Category Archives: Life

Life is not like in the commercials

Events, Life

I don’t watch that much television — and rarely watch commercial television these days — but when I do watch broadcast TV, I don’t ignore the commercials. My husband switches channels when a commercial comes on or, if we’ve recorded the program, fast forwards through them, but I sort of like the bit of modern-day “culture” I see in TV ads.

There are three commercials that I remember preceding milestones in my life. The first was a diaper commercial. It featured a young family at the zoo looking at the animals. At the end of the commercial the baby (toddler, I think) is picked up by her father and nods her head — possibly in response to an animal nodding its head. This commercial caused my hormones to scream “WANT BABY NOW!”. So we had a baby, and as wonderful as that baby was — she never nodded to the animals at the zoo. And we didn’t use disposable diapers, so that ad was wasted on us as far as the advertising industry was concerned.

The next commercial that I remember using as a benchmark for my role as a mother was for a brand of beverage that I never planned on serving my kids, but liked the whole idea of my kids friends hanging out at our house. I wanted to be like the mother in this commercial:

For several reasons, some unknown to me, but others known, kids never wanted to hang out here. Maybe I should have bought Sunny Delight after all.

The last television advertisement that I felt an emotional response to was one I just saw the other day. This one, though, I suspected would not be true to life since the past year didn’t live up to my expectations. It did make me cry though:

Note: Unfortunately this video is no longer available and I don’t remember what it was.

After taking Clare to college, it turns out that this was the most true to life of the three commercials. We did have a feeling of dismay when we first saw the dorm room but after making the bed and after her roommate’s parents set up some things they’d bought (not at Walmart) it did look a little more cozy than at first glance.

One thing I’ve learned (the hard way) in the past 18 years of being a parent (and a human being, for that matter) is to avoid having set expectations about life events. Life turns out the way it is going to turn out — one cannot know exactly how scenes are going to be played out and one should not expect that everything is going to be exactly like one has planned. Sometimes (usually) it is worse. No set expectations improves the odds that it will be better.

Yesterday

Life, ,

Yesterday was a busy day — but most Saturdays in December tend to be that way.

It was the first wrestling meet this season for my son’s wrestling team. It was a “tri-meet” and we beat both teams — yay.

We had our first snow of the season — only a light dusting, but it looked pretty coming down and was a pleasant surprise to see when we left the high school gymnasium at 5:00.

Last night was my company holiday party. I work from home, part time, for a consulitng company and consider the party one of my “benefits”. Free food & alcohol for an evening. Plus dancing and fake gambling if you’re into that. Actually I don’t like to go that much. I don’t know anyone there — this year I recognized a couple people from my days of working in the office (for a company that was bought by the one for which I work now), but Dean really wanted to go.

Last year we had a good time — sitting with folks who also worked at home or in other states. This year we sat with people who work in the office. They all seemed to know each other and were very young. When did consulting companies allow 12 year olds to work for them?

Marcia’s funeral was yesterday. I spent much of the day thinking about that — that it still seems impossible.

Over the river and through the woods

Events, Life, Memories, , ,

to cut ourselves a tree…

We did it again — we took our almost annual trip to Loudoun County to cut down our Christmas tree. We’ve been doing this since the kids were quite small — Clare might have been 6 when we started.

This is the last year we’ll go to Jacobson’s Tree Farm though — suburbia is moving in. Next year there will probably be McMansions where the trees used to be. Loudoun County is one of the fastest growing counties in the DC Metro area. People who want to live in the country, yet be close to DC are buying up the land and building homes there. (And according to Wikipedia, it is the wealthiest county in the country.)

But this post is not about suburban sprawl. It’s about our annual trip to cut down a Christmas tree.

We ate a delicious breakfast of Dutch Babies (weird name for a baked pancake sort of thing — very reminiscent of a Yorkshire pudding). Then piled in the Highlander for our trip to Virginia. The weather didn’t cooperate. It was chilly and rainy. We would have preferred snow, of course, but it didn’t happen.

Sure, Virginia is a short distance away via bridges and interstates, but we go the long way. The way that involves a ferry, country roads and wooded scenery. We cheated this time and drove up 270 instead of going on River Road where it actually does follow the river. We got off 270 in Gaithersburg and drove along Rt. 28 until we found White’s Ferry Road then took the ferry to Virginia, then drove to the tree farm.

The Jubal Early @ White's Ferry

When we first began getting our trees from Jacobson’s the farm was covered in a forest of pine and fir trees. It was hard to choose trees, because they were so plentiful. The area was so big that the owners brought wagons pulled by tractors to patrons when they’d chosen their trees. Now there might have been 100 trees left in three spots. Two were a bit of a walk, but one was pretty close to the parking lot. We headed there first, not because of its proximity, but because I prefer Canaan Firs for my Christmas tree. We found one right away, Dean unceremoniously cut it down (we forgot to thank it for giving its life so we could put presents under it). Dean and Andrew carried it to the shed where it was vibrated (to help it shed loose needles) and tied up in string. Then Andrew and Dean tied it to the top of the Highlander while Clare and I went into the shed to warm up.

Our Tree

Being a rainy day early in the season, there were few people at the tree farm. The owners said they’d be up and running at a different location in a couple of years. We gave them our email address so they could tell us when they were ready for business.

DSCF3455

On the way to Leesburg for lunch we stopped at the Old Lucketts Store to look through their 3 floors of antiques. On the top floor I met a man who told me that the store was allegedly haunted. It didn’t surprise me — I felt a chill when entering one of the rooms on the third floor, but that might have been because it was full of previously owned clothes worn by creepy mannequins. Clare and Dean tried on coats, but neither worked out.

We then drove to Leesburg and parked in front of the Leesburg Restaurant — another part of the tradition. Leesburg Restaurant is a dining establishment that’s been around since 1865, according to their sign. The inside of the restaurant is a throwback to a more innocent time — and very art deco-y

Leesburg Restaurant

After eating a cholesterol filled meal we walked to another antique store up the road where we browsed the basement for bargains. Clare found a few things, but the rest of us just looked.

Then we drove back home, taking the ferry again — but taking lesser roads than we took to get to Virginia.

Return Trip Ticket White's Ferry

Dean set the tree up and we got out our decorations. As mentioned in another post, the lights didn’t work, so the tree stood naked for a day. I bought lights the next day and Clare put them on the tree. That’s as far as we’ve gotten. Maybe we’ll decorate it tonight.

The Tree at Home