7 Quick Takes about Refreshing the Garage, Becoming Pool Sharks, and Handing Over My Shopping List for Good

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Have you been Easter candy shopping yet? If not, buckle up. Candy has been getting more and more expensive for a while now (and the candies themselves have been shrinking and shrinking,) but this is officially ridiculous:

This chocolate bunny is $22. Yes, I realize that it's a big bunny with special chocolate. But I just can't imagine the cost-benefit analysis that would lead anyone to put it in their shopping cart. 

Maybe my sticker shock here is disproportionate because I have 6 kids and I'm mentally multiplying everything by 6 in my head. I don't know. Maybe if you're just raising Veruca Salt as an only child it's not as bad as I'm imagining.

—2—

I went to the mall with a friend and while I wasn't really planning on getting anything for myself, I saw this necklace on clearance for $5 (that's 4.4 chocolate bunnies, for your reference) and I had to buy it.

I also saw a lot of other fun stuff that I did not buy, but I stood in front of this painting for a long time, just appreciating it.

This was not a small work of art, it was a large piece intended to be a focal point above the sofa and I love that.

—3—

Our recycling bins are a bunch of 18-gallon plastic totes that sit in our garage, and I don't love them. They certainly do the job, but they take up a lot of floor space, there are too many of them, and they don't have lids so any food remnants on the jars and cans is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for mice.

I did a ton of research and found that most covered stackable bins were too small, but I found the perfect bins at Ikea. They didn't deliver to me, but they deliver through FedEx which has some weird partnership with Walgreen's so I could get pick them up at the drugstore.

It looks so much better! The trash cans and the ball bin that I can now put against the wall used to be squeezed into the narrow aisle between our cars, taking up so much space that we regularly called getting out of the car "The Fat Man Challenge" because there was just no room.

Are there still stains on the floor from oil and grease and whatever else? Yes. Do I plan to do anything about it? No. It's an unfinished garage, and I'm looking for function over form. 

—4—

I was videocalling my 19-year-old daughter, who is a religious missionary right now. And she mentioned that her missionary companion says that she (my daughter) talks weird.

"Weird, how?" I asked my daughter.

"Like, casually using big words while talking. Not words so big that no one knows what they mean, just unusual words that people don't regularly use. Like... 'ocular' or 'uncanny.' "

"Hmm," I said, thinking about how this came up because I'd used the word 'scatalogical' in conversation a minute earlier. "I guess you can tell her it's because your mom is an English major. Sorry you're weird now."

—5—

Phillip and I have fallen out of a habit of date night. It takes time and energy to think of something new to do all the time, so we thought: what if we just pick four activities and rotate between them? 

For some reason we chose pool as one of our activities, even though neither of us play more than once a year and have no skill whatsoever.

We're bad, like comically bad. But there's hope, I think! After playing a few games of pool, I was able to hit the ball I was aiming for 95% of the time. (Now I need to work on my geometry, because once I hit that ball it only goes where I intended about 50% of the time.)

What should our other four things be? One of them can be watching a TV series (we just started La Cocinera de Castamar, which is like Spanish Downtown Abbey). We're looking for two more things.

—6—

After almost 22 years of having children, Phillip planned and threw his first birthday party. 

Was the party months after the actual birthday? Absolutely.

Did his man brain arrange the candles in a perfect grid instead of aesthetically spacing them out? Unfortunately, yes.

But most importantly, did I have to plan or execute anything? No. 

And the kids had a great time, even if it looked a lot different than the themed birthday parties I used to throw back in the day:

Exhibit A.

The birthday party reshuffle was part of the work we've been doing on redistributing household responsibilities, loosely based on the Fair Play method. It's been amazing. 

For me, it's less about the work it takes to, say, plan a birthday party or help them write a talk for church, and more about the emotional relief it is not being the only one who knows the details of what's going on with the kids at any given time. 

In fact, he is sometimes the one texting to remind me of something having to do with the kids now, and I am loving the teamwork.

