On New Year’s Eve, right at midnight, my kids and I run around the block with our suitcases, in hopes the new year will bring us more travel. This was us last year and guess what? This year we’re celebrating New Year’s Eve in Peru! Try it.  You never know. You might enjoy it as much as we do… plus you might even travel somewhere unexpected. Here’s to going places! And by the way, I hate resolutions, but I do plan to write more in 2016. I’ve been a little lost and out of habit but I’m finding my way again. Stay tuned.

I dreamed I was at a party eating a brownie that was layered first with a chocolate graham cracker crust, then a fudgey brownie, then a layer of pillowy marshmallow and all that drizzled with caramel and topped with nuts. (I must’ve seen one waiting in line at Starbucks, though I hate to even admit ever being in line there.) It was delicious until I realized what it was and that I had swallowed it! Pretty certain I would explode from both ends, as I tend to do when I eat wheat, I panicked. I woke up running to my bathroom, grateful it was a just a food dream.

At 40 something, I figure a little product can’t hurt, especially when I’m going out of my house in the evening without my kids somewhere other than Safeway. Unfortunately, I have no experience with any of it. I mean, sure, I’ve purchased stuff over the years, but generally speaking, with the exception of lipstick, it sits in my bathroom cabinet unused.

Today I decided to wander into Origins to see what they had. I like the way their things smell and it seems pretty natural with the tree logo and all.

The young woman there looked at me with what I can only assume was pity when I admitted to her I had no idea what I was looking for. I tried to keep my cool while, bless her pointy little head, she steered me to their “Starting Over Star Collection” section saying “my mom is totally addicted to it” Oh wow! That’s so nice to hear (NOT). Instead of telling her to stuff it, I listened to her whole spiel about how this cream is an ‘alternative to injections’ and this one ‘reduces the appearance of lines and wrinkles’ while I also tried not to laugh. I mean she took it all *so* seriously.

But then, she pointed me to the collection’s ‘Age Erasing Eye Cream’. OMG! There are creams that erase age? I was sold. “I’ll take that. That’s exactly what I was looking for. I just didn’t know what it was called”… and I left spending more money than I did at the farmer’s market that day. And if you’ve ever been to a farmer’s market around here…you know you can easily spend a fortune on a bag of vegetables and eggs.

Now I’m heading out to meet some friends at a bar …with my age erased with my new eye cream. Here’s to starting over!

As a mom who likes weaving and metaphors, this quote really resonates with me…

“Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.” Fred Rogers

Sometimes when I look at this photo, I play a game asking myself which person I am in any given situation. Often I’m somewhere close to the third guy to the right, with my tail a bit stuck in the muck, but I’m reaching forward knowing the fourth is ultimately the one I want to be.

The sculpture called “Freedom” is by Zenos Frudakis. It’s in Philadephia, PA on 16th and Vine Streets. From Frudakis’s statement about his vision for the sculpture:

“Although for me, this feeling sprang from a particular personal situation, I was conscious that it was a universal desire with almost everyone; that need to escape from some situation – be it an internal struggle or an adversarial circumstance, and to be free from it.“

At 46, I finally appreciate how smart it is to wear an apron. This one is from my grandmother, Bessie. She loved to cook and always wore an apron. When I wear it, I think of her. So many happy memories I have, of helping Bessie in the kitchen.