Category Archives: Time to Cry Tuesdays

June 12, 2012 · 12:49 am

Time to Cry Tuesday – Sometimes You Get it Right

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining my dear friends at their wedding. This being a second marriage for both of them, it was a very different celebration.

The room was filled with friends and family, as most weddings are. But the difference in this room was that many of us have shared our lives for the past 20 some odd years. We have raised children, grieved parents, nursed each other when sick, celebrated joys and held each other up in sorrow. The love in that room was almost overwhelming.

We are a community. In the true sense of the word. There was a moment on the dance floor when all our close friends were dancing in a circle around this couple. I looked around at the faces of my friends and thought, this is one of those moments. The ones we remember for a lifetime. A very moving moment indeed.

These two people in the center of this celebration were joined together as a mature couple (ok, grown-ups might be a better word, we are all a little adolescent in our behavior). As the groom stated so eloquently in his vows, he felt so very lucky to be marrying his best friend. With that foundation they are sure to live a happy life together.

Sometimes you get it right. They surely have.

And hey, when else have we ever done the Horah to Satisfaction? Great party for a great couple.

With all the love in my heart – and flashbacks of a scarier time in your lives that have bound us eternally – I wish my dear friends much health and happiness. Love you guys.

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May 28, 2012 · 9:03 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday — Summer

Honeysuckle! This has to be the quintessential sign of summer. My mom used to have a honeysuckle bush right outside the kitchen door. The smell of it still makes me feel like a little kid. I remember picking the flowers and pulling out the tiny filament in the center to release the tiny droplet of sweet nectar on my tongue. It was one of those fascinations that I have never tired of.

This mass of honeysuckle is on my morning walk. I could not resist but to pick a flower and taste that sweet flavor again. It did not disappoint.

The memorial day weekend – with its unofficial start to summer – did not disappoint either. It was filled with all the things I love about this season. I will never take these glory days for granted; when being in the basement is out of the question and there is more to do than hours in the day.

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and just think… a four day work week, not so bad.

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May 22, 2012 · 1:20 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – No Time

This one always kills me. It is halfway through Tuesday and I realize that I have not posted my most sacred post of the week. I have been blogging for four years now (crazy, right?) and Tuesdays have always been the days I stop and smell the roses, the coffee, or maybe even the not so clean sponge that I can smell from the garage as I walk in the house. It is the day I have vowed to myself to always take stock and find something that touches me. A little break in the crazy week that makes me present.

And here I am, at 1PM on Tuesday and I realize I forgot to do this last night.

So today’s post is about time. And how we get caught up in how important we are. How our to-do list is sometimes magnified to the point of absurdity. When you break your own rule for taking a moment, it is not the end of the world for anyone else but yourself.

Better late than never; here is my list of things that made me grateful this week. The things  that made me feel like me:

1. My very first peony of the season. When I left the house that morning it was a bud, when I came home it was in full bloom. And it was the only one in the gar den.

2. Planting for my mom. This was a bittersweet task because as much as she loved me doing it she wished she could do it herself. She told me she remembered doing it for her mom and I told her I was screwed because Jana did not like to garden.

3. Puppy on the beach. You can never beat this one, even after she chewed THREE pair of prescription sunglasses in one week.

4. Son home for 36 hours. Hopefully when he returns from his little post-finals excursion we will get a little more of him. A lot more would be asking the impossible.

5. Full house Sunday dinner with dear friends and all 4 of our kids… a true rarity and a gift indeed.

With the holiday weekend marking the unofficial start of summer, I vow to try to chill when I can.

And just BE.

 

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May 14, 2012 · 9:33 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Floral Memory

Back when I was in college there was an iris farm not far from where we lived. Going to school in the snow belt of upstate New York, things like The Lilac Festival and iris farms were one step more magical than they would normally be for their juxtaposition to the brutal snow dumping of the long winters. It was always so hard to reconcile all that color after living in a gray and white world of visual deprivation for such a long period of time.

An odd place to go to art school, indeed.