—7—

I throw shade at Phillip's birthday cakes, but I shouldn't. Because the job he has done taking over meal planning, food shopping, and dinner prep puts me to shame. I always hated meal planning, but since I was the stay-at-home parent I just assumed it made more sense for me to be the one in charge. IT DID NOT.

Let me describe how Phillip is absolutely crushing it in the meal department.

When I used to do it, it was a soul-crushing slog every week. Half our recipes were on Pinterest and half were on physical cards in a recipe box (neither of which were easy to search through), and which one was where simply lived in my head.

But Phillip gathered up all our recipes, fed them into AI, and had AI digitize each one in a standard format and organize it into a searchable database. He doesn't have to look anything up to make a shopping list and it takes five minutes: he just selects meals from the database and AI automatically populates a list of ingredients.

And there's more.

He wanted to have the list in the order he'll find things in the grocery store, so instead of memorizing the location of every single item in Market Basket and painstaking putting the list in order himself like I used to, he took pictures of the signs in the aisles and gave it to AI so it organizes the list for him.

All that to say: I should have been fired from this gig a LONG time ago. I mean, I was playing checkers and this man is playing chess. He's an artist and a genius. I can't believe we didn't make this switch sooner.

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7 Quick Takes about Living with Wildlife, Impeccable Timing in Physical Therapy, and Taking Out a Second Mortgage for Chocolate Bunnies

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, so if you click on them and buy something I may receive a small commission for referring you.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Well, here's how my Monday morning started:

I don't know how smart opossums are, so I was worried that if I released him close by, he might find his way back into the garage where he's been squatting for a week.

But we decided that driving somewhere and dragging a full-sized trash can into the woods would look pretty shady (illegally dumping garbage at best, disposing of a body at worst) so I ended up just releasing him in the forest behind our house.

Here's a video, and sorry for the gratuitous shots of our trash. My 12-year-old did his best.

Man, opossums are so cute with their little pink faces and tails. But it does take a little bit of the shine off when you've seen them wallowing in your garbage.

—2—

One side of my neck is always stiff, and I think it's because of scar tissue from a surgery I had as a kid. I've always just accepted that's how it is but I've been wondering lately if it's something I could work on with a physical therapist.

After a lot of researching PTs in the area and Googling the letters after their names to find someone who specialized in my problem, I found her! According to ChatGPT, her qualifications were exactly what I was looking for, so I emailed an appointment request to her office.

The next day, I got a response that she was going on maternity leave the following week.

I've been living with my wonky neck for decades, so it's pretty ironic that the moment I decide to do something about it, the universe says no.

—3—

Our college daughter is overwhelmed with school right now, trying to catch up after the loss of her grandpa in February and also get her paperwork done for a summer internship. 

Phillip and I decided to DoorDash some groceries to help her power through this week, mostly convenience foods and healthy snacks so she has one less thing to worry about.

I've never used DoorDash before, so I was entertained by the little dot representing the Dasher's car moving along the map in real-time to the grocery store and then to my daughter's apartment, even though she lives several states away. It was both exciting and boring at the same time. Kind of like the lamest video game ever.

—4—

YouTube showed me the worst commercial (you can watch it here, but don't do it with kids around. It's a little disturbing.) It starts with a mom singing about how much she loves her daughter, which is fine and normal. But then she pivots and musically lists all the ways she worries her daughter could be murdered every time she leaves her sight. Which is neither fine nor normal.

Right up until the end, I was convinced this was going to be an ad for BetterHelp, because if that's what you think about when your child leaves the house, you need therapy. But I was wrong: when the deranged song ended, the solution was an app to track her daughter's location on her phone.

Sure, that will fix it.

I think the ad was supposed to be darkly funny and relatable, but the fact that anyone in their focus groups found it funny or  relatable just makes me sad that we're parenting in CRAZYTOWN now. Go touch grass. Read Free-Range Kids. Get a hobby. And stop composing murder ballads if your kid goes to a friend's house after school. It's going to be okay.

—5—

For the last few years, our family has had pizza-and-a-show night every Monday, and it's become one of the traditions our kids look forward to most. First, we watched Baking Impossible. This week we finished watching all three seasons of the Lost in Space remake.

