For most of my life cigarettes were emotionally unmarked for me. No one in my family smoked and I didn't have any particularly good or bad experiences with friends who smoked, so cigarette smoke stayed quite neutral. I didn't want to breathe it while I was eating and...
Catherine Shanahan's Deep Nutrition asserts that what our mothers ate even before they were pregnant with us affects how our bodies grow and our capacity for health. Likewise, the model for relationships that our caretakers provided when we were children affects how...
And on days when I’m not feeling as content as my last post indicates, I mourn the end of my marriage. My marriage only lasted five years, but it was good and now it’s over. I cry and tap and cry and let the grief pass through.
Addendum to my previous post (Not the marrying kind): this comes from a woman who did not initiate her divorce and who would have stayed married for years yet. I liked being married, but I think I simply prefer being single. From the many years I spent as a spinster...
I'm adjusting well as I return to my single life. I have more time for friends, dinner parties, myself, reading, writing and getting to work on time. I lived alone for 13 years before my five-year marriage and, after we got the dog, I really missed coming home to an...
Being unmarried does NOT make you inferior. Yeah, I had to learn this. Previous post on weight & health: PLoosening the grip of food over me In April 2007 I left my spinster pad and moved in with my boyfriend, who would later become my husband. I...
In the early days of realizing my marriage was over, I'd say to friends, "This is it. I'm not getting married again." I'd get responses like, "Don't say that," and "Don't give up on marriage." People would genuinely try to convince me that I should keep an open mind...
My brand new love seat and ottoman! I love ottomans. I am totally enjoying furnishing my new apartment! I'm getting as much stuff as possible in my favorite color: pink (rugs, cups, kitchen towels, etc). If an item doesn't come in pink, then red is my second...
Today is my last day as a live-in wife. I'm wandering among my labeled boxes, gazing at the last things that need to be packed. Twenty-four hours from now I'll be taping and sealing the boxes and getting ready for the movers to arrive. Once I'm in my new apartment, I...
Tuesday, 2 July 2013 So my husband and I are divorcing. It happens. I realized my marriage was over right around the time I found out my mother was getting hospice care. This spring/summer has been quite a ride. I'm packing this week because I move into my new...
I agreed to get a dog in 2011 because my husband wanted one very badly, but now we're splitting up. Ozzie did make my husband very happy, but he didn't make me nearly as happy and mainly just added to my workload. I was okay with that while I believed that Ozzie was...
[My original post on this question was written in February, 2012] Lately I've been talking to people who’ve been married fifteen or thirty or more years. For decades I've been hearing that “every marriage is different,” but I still thought marriage was supposed to fit...
I. The dirty stove (her job) competes with the uncleaned floors (his job) for most neglected surface, but the winner is her skin. Emotions balance and unbalance, shifting positions and changing sides Who's heavier? II. It turns out the buoyant boy can sink, while the...
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin USA. Photo by Bob Martin Lake Geneva, Wisconsin USA. Photo by Bob Martin. Okay, it's bad enough to drive your car onto a frozen lake, but to then build a FIRE? Ozzie loves snow. Taking pictures with an iPad looks dumb, but the photo quality is...
From my favorite bakery ever: Central Continental Bakery in Mt. Prospect, Illinois USA. I have very specific tastes when it comes to cake and this bakery is the only one I've ever found that makes my personal ideal of what white buttercream frosting should taste...