The Maladroit Wife

Have you guys heard of FlyLady?  I call her StupidLady.  It’s this cleaning/organizing… support group?  I don’t know what else you would call it.  Anyway, Step One to the FlyLady way of life is, I kid you  not, shine your sink.  “It all begins with a shiny sink!”  She probably greets her family in the […]

Some of you guys have kids, some of you don’t.  I have something in my house that is not a “kid,” per se, but is definitely not NOT a kid.  Still with me?  It’s a wild ride.  So far, I’ve learned a few things… 1.  When baby naps (as if that happens), you should NOT […]

“Vacation” means different things to different people at different times in their lives.  To me, right now, it apparently means leaving my own couch and living room and traveling 1200 miles to sit on my mom’s couch in her living room.  (My dad has his own living room for a few months, and no, he’s […]

Who would be offended?? I didn’t realize that I had hit the age where there were men for whom I am too old.  There was a new bartender at my regular bar (which I’m hardly ever inside of anymore, which could possibly have been my first clue) and I asked one of the guys how […]

The TSA can’t stop me.  I’ve got my bag on the conveyor belt, my shoes in the bin, my liquids out, my ID and boarding pass handy-but-not-in-the-way, I know not to wear belts or sweatshirts, all that.  I say something nice/clever/supercharming to the dude as I go through the scanner, and then shoesbackon and I’m […]

I like to start new hobbies. That’s all. I started knitting/crocheting once.  Now I have a bag full of yarn.  I started making jewelry once.  I actually made a bunch of it as gifts for people who helped out with our wedding, but now I have a bag of beads and tools.  I started sewing […]

Love comes in many forms.  Sacrifices, declarations, sonnets… beer…  Maybe it’s just because of the holidays, but there has been a lot of love around here lately. Beer is love.  I gave my husband beer for Christmas.  Turns out that’s a pretty good thing to give when you don’t have any other ideas.  Even better, […]

I feel like they are more like “revolutions” because of their cyclical nature.  How many times can I resolve to lose 5 pounds or stop being late all the time or stop toying with the pedestrians before it’s not really a “resolution” anymore?  Whatever, it’s tradition.  Here we go with the mostly old, occasionally new, […]

I moved to Minnesota in 1998 to go to college.  When I came back from Christmas break that first year, I ran into a guy I knew at the airport shuttle dropoff site.  We checked our mailboxes and headed back to the dorm.  The whole time we were walking, I kept rubbing at my nose. […]

I feel like I’ve been in pursuit of various things lately, with maybe a little more anticipation than these things warrant.  But you can’t know if something is great until you try it, and anticipation is so fun!  So I obsess.  Sometimes my obsessions lead me to greatness, sometimes they lead me to yellow water. […]