Real Life Reflections

Hi. My name is Lori, and I'm a perfectionist. Over the past thirty-two years of marriage to a non-perfectionist, I have grown and softened. I've relaxed. I've learned. I am not as addicted to perfection as I once was, but it's a lifelong struggle. As you might imagine, perfectionistic tendencies can be a source of anxiety and stress. I've noticed that those of us from Perfect Country vary in what we deem as needing perfection. For me, it's my home. For the past couple of months, our weekends have been full. Add that to a full work-week, and you get the present state of my home: dirty and sporting a to-do list the likes of which makes me nauseous (almost literally). This past weekend was the doughnut hole in our busy spring/summer line-up. Other than a girls' night out on Friday night and a graduation party on Saturday night, the weekend was ours! What to do? Where to start? I tingled with the excitement of knowing that our house would soon once again be ou...

Do you remember what the officiant said at your wedding? At any wedding? Neither do I. At least, I don't remember most of them - my own and my children's included - but I do remember one. Though I now attend a non-denominational church, I was raised Catholic. And not just a little Catholic. We were very Catholic. Perhaps other denominations celebrate Easter and Easter week as enthusiastically as Catholics, but I think they'd be hard-pressed to beat them (as if it's a competition): we went to church on Holy Thursday. We stayed inside between noon and 3:00 on Good Friday. We attended church on Friday, Saturday night, and Sunday morning. I loved the solemnity. I loved the celebration. I loved the traditions. I loved remembering what our faith was all about. Those days were always set aside. We did nothing but Holy Week during Holy Week, and I continued that tradition, as best I could, with my own family. Then two years ago, I was invited to a wedding that would take pl...

My daffodils. Every year they begin to poke their little heads out of the ground in February. Some years they go so far as to fully bloom in the middle of winter only to have a major dumping of snow plopped on their beautiful, cheerful, bright yellow skin. I can't even remember when I planted these bulbs, but the tulips I planted with them stopped coming up years ago. The daffodils, much to my pleasure, refuse to follow suit. For a number of years now, only a few of these narcissus beauties have bloomed. I've tried dividing them, planting them deeper, fertilizing, and massive mulching, but nothing I did resulted in more blooms even though the plants themselves seemed to multiply and take more ground. I'd pretty much come to the conclusion that it was time to dig them up and start over with fresh bulbs. Then came the long hard winter. Sleet, snow, and ice along with below normal temps abounded for a longer-than-normal length of time this year. February came and went w...

As a child, I loved our family dinners. The eight of us sat around the kitchen table. So much laughter! So many arguments! My dad used to yell above the din, "Only three talking at a time!" As my older siblings became teenagers, they got involved with extracurricular activities, and they got jobs that took them from our family dinners, but there were still evenings, though not many of them, when no one had to rush off. Periodically, on those rare evenings, someone would pull out a deck of cards. Our game of choice was "Murder," but every now and again we'd play "Are You Happy?" Each player drew a card from the deck. The card you drew dictated whether or not you were happy - the higher the card, the happier you were. Play went around the table, and each player made their declaration. There is, of course, more to the game than that, but since this isn't a game blog, I'll leave the details to someone else. Sometimes...okay, most of the time......

  My grandson. So cute I can hardly stand it.  BUT He likes to play with poop. Not any poop he finds. He's quite selective. It's just his own poop that holds such fascination.    When all is quiet in the house for two blessed hours each afternoon, and my daughter is lulled into a sense of peace, this otherwise darling little man, emerges from his room. "Momma, I pooped." There is a trace of guilt in his voice that betrays the fact that he didn't just poop. He pooped and then painted his walls, his floor, his bed, his blankie, and himself with it.   Poop happens. It's part of life. The Dowager Lady Grantham said on a recent episode of Downton Abbey that life is a series of trials and hardships. You get through one and then another one and then another one and then...you die. Such an encouraging thought. Yet pretty accurate. I'm pretty crazy about my grandson, but I'm thinking that I don't want to be like him - at least not in...

In a world full of delightfully descriptive four-letter words used to express and enhance a multitude of emotions and add color to declarations, I have a new favorite: WITH It's a little word, but it's in the process of changing my life. Not under, over, from, or for. With. I began reading Sky Jethani's book by that name at our pastor's recommendation. A book with a single word - and a preposition at that - as the title? Hmm. Okay, I'll bite. I'm a highlighter and note-taker. When I read non-fiction, I don't want to borrow a friend's copy or a library copy, I want my own because I'm going to take my liberties. Although I've done some highlighting in my copy of With ,  I think Van Gogh would be disappointed. There's a whole lot of black and white and not a lot of color. That's because there aren't many stand-alone sentences within these pages that pack a punch nor are the pages loaded with powerful one-liners - or even two ...

Some times you just need a vacation, a break from the routine that doesn't involve responsibilities but does involve a change of scenery. My husband and I usually try to get away in the fall, after the crazy spring and summer months are behind us, and we can finally relax. Funds were extra tight last year, so we tried a "stay-cation." It didn't work. We got the break from our routine, but our various responsibilities, home repairs, maintenance, and long-set-aside projects encircled us, shouted at us, jumped around, and flailed their long spindly arms all week long. Not exactly relaxing. Two years ago, we'd gone to the beach...sort of. At least, our condo was near the beach. We just didn't see all that much of it. We spent most of our time at urgent care and Walgreens. Shingles are especially miserable when you're supposed to be vacationing. Three years ago, the year before shingles, we simply took a four day weekend and stayed at a state park. In addi...