Now we've got to figure out what to watch next, and I think we're going to try a series available for free on YouTube called The Promised Land. Think of it as The Office but for the Old Testament. 

Phillip and I screened the first episode to check the tone and were pleasantly surprised that the humor never crossed the line into disrespect, and in fact I'd describe the style of the show as "inside jokes about the scriptures." For example, the singular mention of Moses's sons in the Bible is never repeated again, so there's this running gag in the first episode where everyone is always like, "I don't know where the boys are... oh, well!" 

Since we're studying the Old Testament at church this year, and we're actually going to start reading about the exodus in just a few weeks, I think it could be perfect for the kids to get invested and interested. Have you watched The Promised Land? What did you think?

—6—

"Did you see that Chuck Norris died?" I asked Phillip today over dinner. 

Like anyone who grew up in the 90s, we've both heard our fair share of Chuck Norris jokes. I even used to text my kids Chuck Norris memes to motivate them to work hard and kick butt at their schoolwork.

"Fake news," Phillip said, cutting into his pork chop. "Chuck Norris can never die."

"Well, he did. He died in Hawaii on Thursday."

Phillip shook his head. "Chuck Norris doesn't die, he just retires from life. Or maybe he went into stasis and they buried him, but he'll be back. Ain't no coffin that can keep Chuck Norris down."

—7—

I went to a free concert with a singer sharing an eclectic collection of songs from artists she admires, along with a few she wrote herself. 

My favorite was her cover of "The House I Live In" by Frank Sinatra. I'd never heard of it before, but she said it came from a short film by the same name from 1945, so of course I had to look it up and listen to the original once I got home. You know how I see Frank Sinatra voice as the embodiment of all that is traditional and good in this world (if you've got a Christmas song that's not by Frank Sinatra, I don't want to hear it). Here is "The House I Live In":

You are welcome, my friends. The little kid smiling at the end is the cherry on top.

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7 Quick Takes about Texting Typos, Rules for Brainstorming, and Meeting My Spirit Animal

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Daylight Savings Time wasn't quite so bad this year because church doesn't start until 11:30AM, but getting up for school and work on Monday morning was still hard on everyone.

"I blame every single heart attack that happens today on Daylight Savings. And that responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of the members of Congress," Phillip said.

The kids were all late to school, and when I dropped off the 8th grader I tried to be extra-positive. "Have a stupendous day!" I said cheerfully, pulling up to the curb at the middle school.

She grimaced like she was headed to the slaughterhouse and muttered, "More like 'have a stupid  day'."

—2—

Everyone in my family agrees that my phone keyboard is the worst, I feel like every other word is a typo that needs to be corrected. But apparently it's not just me.

I have a neighbor in the hospital, so I texted her sister and asked, "Can I help with feeling her cat?"

And she responded, "No, I've been feeding the car."

She corrected her mistake, I did not correct mine. Mostly because I didn't notice it until a while afterward, but also because I don't really do that anymore. You know what I meant, and I guess if you didn't and you think I palpate cats for fun, that's on you.

—3—

The 17-year-old got his patriarchal blessing on Sunday! If you aren't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and don't want to read this longer explanation, patriarchal blessings contain counsel and advice, blessings God has for you throughout your life, and also your lineage (literal or adopted through baptism) in the House of Israel. 

They're highly personal, which is wild because usually the patriarch giving the blessing may not even know you. We don't know ours personally, but each of my three older kids have gotten very different blessings that seem perfectly tailored to them and their needs.

It was a great experience for me, my son, and my husband. I'm so glad we have those opportunities and that God knows us so individually.

—4—

At the dinner table, we were brainstorming activities to do as a family. When the kids volunteered impractical ideas Phillip would point out why they wouldn't work, but I gently suggested that we should accept all ideas and wait until after the brainstorming phase to start getting rid of the ridiculous ones. 

"You're right," he said. "At work they tell us to say 'yes, and' instead of 'yes, but'." 

I've heard of the "yes and" concept before, but in terms of improv acting: basically, you want to improve and build on the dumb suggestions instead of outright shooting them down.

