One For the Record Books!

Not that anyone is keeping score. But I really can’t deny my competitive nature and enjoyment of the accomplishment so, reader, for Christmas 2025 I WIN!!

It was our first Christmas in Seattle since Mom died in Spring of 2022, and I had the Airbnb cabin near the Bavarian town of Leavenworth (famous for its Xmas lights), booked for almost an entire year. So, a lot of anticipation had been built up around this trip. And it went so well, it was almost beyond belief! From the flights, rental car, and 3 nights in the mountains, book-ended by 3 nights at downtown hotel in Seattle (so we could visit friends and family), and 1 night hotel near Sea-Tac airport, before flying back - that was ALL ME who arranged it. 

🤩

And it was by no means guaranteed. We are a family of worriers, coming by it honestly from our dear Mama who perfected the art. There was severe weather and flooding in the PNW right before Xmas. In fact, it completely washed out whole bridges and large sections of Highway 2, which is the route most people take from Seattle to Leavenworth. And so, we worried, or at least my older brother and I did. The Airbnb Host assured us, the cabin was fine, for it’s on a hill, there was no flooding in the immediate area and we could easily get there via alternate route on I-90.

Thankfully, this all turned out to be true, but we also had last minute panic when our mid-size - or was it compact? - rental SUV was err rather too compact. Not wanting to fit 5 people with luggage into the 1 SUV, (and younger brother adamantly stating he was NOT COMING if we had to squeeze uncomfortably into one vehicle for a 3 hour drive), my sister quickly reserved a rental car also. But then she got worried about driving in the snow that we heard was pretty bad up in the mountain passes.  

Swooping in to be the hero, older bro easily rented a 2nd SUV with all-weather tires, better pickup location, time and price. Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together and the path unfolds before you? Like magic.

So, I guess it wasn’t just me, after all!

Then, we actually made it to the cabin on Tuesday the 23rd, before it got dark, made it into town to enjoy the lights and have a nice dinner, and got back to the cabin without killing ourselves on the crazy hairpin mountain roads (we took 1 car and yes, I drove both ways because it’s easier for everyone than me being a total backseat driver/nervous passenger). And without coming to blows, disagreeing over what music to play.

I swear I’m not trying to sound like an Airbnb commercial (or look like an OrangeTheory Fitness brand ambassador in some of these photos - ok, wait maybe that part I am!), but the cabin was the perfect size for our group of 5 (4 sibs plus Stephanie’s husband Noe). 

It had a cozy living room with gas wood burning stove, in which to gather together, complete with a small Xmas tree with lights and other decorations, as well as a fully stocked kitchen and the crucial private rooms to which we could retire when we were sick of each other or needed to rest. 

All was going so smoothly until next day when the power went out. Right before we were leaving to go into town for lunch and somehow magically restored before we got back, even though at one time the website reported it wouldn’t be back on until 8pm that evening. If we had to lose power, we really couldn’t have planned it any better!

On Christmas we stayed put the entire day, not having to go anywhere or do anything other than open presents, eat, talk and enjoy each other. And reader, IT SNOWED. Off and on, pretty much all day. Again, like magic. 

So, as opposed to being full of ego and taking credit, I just feel humbled and grateful. That it went so well, that I have PTO so I can take the break from work, that I and my siblings have the resources to fly places to meet up with each other, to rent the cars, hotels and Airbnbs, afford the meals out etc.

                    

And that we love and like each other enough to want to do it. Year after year after year. Next year: it’s Costa Rica, and we already have the Airbnb booked!

DP Had It Right

When Dorothy Parker was asked if she loved writing, she replied, “No. But I love having written.” - pg.112 of Carry On Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

I love running. Sometimes. And even when I find it less than 100% enjoyable, I LOVE having run.

And that was never more true than today, after finishing my 3rd half marathon 3 weekends in a row! This race I’d heard so much about from other runners, delivered on all fronts and despite an ungodly early shuttle departure from the hotel and an hour to sit around in the park before “take off” I got my best time in years at the Space Coast Half Marathon. 

