Over the 4th of July weekend, my daughter, 10 year-old grandson and I went on a road trip together to visit family and friends.
As we were making our way up to the “Northland”, my grandson was immersed in playing games on his tablet in the backseat. After a while, I could hear the voice of one of those young adult “gaming bros” on their YouTube channel going on in their annoyingly enthusiastic manner about whatever game they were playing.
The grandma in me decided I had enough of that business. I suggested, with no actual confidence that this suggestion was going to be embraced by the kid, that we could play the “alphabet game”.
You know this one, right? I can’t imagine it was just my family (actually, me and my Mom, Bonnie) that played this on long car rides.
Anyway. It’s a simple game. All you do is start with the letter “A”. You “spy with your little eye” that one simple letter. You might find it on a sign. Or on the license plate of the vehicle that just passed you. Then, of course, you loudly exclaim “I found an A!” and proceed onto the letter “B” and so on until you get to “Z”. The first person who gets all the way through the alphabet wins.
Thankfully (or perhaps not, as it became a bit of an obsession over the course of the weekend), the kiddo latched onto this suggestion of mine with gusto.
Playing this game with him on this road trip was a huge highlight of this grandma’s summer. The “Alphabet Game” did the following wonderful things: it gave this bright boy a mental challenge. It gave us an opportunity to interact with each other for a sustained period of time. It got him off that obnoxious “gamer boy/man” YouTube channel so my daughter and I didn’t have to suffer through it any longer. It gave me a great memory. My hope as this boy’s grandma is that he was imprinted with a great memory too.
A while back, I was inspired by another blogger to re-consider how I refer to my husband when I’m writing blog posts.
Like me, how she referred to her husband wasn’t working for her. Since I started this blog (7 years ago!), I’d been calling my husband “Hubs” in my blog posts. I knew that it was inevitable that I’d be writing about him at least some of the time, since this is a personal blog after all, so I chose “Hubs” as his online moniker.
The thing is, though, I never, like ever, refer to him as “Hubs” to his face. Or when I’m referring to him in conversations with others. All I knew is that I didn’t want to use his actual name in this space, lest I inadvertently share something in a blog post that would somehow cause him embarassment. So, “Hubs” it was.
When I gave it more thought, a few months ago, it occurred to me that there was an alternative name for him in this space. Something I have only called him. Something between us that we both understand and laugh about: “Mr. None of the Above” (“Mr. NOA” for short).
As I recall, the first time I called him this was during a long, boring drive from one state to another. It was very late at night. We were both hungry. Hangry, actually. So, we agreed it was high time we stopped to get something to eat.
Now, my husband will attest to this statement: he is a pickier eater than I. I mean, he’s not ridiculously picky, mind you. There’s plenty of things he absolutely loves to eat that I will not touch with a ten-foot pole. Examples: pickled herring, sweet potatoes, cauliflower. And, of course, there’s things I love to eat that he wants no part of: corn in mexican dishes, ketchup on my scrambled eggs, and most sweets.
That night, in our hangry state, I suggested two different options of places to get some grub. I believe it was Subway or McDonald’s. Being more finicky about what he eats, had his own idea: Perkin’s. We could sit down and relax, he said, not just eat on the road in the dark. It then occured to me just how often I would suggest various options (not just food related) and the man comes up with an altogether different choice. So now, I call him Mr. None of the Above on a regular basis. He will invariably have his own idea in any given situation, often one that I hadn’t thought of.
A more recent example: I told him that I thought we ought to adopt a cat for Christmas this past year. Radar has lived with a cat before and it went well. They weirdly shared food and sometimes even sat on the same couch together. After a bit of discussion, I suggested we just be content with having access to our daughter and her boyfriend’s puppy, Max. He and Radar get along famously after all, and they only live 20 minutes away from us. And Mr. None of the Above’s suggestion? “Let’s adopt a puppy!” One that has recently been weaned, he said. “What?! A teeny-tiny baby puppy?” I said, in shock. Then we talked some more about that particular option. We were in agreement that because Radar does so well with Max, playing with him, but also watching out for him and corraling him when they’re frolicking in the yard together, this might not be the worst idea ever.
