Silent Night

I know it’s been a little quiet lately in the world of Mrs. Sedd@Sixty.  Wrapping up the year at work and wrapping up the presents for the tree have taken most of my time, attention and energy (that, and going to 1 or 2 movies during the last week…and I’m just getting started!).

My daughter and I are now both on vacation and my husband isn’t far behind.  Not much planned in the days ahead except family, friends, food and film, as far as I can tell, and that’s how I like it during this time of year. 

As I contemplate numerous tween sleep overs that will likely occur at my house during the next 2 weeks -- while my husband watches football, attacks his daily crossword puzzle, and I catch up on Netflix and Orange is the New Shade of Black -- please know that my little respite from this blog is just "percolation" time… thinking about what to share about life and the world as I know it in the year ahead.

I expect you will next hear from me when the New Year begins.  I will make a list of resolutions and maybe I will reveal them to you.  I will certainly do something stupid in the next 2 weeks at some point, and I'll likely want to memorialize it so I can learn from it and you can enjoy a knowing laugh.  (Never too old to do that.) But in the meantime, you have my heartfelt thanks for taking this blog journey with me these past 9 months; it's been thrilling to know you're out there and, from time to time, invite me into your consciousness. 

So for now, I send you best wishes for a blessed holiday with those you love as well as for a happy, healthy and productive new year ahead.  I'll see you on the other side of 2013.

Merry Christmas and here’s to 2014.

 

MrsSedd@Sixty: The Work Spouse

MrsSedd@Sixty: The Work Spouse: Most men and women I know have at least one special colleague at work who is a friend, usually of the opposite sex.   This person wears man...

The Work Spouse

Most men and women I know have at least one special colleague at work who is a friend, usually of the opposite sex.  This person wears many, many hats, often on a daily basis – serving as a listening post, a therapist, a father or mother confessor, a cheerleader and, even on occasion, a nag or pain in the @#$! 

Typically, these relationships are purely platonic. For that reason, they offer up another and extremely valuable kind of intimacy -- a closeness that allows for trust and complete confidence in the other person’s willingness to completely trust you back.

My husband calls this person “a work spouse.”  And I’ve been fortunate to have one for nearly 20 years at my firm.

Tomorrow, after a year of planning and waiting for the moment to arrive, my work spouse is retiring from our company.  While many others also lay claim to him as “their” work spouse, he was my first and only.  And I think I may have been his first, if not only, at our company.

We have very different takes on politics, money, office intrigue (sometimes) and other things too.  We’ve had arguments with each other (usually during presidential election seasons) but we’ve always, always recovered quickly from them because we enjoy each other’s company too much to let petty BS get in the way.

We’ve seen each other through bad relationships and two very good ones that have produced loving marriages for us both.  We’ve watched our colleagues get younger while we’ve grown older.  We’ve also come to realize that the truth will set you free, so we speak it if asked, even when some don’t want to hear it.

My work spouse and his real spouse, a deeply accomplished and pretty swell lady in her own right, are now planning the next exciting act of their lives.  I wish them well and will observe them closely so I can learn something useful for when I’m ready to take the same step on this journey we call life.  But I have to confess that I will seriously miss my morning check-in chats, midday discussions, and occasional quick drinks in the evening with my work spouse. 

In denial about his leaving, another colleague – she is one of his work spouses, too – is already scheming to put technology to work so we can “brown bag lunch” with our buddy via Skype.  I’m willing to try it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that things will never, ever be the same around here without my pal roaming the hallways in search of a conversation.

Good luck to you, my dear work spouse.  Have fun, enjoy the sun, and work on those memoirs, the blog and that golf swing.  You’ve earned the right to kick it back a bit and enjoy living the life.  All of your work spouses and friends are happy for you and a tad envious, too – but, above all, we’re mostly sad to see you go.

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze: Welcome to our first snow day of the season in Northern VA.   My day began with a 5:27AM call from my daughter’s school, cancelling cla...