It was fun to do one local race - St.Pete Runfest - Central Florida Legends race with my older brother sharing the hotel room and doing the “Fountain of Youth” 5k while I did the “Mermaid Half Marathon” last weekend - and then today’s travel race I did on my own. 

In fact, each race this month saw me improve my time substantially and I can only say God Bless GLP1s! When I lift two 15 pound weights at OTF I think about how that’s no longer carried on my frame and putting pressure on my joints and ligaments. So it’s no wonder I got faster, it’s pure physics I guess but I’m still so excited and pleased that I can barely believe it.

I’ve got one more race this year and it will be different again, because it’s another travel race I’m doing with a bunch of women friends. But I’ll be staying in my own hotel room with an extra queen bed so if anyone feels like a trip to Biloxi Mississippi mid-December let me know! Not sure how smart to say that now this blog is public again, but there it is….

These days I guess I also love having written more than writing, like the indomitable DP, as witnessed by my lack of posts ever since I started my second job in April. But maybe I can soon improve there too! In no time it will be a new year fresh with no mistakes, to paraphrase another of my literary heroes. (Anne of Green Gables of course!)

Falling Back

“Spring forward, Fall back” ~ origin unknown

Falling back in love with long distance running as I train for the start of my half marathon season. I’m looking forward to the races I’ve signed up for that start in just two weeks time and enjoying being outside in slightly crisp air and so much sunshine. For Fall is the very best time of year in Florida, mostly because all the most beautiful weather is finally here and just ahead.

Falling back doesn’t have to be negative if it’s not a sliding back but a return or a renewal.

Like a sort of falling back in love with myself or a kind of final falling back in a “trust fall” for my marriage. 

Or reflecting on the past with all these photographs and papers and odds and ends my brother brought back from cleared out storage locker in Seattle. Pretty much the final detritus from good old 1710. Spending time with my bro as we go thru the stuff, anticipating seeing the other sibs at Xmas and sharing the best of it. Life is so good and full and rich!

Trouble Me

Trouble

(Trouble me) disturb me with all your cares and your worries

(Trouble me) on the days when you feel spent

Why let your shoulders bend

Underneath this burden

When my back is sturdy and strong?

Trouble me

(Speak to me) don't mislead me

The calm I feel means a storm is swelling

(Speak to me) there's no telling where it starts or how it ends

(Speak to me) why are you building this thick brick wall to defend me

(Speak to me) when your silence is my greatest fear?

Why let your shoulders bend

Underneath this burden

When my back is sturdy and strong?

Speak to me

(Let me) have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning

(Let me) please don't hide them just because of tears

(Let me) send you off to sleep with a

"There, there, now stop your turning and tossing"

(Let me) let me know where the hurt is and how to heal

“Trouble Me” by 10,000 Maniacs

Working in Recovery! It’s this new new new thing in my life.

And, when I can completely compartmentalize the shit-storm that is my marriage right now, it’s making me so so happy.

And I bring fun Legos to do together, and I bring aromatherapy and meditation, to help calm and destress. 

Someday soon I will do chair yoga and maybe even bring in massage and acupuncture, if I can get some hours donated. 

I bring my authentic self and my story about how bad it got for me and what I did about it. I get to bring all of me, I love that I don’t have to hide that I’m in recovery, like I feel I have to in the corporate world. 

Mostly though, I bring my warmth and kindness, I bring hope and strength, and hopefully I bring some healing energy into the otherwise bleak world of addiction and hurt where the participants at this sober “respite” house find themselves.

It’s still so new and new things can sometimes be hard and scary, but I’m feeling encouraged because I seem to be catching on pretty quickly. In fact, I got a huge compliment recently, when a fellow staff member and a few of the participants said it seemed like I’d been doing this type of work a lot longer than my short time so far on the job. Hearing this meant the world to me!

Between my normal full-time job and this new part-time job I haven’t had a day off since I got back from the AA Convention I went to in Costa Rica in early May. And I actually don’t have a day off until several more weeks, when I will take one full precious day off both jobs on my birthday in June, but I don’t care because I feel so driven right now to just get the hours and experience. At this pace, I can probably sit the Certified Recovery Peer Specialist exam to get my provisional certification before the end of the year, and then upgrade to full once I’ve finally finished the required 500 hours in early 2026.

