Well, you've heard it everywhere and from everyone I'm sure--what a year 2020 was. We'll all be able to say "I remember 2020." In some ways life will never be the same again. The losses, especially for those of us who have lost friends or family this year will be felt forever. May their memories be a blessing this holiday season and throughout the year to come.

But here, I'd like to focus on what went well, what brought us joy and our hopes for the future.

Back in the salad days of January and February, I was getting ready for a half-marathon in New Orleans and my 55th birthday and asked the kids if they wouldn't mind skipping out on school to join Pete and me there. Little did we know it would be the last vacation for the rest of the year and longer--there's no finer place than New Orleans at Mardi Gras to make lasting vacation memories.

It was an epic journey for Katie, who had to trek from Roanoke's tiny airport through two transfers in bad weather, with many cancelled flights. A day and 12 hours later, she arrived! In the meantime, Pete, Zack and I, already in NOLA, had gone to breakfast and I tripped off a curb and broke my foot! While I iced my foot, Pete was searching out alternate flights for Katie. I found a local company that rented wheelchairs but found when we got there, they had those scooters you can put a knee up on. Vacation and marathon back in business!

 

I was able to walk along, so decided to start out limping and see how far I got with Pete on-call to deliver the scooter if needed. Having Pete, Katie and Zack at the halfway point and the finish line were enough to get me the whole way--in just under 4 hours LOL.

 

 

Just after getting home, I headed out--now with a boot on my foot--to celebrate Phil's and my birthdays and spend some time with mom. 

 

In March, I started working for GBH again on their event strategy now that everything had to move online. Zack's classes transitioned to fully virtual, which was bumpy not only for students but for professors who had never taught online before. All in all it went well with a little extra email and phone communication than usual and he did very well. Katie came home for spring break early, with only 48 hours notice to pack up all her things just in case they did not return as planned. She packed as much into a friend's car as possible, but there was still a good amount of things back at school. Turns out, she was not to return again for the last semester of her senior year. Pete also moved his office home full time and we each worked out our own spaces to get work done without interrupting each other too much.

In May, Zack and Katie turned 22 without too much fanfare. A little celebration at home as I remember. Pie was eaten, of course! Just after, Katie and I made a quick day trip to Hollins to pick up the remaining contents of her dorm room. It was nice to see a few friends, but sad to know that the rest of the senior year traditions would not take place as hoped. Graduation was first moved to the summer, then to Labor Day weekend and now to Memorial Day weekend 2021. But there was an online celebration and at the last minute we were told to tune in online for a little ceremony, which grandparents and aunts and uncles were able to attend as well. We all cheered our cum laude graduate!! 

I drove to LI to spend a couple of weeks with mom. Lucked out that it was the one time Virginia's numbers were low enough to be off the NY hot list. And was also able to work in a visit to my dear friend Allison who lost her husband Bob to Covid in March. He was a big-hearted family man and is missed daily by so many.

Over the summer, I suggested and Pete agreed that it had been too long since he had played the drums and we invited the band over to play 6' apart and masked on our back deck. It was wonderful. Not just for us but our neighbors have stopped us on the street to say they appreciate the live music! This has been a monthly event at our house since.

We had planned to take a family trip to Florence to celebrate graduation and also, Pete's and my 25th anniversary, but instead the trip is indefinitely postponed, we celebrated our anniversary with a date eating at a restaurant! The Salt Line, near Nationals Park, has a breezy outdoor patio. It was a lovely, relaxing evening out together. Not very fussy but so, so nice. We met 30 years ago. It's hard to believe.

We made another quick trip to Hollins to clear out Katie's art studio and pick up the paintings featured in her senior art thesis. Three copies of her writing thesis were also printed, two for her and one added to the Hollins collection. Then we spent a few days (Toby included) at Shenandoah National Park. The views were incredible and it was good hiking weather. It was so nice to get out of the house!

Pete also left Deloitte after 11 years to move to IBM. The commute to work remained the same--upstairs in our loft! It's a strange time to start at a new place and make connections with co-workers, but it is coming along.

How is it that days could move so slowly but still the summer flew by? But it did and Zack was back at school--again all virtual classes. Katie is editing her book, Pete is working, training and meeting IBMers and I'm planning a variety of online events for NOVA, American Experience, Masterpiece and other GBH series. Pete and I also did a few walks and hikes as the fall weather has allowed. Nothing better than the great outdoors and national parks (lately Great Falls) to clear out the cobwebs and anxiety.

We had mom here for Thanksgiving and it felt like a real holiday--under cooked turkey and all ;-). We put the Christmas tree up while she was still here so we could celebrate. The earliest I've had one up in my entire life!

 

BUT--took no photos-duh.

And now it's less than a week til Christmas.