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze: Welcome to our first snow day of the season in Northern VA.   My day began with a 5:27AM call from my daughter’s school, cancelling cla...

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze

MrsSedd@Sixty: Snow Daze: Welcome to our first snow day of the season in Northern VA.   My day began with a 5:27AM call from my daughter’s school, cancelling cla...

Snow Daze

Welcome to our first snow day of the season in Northern VA.  My day began with a 5:27AM call from my daughter’s school, cancelling classes for the day.  By 8:49 AM, the neighborhood kids were out in the snow (including my child) as they slip-slided away down the driveway in search of enough snow for a decent snowball battle. 

The white stuff is falling more heavily now (11 AM) and the kids (4 girls on my couch playing Katy Perry songs while taking selfies with their iPads) have had their waffles, 2 cups of hot chocolate and put their lunch order in with the chef who would, ahem, be me.  Thank god for Trader Joe’s Orange Chicken and Uncle Ben’s microwave Jasmin rice. Yessss.

I’m  supposed to help host a retirement dinner for a dear friend tonight at a downtown restaurant but, I’ve gotta say, the roads in my hilly Arlington neighborhood are pretty iffy and would only get iffier with a few glasses of wine in me….so, we’ll see.  The  organizing committee will render a group verdict on rescheduling at noon today.

Once those plans are clarified, solidified or snowified, then it will be on to the afternoon agenda…and here’s where I’d like my buddy Duncan Hines to take a big bow:  Today, we have several "recipes" to choose from, including chocolate peanut  butter brownies and pumpkin spice cupcakes made with real pumpkin!!  A tasty way to kill an hour with housebored, snowbound kids. 

I suppose I could write that memo for work…or make that call to my client…but that’s what tomorrow is all about, and it’s only a day away.  Today, I’m Mistress of Snow Ceremonies in my little part of heaven in the Great State of Virginia.

Let it snow.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Winter has arrived in Arlington, VA.  Snow turned to ice rain in our little corner of heaven yesterday, leaving my car, the front steps, driveway, sidewalks and the streets coated in a thin sheet of ice, as lethal as it is glistening.   My daughter’s school started 2 hours late, my dog refused to have anything to do with the outdoors, and my husband and I both took the easier option of a “work from home” day.

There’s not enough of anything left on the ground for the neighborhood kids to sled on, or for one of those leisurely strolls in freshly falling snow when everything is so eerily and beautifully…still.  But tomorrow, the forecast is for snow:  1 to 4, or 5 inches or more, depending on which news organization and meteorologist you listen to.  Outside, you can feel it in the air, waiting to fall, with the temperature a damp and chilly high 30s.

Although this is the perfect time of year for winter weather to interrupt our daily schedules (please!), I know too that by mid-January, I’ll be hallucinating about our spring break vacation to a warm Caribbean island, only to be unwillingly snapped out of my daze with a blast of mid-winter frigidity. Neither the warmth of a fireplace nor the deception of a sunny day will compensate for my immediate, urgent need for sun-saturated endorphins.

But until then, I’ll focus on snow and Santa while listening to Kelly Clarkson’s new Christmas album (wonderful!!) as winter works its will on the Washington, D.C. metro area.  And I’ll be sure to bundle up because there is nothing worse than a Christmas cold.

Stay warm, too.  You’ve been warned.

 

All That I Want

 

Today, I not-so-humbly offer my utterly semi-serious Christmas wish list:

·         Happy daughter

·         Happy husband

·         Happy siblings, friends and colleagues (most of them, anyway)

·         Bigger 401(k)

·         Bigger house

·         Svelte me

·         Shorter hair…or…really long hair

·         Long exotic vacation

·         Long and healthy life

·         World peace

And I/we are worth it.

Santa???