Yet I can’t say I’m completely convinced we should or will ever do it. Maybe I’ll just hang on and see if Mr. None of the Above comes up with an alternative.
I appreciate them as a way to make sense of things, to compare/contrast and gain understanding. However, when it comes to my blog…well, I’d rather concentrate on creating content that my readers might find interesting, humorous, personally beneficial, or a combination of the three.
That said, I did take a bit of time to peruse my blogging stats for 2023.
In 2023, I published 43 blog posts. I had a total of 571 likes and 351 comments. That exceeded the tally from 2022, when I published 19 posts that garnered 267 likes and 132 comments. Good for me-I made some progress!
But, more importantly, what did I have to say within these 43 blog posts?
Because I’m not a sadist, I will only highlight 8 posts from 2023 for this year-end post. These are not necessarily the ones that got the highest number of likes or comments. These are the ones that, quite simply, I’m glad I wrote, several of which seemed to resonate with my readers.
If you are new to my blog, please take a few minutes to read at least a couple of these posts I’m about to reference. It’ll give you a taste of what I have to offer you via this blog.
“Moms and Pops” from 3/29/23, where I write about the positive influence my parents, Bonnie and Babe, had on me through their small business ownership.
“Do You Care About the Hollywood Writer’s Strike?” from 7/13/23, where I express my support for unions and give you excellent viewing recommendations based on the quality of the shows writing.
“Home is Minnesconsin” from 2/2/23, where I write about my abiding love of living in Minnesconsin.
“Subject to Change” from 8/9/23, where I contemplate the truism that everything in life is, well, subject to change. And how we best embrace it.
Thank you, current readers and/or followers of this blog of mine, for your likes and comments, encouragement, and kind words in 2023. I refuse to make hard and fast resolutions for this new year, but I aim to increase my engagement with you all while simultaneously blogging my heart out in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, I still have Christmas on the brain.
And today I’m going to spit it all out for your reading pleasure. And it’s Tuesday, I’m off work, and the most important (in my mind) of the holiday-related tasks have been completed for me and mine.
Also, I don’t like feeling like I’ve over-promised and under-delivered to you, my kind-hearted readers, as it’s been about two weeks since I told you that I was going to publish more posts than usual on account of my festive-ness.
Ha! I crack myself up sometimes.
If you have someone you still need to buy a Christmas present for I have a solid recommendation. And since you’ve only 5-6 days in which to make this brilliant purchase, that means you’ll need to get yourself out of the house and shop local (small business local, not your local Wal-Mart. I say this because I personally could not find this particular item when I was there recently).
No time left to order it on Amazon, folks!
Before I reveal my last-minute-perfect-Christmas-present-that-you’ll- get-at-your-local-independent b8#$store, after stopping at your favorite cafe or bistro for a scone or piping hot coffee, let me say this one little thing about this item: it’s a book.
It’s a book in which, on page 43, the author writes about how disappointment, per research, is one of the most frequently experienced emotions, and one that is experienced at a high level of intensity. She goes on to talk about “stealth expectations”: meaning those ideas that come into our heads that we let play out like a mini-movie, which we often foolishly keep secret from everyone around us.
Stealth expectations. Something I’ve often had but never had a term for. It was mind-blowing for me to re-read this section of this book one late night earlier this month. It completely reflects how I’ve been going about life, in particular the holiday season, year after year.
That’s why I’m going to let (Christmas related) things be. If I don’t get around to making those pretzel rods dipped in chocolate, re-purposing those old Christmas cards into works of art with my 9 year old grandson while we sing Christmas Carols and eat cookie dough, if I don’t find the right Christmas-y cocktail to make for our guests…it’s all good.
Now, if I can carry this warning about “stealth expectations” into how I operate into the new year, I think I just might continue to be able to say “it’s all good”.
Ok, now for my perfect Christmas present for any adults still on your list:
“Atlas of the Heart” by Brene Brown. It will teach your recipient so much. That’s a Christmas promise from me to you!
Now, for a little collage of my Christmas decor (the most fun personal holiday task for me) for your viewing pleasure.