My 9-year-old grinned and told his dad, "So instead of saying 'Yes, but your idea sucks' you should say 'Yes, and your idea sucks.'"

He's got it.

—5—

I've been thinking a lot lately about encouraging my kids to study the scriptures on their own, not just at night when we read them as a family. The problem is that some of our kids have convinced themselves that scriptures are B-O-R-I-N-G, and I'd love for them to see that sitting and reading a chapter straight through is not the only option.  

I happened to find an amazing article called 38 Different Ways to Study the Scriptures. After adding a few more items for younger kids (ask if you're interested and I'll put my additions in in the comments), I printed them out, cut them into strips and put them in a jar, and did a weeklong challenge for the whole family.

Every day, each person picked a slip with a scripture study method. If it didn't sound interesting, they could keep picking until they found one that did. The next day they could do that one again, or look for another interesting suggestion in the jar. I just wanted them to do something every day.

Was it a success? I think so. They engaged with the scriptures daily more often than not, sometimes without a reminder, and one child even said that it was "kind of fun". (But they did emphasize the 'kiiiiiind of' when telling me this, just so I didn't get the wrong idea.)

—6—

The next week I wanted to do something along the same lines as Take #5, but for prayer. I think when we teach kids to pray, they can get the idea that it's kind of like sending off an email to a distant relative who they don't expect to write back, or that the purpose is to ask God to "help us have fun doing X and Y today" and it doesn't make a real difference in our lives beyond that. 

I'd like for the kids to have all kinds of experiences with prayer, so using the free Bingo card maker here, I printed out one of these for every family member and put them on the fridge. (They also have a black-and-white inksaver version which is what I actually used.)

In two weeks, anyone with at least one bingo gets an all-expenses-paid trip to the dollar store to pick out one thing they want, plus anyone with a blackout gets to go out with me and their dad for root beer floats.

Because our kids are really good at loopholes, we did make the rule that you can only fill in one square per prayer, or I can see them trying to knock out 5 or 6 of them in a single prayer and that's not exactly the point here.

—7—

After taking my boys on a clothes shopping trip, we went to the pet store as a little side excursion before going home. 

In Aisle 5, I locked eyes with this haggard guinea pig and have never related more to an animal:

Embodies the exact same energy of an afternoon spent convincing a 12-year-old boy to try on one more pair of pants.

Life can be overwhelming and stressful, but somehow it helps to know that there's a guinea pig in a Petco somewhere who looks exactly how I feel most of the time.

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7 Quick Takes about Unintentionally Jumping on the Bandwagon, Mistaken Ideas about Batteries, and Paying Taxes

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Apparently, it's become trendy to do strength training as you age to prevent bone loss. Which is fine. Yay for not getting osteoparosis! I'm just a little irritated because now it looks like my obsession with my Kaleigh Cohen dumbbell workouts is just me hopping on a trend.

I keep seeing things about strength training and longevity, and recently read this article, which links to a bunch of other health-related quizzes and calculators.

I don't like push-ups because they mess with one of my wrists, but out of curiosity I did this push-ups test to see where I fall. I did 12 of them with decent form and thought, "Hey, that's pretty good!" But when I put it into the calculator, it told me I was below the average of 16 for a woman my age. I puzzled over that for a minute, knowing that I'm 43 years old and in pretty good shape and that's total baloney. Then I noticed that the instructions said for women to do the push-ups on their knees, which I could do 100 of, so mystery solved.  

—2—

In addition to lifting weights I've added a quest for mobility as well. I'm extremely inflexible, and traditional stretching felt like banging my head against a brick wall. No matter what I did, it felt like my hips were made of concrete and that maybe even average flexibility was beyond what I was anatomically capable of.

I finally figured out I needed to look up "mobility" instead of "stretching." Phillip and I have been following this video every night this week (the kids think we're such cute/weird old people doing our stretches together), and while I still hate it, I definitely think it's making a difference:

 

When we do the nerve gliding at 2:40, I sing "Aaaaall the single ladies, aaaaall the single ladies!" I can't help it, it looks just like in the music video.

