Mae @ Rainydayinmay

An itch you just can’t scratch…

Published on June 3, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

You know that one thing that drives you crazy in someone else, but deep down you are terrified (iow pretty sure) it’s a character trait you identify in yourself? This has been becoming increasingly blinding to me lately (the annoyingness of this in someone else), but then today it occurred to me that I think it might be a universal flaw in all earth-born species…

Let me explain.

I used to work for this teeny tiny company that you’ve probably never heard of, called Hewlett-Packard. While working there (in my VERY early twenties) I had this super scientific job where I donned plastic gloves, used gigantic tweezers (non-magnetized, mind you) and worked on circuit boards. (I lied. It was not scientific at all, but I really did love it. I’m a fan of routine, monotonous things…) I would, before sitting down to work, however, have to go through this decontamination process. Once that had happened, I could not touch myself at all. During training they warned “you will feel like you have hives”, and I thought they were out of their minds… But I did. I felt that way, nay, worse. Every single day.

Fast forward to now- while I can tolerate an itch for an extraordinary period of time, my 15-year-old daughter has the horrendously unacceptable habit of being unable to sit still for any matter of seconds when it is appropriate to do so. (ie: a formal event when it is still/quiet; sometimes at the movies; while we are speaking to her about something serious; any other occasion that calls for patience and quiet respect.) She gets shakes and uncontrollable itches, and phantom pains, and chest pains and invisible skin lacerations… The list really does go on and on. On the flip side though, during times that don’t matter, she is as stiff as a board. (i.e: reading a book, looking at a magazine, day dreaming, watching tv.)

I feel these are tied together someone but am usually so irritated by it that, well…

But then…

Tuesdays are garbage day. The gigantic green trash trucks come and, like clockwork, our two dogs go crazy. In an effort to protect us (and their food storage) they chase the evil truck away week and after week with their fierce and deafening barks. I am sure that, within the dog world they would be quite impressive. Within our house, they are not. Today, in an effort to use my Yoda mind tricks on Paisley (my lab who loves me unconditionally, without thought of self) I decided to stare into her eyes lovingly while reassuring her over and over what a good girl she was, in a soothing voice. Initially, she absorbed this attention and seemed to melt into my chest, despite the beeping of the trash truck in the distance. But then she shifted, our eyes still locked, and suddenly she realized I had ahold of her collar. She continued to stare and nuzzle while also trying desperately to get out of my grip. When I realized I had lost the battle, I finally let go and she was free.

Free to turn around and scratch an itch at the base of her tail, with her teeth, with a force I’d never seen before.

So there you have it, whenever you realize you can’t do something, suddenly the need to do it consumes you.

just call me the bag lady…

Published on June 2, 2014June 2, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

My weekend was a mixed bag…

Whenever that happens, and it’s not simply a fantastic set of days, I’m tempted to wallow and cast a negative shadow on the whole thing. In the essence of fairness though, that’s simply not, well, fair.There is something truly redemptive in the way discomfort or a “bad day” makes the beautiful look better. It really does have a way of fine tuning our gratitude, when we let it. I tried to let that be the attitude with which my weekend seemed to abide by. I wasn’t perfect, and that’s ok.

On Facebook I shared that I wanted to:

1.) see a movie. (now there’s a shocker.)

2.) paint my toenails.

3.) finish a home organization project.

And I met my goals. While I did other things, and I likely could have done more, I set three simple goals that were practical, important (to me) and fun (or at least a mix of the three) and it made the weekend a lot easier. When I did that, I did not know we would deal with the teenage animosity we dealt with, pangs of homesickness over what we were missing back in Boise this weekend, or that I would struggle with an on & off again three-day migraine. (allergies combined with stress…)

But the really good bits-

an unexpected nap;

food & game night with friends;

laughter;

my husband’s awesome popcorn;

having the laundry done by the end of the weekend- these are really good things. And amidst the worst moments, these rays of brightness become even better. Maybe the very best we should hope for is a mixed bag, because too much of a good thing just makes it bland and ordinary and I don’t want that for any of my beautiful moments…

hello June…

Published on June 1, 2014June 1, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

June is a pretty special month for me… Not only does it hold several very important birthdays, but it’s the official start of summer and that’s a great thing, right?

Me-

– An exciting new project that I can’t divulge too many details about, but you know what they say: my excitement is your excitement… {They say that, right?!?!}

– I joined a new summer book club and I am so excited! (Perhaps I should add overuse of the word exciting and any words derived from it. Yikes.) I’m hoping it will be a great experience and connect me with a few new gals in my area!

– I have some fun books between my night stand and my kindle that I’m looking forward to getting in to.

– have coffee/tea/social plans with a new friend.