Merriest of Holiday Wishes to you and yours this season!
As I write this, it’s 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon and I’m in the Christmas cookie zone, relaxing to instrumental Christmas music on my Google Nest.
But here’s where my head was the Sunday before last. Call it a little peek into my “Christmas brain”, if you will:
I need to start somewhere, so I’ll start with the cookie planning:
I would like to make:
Spritz
Cherry Almond cookies from last year
Santa’s whiskers
PB Truffles
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate covered pretzel rods
And maybe another kind of two. Oh, the cherry snowballs for sure! I’ve got six days designated on our calendar to get this done.
Then there’s the decorating. I am especially psyched for this endeavor.
But my beautiful daughter is on her way to pick me up for a spontaneous shopping trip and I’m still in my bathrobe. So I gotta split for now.
Same day, just p.m.
Today was great! I enjoyed eating a hearty lunch with my first-born at Barker’s in Hudson. We had fun shopping together. I love that she’s going as the rag doll from the Land of Misfit Toys from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, for a work photo shoot next week. But it was hard to find the “costume”. She is not worried about it though.
There’s an important difference between the two of us. Good on her. She’s not like me in this way. Had I, at her age, been given a directive to come up with such a costume for a work situation, well..I’d be freaking out. I’d probably still be out there, searching to no avail for all the right pieces to bring that damn dolly to life.
Because it would have mattered to me, then. I would have fretted about the impression I was giving my employer by coming up short on this task, as I would have convinced myself that without a doubt, every one of my co-workers Christmas photo-shoot costume was going to be EPIC.
And it would have been such a misplacement of my mental energy and my time.
I’m glad she’s not like I was. She doesn’t sweat the small stuff, which I have done at a high level of proficiency for the majority of my adult life.
Readers, don’t be surprised if you see more posts than usual from me this month. I’ve got Christmas on the brain and my hope is that unloading it in this space will be a jolly little treat to go with your egg nog.
This past Sunday morning, as I was spewing out my thoughts and feelings into my personal draft folder, I caught a glimpse of the most precious thing.
Or, to be more exact, the most precious furry being there ever was: our good boy, Radar.
This is what I wrote:
I just got distracted by Radar. Normally the distraction is in the form of an unanticpated barking session. But this one is sublime. He’s curled up and sleeping next to the front door. Basking in the square of sunlight that landed on the green carpet he’s laying on. With his front paws beneath his head, and his right paw laying atop one of his most favorite toys. That tough navy and bright green wheel thing he got in his monthly Bark Box.
I resisted my usual temptation of grabbing my phone and snapping a picture. I decided it was unnecessary; and besides, the chances that he’d still be there in that exact position by the time I was ready to snap one were slim to none.
I did get this one a bit later in the day, however, as he was laying on the floor as Mr. None of the Above and I watched the Vikings vs. Packers game.
Look at the gorgeous mane!
Here’s one in which he’s wearing his “day of the dead” bandana while sharing the love seat with me and his favorite afghan, which was made by my mom.
Ain’t he a beaut?
Back to the Bark Box subscription. We signed up for it back when we lived in Colorado. When we moved to Minnesconsin in 2022, I re-started it. Not at all making any note whatsoever on my calendar so I could consider if it ought to continue after six months. So of course, that date came and went and I noticed a charge on our bank account for another six months. Radar had accumulated so many “tough chewer” toys via this subscription, but here it was already paid for. So we’ve been periodically sharing the treats and toys with other doggie friends because we simply don’t have the room for so much!
You should see this dog when the monthly Bark Box comes. He knows what it is when he sees it. He pounces, barks, wagging his tail as he expresses his jubilation. I have this little fantasy in my head that one day he’s going to manage to open it up all by himself, you know, after he grows thumbs, but for now I unseal it, then set it down on the floor for him to finish. It is the most hilarious thing ever and I’ve captured it on video but am not sure it’s good enough to share in this space.
I’m just so darn grateful for this goofy pooch of ours.
