Okay, okay, so I know I’ve been terribly delinquent in keeping up with my blog, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. I have just contributed an article to a local website about my newfound love of bicycling. It’s part testimonial for the cycling class I recently took, part personal reflection on why I started riding and my evolving goals, and 100% from the heart. Here’s the link:

Couch Potato to Savvy Cyclist in 4.0 Months

Hi, my name is Monique, and I have an addiction. But it’s not what you think. Really, it’s relatively harmless, as vices go. I’m addicted to Smartfood, and the only casualty is my waistline.

Want to know how deep my obsession runs? Last week on my way home from work, the gas light blinked on in my car, signaling the need for fuel. But my brain immediately buzzed in Pavlovian anticipation of a different type of fuel. “Yay, it’s time for more Smartfood!”

This instinctual response is the result of frequent associative conditioning, as any clerk at my friendly neighborhood Mobil station can attest. Case in point: a few weeks ago I was making my regular Smartfood purchase while gassing up the car. When the clerk asked the customary “Will that be all?”, the associate at the next register over answered for me. “That’s all she ever gets.”

Ha. I beg to differ. Sometimes I vary the size bag I buy.

Well, who could blame me? Smartfood is nothing less than manna from Heaven. It may claim to be a simple snack in a homely black bag, but inside that bag is magical fluffy popcorn dressed in a heavy layer of white cheddar cheese goodness. The kind that demands licking every last scrumptious, delectable, cheesy, heavenly, perfect morsel from your deliciously cheese-plastered fingers.

Not that, um, I would ever exhibit such a gauche display of bad manners. At least not in public. Provided, of course, that we agree to exclude actual public places from the definition of “in public.”

Okay, okay, I confess. I have abandoned all pretense of sophisitication and social grace, proudly licking my Smartfood coated fingers in front of all the world. I stand no chance against the siren lure of this savory snack. Resistance is futile.

Sometimes, however, resistance is forced on me through competition to get my hands on the stuff. Where I live, Smartfood is a hot commodity whose demand occasionally exceeds supply. I plead the fifth on whether or not 80% of that demand comes from a single, unnamed citizen. But as a result, I am sometimes stymied in my attempts to acquire a fix. And I wonder if it’s wrong to feel ire at the greedy people in my town who keep buying up all the Smartfood and depriving me of my fair 80% share. So if you ever catch me cleaning out the inventory in the grocery store, I’m merely stockpiling my personal stash to get me through the dry spells.

A final word of advice to those around me: I guard my Smartfood ferociously. Don’t ask me to share. The answer is NO. Get your own bag! But please, oh please, do not buy it at my gas station or my grocery store. Or at my backup dealers, for that matter. You’ll force me into withdrawal, and I’ll have to retaliate by disowning you as my friend.

I don’t know which one of us is weirdly abnormal, me or Kent. Because either I desperately need hearing aids, or he has the most supersonic hearing ever granted to a human being.

One morning earlier this week, when I turned on the TV in our bedroom to get my daily dose of bad news, the volume was turned all the way down. Or so I thought. As I was positioning my trigger thumb over the remote to gain some decibels, Kent started commenting on whatever news story was in progress. Huh? I, who am within arm’s reach of the TV, cannot discern any sound. He, who is standing across the room in his closet, is reciting back to me every word that Matt Lauer is speaking.

Like any good wife, I didn’t believe him, so I turned it up to prove him wrong. Instead, I discovered that it is, in fact, possible to hear the TV on mute.

I think I’ll be scheduling that hearing test now.

This past weekend I traveled to Minneapolis on a business trip, and as I was waiting for my suitcase at baggage claim in zombie-like inertia, I saw something making its way around the carousel that tickled me. A suitcase that was clearly not mine.

How do I know this otherwise interchangeable black specimen of luggage did not belong to me? The true owner had thoughtfully applied this message in permanent marker, written on duct tape, securely fastened to each side of the bag:

“NOT YOURS.”

Thanks to the anonymous owner of that suitcase for preventing me from accidentally picking up the wrong bag, and for giving me a smile in the process.

The two readers I have left may recall this post from several months ago about admissions at my alma mater. It made an impact on the right people, and now a shorter version appears as a Letter to the Editor in our alumni magazine.  Complete with a response from the dean of undergraduate admissions! It’s hot off the press; I just got my copy today.

I’m no activitist and have no desire to be one, but I’m kind of proud to have made my small voice heard. Even if no one else agrees.

If  you have an unexplained desire to read the letter and the response, it’s your lucky day. I’ve scanned the page and you can view it right here. Enjoy! (Or not.)

It’s not often that you find yourself discussing the tea drinking habits of royalty, especially during a romantic Valentine’s Day lunch with your sweetie.

Then again, it’s not many sweeties who think to set their watch to the Queen’s tea time.

But every day at precisely 12:20 PM, the alarm on Kent’s new watch goes off. And every time I’m around to hear it, he gives me the same line.

“The Queen is having her tea now.”

