Tag Archives: New Year

January 2, 2017

A New Year

By Lib

humanity

Over the last few weeks, while scrolling through my timelines, it’s felt like I’ve been witness to the world imploding as the year neared its end. Admittedly, 2016 was a crazy year, and most couldn’t wait for it to see its way out. From the deaths of numerous icons, to the most insane presidential election I know I’ve ever seen, to worldwide terror making headlines multiple times a day, I can understand how one would think the end is nigh. Though for me the hardest thing to swallow while observing the sheer panic, derision, and division is distinguishing the utter lack of faith we have left in humanity. The negativity is rampant. It has me begging, are we truly beyond hope? Is this really it? Is hatred and alienation our new societal mantra?

The answer is no. Unbelievably, humanity is still alive and well. It just doesn’t have the click-bait scene-stealing power it once did. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it because I know it’s there. Continue reading

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January 8, 2016

Risky Business

By Lib

Clifford and I rang in the New Year in a different way. Continue reading

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December 31, 2015

Total-Take-Back: The Dishwasher

By Lib

2015 is at an end, folks. It flew by so quickly. I did take some time to enjoy the holidays with the fam over the last week or so, but now it’s time for me to get back to business, or rather blogging. I had many failures with few successes this last year. Or rather I accepted lots and lots of character building opportunities versus not accepting any character building opportunities at all. In hindsight, just the latter would have been fine by me …

So to close out the last 365 days, I thought I’d go out with a Total-Take-Back. After all, you never want to move into a new year with regrets.

Roughly two weeks ago, Clifford discovered something about me. Something he has shared with pretty much everyone in earshot. Now, he never cares what I blog about and hates it when I blog about him, but he actually wanted me to post this one and share it with the world because he finds it hilarious. So this one is for my bearded hubs, hoping he’ll shave that monstrosity off his face in the next few months.

I had just started the dishwasher. I was attempting to clean the kitchen which seems like an endless task these days. Clifford walked in and asked me what the noise was. I didn’t hear anything, but then I’m half deaf. He looked at the dishwasher. I said, “Oh, well I started the dishwasher. Maybe that’s what you heard.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “You don’t hear that? That ‘thud, thud, thud, thud’?”

“I hear the dishwasher. I suppose it’s ‘thudding’. So?”

“SO, it’s not supposed to ‘thud’. Something’s wrong.”

Clifford reached for the dishwasher lock and slow motion kicked into gear. What was likely mere seconds felt like hours. First my head cocked in confusion, then my eyes widened in shock and fear as clarity dawned… I barely moved fast enough. I quickly stretched to slap his hand away as I screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!”

Clifford paused with his hand next to the latch. Now it was he cocking his head in confusion at me. “I’m about to open the dishwasher and fix what’s making the noise. Why?”

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have the words. I couldn’t articulate why he couldn’t open the dishwasher door. Everyone knows why you don’t open a running dishwasher. What was wrong with him? Though my mouth couldn’t move, my eyes spoke volumes.

Clifford tilted his head a little more and began to smile. He had this look in his eye, a look I hate because it means he thinks he has one on me. “Libby, what do you think will happen when I open the dishwasher?”

What was he even asking me? It was obvious. I stood up straighter and now I was looking at him like he was crazy.

“Seriously … what do you think is going to happen when I open the door?” His smile got bigger and he flicked the latch for access.

I gasped. I am not being dramatic here, I physically gasped while shaking my head and covering my mouth. Was he a total idiot?

There was a stare off between us that lasted minutes. He smirked and I stood petrified that he was really going to go through with it. He was going to open the dishwasher door mid-cycle. I didn’t know what to do.

Then he spoke with that stupid knowing look stuck on his face, “You think the dishwasher is filled to the top with water and it’s all going to come rushing out, flooding the kitchen, when I open the door, don’t you?”

Well, duh.

My face must have given away my exact thought because he started laughing and opened the door. I was able to manage a desperate pleading, “CLIFFORD!” as I tensed and anxiously braced myself for the water to consume my kitchen floor. I closed my eyes, prepared to feel the dirty dishwater gushing around me.

I felt nothing. I heard Clifford’s loud guffaw. I opened one eye. There was no water flooding my floor. No dirty dishwater gushing around my feet, splashing my face and tainting my clothes. What the …? I didn’t get it.

So yeah, maybe I did think the dishwasher fills to the top with water and yes, maybe I’ve thought that for the last 30 odd years. Clifford never made me watch that episode of Modern Marvels, ok? I guess now I can move forward into 2016 knowing the dishwasher may be opened mid-cycle and it won’t be like The Great Mississippi flood of 1927 all over again.

Happy New Year, people, wherever you are…

 

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January 1, 2015

The Music Challenge

By Lib

I’ve been delayed with my posts over the holidays. For that, I apologize. But hey!! It’s a new year!

This year I am pretty resolute about my resolutions – I made none. I have made resolutions of some kind every year since I can remember and as they don’t typically stick, I decided to try something different by simply ringing in 2015 as it was.

Clifford and I found ourselves playing a hand of two-player Euchre while watching the old ball drop. Again, I’m trying to think a little differently this time around. Perhaps not being as celebratory while 2014 came to a close will be far more fruitful than a silly list of declarations that get lost in the shuffle of day to day life a few weeks into the New Year. We shall see. That said, I still want to wish everyone out there all the best in 2015! May it be the ultimate year yet!

Moving into the New Year, I’ve spent the last few weeks bombarded with year-end retrospectives, Best-of-2014 lists, and other various nostalgic throw-backs to days gone by. Though inundated by music and media ad nauseam, I found myself inspired.

Now I was never that musically savvy. I myself can’t carry a tune. I never attended many concerts or bought that many cassettes or CDs. Movies were much more my thing. That said, I was a child born in the 70s (1979 does count as being born in the 70s), raised in the 80s, and living her teen angst-ridden years in the 90s… I’d forgotten how formative music was for me at one time and how some of the greatest music ever produced had emerged from those decades.

In fact, I’d gotten away from music almost altogether over the last ten years or so. Sure, it might have been on in the background while I was driving or on in the classroom when I was teaching, but I haven’t really been listening to the music. I tuned out when I was tuned in. It was white noise.

In the last several weeks, though, I’ve been listening again. I’ve been listening to the radio shows do their little flashbacks to whenever and almost every time a tune has played from my past, I’ve been completely transported. I know they say smell is the strongest memory trigger, but these songs of my youth have me remembering moments that have been long since forgotten. Okay, maybe not that long. I am only 35.

I’ve been remembering silly snippets and meaningful moments that I haven’t thought about in years. These flashbacks are fabulous. Even the sad songs have me smiling because enough years have now passed that time has healed whatever hurt way back when. Again, I’ve been inspired.

I have been inspired to find 365 songs that remind me of people I’ve met, moments I’ve shared, thoughts I’ve had through the years. I want to find 365 songs that trigger some sort of recollection, vivid or vague, over the last 30 odd years of my life.  This is not a resolution but rather an exploration – a challenge, really. We will see where it goes.

Music played a larger role in my life than I’d remembered or probably even cared to admit. Now it’s time to go back and appreciate all of those tiny (and not so tiny) no-take-backs set to the unexpected soundtrack of classic rock, pop and grunge music (with a little bit of The Beatles and 50s doo-wop sprinkled into the mix).

What songs take you back? Where do they take you? 

To kick things off – a 90s classic …

 

 

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