Well, it was a good run while it lasted. But I think that after more than a decade, it’s time for me to say goodbye to my blog. I haven’t posted in over 2 years, and I honestly don’t foresee having the enthusiasm to post regularly any time soon. Not that I don’t enjoy the writing (and the historian in me has lamented the lack of documentation of the more minute details of my life over these last two years), but I don’t feel that I have much to write about these days that would be of interest to anyone (but me and maybe my future descendants, lol).
The main reason I’m going to take it down is because I’m at the point where I have to switch web hosts again (or pay the ridiculous “regular price” that they charge you after your three year “promo” price), and I just don’t have the energy to go through all the trouble of transferring my WordPress blog again. (It’s not a simple process.) Since I haven’t touched the blog in 2 1/2 years, it seems silly to go through all that effort, so…time to say goodbye.
Before I go, I’ll give one last update post, which will stay up until this hosting service cuts me off in about a month. So here’s an update of what has happened in my life since my last post on April 15, 2022:
The biggest event of 2022 was definitely our family trip to Europe. This was a trip that had been postponed from summer 2020 due to the pandemic, and it was everything we could have hoped for. Our first stop was London. I loved everything about London! The history was amazing. I stopped to read every historical marker and talked to lots of locals.
Family photo on the Jubilee Bridget in front of the River Thames. That’s Big Ben in the background!
That’s my husband and I at the Cafe Rouge, which is across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral (which we visited). We did the Tower of London, the Changing of the Guard, several pubs, and other things I can’t remember. It was fantastic.
I ran in each of our three stops in Europe, and I was really enthusiastic in London. Okay, not really. I just got lost, lol, and ended up running six miles. This was my selfie in front of Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not in residence at the time, and unfortunately, she ended up passing away a few months after our visit.
London was awesome and someday I’ll go back! Next up…Paris!
Our family on the Eiffel Tower. It was not a great weather day (so says my hair, lol), but we had lower crowds, so that worked out.
Me and my better half on the Eiffel Tower. Someday we’ll go back and do Paris as an old married couple–it will be half the price, since I won’t have to pay for two kids, lol!
I complain about my kids, but I love them because they really are great. On the day we did our included tour of Paris, which included a ride down the River Seine on a boat, it was pouring rain. I was absolutely NOT going to sit on the enclosed lower deck while our guide regaled us with descriptions of all the sights, so I put on my rain coat (purchased in London because I saw the weather forecast in Paris and planned ahead!) and went up on the top deck and got pelted with rain while I listened to her over the loudspeaker. My oldest son, Jamie, braved the rain and came up, too. He spent the entire boat ride up there with me. It was a great bonding time.
For my run in Paris, I really wanted to see Notre Dame, but that meant I would have to run a total of five miles to get there from our hotel. I did. 🙂
I couldn’t get very close, because it was still under construction after the fire, but the barricades around it had the story of the fire and restoration, with photos AND text in English, and you probably can guess that I just ate all that up!
This trip coincided with the year of our 25th anniversary, and just like when I was in Hawaii in 2017, I bought myself an “anniversary bracelet.” The story of this purchase is long and quite comical, but suffice it to say I bought my share of jewelry at this wonderful shop with very kind owners. Including a beautiful bracelet I still wear almost every day!
Does it shock you to learn that I arranged to have family photos taken while we were in Paris? LOL, it shouldn’t. But for the record, I was FAR from the only person who had that great idea. We saw DOZENS of people getting their photos taken while we went around Paris for our shoot. (We did ours at the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.) My favorite was the ballerina who was getting her photos done at the Louvre. That is next level. (Side note: getting my hair done for this shoot, for which we had to meet the photographer at 7:30am, was a point of real stress. This was when I discovered the Tyme Iron. It has truly been a game changer for me, and I cannot recommend it enough. This is not a paid advertisement, I just love it that much.)
Can’t end the Paris report without posting the pic of this waitress with my boys. She was awesome. My son Jamie (left) studied French for 6 years between high school and college, and we challenged him to order our meal that night all in French. She was SO kind and encouraging as he worked through it, and then when he was done, she said, “So that’s everything?” He said, “Oui.” Eventually she brought out my meal, then my husband’s, then our younger sons. We all waited to eat until Jamie got his meal…and waited…and waited… Eventually I stopped her when she was hurrying by and said, “When do you expect my other son’s meal to come?” She got this stricken look on her face and said, “That’s why I asked him if he was sure he was done…he didn’t order anything for himself!” God bless her, she took his order and then came back with his food within minutes. She admitted that she stole his meal from another waiter’s order. 😂 We all had a great laugh and of course I had to get her photo with the boys.
