Rita Arens's Blog, page 51
February 9, 2012
Fill in the Caption
I walked downstairs this morning, poured a cup of coffee, and turned around to see this.
The part I'm most confused about? What's under the chairs. On one side is a white doll's dress and on the other side is a towel.
February 7, 2012
Writers, Name Your Planets Well
Last night on the way home from a two-hour meeting all the way across town, I called my sister in the hopes she would cheer me up. I'd had a really rough day and was feeling really insecure about my writing.
(Editor's Note: This is going to be my memory of the conversation and therefore probably not what she said at all. But isn't that how life goes? And if we didn't go with it a little we'd have zero material, so bear with me. Also, it was really nice of her to cheer me up when I totally...
February 6, 2012
Schooled By a Seven-Year-Old
Beloved, the little angel and I clomped down the sidewalk. It had snowed just a little bit, and what was there had already melted, but the air contained that combination of humidity and cold that tickles your nose and reminds me of the Rocky Mountains. I just wanted to be outside in it a little longer, so I whined for a trek down a neighborhood path that winds behind houses and essentially goes nowhere. I knew it went nowhere because we'd been down it before, but we were only a few blocks...
February 2, 2012
Every Woman for Herself?
By now everyone with media access knows the Komen Foundation defunded Planned Parenthood this week. I wish I could say it leaves me shaking with anger at Komen, but what it does more is underscore my belief that the private sector cannot be depended upon to be fair to people across income levels -- and therefore healthcare should not be run by the private sector.
We need universal healthcare, defined as: a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of...
February 1, 2012
Surprise! I Wrote About Stress.
Hi everyone!
Yesterday I had a post go up on BlogHer about the sources of stress. Not sources of stress like deadlines and traffic jams and being out of orange juice at 7 am, but sources of stress in your brainz. Here's an excerpt:
That said, I've spent most of my stress-fighting career thinking about how tohandle stress rather than what caused it in the first place. Things are rough all over, Ponyboy. And I've blamed myself a lot for not being tougher.
I recently read Stress Less (for...
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Different Ways to Psych Yourself Up for Monday
It's Monday. I'm trying to embrace that emotionally, and it's so not working.
MONDAY. Whoo, hoo, Monday! We love you, Monday! I couldn't wait for ... Monday.
Nope.
Here are some things I'm telling myself right now to pump me up.
The world didn't end on Sunday, which is nice.
Monday is a chance to start that whole "eat healthy" concept all over again.
We're one Monday closer to the return of Boardwalk Empire.
If I had weekends all the time, I would be either a) extremely bored, b) retired...
January 26, 2012
Don'ts for Wives and Other Things People Used to and Still Do Think About Women
One of the things I love about my husband is his awareness of my domestic shortcomings. I'm a terrible cook. I don't know how to bleach clothes. I'm loathe to scrub floors. It's not that I do nothing -- I do a lot of the laundry (while not using bleach), I clean the house weekly, I have learned how to use the lawn mower, I "cook" pretty often (tuna buns and mac & cheese, usually). My problem isn't that I'm too stupid to learn how to do these chores properly. My problem is that I just don't...
January 24, 2012
What Is Really Embarrassing for Bloggers
I've read so much research on stress and optimism and half full and half empty. And I've written about it, too.
Focusing on what would make me feel better and not what is making me feel bad is helpful and obvious, and I wish I could get back all those years I didn't know how to do it. But if I hadn't had them, I wouldn't appreciate the difference now.
And then some other annoying stuff happened at work, and then as I was hurrying home...
January 23, 2012
The Little Questions She Asks
She tells me most things while she's in the bathtub, the warm water up around her ears, bubbles surrounding her fingers. And she asks me things, too.
"Mommy, what was your favorite day?"
I smiled but paused. She looked worried, reconsidered.
"I mean, what were your TWO favorite days?"
"When I married Daddy and when you were born, of course."
"Were you so happy when I was born?"
"Yes. I'd been waiting a long time to meet you."
She curled her little toes against the rubber duck floating by the...