"You're going to be a single lady if you don’t knock it off," Phillip says.

After one week of doing this, though, I can already see a big difference. When I started, the tips of my fingers could barely touch my toes. And here's what I can do now:

If you feel biologically incapable of touching your toes, I highly recommend watching the video above. I didn't know it until now, but there's all kinds of stuff with your nerves and your hips that you need to work on in addition to just sitting there trying to reach for your toes every day.

—3—

When the kids were little, I was always in their bathroom supervising bath time, helping them brush teeth, or begging them to use the potty instead of the living room carpet. However, they're older now and the only time I even go in their bathroom is to water a plant I keep in there once a week.

Theoretically they all have cleaning chores in the bathroom, but judging by the gobs of toothpaste in the sink, the hair in the drain, and the underwear on the floor, they've been busy. I decided to just clean it myself while they were at school, since the room could use an adult-level deep cleaning every once in a while anyway.

As I replaced the dirty hand towel and cleaned dried bloody nose spatters off the floor near the overflowing trash can, I kept thinking that this bathroom is like the island of unsupervised bad kids in Pinocchio. 

And I made a mental note to come up here and check things out a little more often, if for no other reason than to make sure the kids aren't turning into donkeys.

—4—

Two months ago I reorganized the kitchen, and I'm really happy with how everything turned out except our system for organizing Tupperware. How do you do it?

I've Googled DIY systems, I've asked AI for ideas, I've looked at a million different organization options in the store. I just don't see anything I like. Other than paring down our Tupperware, I can't figure out how to make a space-efficient system that's easy to put everything away, easy to find what you need, and not terribly ugly.

—5—

In a conversation with Phillip, the 17-year-old was insisting that batteries came with a "DO NOT EAT" warning on them to avoid lawsuits. He went to go check and there wasn't, prompting him to ask AI about whether they are nutritious. 

As always, AI was thorough, both in the length of its answer and its inability to detect when someone is just messing with it instead of asking a genuine question.

I love how it phrased the part circled in yellow as if it was dispelling a common misconception. No human being has ever thought, "Hmm, there's energy in batteries so I'm going to replace my morning coffee with a couple of 9-volts."

—6—

My 14-year-old has been working an after-school job for about four months now. She loves having spending money, but she doesn't love the taxes that get taken out of her paycheck automatically. 

When she complains about having to pay taxes, I do what any good parent would do: I empathize. I usually say something like, "I know! Having ROADS to drive on is the worst! And all the free books at the public library? That's just gross. The worst thing is that if the house catches on fire, a bunch of guys will come put it out, and they'll even pull me out of the rubble and rush me to the hospital afterward. Like, leave me alone already! Why are you so obsessed with me??"

It goes over really well. Follow me for more parenting tips.

—7—

Because I've been into physical mobility content lately, my social media feeds are full of people doing squats, stretches, and the like. And because I'm also a ridiculous person, it sometimes shows me "mobility" videos like this:

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7 Quick Takes about Flying Home, Stupid-Looking Trees, and the Best Day to Sell Your Junk

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

After the funeral, we stayed for one more day to be with family before flying home.

I learned to play a dice game called Farkle, and at the same time I also learned never to take up gambling because I'd be terrible at it.

As we played games and visited, the last of the Olympic events were playing on TV in the background. I thought it was nice to see that Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games had found work again.

Came straight from The Capitol to commentate on pairs figure skating. 

I'm currently working through a head cold that probably came from talking to and hugging so many people at the funeral in the middle of February, but it's not too bad.

—2—

Our flight home was at 5 in the morning. Which sounds early, but it felt even earlier because that meant we had to get up at 2:30, leave the house at 3, and be at the airport at 4 AM.

At least there was no line at security.

We had one connection and by the time we landed and drove home, it was only noon but it felt like bedtime. It took a full day of recovery, even for the kids.

—3—

Luckily, the kids had a snow day on Monday and a delayed start on Tuesday due to a snowstorm, so they got to ease back in to the week. Somehow, there was just as much complaining as on a regular 5-day school week, though.