After Paris was Rome.
My husband and I in front of the Coliseum. It was 100 degrees that day. (Not an exaggeration.) Here is a comparison pic:
That’s me in front of the Coliseum in May 2000, twenty-two years earlier. (No exact comparison pic, because my husband and I were by ourselves back then and we had no one to take a photo of us.) I was the heaviest I’d ever been in that photo, so although I do wish I was that young again, I’m happy to be a lot healthier! (Somewhere on my blog is the story of when we had to walk up a long, steep hill on the Isle of Capri, and how I almost didn’t make it and felt like I was going to die when I got to the top. That girl would have laughed if you’d told her she would eventually go on to run three marathons and 15+ half marathons!)
Our family at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. As you can imagine, I loved all the history and architecture. We went on a second walking tour a few days later that was amazing. (And hot.)
Once again, I went for a run. I think it was five miles this time. Here I am on the Spanish Steps.
Okay, that’s enough of our European trip. (I could go on forever about it, but I’ll spare you.) Our old cat Tiger passed away, but we got a new kitty in late 2022.
Reggie is now almost two years old and he’s a little sh*t, but I love him.
In January 2023, my youngest had a hockey game in the city where I lived when I was a young single in the 1990s, and in fact, the rink was directly across the street from my old apartment building. I couldn’t resist stopping by for old time’s sake.
My apartment was the one on the second floor that has the American flag and wind chimes. Back then, it was straight out of 1965, with a kitchen that reflected perfect 1960s yellow tile perfection, as well as a fireplace. I loved that place. For reference, here is a photo of me in the time that I lived there.
That was me on my 25th birthday. My coworkers went a little nuts in decorating my office. (Yes, I had an office of my own at 25, and in fact had had it since I was 23. Man, I miss those perks. Also, yes, that’s a polaroid. We had plenty of them in my office because we were in the insurance business, and our agents had to take photos of cars to send in with the applications back in the day.)
In May 2023, I organized a “Cemetery Walk” event for my historical society, and I also participated as a character. (If you don’t know what a cemetery walk is, just look it up. They’re pretty popular.) I portrayed the wife of the couple who built my home (back in 1892) at a time when she would have been in her 40s (I could not have pulled off portraying her at the time of her marriage, when she was 18!). For me, it was the culmination of a lifetime of passion for history, and I was absolutely in my element.
That’s me and my brother-in-law, who graciously volunteered to portray a character for our event, and although I had my doubts, he absolutely nailed it. I had no idea he had acting talents! As the “matriarch” of one of our township’s pioneer families, he was by far the hit of the event; he had really done his research and he was just so enthusiastic and interesting. His character was actually the father of my character, which made for some fun back and forth between us for the audience.
August 2023 was the beginning of senior year for my youngest. It was a pretty great year, made especially so because, unlike my older son’s senior year, it didn’t end in a pandemic. Here are a few photos from the year.
Just one of a few hundred senior photos. Be still my heart.
Senior class homecoming. I was really blessed to get to know most of these kids in my son’s final year; the first two years of his high school career were during COVID, so there was not a lot of opportunity to interact with the kids and their parents. We definitely made up for it in senior year!
I ran my fifteenth half marathon in October at the Free Press run. I tell you what, the Ambassador Bridge is a dream-killer. 😝 I finished pretty slow, but I finished, and that’s what counts.
I attended my last football game in which I had a player on the team. The boys lost a close one in the regional final, and it was bittersweet, but definitely much harder for my husband. Football WAS his sport when he was growing up, and it made him so proud that both his boys played and were actually pretty good at it. You can probably tell that he is holding back tears in this photo…our last post-game photo as football parents.
But, after football was hockey, and that was a whole thing. Our team finally had to join with a co-op, and it was…interesting. I didn’t really care (I just wanted my son to be able to play hockey his senior year), but you can imagine that when you combine two teams that used to be archrivals, there would be some friction. (Honestly, it was among the parents way more than the kids, lol.) But my son was chosen as a co-captain, along with one of the players from the original team, and I was very proud of him.
In November, my sister and I went to visit the rest of our other immediate family (my parents divorced when I was three, so I have two immediate families) in North Carolina. It was the first time the five of us siblings (half and step included) had been together in close to 20 years, so it was a joyous event. We even recreated the family photo from my grandparents’ wedding anniversary from 1991!
This was so much fun to recreate!
