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I don’t want to be at war with my body
I’ve had a stressful few weeks with annual physicals. When I was younger it was a much simpler process. Annual exam at the obgyn, blood work, and that was it. Now that I’m 45 I also have the joy of a mammogram. Which found a lump – likely a cyst, but it will need follow up tests in six months. And last year I developed nodules on my thyroid, which, while benign, need to be monitored closely. So the annual trip to the doctor has turned into 2 months of tests and stress. Which has now been compounded because the nodule grew, and so I needed another biopsy of it,…
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Olga of Kiev: Brutal Saint and Revenge-Seeker
I recently finished listening to an audiobook version of Lars Brownworth’s The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings. Ever since I fell in love with Uhtred of Bebbanburg (to the point where I made a pilgrimage to Bamburgh in Northumberland, which is the inspiration for Bebbanburg) I’ve wanted to learn more about the Viking age. Lars Brownworth has some great medieval-era podcasts, and when I saw the book pop on up Scribd, I suspected it would be a good short history. And it didn’t disappoint. One of the characters I learned about, though, was Olga of Kiev (890-969). This woman showed that brutality during this period wasn’t just a…
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That time I ran on the beach with the Beautiful Marbella People
A couple of weeks ago we were staying in Marbella because Kiddo was going to rugby camp. It’s about an hour and 15 minute drive, and her days were going to be really long, so we decided to rent an airbnb on the beach, and make a holiday of sorts out of it. This is where we stayed: So the thing about Marbella is that it’s the playground in Spain for the Glamorous People. Or, the people who want to be glamorous, and who want to be in an atmosphere that plays to that sense of privilege and glamor. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around *actual* really magical…
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In Praise of Home Economics
I took Home Economics from 7th grade through my senior year. We actually had two different home ec classes – one was for cooking, and the other focused on things like managing a family (I remember a fascinating unit on how birth order impacts personalities), paying bills (and which bills you definitely need to pay first if you can’t pay them all), and sewing (somehow the shorts I was sewing came out with one leg longer than the other – I blame the pattern). Anyway, all through my years of taking Home Ec, which was required, I made fun of it. I got detentions because I made fun of how…
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Glamping in a Bubble
I’m a really big fan of camping – in theory. I love the idea of going to sleep listening to the cicadas, waking up with the sun, and cooking meals over a fire. But in reality, camping and I have a difficult relationship. I get claustrophobic in tents, especially smaller ones that you can’t stand up in. Bugs love me. And I get totally freaked out at not being able to pee without going outside where I could get eaten by a bear. So yeah, we’re not a fit. Which is how I wound up in a bubble last weekend. There’s a bubble hotel just outside our town, about 10…
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That Time a Toad became a Sick Cat
So last Sunday morning I went outside to do some pool maintenance. That’s the fancy word for “turn on the filter and throw a chlorine tablet in the basket,” but having a pool at all makes me feel fancy, so I use fancy words when I talk about it. Anyway, when I turned on the jets-and-filter-thing (technical term) there was a funny suction noise, like the water wasn’t going through properly. I grabbed a chlorine tab, and opened the lid to the collection-basket-thing to throw the tab in, and I was greeted by the annoyed look of a giant toad who was trapped beneath the flap of the basket-thing. I…
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Letters from my future self…
I’ve done a lot of self-help books. It started back around 1995 when I bought The Celestine Prophesy because it looked cool. I’ve started The Artist’s Way more times than I can count, but I never seem to actually get past the week where you’re supposed to take yourself on artist dates. Because I have a lot of excuses about that one. Excuses which would be totally awesome to bust through, but right now those excuses are still stronger than the reasons to bust through them. One book I really enjoyed was How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. I made it through that one. Side note: when I lived…
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America, I love you, but you’ve gotta get your isht together.
Every time there’s a mass shooting in America, we add a year to the time we’re going to stay in Spain. I say that only half jokingly. For the past week we’ve been dealing with issues with our electricity. It’s not just our house – our entire valley has been going dark randomly. And it’s not that it shuts off and stays off. Oh no, that would make way too much sense. It flashes on and off. Then shuts off for five minutes. Then comes back on for two minutes. Then off for eight minutes. On for twelve. There is no method to it at all. Hubby thought maybe they…
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Nesting and Comforts of Home
The past six years in Spain have felt like being in a holding pattern, waiting to land somewhere – anywhere. We originally came for a year long adventure, which turned into six years largely due to a series of unfortunate events that I’ll write about someday, but not yet (because I am a tease). We spent a lot of time filling out forms to renew our visas every couple of years, which we were never quite sure would be accepted. But we just got approval that we have unlocked a new achievement in this game of expat life: Permanent Resident Status. This means that we can live in Spain –…
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The Week in Books: Scribed and Siena
Each year I set a reading goal for number of books I will read, and I try to average about one a week. This year I set it for 55. After years of having a young kiddo in the house, working my own business, being perpetually exhausted, and only daydreaming about the times when I used to luxuriate in bubblebaths with my Kindle, 2021 is turning into a calmer year, and I expected I would be able to read more. I have a stable contract and don’t need to hustle so hard, my child is sleeping and amusing herself independently, and so I set a big juicy reading goal of…