—4—

I've never had this happen before when checking luggage, but I almost didn't recognize our suitcases when we saw them on the baggage claim because they'd gotten super-dirty. One had white streaks of some kind of powder on it and two others looked like they were smeared with grease, and they hadn't been that way when we checked them.

They looked good enough after a little scrubbing when we got home, but I can tell you from experience now that washing suitcases by hand is not my favorite thing to do after a long trip.

On the other hand, the bathrooms at the airport were amazing (marble everything, real doors on the stalls, and motion-activated automatic toilet seat covers.) So, silver linings.

—5—

I like putting flowers on our front and back porches in the spring and summer, but I don't like paying for them at the store. Last year I experimented with growing a few pots of annuals from seeds I bought at the dollar store, and had an 80% success rate, so this year I decided to expand the operation.

It felt like I was starting a plant nursery as I was filling all of these with dirt.

I was going to do this at the beginning of February, but then my dad passed away and we ended up being out of town for the funeral so everything was delayed, but they should still be ready-ish in time to go out when the weather turns nice.

—6—

The electric company has been trimming the trees along the edge of our yard near the power lines, and this time they were really aggressive. I wouldn't call it "trimming" so much as "lopping off most of the branches they could reach," and now our pine trees look like truffula trees. 

With our permission, they also completely removed two very large, mature, and unsafe white pines. Having the power company do it for free sounded great to us, since last fall an arborist quoted us several thousand dollars to cut them down, but I guess you get what you pay for. 

Because they also sheared off branches from any neighboring trees that happened to be in their way, which doesn't look very nice when all is said and done. In the spring, I'm getting an arborist in here to tell us what to plant in their place, because making this yard look nice is definitely outside of my skill set.

—7—

I like to keep our home clutter-free and that means I usually have at least one or two things for sale on Facebook Marketplace. And I've found that Friday is the best day to post new items or edit prices. Does anyone know why that is? 

Whenever I relist an old listing on a Friday, those items often get snapped up that very day. Even if they've already been on Marketplace for months. 

I don't know if this is the same everywhere, or maybe the vibe is more Tuesdays on the West Coast and Thursdays in the South, but FYI if you sell things on Facebook Marketplace: Friday is the day everyone is looking to hand over their paychecks for crap you don't want in your house anymore.

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7 Quick Takes about Socal Finesse from a 4th Grader, Saying Goodbye to My Dad, and My Generational Parenting Style

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Well, this week we traveled to Minnesota for my dad's funeral. We flew out of an airport we've never used before (because last-minute airfare for 7 people is no joke), and commented on a sign we saw outside saying it had been voted #1 aiport in America by someone.

We had to agree that the airport was nice, with a clean parking garage that was even decorated for Valentine's Day. When we got inside, however, there was an unmistakable light sewage door in the terminal.

On the escalator, I leaned over and whispered to the 9-year-old: "This doesn't smell like the #1 airport in America.''

"Maybe it's #2," he whispered back.

—2—

On the plane, Phillip and I sat in the row behind our 9- and 12-year-olds, watching the flight attendants fawn over them. And then in slow-motion, watched a conversation unfold that was like watching a car accident happen.

The flight attendant, smiling and handing our boys their in-flight snacks, gushed "Is this a special vacation?"

"We're... going to Minnesota," the 9-year-old answered uncertainly. I think even he knew this was about to get real awkward, real fast.

"Oh, how nice!" She squealed. "Are you doing anything exciting?"

The 9-year-old thought again and said "We're..." (this is where Phillip and I were watching through our fingers thinking about how uncomfortable this nice lady was about to become) "...going to our grandparents."

"Well, isn't that nice!" she said, and rolled on to the next row. Phillip and I breathed a huge sigh of relief at this unexpected display of social awareness.

Well done, sir. Well done.

—3—

Once we actually got to Minnesota, it was nice. 

Meeting with the funeral director and the pastor gave me something positive to do with dad's death, when previously the other alternatives were to feel sad about it on my own or try to do other life stuff when I couldn't focus on anything. 

