Rita Arens's Blog, page 45

Well, That Didn't Work Out Correctly

Last Thursday we rented a pontoon on a nearby lake so we could practice for when one of my numerous families-in-law come down for a visit. We drove it great! The 16-year-old who rented us the boat said I dock like a pro! We jumped in and paddled about and lo, it was so fun!

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Sunday we took the little angel and one of her friends down to a sailing club. The two of them hauled it onto a 10-foot sailboat with me and proceeded to fret alternately about how hot it was and losing the...

I Had Another Post But Then Katie Holmes Filed for Divorce

I found out along with the rest of the world this afternoon that Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise. Even though I'm completely slammed at work, I made time to rewatch the video of Tom jumping on the couch and turned quickly to Twitter.

I realize Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise are human beings with feelings, and therefore I feel a little guilty about sharing these and realize completely it is NOT NICE.

The #tomkat feed gives new life to the word "schadenfreude"

— Sno...

Once Upon a Ladybug Swing

[Editor's Note: I wasn't compensated at all for this post. I only linked to the swings so you could visualize, as we all know I suck at photography.]

The tree must have already been a hundred years old by the time I met it and its black tractor tire swing hanging from a long yellow rope. It wasn't the sort of tire swing I see hanging on suburban playground sets, laid out horizontally with three ropes meeting in the center. This tire was hollowed out with handles cut in the sides, so you could...

But Who Are You Blogging FOR?

That was her question. "But who are you blogging for?"

I blinked, smiling. Those who don't blog always ask this question, as though any of us knows the answer.

"I guess whoever stops by," I said. "It's kind of like street performing, right? They're really just practicing in public."

She grinned. "I love street performers! My daughter does that in New Orleans."

A link. Understanding.

I mean, really, why the hell do we do anything?

Sometimes a Temper Tantrum Feels Good

On the way home from a lunchtime errand run, the little angel spilled a big blork of frozen yogurt all over my car Vicki's floor. Like a super big blob the size of her fist (it was in a cup from Costco).

I ran to the kitchen to grab a wet rag, and a rag with soap on it and a cup of water. After I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, I took out a 20-pack of paper towels from the trunk.

And I threw it on the garage floor.

I may have punched it a little.

They should sell 20-packs of paper towels...

DJ Nibbles Celebrates the Arens 11th Anniversary

My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary last weekend, and Beloved and I hit number eleven. I would write some sappy love stuff, but I'm feeling super crazy lazy today and having difficulty motivating myself even to do my job. I think I need a vacation. Or even just a nap.

So here's DJ Nibbles to do my work for me! Hit it!

I wrote a long ranty rant about feminism on BlogHer the other day. Can't we all just get along?

The Skirt She Grew Into

I ordered the skirt to use up a gift card when I got the shoes she grew out of six months ago.

When it arrived, it was impossibly huge. I knew it would take years for her to grow into it. So I put it away at the bottom of a drawer.

I was sad when she grew out of the shoes, because I didn't remind her to wear them nearly enough. They were green with little pink animals on the toes. I can't remember which animals. I should've looked closer before I gave them away.

This morning when I dropped he...

So Then Our House Got Hit By Lightning

... or maybe it was the phone line. In another fabulous Arens v. Missouri showdown, Missouri threw lightning at our phone lines. Monday opened with a dead modem and a dead home phone. I spent about three hours driving around to various AT&T stores to buy a new modem (the first store mysteriously had all their computers down and couldn't open their cash registers) and then trying to install it. Oh, the humanity! And also, the cursing!

We had an actual ponytailed AT&T guy come out to test the p...

Life Well Lived: Let's Pretend I'm Organized

I received my next question for BlogHer's Life Well Lived series. It is:

What are your favorite resources (Products, Apps, Books, Websites, etc.) to help you get organized?

I would love to tell you that I'm the sort of person who has an app for her grocery list and her entire family's birthday list organized in a cute card folder. But I would be LYING. I am a fairly organized person, but I don't use anything special, for the most part. Here are my tools.

1) Notebooks -- I don't like to mix...

Sharing Some of the Awesome

I spent several hours over the weekend reading all the posts that were honored as part of BlogHer's Voices of the Year initiative. Here are some quotes that stopped my heart with their beauty or their poignancy or their humor.

At one point, she said, ‘It’s wrong, this happening…the granddaughter washing the old grandmother,’ and then I told her what I’d been thinking, about the yellow bathroom and the big tub and the heater. I asked her if she remembered that, bathing me on those nights I sp...