Category Archives: Home

Jun 03 2012
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Dogs, Family, Home, Life, Teaching, Travel, Writing

Anticipation Junkie

Four more days of school, then seven weeks of glorious summer.

If I haven’t made myself annoyingly clear, I’m an anticipation junkie.  Half the thrill for me is envisioning the future.  Life moves so quickly.  The real thing is over before you know it, but if you look forward to it first, it lasts longer.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

So, in an effort to stretch out my summer before it even starts, here is what I’m looking forward to most:

1. Road trip to Olympia with my teacher lady friends! (Hello Portland, dirty bars, roller derby, beautiful coastline, our special version of Flat Stanley, and a raucous good time… Sometimes I wonder if people really know what elementary school teachers are like in their off hours… I didn’t!)

The fourth/fifth grade team dressed up like Viola Swamp to scare the children, told you we’re fun 😉

2.  Kauai.  Think the complete opposite of above road trip.  Peace, quiet, sunshine, beach.

See, I already have the crucial supplies ready!

3.  Mt. Shasta, CA.  Time with my mom, sitting under the pines, swimming in the lake, snacks at the Goat Tavern, hot springs soaking in Ashland, OR.

See Mom, I am excited to come visit you!

4.  WRITING.  As much as I’m excited for all of the trips above, I might be even more excited for the time to write.  I’m ready to do my final polishing of my book (AGAIN) and submit to 31 agents in 31 days in July.  WOOT.

Only a little more work left before I can submit! No thanks to Simon…

5.  General summerness.  Time with my dog, husband, family, friends.  Impromptu road trips to Napa for yummy Ad Hoc lunch, San Francisco Giants games, the Pelican Inn and Muir Beach.  Days spent floating in my dad’s pool, lazing about at teacher pool parties, thrifting, reading and sleeping.

More time with these guys!

Okay, just one more, because he’s so stinkin’ cute.  Clearly, I’m obsessed.  Watch out when I have kids…

See, now I’m excited, and summer hasn’t even officially started.  Thank you anticipation, I don’t care what people say about the present, you’re pretty cool too.

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May 28 2012
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Family, Home, Life Gallery

Family Sundays

I was going to save this post for Father’s Day, but then I decided it didn’t have to wait.

Growing up, my dad would wake up early every Sunday morning to make our big family breakfast.  All 7 of us.  Eggs, bagels, bacon, english muffins, orange juice.  Since most of us have grown up and left home, he went through a phase where he lamented that Sunday breakfasts just weren’t the same.

Until, at last, he shifted his attention to Sunday dinners.  Now, Sunday dinners are a marvelous affair.  He doesn’t just make food, he makes gourmet meals.  Barbecued macaroni and cheese with bacon, grass-fed burgers, free-range barbecued chicken wings, fried organic asparagus and green beans.  Turns out, my dad can really cook.

This little act of love, of cooking for all of us gathered around the outside table, means a lot to my dad.  What he probably doesn’t realize is that it means even more to us.  Of course, it’s not just the food.  It’s having all of us, (or almost all of us depending on the Sunday), back in one place.

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May 27 2012
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Home, Life, Pets, Writing

Happy Sunday!

Luna welcomes you to my new blog home!

Everything from Blogspot came with me, except for my followers/email list.  Please re-add me to your feed or follow by email!

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May 21 2012
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Family, Home, Life

Familial Insomnia

It’s 10:43 and I should be asleep.  I get up 7 hours and 17 minutes from now.  Anything less than 8 hours of sleep does not work for me.

However, I’m wide awake, obsessed with the concept of how many direct ancestors are responsible for me being here, typing this tonight.  Maybe I should not have slept in until 11, or taken that nap, or shared some of Alex’s mocha after dinner…

2,048 direct ancestors in the past 10 generations, to be exact.  Two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents…  I feel like I have the Math Curse that my students love so much.

Oops on the 2,046 instead of 2,048… Apparently my mental math isn’t as good as my fourth graders’!