In February of 2024, we had another “last”–our last game as hockey parents. A few weeks earlier, the team held senior night, and the families and players from our school truly went above and beyond in celebrating my son, who was the only senior from our school.
I have to showcase the little cutouts that a few of the moms made, which a few of the students who came waved during the game.
It’s JJ on a stick! LOL. They really stalked my Facebook page to find these classics of JJ when he was still learning how to skate. His last game was a first-round loss in the playoffs, and it was tougher than when football finished. Hockey was the sport he’d played the longest, and when I created this side-by-side comparison of his first game and last game, I got a little misty.
March brought some fun, which included my SIXTEENTH half marathon!
That’s me at the Rock CF Half Marathon. My old IT band injury flared up about halfway through, but I toughed it out and finished better than I did at the Free Press run a few months earlier. Not as good as the PR I got at this race in 2017 (a solid 31 minutes slower, lol), but I’ve come to the realization that I am not the young athlete I was in my 40s. 😂
The race was perfectly-timed to get me in shape for the next big thing–we left that Saturday for JJ’s class spring break trip to Punta Cana. (There was a whole thing two days before we left where JJ became allergic to a medication he was taking and we weren’t sure he would even make the trip, but he finally turned the corner and we made it!)
Our group rented a “pirate party boat” and it was definitely a blast. (Also, that outfit is way too big on me because the airline lost my luggage and I had to make due with what I could purchase in the hotel gift shop for the first 48 hours of our trip. Thank God I bought trip insurance.)
Our family dining at one of the many restaurants in the all-inclusive resort. I had never been to an all-inclusive, but I have to say, I really liked it. Sure, the food may not always be five-star, but it’s so nice to go on a vacation and not have to worry about how much money you’re spending to eat and drink.
I ran three of the seven days we were there, and let me tell you, it was HOT and HUMID. I got smart after the first run and learned to run with my bathing suit on underneath, and then when my run was done, I jumped into the ocean. It was awesome!
In May, my son finished his final season of high school sports, lacrosse. This was the only sport where he and his brother differed, because while the older one played attack, the younger one ended up playing goalie, because we had started a youth team and no one else wanted to play that position. I was so proud of him for his determination and his maturity in taking on that role, and it turned out he was pretty good at it. (Toward the end of the season, I had several coaches from opposing teams ask me if he was going to play in college because they felt he was definitely capable; he is not). The last game was a very tough, very close playoff loss to a team that was expected to beat us soundly. As any goalie mom can tell you, being goalie comes with a tremendous amount of weight on your shoulders, and my son really gave it everything he had in that game. When it was over, he fell to his knees, and it almost broke my heart. But when he came over to me afterward and started crying, I lost it. That was the first time I’d seen him cry in all of his high school sports career.
One of the moms on the team took that photo of me as I went to hug him. It was a very special moment, and I’m so glad she captured it. After the game, we gathered together as a family (his older brother had even come home from college to attend) for one last post-game family photo.
After 17 years, many miles, and many more dollars, our “sports career” was done. My husband and I took a moment to toast our “retirement” as sports parents.
(Please ignore our early 2000s-era kitchen. With two kids in college starting this fall, that old wooden look will have to stick around a few more years.)
We learned later that my son had actually qualified to be in the state lacrosse record books for number of saves–twice, for two different games. Ironically, they were his very first game as a freshman and his very last game A senior (the playoff game where he worked so hard and we almost pulled it out). Not a bad way to bookend a high school sports career.
In May we celebrated our final high school graduation.
We’re very proud of both of our kids. And of course, for his graduation party, I recreated the “shrine” I did for my older son’s party. (Only bigger, lol!)
Was it complete overkill? Absolutely! And I loved EVERY minute of putting it together. The historian in me was in my element combining photos with tangible artifacts and sorting everything chronologically and/or by topic. 😆
We’re now getting ready to take JJ to Michigan State in a few days, where he’ll further his education as a Spartan. And yes, for those who are paying attention, that does mean I will have kids at rival Michigan schools. It doesn’t bother me a bit; we are not a “house divided” (as EVERYONE keeps suggesting) but rather, a house united. I love both my boys and am happy they have each found their chosen path.
So that’s a recap of the last few yeas in our life. Although I suppose it’s less of a recap and more of an unabridged novel, lol. (Do you see why I have to stop blogging? I am positively incapable of being concise!)
Oh, I suppose I should provide one last update on my health journey, although I think I’ve kind of alluded to it in this post. Again, because I’m in capable of being concise, I’m going to split it into a separate post.
Thank you for reading!