Growing up in the more populated west end of Long Island, iris farms were not something I had ever seen. One late spring morning I came across one and had to pull over. It was like a floral candy store; rows and rows of the these elegant multi-colored flowers. On some level a flower farm seemed comical. You know, being downstate suburban jaded and all. But it was also enchanting. Every year after that I made sure to stop by this farm for the sheer joy of walking down rows of blooming irises.

A simple pleasure.

The other morning on my walk I realized that all the irises in the neighborhood were starting to bloom at once. This particular solitary flower took my breath away and gave me a strong flashback of the upstate iris farm. From the angle of the shot it looks like I had fallen down and was shooting from the ground. No worries, I was upright. (for those who know me that is not too far-fetched)  Dog leash in hand, I was still able to capture this one perfectly. I love the color of the house behind it as a backdrop.

The point of this post? I guess it is the same as the point of my morning walk everyday. To stop and take pictures of the flowers. Wait isn’t that stop and smell the roses? No, it is wake up and smell the coffee.

Actually… it is all of them.

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May 8, 2012 · 7:40 am

Time to Cry Tuesday – Worry

Worry. We all do it. Some more than others, but worry comes into play as part of being an adult. Sure, kids worry, but for the most part they leave the heavy lifting to us until they come of age.

We worry about our kids, our parents, our careers, money, weather… you name it. See a pattern? Most of what we worry about is out of our control. Sure, we can help mold and massage parts of life, but for the most part it is how we live with what happens that makes us who we are. And certainly makes the ride a lot less stressful.

Years ago, Gary was very ill in the hospital. I had 2 small kids, a puppy (the last one) and I was working like a maniac. I commuted with a friend. We were on the train one morning and I must have gone into a frenzy of ‘what ifs’ that made her head spin. She stopped me in my tracks with one simple phrase, “Don’t pre-worry.”

Amazing, right? Many times what goes wrong is not what we worry about anyway. And everything runs its course. If you worry about every scenario that does not happen, you have wasted all the energy you need to deal with what actually does. This crazy notion of being happy all the time is ridiculous and surely never sustainable. As I always tell my kids, “Sometimes you just have to feel like shit, it gives happiness context.” (yes I have a foul mouth with my kids, relax, they are older now). I try to subscribe to the ‘ride it out’ philosophy. Sort of let the bad stuff happen and pass through you, don’t let it get stuck inside you.

Let it go or be dragged. (not mine, I found that one on Pinterest)

Sometimes I am successful at this. Other times I fall off the worry wagon and have to work on getting it all back in check.

I love the little worry dolls in this picture. A local Mexican restaurant gives them to you with the bill. (At the cost of their guacamole it is no wonder, they figure you will worry about how to pay!) I collect these in my wallet and every once in awhile I look at them to remind myself that worrying is sort of useless, and will surely sabotage any hope of living a fulfilling day to day life.

Oh and a pomegranate margarita every once in awhile can’t hurt.

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April 30, 2012 · 9:50 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Two Alarm Dinner

I am a good cook. No really this is not a joke. I am really a good cook. And I enjoy it. But my kitchen is, well I guess you would say, a little challenged.

I have the fabulous Chambers Stove that you see in the picture above. I adore it from a design point of view. It is actually the reason I bought my house. I loved the charm of it. But the one problem is that if you use the broiler it heats up the griddle on the top surface and seeing that there is no fan above it the kitchen gets hot enough to set off the smoke alarm.

Ok, to set off 2 smoke alarms. One in the kitchen, one in the entry hall.

No biggie, right?

Unless you have a dog that has a strange neurological response to the sound of the alarm.

Which I don’t anymore. Iko is cool with it. But Mel? OMG, she would shake like her body was plugged into a socket. We used to have to take her outside and walk her around to calm her down.

So today when I used the broiler and set the chain of alarms off, my first reaction was to run and hug the dog. Who looked at me like, ‘Hey, what the hell is up with you and shouldn’t you get the broom and hit that thing to shut that incessant noise off?”

That Melly ghost just hung in the room for a second and made me realize how I will never stop missing that old girl.

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April 9, 2012 · 9:03 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Childhood Artifacts

On a recent trip to visit my parents in Florida, I came across this charming little artifact of my youth. Sitting on the back of the stove was the mouse and cheese salt and pepper shaker of my childhood.