Even when we weren't doing funeral-related things, it was nice to just chill and watch the Olympics with other people who understood that things were really weird right now, but we're all just doing our best to adjust together.

On Thursday there was a visitation at the funeral home, and even though I was dreading it (being an introvert, three hours of forced socializing with people I don't know very well is not on my bucket list) it turned out to be nice. I actually liked meeting people from different parts of dad's life who I'd heard him talk about but never met. 

The memorial service on Friday was hard, especially when other people around me started losing their composure, but it was okay.

—4—

My 21-year-old spent her time at home sketching a picture of my dad for my stepmom, and since she's an artist I'm sure that helped her process her feelings in her own language.

My languages are writing — so putting together my dad's obituary felt therapeutic — and little kids — so when my 5-year-old step-nephew crawled on my lap and fell asleep after the service, it filled me up.

—5—

On the way back to my mom's after the service, I got pulled over. I didn't realize we went through a town on the highway and the speed limit went down, and I blew past a police officer at 65MPH in a 45MPH zone. 

To make matters worse, I hadn't brought my wallet with my license. The officer was confused about how we were from out of state if we were driving a vehicle with Minnesota plates, but he listened with suspicion to our explanation that I'd borrowed it from my aunt and uncle to attend a family funeral.

"I'm going to go look up your license," he said, after taking my personal information. "Please get the insurance ready for when I come back."

The only insurance card we could find in the glove compartment expired 6 years ago. This is way too much weird stuff, I thought. At best, I'm getting a fat ticket. At worst, I'm going to be seeing this guy later in court.

Unbelievably, the officer told us, "Well, your license checks out and I've got no reason to believe your aunt and uncle don't have insurance. I never give a warning for going 20 miles over the speed limit, but you guys are from out of town and don't know the roads and from your clothes it looks like you were just at a funeral, so just pay attention on the way home."

And he let us off with a warning. MINNESOTA NICE IS REAL.

—6—

The other thing I have to say about our week here is: thank goodness for kids at a funeral. They were all playing in the foyer after the service and reminding us not to be too sad, because life is still good. A world without kids is just not a place I would want to live at all.

Speaking of kids, I met my stepbrother's wife and kids for the first time. The kids, ages 2, 4, and 6, were the nicest, most mild-mannered kids I've ever seen in my life, probably because their parents were the nicest and most mild-mannered parents I've ever seen in my life. 

When we went to a dinner buffet, the 6-year-old was explaining to me that she didn't want to put more food on her plate than she could eat, because she didn't want to waste food. When I told her that she was pretty wise for a 6-year-old, she shrugged and said "My daddy teached me."

My 14-year-old is offended that I keep bringing up how well-behaved they were, but come on. I personally witnessed them break eye contact with a riveting episode of Paw Patrol and voluntarily get up the first time a parent called for them. I've never seen anything like it.

—7—

My stepmom put a ton of effort into collecting pictures and memorabilia to display at the visitation and the service, one of which was my dad's baby book from 1954.

This page made me laugh out loud, because all of the "notable" moments my grandma wrote down were my dad falling out of and off of things. And then, on Aug 8, "Got lost in cornfield" (my dad grew up on a farm.)

I admit to feeling inadequate about my stepbrother's gentle parenting approach and his perfect kids, but this is the stock I'm descended from. And I'm weirdly proud of it.

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7 Quick Takes about Very Sad News, the Case Against Technology, and Being the Coolest Mom at the Library

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

It's been a really long week, because we got some very sad news over the weekend: my dad passed away unexpectedly.

He was actually supposed to come visit us with my stepmom next week, and now we'll be flying there for his memorial service instead.

I've been asked to write his obituary, and although I've been writing for my whole life in some fashion or another this is definitely an intimidating assignment. I hope I'll be able to write something fitting. He was a great doctor, a generous dad, and a loving grandpa that the kids all adored.

—2—

The day after we got the news that my dad had died, we went to our Google photo album and used the face ID feature to comb through pictures and videos of Grandpa throughout the years.

It was actually not a sad experience like I thought it might be, it actually made me really happy to see all the fun things we've done together. 

