Back to School

For reasons I fail to understand now, I thought it was a good idea to sign up for a course at work late last year. Every Wednesday I leave my desk for an hour and a half to go learn more about something most people (present company included) find rather dull. Because apparently a full time job and a family aren't enough to manage. It is becoming abundantly clear to me that I may or may not be an idiot. 

Anyway, I have a midterm later this week. I have been out of school for over a decade so studying for a test is a pretty distant memory. And it's the weekend and I have to take my kid to swimming lessons and go grocery shopping. Instead of a carefully crafted system of study, test recall, review, I'm going to employ a strategy I have become much more familiar with in the adult world. I'm going to wing it.

To the pool we go!

The Rules of Inheritance – BlogHer Book Club Review

Those of us who have lost a parent at a young age know it leaves a hole that never quite heals. Claire Bidwell Smith’s memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, is a journey through grief. From little girl lost to woman who found her way, because of or in spite of a great sense of loss and longing.

Smith lost both of her parents to cancer before she was what most of us would consider a real-live grown up. You might be thinking “Yes, well, lots of people’s parents die when they’re young. And… ?” And maybe without so many shared experiences (right down to surgery during pregnancy and terror that went with it) I wouldn’t have found her story so eminently relatable. But I did.

The self-discovery that came through in Smith’s writing was unmistakable. She was learning about herself right along with us. Frequently she’d pause and say “This is part of my narrative”, one of those moments that define who we are. From the fresh wound of losing her mother and then her father, to falling into the pit of despair and on to beginning the circle anew by becoming a parent herself, we can’t help but find pieces of our own narrative. I know I will take more time to mark those moments, happy or sad, that shape who I am from now on. For that I am grateful.

For more discussion on The Rules of Inheritance, follow the discussion at the BlogHer Book Club.

This is a compensated review as part of the BlogHer Book Club. All opinions expressed are my own.

Don't mark an occasion like this!

And here you thought I'd been neglecting my poor blog, didn't you? I've actually been aboard the Norwegian Star for the last week visiting Honduras, Belize and Mexico. I know I'm biased, but my kid was totally awesome for 99.76% of the trip, and on the occasions she wasn't awesome, it was usually more my fault (no nap, late lunch) than hers. She's a travelling dream.

However, today we were awakened at the ass crack of dawn to register with U.S. Customs and Immigration, had a super-long wait for our flight which was delayed to boot, and had the pleasure of waking up an exhausted toddler when we landed. Oh, and it's my birthday. I have established that air travel is second only to a hospital bed as the shittiest way one's birthday. My kid is not the only one ready to collapse into her bed. I'll have more about the trip later, including reviews over at The Wine Fund of the cruise itself and the ports of call.