It’s a strange and new experience to be so compelled to do something (other than when I used to compulsively drink and self-destruct) and it may sound strange but I really do feel God is leading me. It’s like something has clicked into alignment and it thrills me to think I may have work I can find interesting and meaningful enough to want to do until I reach my full retirement age at 67. 

15 more years of working seemed like a prison sentence if I had to do the same old corporate IT gig, but now I have some hope with this “second career” I’ve already started. Like the very fact of my sobriety, it kind of amazes me! What God and I have been able to do together.

Making the Most of Marvelous March

Starting with new team and role at work, a visit from my younger brother, 5 days of the CRPS (Certified Recovery Peer Specialist) training that I hope will lead into my 2nd career (and provide my way out of corporate job), a fun luau-themed AA banquet with my other brother, 2 half marathon races, and the most marvelous weather imaginable. My life & my heart are full! 

After over 15 years living here, I’ve decided this is my favorite month.

😎

Finally, February

Now that it’s February, there are exactly 19 more work days before I get to move to my new team and back to being a Lead Business Analyst, instead of Manager; fewer if I were to take any impromptu PTO days or become sick. Reader, I have been counting days since DECEMBER!

And that’s all I’ll say about that, just in case of any future readers, especially if I make my blog public again someday (turning it private/invite only, like it used to be for years, was a decision I made after becoming a manager).

So, there is relief on the horizon (and in fact, already felt) in my working life, and things have also improved so much with how my husband and I are getting along. Part of that may be how I’m seeing some old situations and resentments with new eyes, helped along by a fabulous new therapist I’ve been seeing since November. Now there’s just this dumpster fire of our democracy since Trump took office.

It feels like January was the worst month; but I’ve lived long enough to know that even when you think it’s the worst, unfortunately it can always get worse. So, hang on to your hat, goes the outdated expression.

Meanwhile I did the Safety Harbor Best Damn Race this morning for the 9th time, the half-marathon I’ve done the most times since I started running again in 2016. It would have been #10 but - COVID. I improved my time by over 3 minutes from the Lousiana race despite a lot of walking, and I didn’t feel great but I did it! Now onto the next half-marathon, the St.Petersburg Distance Classic, next weekend.

The (Ex)Boyfriend Race, in Baton Rouge, Lousiania!

Many years ago my Mod Vespa-driving drummer boyfriend gave me this poster of a band he was very much into, among others. It hung on the wall of my teenage bedroom, and continued to hang there when the room was gleefully claimed by my younger sister, shortly after I went to college.

Somewhere along the line, she got the poster framed and it moved to Texas with her. Recently she decided she didn’t have space for it on the walls of her new house, and so she became fixated on giving it back to me. Not wanting to ship it as is, or dismantle to send, we concocted a reason to meet half way between our homes: enter the Lousiana Marathon weekend in beautiful Baton Rouge! Although we *only* do the half-marathon. We call it (or I am calling it now) the ex-boyfriend race since we owe it all to him.

We actually did this last year, along with my sister’s husband (his very first half marathon!) and now in a few short days we are doing it again. We had such fun last year and are only hoping we have same or similar relatively good weather this year (it was cold but very sunny, as you can see).

It was a miserable 12 hours driving to Baton Rouge and back by myself last time, so this time I’m flying; also because we have no poster to exchange this year. The whole thing got my sister back into running and my hope is we now regularly start running races like this together. We did the Rock ‘n Roll San Antonio race together in early December and I think I’ve convinced her to come down here to Florida for another half-marathon in March. 

And to think it was all started by a 30+year old poster given to me by an ex-boyfriend! I just can’t help it, this continues to tickle me.

🥸

Formed - And Deformed - By the Same Forces

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

~ Philip Larkin “This Be The Verse”

My fraught relationship with my sister. I’d write at greater length about it, after returning from San Antonio where we stayed with her and her husband at their home, for “Hirning Sibling Xmas 2024!” - but it would surely only get me in trouble. These days I open my mouth and it seems to create more problems for us, so I am learning to shut it.