Life goes on. I hope yours is filled with joyful moments, love and gratitude.

Merry Christmas-

See you in 2021.

--Liz

Happy New Year--on to 2019!

I haven't done one of these for several years. Thought I'd get back to it. Time flies and too much goes by before I realize how long it's been since I've caught up with friends and family. You are in my thoughts often and I'll work harder in the new year to get out of my head and onto the phone and out of the door!

Here's some of what we've been up to--

Z returned to school full-time and he also got his driver's license so he is able to get himself to and from classes on his own. That meant a new car for me, so he could use my older one to get around without stranding me at home. He is aware that it is not really his car, but he is the primary user of it as Katie is away at school most of the year. We are proud at how well he did this semester and know he will be going far--but not just yet. One more year commuting to NoVa is ahead. This summer he will look for where he would like to transfer to finish up. I'm sure he's really looking forward to diving into Calculus next semester (NOT!).

K is still loving Hollins. She started 2018 with a January Term art trip to Rome and Florence and came back with a lot of wonderful sketches. She is heading back to campus for the second half of her junior year and we can't believe how fast her college career has flown by! She is beginning to think about what will be next after undergrad, but first she has accepted an invitation to join her roommate for a spring break trip to stay with an aunt in Venice. Yes--Pete and I are jealous! But very happy she is having the opportunity to travel so much.

Pete is still with the same firm, but now in the digital division. I'm not fully up to speed on what that means as far as what exactly he does, but it is an exciting move into new technology and he has been easing into his usual leadership role with this new team. He is more fit now at 50 years old than ever, but there are the aches and pains of having kicked around this long too. ;-) Overall, he's doing very well.

I was asked by my client if I could fill in doing program marketing for some employees who had moved on. It's been years, but I agreed just to help her out of a jam. Now I remember why I stopped doing that kind of work LOL! I'll wrap that up in February and move onto my usual event planning role with them. One big change was that they had to hire me on outright rather than as a consultant, so I'm a bonafide employee again. I lost my mind one afternoon and signed up for the Disney Princess Half-Marathon which, if I survive training, I'll run just after my birthday in February. 

2018 brought a lot of work on the house. New siding, then getting that fixed a few times, painting and a few other chores. I might not want to own my own place after this one, so much nicer to just call a landlord to say that something needs fixing!

In addition to K's jaunts around Italy, Pete joined me on my last event in New Orleans and we stayed a few extra days to enjoy that city. We had never been together and I hadn't been for years. Still a great town. We also At Long Last got up to Vermont to visit with dear friends Marie and Celest at their home near Montpelier and even got to hear them jam with their Italian music band-what a treat! We then headed up to Montreal for a few days. I invited myself along to a business trip Pete had to San Diego and met two Canadian women on my solo visit to the SD Zoo. We toured around all day and had a lot of fun. Those Canadians are so nice! We just returned from a holiday family trip to San Francisco. Pete and I used to go about every 2 years, but we hadn't been in about 9 years. It was a great trip and even better to all be together for a week. 

As a lot of folks, we have been bewildered by the political situation here and around the world and also the meanness online and spilling out into the public square. I've scaled back time on Twitter to practically nothing, only checking in on folks I know in real life, and that has helped my serenity quite a bit. I also spend less time on Facebook, but it is a necessary evil for making plans and keeping up with some of the local political action groups I've been working with. One is Spread the Vote, which helps folks get a state ID so they can not only vote, but also get a job, get into a shelter, or get any social services they need. It has been very rewarding. (www.spreadthevote.org).

In sad news, we lost my sister-in-law Carrie's mother Molly recently. I have known her since I was 9 years old and her passing was quite a shock. We are all still walking through that great change in our lives.

In happier news, my grand niece turned one year old and is walking and talking (very gifted). She is a light to carry us all into a new year.

Our parents are doing very well. Pete's have had some health challenges but are back to normal or on the mend. My mom is doing great and I've had several visits to her new home on LI. So convenient to fly directly into Islip airport from Baltimore.

I hope that you had more happy and hopeful times than challenges last year and more to come in this new one. Keep in touch when you can. We love you.

Ths IS who we are

Some samples from Twitter. I keep reading  "This is not who we are." and more and more when I do my inner voice says "No, this is exactly who we are, I just never noticed."

The immigrant experience of my family of origin is far off history to me. It didn't affect my life at all as far as I could ever tell.  For my husband, first generation on one side and only one more on part of his other, it hit home a bit more in that he wasn't encouraged to talk about being "Arabic."  He lucked out in that he "doesn't look Arabic" and so doesn't have to field the "where do you come from" question.

My kids are mutts but immigrant blood on every side.