Our beloved 5-year-old dog, Radar, is so happy with his life here in Minnesconsin. Living here, he gets to run and play outside, sometimes without a leash. He gets to monitor all the little critters, the ones with wings and the ones with bushy tails, from our sun porch each day (aka Radar’s room).
Last week, Hubs was out of town for work. Radar and I were here, left to our own devices.
On Tuesday, as I’m sitting at the dining room table poking around WordPress, I got a call from our neighbor across the road, Mike. He said “Hey Rhonda, it looks like your pontoon is floating in the bay. If you need any help with it, I’m here, just let me know”.
Yikes! I thought. How could that have happened? Hubs tied it up very securely to our dock after our last boat ride. The next thought I had was “Where are the boat keys?”. I called Hubs, who, thankfully, answered right away. He tells me (of course) he’s got the boat key, but there’s a spare in the “cubby” under the steering wheel. Inside of the boat.
Really? How was I supposed to get into our boat, if it’s floating in the bay?
So, Radar and I headed to the dock to check things out. Mike was already there, on the other side of our little bay. I couldn’t make out everything he said, because of the distance between us, but I was grateful he was there nonetheless.
Thank goodness that it was not our pontoon boat out there, floating in the bay. It was our next door neighbor’s. I texted him, knowing he’d be at work (about an hour away) so he’d know his boat was adrift in the bay. As I told him, it wasn’t necessarily going anywhere. He thanked me, I let Mike know I’d contacted him, and then Mike proceeded to get into his small fishing boat, and pull our neighbor’s pontoon and tie it up to the nearest dock.
Neighbors “neighboring” is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
As this all transpired, Radar was having a ball. He grabbed a toy, ran around like the nutjob he is, back and forth between our backyard and the two closest neighbors. Running up and down each dock, smiling and panting all the while. But he then did something I wasn’t anticipating.
He ran onto our dock, reached the end of it, looked around for a second, and then jumped into the lake. In the year that we have lived here in Minnesconsin, I haven’t seen him do that.
He sunk. My heart sunk at the same time. Then his head popped back up, he started his doggie paddling, and made his way to the left side of our dock. Which, of course, is thick with long, green reeds. He’s slipping and sliding, trying to gain some traction so he could make his way up onto the solid ground above, but he’s not going anywhere. He then dips himself under the dock, which really freaked me out.
Thoughts going through my head in this moment included “is he going to get stuck in the muck?” and “am I going to have to jump in and pull him out?”. Then, as my heart is fiercely pounding inside my chest, he pops out the other side. He struggles a bit with the reeds, which, no surprise, are also on the right side of our dock. But he managed to gain enough traction to get out of that mess and onto the ground above.
Whew!
Then he smiles, excessively shakes his body to get rid of all that water, and runs up the hill towards our house.
He was so proud of himself for his adventure that afternoon. I could hardly be angry with him. Needless to say, he got a bath that night. And we both slept like babies.
Do you remember the series on this blog entitled “I Have Questions” that I started about six blog posts ago?
Well, I never officially wrapped it up. I took some detours for a bit and lost the plot.
Perhaps I’m taking myself too seriously, but closing out this series today will bring me some peace of mind. I’m hoping that some of what I’m about to spew resonates with you.
But first, I need to circle back. I want you to know that the inspiration for the “I Have Questions” series was in the form of my 9-year-old grandson. If you’ve been following my blog for a bit, you’ll recall that there was a 4 month period of time during which my daughter and grandson lived with us in Colorado. A true highlight of this time was when my grandson would, out of the blue, look at me with his big brown eyes and pretty eyelashes and say “Grandma, I have a question”.
I captured some of those “I have a question” stories in a draft folder, intending to share them on this blog. Now seems like the right time to share them.
Once, I was in the shower as he was supposed to be getting ready for school. I heard a knock on the door. I ask “Who’s there?” (knowing it’s him). No response. A couple of minutes later, another knock. He says, opening the door, “I have a question”. I ask what it is. “Is it ok if I go to the doctor before school today?” he asks. I ask him why he needs to go to the doctor. He says it’s because he has a “hole in his cheek”. I ask how he got a hole in his cheek. He says it’s because he used Grandpa’s razor on it and cut it. I said “Wow, you must be bleeding like crazy”. I then stick my wet head out of the shower to find him sitting on the toilet with his hand covering his cheek. He tells me he can’t remove his hand because “blood will gush out”. I told him to get out of the bathroom and get to school. He complied.
