A little over two years ago, in this very room in this very chair, I reminded myself that I need to make it a point to smell the roses as often as possible.

Since I’ve been up (3:30 a.m.) today, I’ve read a lot of negativity on Facebook posts, mostly from people a lot younger than my creaky self. And that started to bother me. You’re 20 and posting how worn out from life and work you are, and how much people in general are bothering you? Seriously?

I went off on a tangent to my 7th and 8th graders yesterday, telling them that I wish they’d care more about stuff because I was staring at the future leaders of our country. What if we had a country full of civic leaders and business people who didn’t care about anything? Here I am, puppeting what my parents felt and said 35 years ago. I’ve become my mother — something I swore in 1977 I’d never do. Whaddya make of that? A hat, a brooch, a pterodactyl?

Anyway, I’m off on another tangent, so back to the subject: rose sniffing. Today I am grateful for the same things I was grateful for in the original 2009 post: family, friends, a job I love, a small but cozy home. Oh, and Johnny Depp movies, the Beatles, and cake. (Not necessarily in that order.)

How about you? Are you grateful for anything specific this year? Do you have a rose-sniffing to share? As always, I covet your thoughts.

…while I take my blogging time to clean out the medicine drawer in the kitchen, because I can stand it no longer. Who could find anything in here?

It’s been said that you can discover a lot about people by looking in their medicine cabinet. What I wouldn’t give for a medicine cabinet. The way my house is laid out, if you want to get to a bathroom, you have to either go up or down stairs. Nothing on the main floor, which tips the inconvenience scale too far for my taste. So instead, we have the medicine drawer in the kitchen. As you can see, things got so crowded that I ended up labeling the tops of the lids, which beat the heck out of picking up each bottle to see if it was the one I needed. Ridiculous.

If I had some available wall space somewhere, I’d have the Thriller put in a small cabinet. But no. My particular middle-class house was built in a time (1916) when, apparently, function won out over beauty and stretch-out space.

Hey Santa, how about a kitchen remodel? Cripes. OK, complaining over with. For now…

My new made-up word.

ma·laise [ma-leyz] noun 

Those were my feet. All night long. I fought it from 11 until 3 a.m., when the twin blocks of glacier at the ends of my ankles started emanating pain all the way up to my knees. WHAT???

We keep our second floor pretty chilly. It contains my master bathroom and three bedrooms (which we don’t use except when grandchildren or friends/family visit — our bedroom is up another floor). When the Js come to sleep over, I always bunk in the guest room, so I can be close by in case a boy wakes up disoriented or has a nightmare, or just needs Grammie for something. They each have a small space heater in their room, but I have tripped circuit breakers with setting up a third one in the guest room in the past, so I just leave all the bedroom doors open and go without. I thought I’d be fine for the night when I put on thick socks, a t-shirt, a heavy sweatshirt and sweats and climbed into bed after the boys were asleep.

Wrong.

It took me forever to fall asleep for rubbing my feet together (I know they’re going to warm up soon…), then I must have awakened every 10-15 minutes, after the poor little peds had frozen solid again. Have your feet ever been so cold that it shoots pain right up your leg? Cripes. So, at 3:00, I got up and came downstairs to the parlor, took off my moccasins, and put my sockfeet directly on the space heater. And that’s where I am at this very moment, an hour and 15 minutes later.

CosySoles

I found some CosySoles – the perfect solution. I’d rather put a pair of slippers in the microwave than stick heat pads in my socks, anyway. I went to order them, pulled down the sizing chart, and…yeah. Heh haha hoho hahahaNEVERMIND. (They start at size 6.)

Is it time for me to stop complaining yet? I think so. Frozen feetses aside, we all had a blast last night, and the Thriller and I love having the boys over as often as we can. I’ll try and grab a catnap on the way to Detroit this morning, and I’ll be good to go.

Happy Saturnday! I hope you’re doing something fun this weekend. I’m going to stand up on my two little icebergs and hit the couch for awhile, till my two bundles of energy wake up. Grilled cheezers for breakfast today.

FO

Random Neuron Firings

1. It is Veterans Day. If you see one, thank one!
2. Life is too short. Period. It’s too short for wasting time, too short for not taking care of yourself and your family, too short to not have fun, too short to hold grudges, too short to seek anything but the good in what days remain to you.
3. I was exhausted at 9:30 last night, so I went to bed. Slept all the way until 4. I’m rarin’ to go this morning.
4. Tonight is my first sleepover with the Js since early October. Yay!
5. I am officially uncommitted to rehearsals on weeknights until early February. Then it’s virtually nonstop until the end of May.
6. I hold some unpopular opinions.
7. What’s wrong with having key lime pie for breakfast?
8. What are you doing this weekend?