The photo ID feature was surprisingly good, it even included pictures where my dad was half turned away from the camera or not even completely in the shot. I did have one question, though. And that question is: WHAT THE HECK, GOOGLE PHOTOS?

In this photo, it correctly identified my daughter, even though she was a toddler, but for some reason was like, yes, that person in the striped shirt is absolutely a man. (That person is me, for reference.)

I mean, I get that my dad and I have the same nose because that's how genetics works, but come on. He's got a goatee. That's just mean.

—3—

Phillip was in France for work this week of all weeks, and he was willing to come home if we needed him but I told him we could manage. The kids are older now, old enough to understand that they really need to pitch in so I can get through this really tough week, and they did. We did it. I'm proud of us.

There was also an outpouring of love and offers of support from friends in town or people at church, and I know I'm an introvert because two that stood out in my mind the most are:

• My friend who hung a bag of sympathy treats for me on the doorknob without ringing the doorbell so I didn't have to talk to anyone
• Someone at church who came up to me and said "You don't have to say anything, I just want to give you a hug" and then hugged me and immediately left 

To be clear, I do like to talk to people, I just prefer to do it when I'm ready and not necessarily when I'm approached in public unprepared.

—4—

The weirdest thing about losing someone you love is that life doesn't stop, so even though it feels weird to post about random takes that happened throughout the week, that was our reality: moments of grief mixed with moments of ordinariness, and I'm trying to get a handle on that.

I spotted a hawk landing on a branch in our backyard with some prey it had caught, and my boys ran and got a monocular to watch it eat.

Right from the comfort of our living room. It's like we live in a wildlife preserve.

—5—

PSA for the people who design everything in the world now: just because you can do something using technology doesn't mean that you have to. Or even that you should. Sometimes it's just annoying.

I used to be able to plug my headphones into my phone and music would instantly come out of them; now I have to troubleshoot the Bluetooth every time I want to listen to something. 

I used to be able to adjust the A/C dials in the car by touch, but then someone really smart decided it was a better idea for everything to be touchscreen so we have to take our eyes off the road all the time.

This week, I was in Walmart buying a replacement headlight bulb for the van, and for some reason they had the bulbs in a locked case. Of course, the "key" is now digital: they open the app on their phone, point it at the lock, and it opens. Unless there are technical difficulties and the employee tries to open the case looking like a wand-waving wizard for 5 minutes and nothing happens.

I was standing there staring at the lightbulb I want, 6 inches in front of my face, but I had to leave the store and just come back another day. What was wrong with the physical key? Nothing. Nothing was wrong with it! 

I was born in the 1900s and it shows.

—6—

My 6^th grader sometimes walks to the public library after school and hangs out in the teen room. He recently stopped wanting to go, and a few days later he told me it was because the other kids started playing Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox there and it was making him uncomfortable.

Initially, I just sympathized with him and let it go. Stuff like that happens all the time: our family just has different standards for what we do on Sundays or what kind of clothes we wear or the language we use, and sometimes it's hard to be different but that's the way it is. So it wasn't until about a week later that I was sitting at a red light and all of a sudden realized: "Wait a minute. None of those kids should be playing Grand Theft Auto. Why is there a M-rated game in the room for kids 13-17?" 

So I went in to talk to the librarians about it. Apparently they had a Game Pass subscription but never enabled content filters. And now that I talked to them about it, they  did.

I'm sure the other kids will be thrilled when they head to the library this spring after the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto VI. #sorrynotsorry

—7—

If you have 17 minutes, watch this amazing TED talk:


It's about parenting for comfort (the kids' comfort, that is) versus parenting for confidence. The latter includes letting them be uncomfortable, sometimes on purpose. 

The speaker happens to work with kids who have specific phobias, but this is advice that's applicable to all kids: maybe you just don't get them a cell phone or the name brand water bottle or whatever it is that "everyone" has. Even if you could do it, sometimes you just... don't. It's good for them.

Raising confident kids is a topic close to my heart, so if you want more practical tips head over to this article next and pick out a few you'd like to try depending on how old your kids are!

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