Of course I haven't been totally immune.  I am a woman, pan and from NY ;-)  Plus I'm a loud mouth and pretty bossy, so not everyone loves me on sight. The biggest threat to me has always been being a woman.  I've been cat called, approached by creeps, emotionally beat up, but nothing out of the realm of "normal" experience of being a woman in the world and I always felt that women outside the US had it much, much worse. And I had a great dad, and an independent mom, which helps A LOT.

But now I know that it's not the random troglodyte who has awful views of immigrants, women, non-whites, poor people, anyone unlike themselves. And I have to admit that the country I live in now and the people I live in it with are like that and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.  I've just been protected from it and because I'm white, middle class, live in the northeast, educated, married with kids, etc., I have been able to choose to ignore it because my life didn't depend on it at all, ever.

When I exclaim "This is not who we are." It sounds a lot like reacting to talk of racism with the exclamation "But I'M not a racist!" So the hell what? Do I stand up to it? Do I listen to the experience of friends and others unlike myself and without my ability to live in a bubble of safety?

I think the answer for me and for a lot of us is no. We haven't. We haven't stood up and fought for what we want America to stand for, how we want it to walk its loud big talk. To really be the land of the free.

It isn't. It never has been. It has often aspired to be but it needs our help. It needs my help.  And if nothing else good comes out of the Trump era, I hope it is that I will never take a seat again and live in a pretend country, or the world of only what directly happens to me.

I find nothing more sickening than hearing "I haven't seen that" or "I didn't have any trouble with that" or "that doesn't apply to me."  Cause you know what? Wait around, you're next buddy.

And yes--let me tell the truth--
I'm sick of hearing about Trump
I'm sick of reading the news
I'm sick of Congress
I'm sick of hearing about the latest hate crime

I want to do other things with my time.
I don't want to go to activism meetings and meet new people (BLEHHHHH).
I Hate calling my MoC
I don't like doing the work and still losing

Tough on me. It's time to pay the price for the cushy life I've had up til now. A lot less is being asked of me than the mother who has to fear for her child's life and safety every time they leave the house to grab a snack.

Enough lamenting, enough wishing this was not us.  Back to work.

A bit of a rant-maybe not what you expect [Trump trigger]

Another article on Trump voters that adds nothing to the conversation. I'm sick of this crap. How about we take a good hard look at ourselves?

I have lost a "friend" during the campaign but you see quotes there because in the end it wasn't her vote that made me unfriend her, it was how vicious and uncaring she was when we tried to talk about our disagreements. And I realized that all along she'd had a mean streak, it had simply never been directed at me. Why was that ok with me?

Most of the Trump voters in my life are, admittedly, only acquaintances but they are educated, politically informed, listen patiently to my bleeding heart liberal views and many have a more diverse group of friends than I do.

Really what it comes down to is the kind of people I choose to have in my life. No, I don't get how they were able to vote for Trump. I also don't know why I chose to ignore that someone in my life was downright mean and stay in that friendship until the meanness was turned on me.

Not a defense of Trump, just saying that like some folks I know who voted for him, I am perfectly able to turn a blind eye to bad behavior. And I'm not willing to toss folks out of my life for one vote when their actual day to day behavior is often better than mine.

Lastly, I'm sick of psycho analyzing Trump voters, which has no affect on what needs to be done now. My friends of conscience will, regardless of their vote, do the right thing when it comes down to it. If they don't, I need to look at who they really are, who I thought they were, and what value the relationship has in my life at that moment.

The frothing at the mouth ignorant bigots, I don't care what motivates them or how they got that way and I don't want to win them over. Fuck them.

Better to look at what I have or haven't done, who I choose to have in my life and what I'm doing to stand up for my ethics now, today, every day. I don't have time to waste making Trump someone else's fault.

Now to Level Off

It's been a while.  Been somewhat busy, but mostly simply not inspired to write.  Seemed like a good idea to check in before the holidays hit.

I've hit my goal weight and have now lost a little bit more.  (see my menus, etc here) That's actually not so good. I now need to stop losing weight but also not go back to eating a ton of carbs and sugar. was wayyy down on my calories yesterday.  Right on track with carbs, but low on fat and calories.  I hunted around the house and ended up eating some sun dried tomatoes, but I don't really like eating just to up my intake.  I wasn't especially hungry.

Not the worst problem to have, but still something I need to keep an eye on as the holidays kick in.

Halloween went well and the three days prior visiting Katie at school, where I ate an enormous amount of carbs and candy (relative to the past couple of months, not compared to what I was doing while I was gaining a pound a week!). I felt a bit bloated, but felt better when I got back on track at home.

Pete had a two week staycation and it was nice having him hanging around!  Now that he's back at work, I feel like I didn't see him at all.  Really we need him to take a month off so we can include winding down from work, getting some rest, getting a little trip in and some home projects.  Two weeks is not enough!

