* Snerk.
*I kinda love this guy.
* Oh, FIFA. You've given the women such a fabulous souvenir of their World Cup.
* Now I know whose back catalog I'll be buying.
* But I believe in lithium.
* All of these are true.
* I kind of love him, despite the pomposity.
* I am a sloth mom.
* Listen up, Lone Star SHEEPLE.
One of the awesome things about having older kids is how little maintenance sleep-overs and other sorts of playdates require. Generally, the Husband and I are only needed for rides, snacks, and/or money. Or, likely, all three. So the Teen's birthday sleep-over was pretty low-impact for us.
There was, of course, cake*:
Which had been decorated by the Teen and her friend. Said friend brought edible glitter as a birthday present.
It was well received.
The Teens went roller skating, then came back and crashed in our front room. The next morning, Lucy decided to wait for them to come out to play.
She waited a long time because Teens are not known for early rising. After all of the bonus kids took off for their respective homes, it was time for family gifts, which included a ukulele and a subscription to Japancrate:
It might have been the gift winner this year. So much kawaii.
Add to that a nearly 14-mile run, by me, not the Teen, and that is pretty much the weekend that was. Hope yours was also as lovely, if slightly less exhausting.
---------------------------------------------------
* Gluten free, because the Teen has (and will always have) Celiac Disease. King Arthur's really does make the best GF mixes.
And then there are the weeks when everything happens simultaneously.
Highlights include the last day of school for the kids, moving everything back into the newly painted family room (pictures later), the Tween's 13th (!) birthday (today), a slumber party (tonight), big deadlines at work, my growing addiction to UNReal, and a 13-mile training run tomorrow. All good stuff, mind, just a lot of it.
So a couple of quick links that relate to me: Martini Fridays is up and, just a note, the podcast version of Sweater Quest will be going away on June 30. Download now, if you've a mind to.
* Nature is just wacky.
* Just in case you forgot -- or, like me, didn't know about this in the first place.
* A private little revolution.
* "All lives matter" is wrong.
* Well, my job title is "slavery specialist."
* It's a little frightening how accurate some of these are.
This is its own post because I didn't want it to get lost in a "many things" or "quote of the day" post. And so I'm putting it here:
Go read it, then come back.
I don't talk much about my bouts with depression and my continuous struggle with keeping my keel as even as possible because a) I'm in a pretty stable* state right now and b) I already wrote a book about it and don't know that I have much new to add. **
But I know that my own mental health is not a thing I should ever, ever take for granted. I know that depression is a liar and a thief who shows up unannounced, especially when you look away for just a minute or two.
But I also know that it's not the end, if you can just find a way to hold on long enough. Which is hard, granted.
If nothing else, the Semicolon Project demonstrates just how many fellow travelers are out there - as well as a great reminder that falling into the depths is a pause, rather than a period.
(Here is where I would insert a picture of a semicolon drawn on my own wrist with a marker of some sort. Because I have children who routinely remove things from my desk without asking about or returning said items, like Sharpies, I can't draw on myself with anything more potent than a pencil. Which doesn't show up all that well on skin. So let's just assume that that picture is right here and move on with our lives. Sorry for the disappointment.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
* (for fluid definitions of "stable," naturally.)
** other than: the baby in question will be 13 on Friday (I'm shocked, too) and we're all doing much better, thanks.
"Someone's gotta be last. [Being last] doesn't bother me a bit. Eventually, everyone slows down. I think those guys who quit instead of dealing with getting slower are weenies. That's what I call them. I'll sacrifice my race if I see someone struggling. I'll slow down and we'll run together. Not so much with me -- they're macho and don't appreciate it -- but I'll slow down and help women if I see them struggling. Everybody needs help sometimes to get through it, and I don't look down on anyone who shows up for a race. I'll be 83 in August. I'm vertical, I'm ambulatory, my peepers are open, so I'd say I'm on top of the pile. If I have to stop running, I'll do what I hate doing: walk. But I won't quit."
-- Harrison Hensley from the July 2015 Runner's World.
Because I'd finally had enough of our old couch, which no longer functioned as a couch and had become a torture device that lived in our TV room, I squirreled away my pennies and committed to a new one. And, while I was there, a new chair. Which then lead me down that slippery slope that ends with taking a room apart so that it can be re-painted and re-carpeted.
The new chair is in the foreground. I loves it.
The kids have found the whole process unsettling. As have I, frankly. I'm like a cat when it comes to my house. Change is bad.
Unless you are our cat McGregor, who loves this sort of chaos because it brings all new ways to be underfoot.
The early adopters have already read this essay* about my first ten mile run. For those who haven't, however, Women's Running has tossed it online. Woot!
* It's in Tales from Another Mother Runner and was printed in Women's Running magazine last month. Or maybe the month before that.
* It's the rakish tilt of her hat that does it for me.
* Massage works (in rabbits, at least).
* This is also true for children.
* In case you didn't know.
* I have of late become addicted to Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Netflix. This goes a long way to explaining why.
* Sarah Hepola and I frequently crossed paths during our Austin years. She's turned into an amazing writer with a heck of a story to tell.
* The best take on the whole Rachel Dolezal kerfuffle I've read so far.
* Your heartwarming running story for the week.
“It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”
-- Anne Lamott. This feels particularly apt today.
Also: Martini Friday is back, y'all!