Don’t worry, folks, he did not have a hole in his cheek. Just a minuscule knick.This kid has a flair for the dramatic.
Another one: “I have a question. What comes before Tuesday?” Me: “Monday”. Him: “Hmm”. I have no idea what that was about.
A more recent one: “I have a question. What’s a virgin?” (this was in response to him seeing an ad for “Hocus Pocus 2” after having seen the original). As I hemmed and hawed about how to respond, Hubs piped up with “It’s what they call someone who’s never done something before”.
Genius!
Now back to finishing what I started.
If I had to tell you one thing about myself that I dislike, it’d be that I start projects that I don’t finish. And I’m feeling sick and tired of it.
There are multiple projects I have started, particularly in the last year or two, which remain unfinished. I’m getting to work behind the scenes on finishing at least some of them. Some are arts and crafts related. Some are home improvement-related, and others are creative writing-related.
I started this series without thinking it through, and after a couple of posts I started feeling like I pigeon-holed myself. It was too broad. I neglected to set any parameters whatsoever when I came up with the idea of starting this series. I think it’s linked to the fact that I have few limits on what questions I want to ask: of myself, others, or the universe.
But, hey, I’ve always viewed my blogging endeavor as an experiment. Trying a series was part of this experiment. I’m very much not wording this right, but you (bloggers) know how there’s an option for topics on the right-hand side of your “blog post in progress”, which includes the word “uncategorized”? I’m caught between feeling like I should embrace that and questioning if it’s serving me.
Serious question for other personal bloggers reading this: Can you relate to the “uncategorized” label? If so, how?
Ok, so clearly I do still have questions.
Just not a series about them any longer.
The song in my head as I wrap up this blog post:
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end
I do not want this blog post to be a pity party. I am not going to wallow whatsoever. Everything is fine. I’m ready to move on.
Here’s the thing: my blog posts have not been terribly consistent. I skipped publishing last week because of my garage sale. I just did not have the time or the energy to come up with a blog post.
So, I fell short. And not only with blogging.
I told the gal on the phone when I was placing an ad in our local free “shopper” publication that “hopefully I’ll make more than” the cost of the ad. Well, I did that. Just not by much.
As they say, “The joke’s on me”.
My goal going into this garage sale was to make myself some money. I looked upon it as a personal fundraiser. Yet, I fell short.
No matter. Seriously. I benefitted from having this garage sale in other ways. More important than cold hard cash.
Like the fun “girl time” I had in the garage the night before with my neighbor and my sister-in-law. We enjoyed margaritas as we chatted and laughed, pricing stuff late into the night.
During the two-day sale, I had lots of interactions with other neighbors as well, and I learned a few things about the lake and our little neighborhood.
SIL and I re-purposed the crappy old stool one of our neighbors put out on the road the day before.
We giggled along with the kiddos and their parents that came in when the kids discovered my “Badass” (from the Jen Sincero book which I love) buzzer. You hit it once and it says (in Jen’s voice) “You can do eeet!”. Hit it again and it says “Do what you love!”. A third hit exclaims”Feed fear a suck-it sandwich!”, a fourth hit gets you “You create your reality!”, then these goofy (yet worthy) affirmations conclude with “You’re a badass!”
Yes, in this process I inadvertently taught my “bonus” grandson (daughter’s boyfriend’s 3-year-old) a naughty word. Oops.
The buzzer didn’t sell. I think I’m going to keep it. I suspect it will come in handy someday.
I also came up with another idea: to sell my stuff on Facebook Marketplace. There’s still quite a bit of stuff left, obviously, and selling it this way seems much easier than my previous method. Additionally, being the student that I am, I am eager to learn new-to-me social media skills.
Now it’s time to share the most appropriate song for the state I’m in after this experience. It’s “the worst song ever” per my 9 year-old-grandson.
Pollyanna's Path 