Ten generations probably only gets me back around 300 years, (conservatively assuming each generation has children about every 30 years).  That means, we really have thousands of direct ancestors, far more than the 2,048 that I was patient enough to calculate.

This blows my mind.

And, it does not even take into account all of the great aunts, second cousins, etc. that we’re genetically connected to, (or their thousands of separate descendants).  The more I start to think this way, the more I start to feel like the whole world must somehow be related.  I guess it doesn’t help that my dad found some MacKays related to us in the 1600s, (I don’t think this automatically qualifies me as being related to my husband, right?).

What I also find interesting about all of this is that even though I connect most with my paternal last name, I really have countless last names in my background that are just as responsible for me being here.  According to my dad’s recent family tree research, which gets a couple of our lines back to the 1600s, I am just as much German, French, Prussian, and English as I am Irish, but since my last name is O’Bryon, I’ve always connected most with this piece of my heritage.

It’s fascinating to think that we’re really the result of so many people from so many backgrounds.  I have ancestors that lived in the original colonies, ancestors that were Native Americans, ancestors that migrated only a couple of generations ago from Prussia.

I am so many people.  You are too.  The math nerd in me can’t get over this.

A partial list of the last names in my background over the past few hundred years, maybe we’re related!
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May 12 2012
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Family, Home, Life

Mom

My mom and I have the same hands.  She humored me for this post by letting me take these silly pictures to prove it.  Our hands are exactly the same size.  In fact, when pressed together, they are mirror images.
The older I get, the more of my mom that I find in myself.  Hands, laughter, kindness.  I owe much of who I am to her.  She influenced me to become a teacher.  She showed me how to be brave and not care so much about what others think.
“To thine own self be true.”  The most famous words of wisdom from my mom.
For so many years I fought against all of the things that I admire most about her.  Refused to eat the right foods, scoffed at activism, pretended not to care about nature.  In all of my childish efforts to be different from my mom, I’ve ironically turned out in many ways to be the same.
Better yet, I am now proud of these similarities.
Being a mom has to be one of the hardest jobs on the planet.  All of that waiting for your kids to fully appreciate, understand, and embrace your efforts.
Thank you Mom for your patience.
My mom and I are more alike than I realize.
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May 05 2012
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Home, Life

To sell or keep your wedding dress?

Most people sound surprised when I tell them that I’m selling my wedding dress.

“Don’t you want to keep it?”
“What if your daughter wants to wear it?”
“I bet you’ll wish you had it when you’re an old lady.”
Maybe they’re right.  It is not an easy choice.  I am attached to it.  
However, it also bothers me, hanging there in my closet, taking up so much space for the sake of the past.  My real attachment is to the memories, the pictures, the day.  The actual dress is just one piece that happens to take up a gigantic amount of space in my bedroom’s “quaint” 1950s closet.
While I understand the logic of keeping it, I also romanticize the idea of it living on as part of someone else’s special day.  Perhaps it will be like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but with a wedding dress between strangers.  I almost imagine it becoming its own story, a book even.  Living on from love story to love story.  Ending its life well-used, tattered in some thrift store until someone finds it and decides to reinvent it again.  Maybe I have too much hope for my little old dress.
The hippie in me likes the idea of selling it though.  Let someone else use it again.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.
I know there is a chance I’ll miss it, but I also enjoy the small act of rebellion in not holding onto it.  We’ll see.  Someone actually has to buy it first.  
When I went shopping for a wedding dress, I thought I wanted something understated, tea length maybe.  I almost bought a vintage Audrey-Hepburnesque dress that hit at the knees.  I anticipated the shock value of defying tradition.  However, no other day in my life would I ever have the excuse to revel in such pageantry.  I didn’t even want to try this dress on, but my sister Kaitlyn convinced me, and once it was on, I was happy.  Now, it would be cool if this dress could make someone else feel the same way!
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May 02 2012
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Home, Life, Teaching

Happy May Day: Let’s Bring Back the 40 Hour Work Week!

Life is so much happier when we spend 8 hours a day at work.  The days that I leave school at 3:30 feel so much more complete.  I have time for a nap, yoga, writing, walking the dog, and spending time with my husband– all in one evening!