I have no idea if he has really taken the trouble to:

• Discover the precise time the Queen takes her tea,
• Calculate the time difference from London, and
• Learn how to set the alarm on his watch for the proper alert.

But he persists in claiming the alarm means the Queen is taking her tea, so I’ll go with it. If only because it makes for highly entertaining conversation.

And because he’s my sweetie, so I naturally adore his creative thinking.

A few weeks ago, my sister told me that she doesn’t read my blog anymore because new entries are so few and far between. She’s right, so I thought I would take this opportunity to list all the things going on in my life that are preventing me from being a more proactive blogger at present.

Without further ado, I present Mo’s life, 2008 style.

• Sunday mornings: As of this week, teaching Sunday School for 3rd-5th graders. But only every other month, since I’ll be alternating with another teacher.
• Sunday nights: Weekly Bible study with my sister-in-law. A top priority.
• Monday nights: A script writing class at a local community college, in preparation for an upcoming project I will be working on with a friend.
• Tuesday nights: Kent’s weekly city council meetings, and my turn to hold down the fort at home with the kids.
• Wednesday nights: Church. A new series titled “Raising Respectful Kids in a Disrespectful World” starts next week. I’m eagerly looking forward to it.
• Thursday nights: Literacy tutoring.

In the rest of my free time (i.e., late nights and weekends), I somehow have to squeeze in the following:

• A freelance editing/desktop publishing project that I’m currently working on.
• Preparing for the weekly Bible study.
• Preparing for the Sunday School class lessons.
• Preparing assignments for my literacy student.
• Alumni interviews for my alma mater university.
• Homework for the script writing class.
• Research for the related project with a friend.

Other extracurricular activities that haven’t started yet, but will soon, include:

• Creating a reunion booklet for my high school class’s 20 year reunion.
• Assisting with the development a new Sunday School curriculum, since curriculum development happens to be my specialty. Of course my focus is job training for adults, not Sunday School for kids, but many of the underlying instructional principles are the same.
• A return to weekly soccer practice and games for Noah.
• Preparation for a conference presentation I’ll be giving in March. Which is technically work related, except I’m not finding much time to get to it at work.
• And the best one of all, the feather in my cap—I’ve been invited to participate in an author signing at a conference in April. It will be the official launch for the e-learning best practices book that my article is included in. Yay for me (and the other contributing authors, of course)!

So I’m a little on the busy side for much blogging these days, but it’s all good. These are all commitments I’ve taken on voluntarily and want to do.

Someday, I’ll probably look back on this entry and be impressed with myself in the extreme at how many balls I managed to keep in the air at one time. Either that, or my family will read back on it and understand why I self destructed. Only time will tell…

A note I found on our bed, just now, carefully positioned to make sure we would spot it immediately. These are the sweet, sweet moments that make life worth living.

_______________________

Dear Mommy and Daddy,

Thank you for everything you do.

LOVE,

Maia and Noah

_______________________

On second thought, maybe it’s just because they’re trying to secure a spot on Santa’s “nice” list. But in the spirit of the season, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. I have the bestest kids ever!

Recently, my mom mentioned that she might need some help from the family, when everyone is down over Thanksgiving, to move some furniture out of the way and straighten a certain upstairs rug that has become a scrunched up tripping hazard.

After the experience two years ago with the rug in question, a classic testament to what can go very, very wrong when families get together at Thanksgiving, I’m thinking I should be very, very afraid. What say you, blog friends? Should I run screaming in the opposite direction? Should I pre-program 911 into the speed dial of my cell phone, for easy access in the event of bodily harm?

I am the oldest of three sisters. Yet somehow, at my wedding 13+ years ago, guests from my husband’s side who had never met my sisters assumed, on seeing the three of us together, that I was the youngest. Considering that my baby sister was only 13 at the time, I didn’t exactly see this as a compliment, but it’s been something of a running joke ever since. (Though granted, she did look quite grown up in her bridesmaid dress, with hair and makeup befitting the occasion.)

Fast forward to 2007. My, how things change! As of yesterday, my baby sister is now a married woman herself. And my attitude about how old I look relative to my sisters has changed considerably. I have been teasing my sister for the past several months that my goal at her wedding is for people to still think I look the youngest. Mostly, my attempts at such levity were rewarded with dirty looks, and I never actually believed anyone would really say such a thing, but still I teased.

Then, on Friday night at the rehearsal dinner, I unexpectedly scored! A friend of my parents whom I had not seen in many years said the magic words when re-introduced to me. “You’re the oldest? You look the youngest.” In front of witnesses, even. Whether he meant it or was just buttering me up is irrelevant. It made my night, and naturally I summoned my sister right over to rub it in. She, of course, wanted to know how much I paid him to say that, but it was completely unsolicited. So it’s official. I still look the youngest. And this time, I’ll take it!

BUT… while I may (arguably) look the youngest, the bride was by far the most beautiful. Hands down. She looked radiant, and her wedding was lovely. The planned beach ceremony got rained out, but the happy couple handled the last minute change of plans well. Besides, everyone knows that rain on your wedding day is good luck. I predict they’ll have a blessed marriage.