– I have not done it in ages, but I really want to do a paper craft project, or two, this month.

Family–

– End of the year school program.

– sending our youngest off to Jamaica with a youth group team from our church, for a mission trip. {yikes!}

– we are (finally) going through the stuff we have stored in our garage, from our move, that we just don’t have room for.

– celebrating several birthdays of loved ones, even if from afar.

– having a belated Father’s Day since we won’t be able to be together for the calendar scheduled one.

– bike rides, evening walks and active weekends.

– summer movies, trip to the drive in, etc.

Food–

– I’m wanting to try some new, summery recipes in the kitchen.

– Mastering fontina cheese fondue. {Yum!}

– concentrating on more vegetables.

– Grilled dinners complete with deck dining.

– weeknight sun tea, fresh squeezed lemonade, weekend cocktails.

Home–

– I’m inspired to redo my photo ledges (and this has been an ongoing hope for months) but I can’t quite figure out what I want to do.

– we’ve had tragedy befall our dining room table recently so we will be taking on a creative, yet affordable redo in that area.

– My office has been a mess since our trip to Idaho. When I’m in here, it’s for a quick second or to rush through a work project. I need to organize and clean it.

Love–

– We have theater tickets to a Tony winning show that I’m really excited to see!

– We have a couple of other fun, intentional dates on the calendar for the month. Our intentional date challenge has been a really fun one!

{Image credits…}

Slow learning, since 1976…

Published on May 30, 2014May 30, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay6 Comments

What I’ve learned in May is kind of a tricky topic. I feel it’s likely, on any given day, that I could have a varying degree of answers. One day I’d tell you that I learned to master the most amazing sandwich recipe, the next I’d cry into my sourdough bread and tell you how I’ve learned nothing and I’m a huge failure, doomed to repeat the same disastrous mistakes day after day.

I live with a fifteen year old girl, who is the barometer of our house. I’ve learned this.

I kind of, sort of, pretty much, definitely hate it. {learned that too.}

In all seriousness, it’s been a tough month. My instinct is to lay it all out for you and prove to you that I’m a failure as a wife, mother, writer and _________ (insert every other area here), but the truth is, I’ve learned the damage thinking such things can do. While yes, it has become painstakingly clear that I am not an awesome mom because apparently awesome moms have their stuff figured it by now, I have learned that I daily become more and more of the person I’m destined to be. Labeling all of my steps along this journey, until this moment, as failure only sounds spoiled and ungrateful.

I already knew I didn’t want to be that…

I’ve learned that love is patient. Most of us know that. It’s something ingrained into our brains and yet, I’m only really starting to understand what that truly means. I’ve learned that saying “no” to the stuff we should say no to is tough, and saying “yes” to the stuff we should agree to is even tougher. This realization hit me like a Mack truck to the face, and I still think it sucks, but something about knowing it helps me when I’m faced with the question and that’s a good thing.

I’ve learned that intentional dating is an awesome thing to do with my husband, but sometimes life is heavy and hard and we just need to escape and zone out at the movies together. Feeling guilty for that isn’t healthy.

I tried to learn to make fried chicken again. (the last time was 20 years ago.) I will not try again. I realize there is nothing healthy about fried chicken but I grew up on fried chicken picnics and Chw grew up on Sunday fried chicken dinners. Nostalgia inspired me to try it again. I did learn that I’m a really great cook, when it comes to some things, and fried chicken is not one of them. I am ok with this…

Regarding writing, and working from home, May has been quite an educational month. I’ve learned I work better when I’m working. Novel concept, (no pun intended) I know. It’s that simply, though, so I’ve begun scheduling my hours and it works like a dream. Because it’s the end of the school year oddness, a few things have been tweaked, but it’s been a pretty great and I’ve been more productive and taken more steps forward this month than I have in well over a year.

It all falls under the same lesson though, one I think that I’ve been learning since I was seven years old… That’s the lesson of grace. Grace for myself, grace for others… I’ll wake up and need to learn it again tomorrow. I think I’m stuck in my own version of Groundhog Day over here…

a long way trip to get to the tv point…

Published on May 28, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

I want to talk about marriage, infidelity, hashing through it all on camera but first-

A lot of people from various walks of life-like to bag on entertainment whenever they discuss the important things in life. Between you and I, sometimes I get a little defensive when they do that. Here’s the truth, we do subscribe to digital cable and we do have a DVR. Is it expensive? I guess. Could that money be used for something more valuable? Probably. Are we going to cancel our cable? Nope… The truth is, we don’t watch a lot of TV. The television is off more days a week than it’s on. We don’t eat meals in front of the tv, we do not mindlessly channel surf. Actually, we do not ever channel surf. We DVR shows we enjoy and when we do watch tv, those are what we watch. (and by most of, I mean the few shows…)