However, 3:30 days are rare.  And, I know I’m not alone.  Eight hour days were uncommon at my old job.  Friends all complain of being overworked.  Companies blame the recession.  A recent media debate exploded around whether people have to be parents to justify leaving work at 6:00.

I know that I’m lucky.  If I plan my time right, I can leave at 3:30 some days.  As a teacher, I also get breaks.  But, I sacrifice pay for these luxuries.

In honor of May Day, I proclaim my support of a societal shift back to the 8-hour workday!  Call me a Marxist, but we could all use a little more life in our life!

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Apr 11 2012
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Home

Finding my green thumb!

What I need least in the entire world is another hobby.  
However, this weekend I found one anyway.  Gardening.  I never thought I’d say it.  I used to think it was the hobby of very patient old people, or my mom, (and, no, mom, I’m not calling you old!).  Maybe I was wrong or maybe I’m getting older, more patient, and more like my mom.  
Either way, this weekend I reclaimed my backyard from the cold ugly fingers of winter.    While there is still work to do, it went from an overgrown disaster zone, to a place that I might actually want to eat my breakfast.  I pulled out the lawn furniture, killed a few black widows, (after blessing them first), and replanted my little planter box with fruits, herbs, and veggies that I hope will survive long enough for me to actually eat.  
In the three hours that I spent engaged in manual labor, I felt strong, healthy, and connected with my little piece of earth.  It was a meditation.  I appreciated all of the work that goes into everything that we eat.  I felt happy even.  And, to top it all off– it was a workout!  I am still sore from all of that squatting and shoveling.
Here is the book that inspired it all.  Alex surprised me with it last year and I’m finally putting it to good use:
Source: amazon.com via Haley on Pinterest

It convinced me that if its author could grow a cool garden on an apartment patio, I could do alright with a full-sized backyard.  Prior to reading it, my plant kill rate was about 100%.  Now I’m successfully keeping plants alive, well, most of them!
My happy little spot.  The lavender in the middle was one of the first plants that I managed NOT to kill!  In fact, it has quadrupled in size under my loving inattention!

Goodbye winter!  Hello outdoor furniture!

My box runneth over!

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Mar 30 2012
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Home, Life

A Little Indulgence…

Downton Abbey is my new favorite escape.

It’s actually sort of an obsession, and I’m really not one to be obsessed with television shows, (in fact, most nights, I don’t watch any).  However, this show hooked me.  It pulled me into its fantasy world:

Watch me, escape from the 21st century, you know you want to…

Really, it’s like Little Women and Pride & Prejudice created a glorious baby.  Even with its occasional writing flaw, (which I can’t harp on too much, since I’m sure my writing is full of a thousand), it’s seductive.  The early 20th century British countryside setting is gorgeous, the costumes amazing, the plot just maddening enough to keep you wanting more.  And, beneath the glitz of all the nobility, it still manages to tell a compelling story of war, class struggle, and the women’s rights movement.

Sadly, Alex and I made it through the first two seasons at a record pace and now I have to wait for the Roaring Twenties to arrive in the fall.  Until then, I invite you to check it out, (season one is streamable on Netflix), and join me in the strange cult following that surrounds this period drama, (I heard about it on Facebook from more than one person before I finally gave in…).

I tried to find pictures that captured my fascination with the costumes, but I think that you’ll just have to watch to understand!
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Mar 06 2012
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Dogs, Home, Pets

Certain to fix your case of the Mondays…

In my family, it’s a sin to complain about Mondays.  You should be eager to get back to work.  Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not.  Call me a sinner this week.  I had such a wonderful long weekend with Alex, eating at yummy restaurants, getting massages, enjoying the sunshine, you get the picture.  Somehow, getting back to work just does not hold the same appeal!
So, because everyone needs a good Monday smile, here is the highlight of my day– forcing my dog to try on his new beach outfit.  Who can resist a dog in a hoodie sweatshirt?  I certainly can’t.