I remember playing with this at the table as a little kid. I never tired of how the little mouse fit so sweetly in the cheese. And that goofy little pose was always just perfect.

I put this on the counter and took an Instagram shot, then showed it to my brother. I told him this was the only item from the estate that I would ever really care about. My still very much alive mother looked at me and said, ‘Why don’t you just take it home now?’

I admit I did think about it. But there was something about taking it out of their house that did not seem right. For now, this picture will do for me. It is both bizarre and comforting at the same time.

I know, I am most comfortable amongst the bizarre.

Of course I had to do a little searching to see if I could find these anywhere. Sure enough I found them on Mood Indigo and Mr. B’s Attic. These suckers are going for between $40 and $45. Perhaps my brother may fight me for them after all. We thought about a Solomonesque answer… one of us takes the cheese and one the mouse. But really, who wants a mouseless cheese or a cheeseless mouse?

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April 3, 2012 · 1:00 am

Time to Cry Tuesday – Z Goes Home

Way back when, Gary started to call me Z. I am not sure how it started, but it was in college and it just sort of stuck. The only people who call me that besides him are my college friends and Mo and Jo. In fact, when certain people call me Amy it sounds weird.

Z. That is just me.

I don’t remember when I found the book in the picture in this post, but I had to own it. Doing some Spring cleaning it popped up again. I just love the illustration. It made me think not of this house I was cleaning, but of what home means. What the essence of Z coming home means to me.

It was so timely to find this book this weekend. Danny came home for Spring Break on Thursday night. As luck would have it (for us, not them I suppose) both of my kids decided to stay home on Saturday night. I cooked dinner and we just hung out as a family. And Sunday was a lazy family day with brunch at the diner and all 4 of us under the same roof. All this was topped off by Chinese food and some favorite TV shows.

Z Comes Home.

To me, home is being with the family we built. Not doing anything monumental, just being us. Back in the day of diapers and teething, then carpools and sports, who would have ever thought that the idea of all 4 of us together would be so rare? Or that the idea of a diner brunch and chinese food on Sunday night would feel so special.

Z Comes Home.

When Z came home she learned to savor every moment; especially the small ones.

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March 20, 2012 · 5:13 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Dalai Lama Wisdom,with a side of Springsteen and McCartney

Time to Cry Tuesday clocks in a little late today. Sorry for the thin posting schedule lately.

Today I am a bit reflective because… it’s Tuesday. So I am going to share with you three things that struck me over the past week. The first is from the Dalai Lama. I suggest you copy this, print it out and post it on your fridge, in your car, on the bathroom mirror and anywhere else your entire family can see it.

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered,

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Ouch!

Second, this quote from Bruce Springsteen’s keynote speech at SxSW was perfect. (although I like my sister-in-laws idea to reverse the order)

“Don’t worry. And worry your ass off.”

That pretty much sums it all up for me. I am a firm believer in not pre-worrying. I believe what happens to you is not what you worry about but something completely out of left field instead. AND in some not so dramatic but disaster preparedness sort of I way, I have been known to worry my ass off. (does this worry make my ass look fat?)

And last but not least, keep reminding yourself of this one. I have seen some staggering evidence of this lately. The last line of the last song of the last Beatles’ album, from Sir Paul:

And in the end, the love you make, is equal to the love you take.

 

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March 14, 2012 · 7:40 am

Time to Cry Tuesday – Where the Magic Happens

I came across this image on Pinterest the other day. It has been circulating all over the online sharing circles. I would love to give credit to its creator but I can’t seem to locate them. If you know where this originated, please let me know.

The sentiment… could this be any more spot on?

Magic.

It is hard to come by. But when you stumble upon it you are blown away. And most often the road there was not an easy one. You certainly did not comes across it on the proverbial couch. Sometimes it involves hard work. Other times it is merely serendipitous. (Yeh, I hate that word too, but it worked here). But almost every time you find yourself smack in the middle of the magic circle, you have traveled outside your comfort zone to get there. You can see here, sometimes it is not all that far away… but that step outside the zone is a scary one.

And it is always worth it.

If you have every received an email from me, you will find this line at the bottom:

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Go ahead…do it. You won’t be disappointed. And here’s hoping that you will find the magic.

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