But all 4 of us sibs are, along with being lots of wonderful things: impatient, hyper-critical, defensive. Sister’s husband offered “too competitive” also! I don’t think that’s one of the main problems but that’s in the toxic mix as well for sure…and I appreciate the contribution to the self-analysis.

🤓

And we have our parents to thank for all of it, of course! Ah well, we will try to do better next year or at least, speaking strictly for myself (which recovery has taught me to do), I can promise that I will. But sometimes it sort of feels like the damage done is too great, the patterns of behaving and reacting, are too deeply entrenched by now, that I will never transcend them.

I do love my siblings so much, and the discord was only a small fraction of the whole week we spent together, it’s just that the blow out argument between me and Stephanie happened right before my older brother and I left town, and slightly filled my head for the two-days drive back. 

It left me ruminating and feeling a little depressed at the familial dysfunction, to be honest. But, I’m guessing it’s probably not much worse than many other families!

And speaking again, just for myself, I feel like I have a lot of work to do to get better. Focus for the new year and I can try to approach it with enthusiasm and self-compassion, taking it one step at at time, which will help with feelings of overwhelm. What are we here on this earth for anyway, if not to learn more about ourselves and the people we love, with whom we so badly want to connect?

The Dress…

…that made it to a million corporate Christmas parties! 

Well, ok at least three. And I have the photos to prove it, starting with the oldest when Erin Riley and I shared a cubicle at NM, where we were both placed on assignment, shortly after completing COBOL programming boot camp (which launched my IT career), and we adored each other so we requested the professional photographer take this photo of us (in addition to the ones we took with our dates) at the Compuware Christmas party.

I remember being so impressed with these parties, at least for the first few years. The decorations, the food, the drinks, the dancing! It was the late 90s and the IT money was flowing for sure.

The first one I recall was held at the fancy-pants Pfister hotel in downtown Milwaukee (and husband, also working for Compuware, attended with me and so we splurged on a room for the night); the second one was at the new Midwest Express convention center also in downtown Milwaukee. I think this first photo is from the second one and so it would have been December of 1999, if I’m not mistaken.

Fast-forward to 2013 when I attended the Catalina holiday party as my friend Danielle’s “plus-one” (being a contractor at the time, not an employee of Catalina, I did not have my own invitation). Danielle to my right, our manager Michelle to my left. At a very cool event space in downtown Tampa that used to be a bank (I think).

And finally, the dress reappears at this most recent party - 

I have no idea what decade the dress is from but it feels very 50s housewife to me. I’m pretty sure I got it at a thrift store or rummage sale in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee in 1995. 

Then there was another dress also bought second hand, I think for $1 at a thrift store in Ormond Beach, FL with my friend who used to live there. I loved it but sadly, it never made an appearance at a holiday party because I could never get skinny enough at the right time and finally I realized it was too threadbare to wear anyway, so I re-donated it. But damn, that would have been a fun dress to wear to a holiday party!

Worth It

Bonus Day! This is always the first Friday in December. It’s also the day our holiday party is held (they want us all in a good mood). So, it’s pretty much the adult equivalent of Christmas morning - Santa comes to town, signified by the extra money we find automatically deposited to our bank accounts.

We’re told it’s never guaranteed but I’m sure I’m not alone in how I’ve come to expect it, as the company has always been profitable and so we’ve gotten a bonus every year, for the 10 years I’ve been employed there now. 

And I’m very grateful. I know I’m paid quite well for the work I do, and I’m also fully aware of how lucky I was to stumble into this IT career, all those years ago. It has made so many things possible for me.

And yet.

Even with those extra dollars showing in my bank balance and the nice party this evening, and the overall comfort and security this job gives me, I’m struggling more and more to feel it is all worth it.

I recently read this book and it made me feel a new urgency to do more with the days and weeks I have left in this one lifetime. I’m 52 years old.

Can I really wait until 60 to break free from this corporate job that feels to me like a prison sometimes? Or do I need to make a move sooner because there is literally no time to waste? I remember hearing the phrase “golden handcuffs” from someone at Northwestern Mutual (NM) in Milwaukee, early on in my career and I think I’m understanding that now in a new way. 

What will our hero do?

😄😎😄

Stay tuned in 2025 to find out!