Not sure he’s liking the hood…  I’m officially one of those people that puts her dog in clothes…  Worth it.
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Mar 04 2012
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Family, Home, Life

Partners in Crime

For me, the biggest key to marital bliss is a shared sense of humor.   If Alex didn’t laugh at my jokes, the world would be very lonely.  After all, we all want to feel like someone else understands us.  Part of being married for me is knowing that Alex will be there to laugh at my jokes even when no one else does, (and mean it, too!).  When I’m a little old lady and people ask me for the secret to a long marriage, I’m certain that my answer will be laughter.

In the spirit of this shared laughter, I want to wish happy birthday to my favorite partner in crime!  I am so grateful that we share the same quirky sense of humor, (even when other people just stare at us in silence!).  Here’s to many, many more years of post-dinner track suit purchases and hysterical laughter.  We will definitely be the most interesting couple in the retirement community.  Do you think that they’ll let us in early?  In these outfits, it’s either that or GTL and fist pumping…

I love you, welcome to 28 years of age.  It certainly does not mean that we are always grown ups, as is evidenced from the pictures below.

I would like to add that part of the beauty of these pictures is that they’re 100% sober.  The best laughter doesn’t need help!
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Feb 15 2012
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Home, Life, Teaching

Valentine’s Day Confession

It’s official, I’m out of the closet, I love Valentine’s Day!

I used to force myself not to like it.  I reasoned that it made people that I love feel lonely, so I wanted to support them by not liking it.  I also scoffed at how arbitrary the date was– complaining how it was a capitalistic excuse for more materialism.  Last year, I went so far as to tell Alex that I did not want presents and that I did not care if he had the closing shift at work, (I thought that I was being generous to his coworkers that actually wanted the time to celebrate!).

Today, however, I realized that I do like Valentine’s Day, even if there are aspects of it that still annoy me, (like all of the horny men wandering around looking for flowers at the grocery store!).  Despite the annoyances, it no longer bothers me that it is a day that we made up.  So what– aren’t all holidays days that we made up on some level or another?  Maybe this one is more recent, but I do not see anything wrong with a day based on love.  After all, isn’t love critical to our happiness as human beings?

I’m not saying romantic love… Although, that kind of love is nice too.  I’m just saying love.  As an adult, I’m finding that Valentine’s Day is a day that I tell my friends, students, and family that I love them.  I don’t tell them with expensive gifts, but with little gestures: a cut out heart with kind words, a card, a text, a phone call.  In fact, it turns out that Valentine’s Day results in the greatest outpouring of token gifts and sweet little cards from my students of any holiday.  I have a veritable mountain of candy and cards that make me feel appreciated!  What’s so wrong with expressing our love this way?

In truth, I witnessed many little acts of love that made me happy to be alive today:  A coworker’s husband marching across campus with a gigantic bouquet of roses, (to the sheer excitement of the 120 students watching at recess!).  A student excited to deliver her one special hand-crafted valentine to a boy that she likes, (reminded me of the valentine that Alex made me in fourth grade!).  My students treasuring the little valentines that I made them.  My dad unexpectedly delivering a valentine to my school, complete with a generous donation for our upcoming field trip.  Incredibly kind words of support emailed from my mom.  A woman taking the time to pull into the grocery store parking lot just to cuss me out for changing lanes at the same time as she did, (okay, that happened, and it made me laugh, but maybe it doesn’t belong on this list!).

Even though I’m looking forward to seeing my husband tonight, it has been the acts of love from other people that have brightened my day so far.  I’m sure he’ll make me smile too, when he gets home from work, but I’m realizing that Valentine’s Day is far more than a romantic holiday based on excessive consumerism.  It’s a chance to tell people that they matter to you.  If you’re feeling sad or lonely tonight, you’re entitled to dislike this holiday, I don’t blame you, but also consider reaching out to the people that you love.  It will make them smile, and chances are, it will make you smile too!

The valentines that I made for my students.  It is amazing how a few kind words so clearly brighten their day!

Simon going nuts on one of my gifts from a student… oops!

You’ll be happy to know that the bear survived!  Happy Valentine’s Day!
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