In other news, my hormones are kicking my ass.  Sweats, sleep disruption, moody.  Nice. All that and getting old too! What a deal!

One success was I checked in with my GP who is also a homeopath and got back on vitamin B.  That should help with the mood stabilization and the 3pm blahs I've been getting.  When I went to see her, I was on day three of a headache and possible virus.  She suggested I see the chiropractor in the office and was able to fit me in right then.  My neck had been hurting for about a month and no amount of anti-inflammatory or massage seemed to be helping so I was thinking it was maybe time to consider chiropractic.  Sure enough, he cracked my neck in three places and I left headache free.  A little sore, but nothing I couldn't sleep through and it was mostly gone by the next day. Miracle!  I will definitely use him again.

Zack had his first interview.  They had him work several hours and then decided it wasn't a good fit.  He was very disappointed. That first job hunt is so hard. Hope he lands something soon.

He and I are both fighting off some virus going around.  Not sure if we picked it up in Katie's dorm or from friends around here.  It's running around both places.  I'm hoping to stave off the worst, entirely if I can, but at least through Sunday.  We have a busy weekend including my first time doing a demo for someone else's Tupperware party.  This is where I see if I can make a go of this thing, so send me some good vibes!

The trees are turning and maybe the weather is going to stay fall like?  It was crazy hot this week (or was that just me?!).  It's unnerving to have it so hot in November, but I may as well enjoy the outdoors before we wreck the whole planet.

A recent visitor to the yard.

Tuesday is the election, and I can't wait for it to all be over.  Once again, I will go to bed at a decent hour, remembering that my watching or not watching the exit polls doesn't actually affect the outcome! Hope to wake to a peaceful day regardless of how it all goes. Or at least sunny mild weather, right?

Weight Rebellion

I've lost about 9 lbs over the course of this low-carb eating I've been doing.  I found that out on Friday, the only day I weigh myself.  Since then there has been a decided uptick in my carb intake.  This is no accident, it's what I always do. 

I had hoped to lose about 8lbs and then maybe work on losing about 5 more at the most.  But once I overshot my original goal--which happened quickly and unexpectedly--I started to get rebellious. 

By the way, that last 3lb loss was weird.  I had lost about .5lbs the week before and then was suddenly down by 3lbs.  I thought the scale was wrong, but no, it turns out I really did lose it and am still hovering around there.  No idea why.

My pattern with losing weight is that I feel that my clothes are a little loose and then give a mental "fuck you" to...who?...and eat whatever crap I want for several days.  This usually erases any room in my waistband again and I'm back to square one.

Now, I haven't thrown the whole deal out.  I'm still tracking my menu and thus calorie and carb intake on My Fitness Pal, and that seems to keep me from completely flying off the beam, but still I don't know what I'm pushing back on so hard.  One day I felt like I could barely eat enough to not have the tracker yell at me for not eating enough, then next I'm downing M&Ms the same night I made spaghetti for dinner.

Still some work to do there.  In any case, I am overall still paying more attention to what I eat and why I'm choosing what I choose.  Sometimes sleep feels like the munchies, sometime boredom or loneliness does too.  I'm reading more and I picked up what I hope will turn into a part time job (see previous New Venture post).  More up and out and less sitting and munching.

And still often giving into real temptation with no regrets.

A new venture

I'm a Tupperware Lady!  I know! I can't believe it either!
But really, I signed up last week and so far it's been very fun.

I've been trying to think of what kind of job I wanted to get, now that my homeschool days are over, and the idea of picking up some full time or even part-time outside the house gig made me feel terrible.  Aside from the fact that committing to something would get in the way of my long-time event planning work.

My hope is that the Tupperware thing will lace in well around event planning and even leave room for volunteer work.

The fact is, since the kids finished homeschool, I've been spending way too much time on the computer and alone.  Not good for me, my psyche or my health.

It was a fairly small financial risk to start up--all in all maybe $200--I'll keep you posted.  It may turn out to be less and I will probably be unwilling to invest more and will instead move on to something else.

So that's my news.  Want to party or look over the current catalog?  Here's my web site:  http://lizen.my.tupperware.com/

In other news, I am back down to the weight I formerly hoped I would never get heavier than, LOL!  I heard once never to judge your body because today's weight gain will be your future target weight!  True for me!  If I maintain this weight, that's fine.  If I lose more, that's fine too.  My clothes fit and that's what I need for now.

Have still been keeping my carbs down under 100 per day and some days I'm really surprised by how much I can still eat.

Zack is still job hunting, but holiday hiring is about to start, so I'm sure he'll land something soon.

I'm already looking forward to Florida in March.  Maybe we can get out of town sooner?