Here’s the deal. I’m not saying tv should rank up their on the list of priorities, and I’m not saying that I am right to be defensive. What I am suggesting is that we stop expecting every single person to fit into a slim little box. Sometimes someone’s day may look like their husband is stressed out with a business trip gone bad and he’s out-of-town and unavailable while her fifteen year old screams and verbally abuses her and then heaps on more abuse because how dare she be hurt or remotely offended by the hateful remarks spit at her. Sometimes the microscopically fine line between complete abysmal overwhelment and absolute emptiness might look like a bottle of whiskey or a drug induced escape… While I own the former, and never drink it, I don’t choose that. Instead, on days (yesterday) like that, I curl up on the couch and watch an hour of Kitchen Casino, and then Jimmy Fallon.

For years and years my work was tied to the edge of the entertainment industry and I grew to appreciate the ins and outs of production, the quality of a great series/film and most specifically great entertainment writing. It’s not easy, and I appreciate it. While there are tons of people who don’t, (and because they don’t, and they have a voice, they somehow deem it as worthless garbage) I personally feel the entertainment industry is incredibly valuable. With these tiny fragments of time our emotions can be held, captured and touched in extraordinary ways, when it works out right. I love that! So yeah, if a show has solid writing, we will probably give it a shot. This means my husband and I store and watch a rather eclectic mix of things. I cry in most shows we watch because, again, we watch really well written things so I get pretty drawn in. It’s embarrassing, even to have Chw there sometimes.

Beyond So You Think You Can Dance (Which starts tonight!) HGTV Design Star, and a couple of random Food Network competition shows, I don’t do reality TV at all. Our family loves these shows so we watch them together whenever we can, but if we miss one, we delete it- no big deal. (Well, and I am obsessed with Catfish. We do not watch that as a family. That’s my guilty pleasure, when I’m folding laundry…)

Except… One day I saw a promo for True Tori, on Lifetime. I’ve never been a Tori Spelling fan, and am not a huge follower of celebrity gossip so I knew nothing about her husband’s alleged affair. If you’ve read my blog for long though, you’ll know that my husband and I divorced after an affair and eventually worked through hell to reconcile. It was a difficult journey, that our marriage is all a million times better for. (the journey, not the affair and the divorce) Whenever I get the chance to see elements of real marital stuff portrayed within the entertainment world, I gravitate there… (I’ll list a few movies at the end of this post that I think portray awesome marriage stuff.)

I have recorded this series weekly, and found time to painfully sit through it. I have skimmed posts and articles where people have shouted about how sure they are that it’s all a hoax because apparently Dean & Tori have money issues. (Being a non-celebrity gossip, non TS fan, I’m watching this show and looking at their house and the things they own, the way they eat and the things they buy their kids and thinking “they do????” but whatever… Maybe when someone grew up a Spelling and they lose THAT degree of money, it feels like money problems when you have a lot less.) Here’s the thing, this show is raw. Though there are parts of it that feel super fake- {like if I hear “our fairy tale _________” (insert: romance, marriage, story, ending, love, etc) one more time, my tv may find itself feeling more broke than Tori’s book claims they are.} there is an uncomfortable level of honesty there that no one in their right mind would expose themselves or their family to, unless it’s honestly to fight for their family. The series ends next week, and honestly I’m glad. I truly do suffer through these episodes. It’s a battle between wanting to smack one of them (it varies) and feeling empathy rip out of my chest for this awful place they’ve journeyed. Haters are gonna hate. People will criticize and Tori is no stranger to this, she knew this going in… I’d suspect there is so much edited out, how could there not be? It’s weeks of footage put into less than 7 hours of tv.

Is it real? I believe it is. I have a lot of reasons I won’t get into here, because they aren’t important, or the point. My point is: is this high quality, well-written tv? No. Is this even “entertaining”? Absolutely not. But it is honest, and tragically, so relevant. And brave. Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. Adulthood is hard. Life is hard. Sometimes we just need to get through it. I get through it with a little bit of tv, every now and then and Tori apparently gets through it by putting her darkest moments and breakdowns on tv. I’m sad for them. I’m sad for these kids. We’ve sensationalized celebrities so much, and project either complete idolization or venom at them that we seldom award them the opportunity to be people. These are people, parents who obviously love their kids, these are people who are fighting for a marriage. It doesn’t matter how they met… It really doesn’t. I have friends who have the very same beginning to their marriages and I would never (EVER) tell them they deserve infidelity because of how they got together. Just because these two are celebrities doesn’t mean they do either…

All of this was a really wordy way to say that we need to be so much more compassionate… Whether it’s about what we think is valuable or what our opinions are of others.