 

 

Fashionista Christmas

I miss my daughter’s “little girl” Christmases of old – the days of $10 Barbies from Target, plastic tea sets, story books,  coloring kits and a Snow White or Cinderella costume to make it really special. A few of those items were more than enough to satisfy a 6 year-old that Santa had been very generous in recognition of her good behavior during the year.

But bye, bye miss American Pie – hello, fashionista!  My 13 year-old has discovered clothes and brands.  She wants shirts from Justice and Forever 21 sweaters and American Eagle jeggings and Abercrombie and Fitch perfume.

She also wants a new American Girl doll (which personally I find kind of sweet) because she loves to play with the long thick hair. And sometimes cut it.

This Christmas is shaping up to be a transitional year, with a bit of the girl mixed in with the emerging persona of the young teen:  in other words, I can’t tentatively say that “maybe Santa will bring that [fill in the blank]” or she’ll tell me to knock it off and roll her eyes at me.   Some of the wearable gift items that I’m getting for her actually are needed, too, even if she doesn’t want them , e.g., the LL Bean snow boots to replace the pair that don’t fit anymore, and the winter down vest because I can’t get her to wear a coat on even the coldest days (What is it with these kids today, they never get cold???).

Even though I know she wants another blond American girl doll -- if Santa does bring her one -- I think she’ll be a redhead just to keep it interesting.

I always start out with the best of intentions to not overspend or overly commercialize our family’s holiday experience.  And I always try to make sure that our daughter understands how lucky we are and how important it is to give to those less fortunate.

During this Christmas of transformation from tween to teen, I hope I’ll succeed in delighting my beautiful daughter while also communicating that happiness doesn’t only come in a pretty box with a gold ribbon around it.  

Wish me luck.   Now I’m off to American Eagle for those jeggings….

 

The Magic Bed

We’ve gone and done it – and we haven’t even hit 62 yet!

That’s right folks.  My husband and I have invested in a Serta-Temperpedic-like gel foam mattress on an “adjustable frame.”

A hospital bed, really, only with a “massage” function.

I used to think our old bed was pretty swell, but boy was I wrong.  And I used to think that lying down flat on a bed, with only a pillow (or 3) around your head was comfy.  Wrong again.

With our new bed, it’s possible to elevate your legs, which might be useful if either of us ever gets diabetes or has a heart issue. And as soon as the clock strikes 9pm, I’m raring to get upstairs… to watch TV, or read a book, or even…sleep.  With my handy dandy wireless controller by my side, I can elevate into a sitting position, have my feet elevated, get the vibration of a massage and watch MSNBC Talking Heads, all at the same time.

Advanced Sleep Technology.  I love it.

Then there’s the mattress itself: it just conforms to your body.  I’m a bounce-arounder, and none of that is necessary, I swear to god!  My husband is like a new man, as a result:  He’s actually sleeping through the night despite me.  Plus the mattress stays a nice, comfortable temp too.

My only problem…the only thing I’m truly afraid of…is that we’ll become like the grandparents in Willy Wonka:  One day, we’ll just decide to stay in bed.  Forever.

I’m only kidding.  Really.  Kinda. 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

MrsSedd@Sixty: Wonderland

MrsSedd@Sixty: Wonderland: In so many ways, it’s hard to believe 2013 is nearly behind us…and in so many ways, I wonder: What took it so long? In so many wa...

Wonderland

In so many ways, it’s hard to believe 2013 is nearly behind us…and in so many ways, I wonder:

What took it so long?

In so many ways, my brain is starting to slowly turn into holiday mush…and in so many other ways, I’m waiting for some new adventure to begin:

Today?

When I feel this way (a little anxious, a little old, a little bored, a little dull), I try to summon my inner 13 year old…21 year old…35 year old…50 year old…and get excited about the next next thing:

Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

In the uncanny way that he has, I guess my mind-reading husband knew that I needed a little Christmas and created this Christmas canopy over the stairs leading to our front door.  It made me giggly and grateful for him, for my beautiful daughter, for the life I am so blessed to live every day.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. 

Onward!!!