sometimes, but if we don't accept it....we'll....I don't know...freeze!? Or maybe coats represent a serious loss in style points? Or is it that they refuse to think beyond the 12 minutes that their bodies can generate heat in subzero temperatures? Again, the positive spin on that would be that not worrying about the future can be wonderful (yes, even to the point of stupidity).
I'll give another perspective on the Christmas lights issue -- perhaps your neighbors have husbands who work full time and go to school full time and do homework in between?
I am so frustrated that our outdoor Christmas lights are not down yet. It's compounded by the fact that it has been so windy that a few are sagging off the left-hand side of the roof. And yes, this post inspired a panic in me that "ohmygosh, I KNEW it! I KNEW the neighbors were thinking bad things about me!"
But thankfully, we don't live in a neighborhood with a homeowners association. And thankfully, I love my husband enough not to nag him on end. I do wish I cared less about what people think, though! :)
(Oh, and if you're wondering why I don't get up there and do it myself, I have a 2 3/4-year old son and a a 12 month old daughter to manage.)
Whew! I think that comment was more for me than for anyone else! I didn't realize how much those danged lights were bothering me...lol.
Hi Sarah~
Thanks for stopping by and commenting! Of course the last thing I want to do is give anyone guilt about Christmas decorations. I think at my house growing up we often had the lights up on the house around the calendar some years.
Last year we had neighbors that left their decorations up really late. Like April. Even the poor dried out wreath with its red Christmas bow stayed out that long. This memory got me thinking yesterday...not that it's NOW but when is it?
I'm really talking about the inflatible snow globes, the lights in motion still turned on at night, the glowing plastic Santa on the roof, not strands of lights. It's still January, after all :)
Bless your husband; mine did law school and work when we were first married. I completely know what you're talking about.
Ha!! The Christmas decoration/light issue. HEY, ANNIE! Have you ever noticed, when you come home to visit, that the white lights along the roof on the front of the house are up every time you come, no matter the time of year (usually summer)? They have been loyally hanging there ever since Chris and Matt (?) and maybe Marion, put them up, oh, I'd say 15 years ago? Granted, we have some big junipers that are high enough that they block parts of the roofline, but there the lights are, standing at the ready for any festive occasion. All it takes is for me to plug extension cord in that slips in under the window sill. We are guilty of the idea that by October of the next year, we will look very much ahead of the game. We are the same way with things that need to be fixed/repaired/replaced. More and more, we go by the philosophy that if it ain't COMPLETELY broken and it isn't killing anyone, (dying of embarrassment doesn't count) and we can jerry-rig it for awhile, let's put off the expense of hiring someone to come and fix it. Besides, in order to get the lights down, it would be ME out there, and a friend of mine was up on a ladder on her roof this Christmas, just trying to get the last gap along the roof strung with lights, and she fell and broke her face open and gouged her leg. Better safe and embarrassed than efficient and sorry. Procrastination saves the day! Love, Mom
My feelings: keep your lights us, whatever, just DON'T TURN THEM ON!!
I have to go out on a limb here and say TAKE THE CRAP DOWN ALREADY. I am one that forces myself to leave the dang tree up one day past Christmas. It's a struggle and I don't fault anyone, but I take mine down becuase they drive me crazy.