Right on schedule, the sparkling sunshiny days of April and early May have given way to a classic Pacific Northwest start on summer.
After weeks of beautiful spring weather and even a chance to work on my first sunburn of the year, fog and misty rain have rolled in with the beautiful big blossoms of the season.
Roses
delphinium
foxglove
peonies
and rhododendrons galore
are bursting into bloom this weekr, and while they love the cool weather and lush humidity, their delicate petals are easily crushed by rain. So there's that to worry about. But over the years, I've dealt with many a rain-induced calamity and learned this lesson well.
I enjoy what my garden has to offer, moment by moment, and remind myself that nothing - not even a fabulous hedge of brilliant rhodies - will last forever.
It's been quite a few years since the day that this bride and groom who once topped my husband's parents' wedding cake stood upon my own, and while no marriage is ever bulletproof, at this point, ours has definitely beaten the odds.
In honor of this special day, here are a few observations about what has helped us stay together:
Compatible values.
My husband and I have different interests, different energies, different personality traits. On the Ennegram scale, he's a hardcore 1 and I'm a total 2; in Meyers-Briggs speak, he comes out as an ITSJ and I'm an INFJ; two types with similar letters that are ideologically many miles apart. When we meet strangers, there's often a bit of head-scratching that goes on as people struggle to connect the dots between his orderly, man-of-few-words, no-nonsense personality, and my Ke$sha/Mrs. Weasely vibes. It's true, we are very different people. But what holds us together, what forms the solid core of our union, is that we agree on what's most important in life. Kindness. Respect. Honesty. Curiosity. Hard work. Selflessness. Love.
Let each other grow.
I have a friend who jokes that her husband courted her under the false pretense that he was a sporty, outdoorsy kind of guy, and then once the ink was dry on the marriage certificate, he totally shattered that illusion by permanently parking himself on the couch. It's a funny story to which many married people can relate; there's definitely some truth about the ways that we relax into marriage. But over the years, we also change. My husband is a very different person than he was when we were dating, and sometimes that frustrates me. But spoilers - I've changed at least as much as he has. Probably more. And it's our willingness to let each other reinvent ourselves that has allowed each of us - and our marriage - to grow.
Roll with the punches.
Yeah, yeah, we all know that the traditional wedding vows lay out some serious warnings of life's potential for problems: "For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health." I thought I knew what I was doing when I agreed to all that. And I did, to the best of my twenty-five-year-old understanding of life. But dude, I had NO idea about some of the curve balls and challenges that were coming our way, and honestly, I'm sure it's better that I didn't. What's more important is that we knew to expect some troubles so when the troubles showed up, we fairly quickly got over our shock and just started figuring out how to deal.
It's a threesome.
Okay, look. This is either going to sound obvious or totally preposterous, depending your own point of view, but trusting in God is the best ace up our marital sleeve. I'm serious. If married people believe that God brought them together and built up their lives together for a reason and a purpose, then it's a whole lot easier to get over the proverbial dirty socks on the floor. Whenever I'm annoyed with my husband - who by the way has never, ever thrown a single dirty sock on the floor and almost certainly never will - God has a way of reminding me, "Sure, you have a legitimate grievance but then again, you haven't had to change a single light bulb or battery in the last three decades. What's that worth to you?" He's the ultimate good-faith negotiator who keeps both my husband and me at our best when we need it most and without him, we would certainly fall short.
* * * * *
And a final thought that may be the most important one of all. In our first few years of marriage, we actually did struggle with that classic marital conundrum - should the toothpaste tube be squeezed from the bottom or the middle? After debating the issue with all the rational firepower we each could muster and still not coming to a meeting of the minds, we resolved the problem once and for all by buying ourselves our own tubes of toothpaste.
That's a small price to pay for a lifetime of staying together.
"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."
-Maya Angelou
Welcome to the hardest working room in my house.
Not only does the laundry room do battle against a dozen loads of laundry a week, but this is the main thoroughfare to the garage, and the pets' dining area.
Well, I should say that my two previous dogs took all their meals here but not Gracie. She is a wild woman who must dine outside. It's not so much her table manners that cause the problem. She literally eats every bite of her food without so much as dropping a crumb because, you know, crumbs are delicious.
And though she drinks like a thirsty camel, she doesn't splash around too badly. No, the problem comes when my beautifully feathered Irish Setter lifts her head from the drinking bowl, and water streams in cascades and rivulets from her lips to her chest and on a good day, all the way down to her belly. She's earned the nickname, Niagara Falls, and it suits her well.
But wait. Back to my point.
The thing about this room is that despite the constant wear and tear, I've done very little in the way of updates or some much needed renovations.
Oh, the walls have been painted a few times. They are still my white of choice, Behr's Bleached Linen.
We've run through a few washers and driers over the years. These seemingly small Bosch units run plenty big super-sized loads even though the machines maintain sleeker profiles than the typical American brands. Love.
And maybe ten years ago, I hung my second-born's monochrome circle art and three wood shelves along the main wall, which definitely bumped up the style factor.
This $20 bought me a whole lot of happiness.
I also sprung for a bitty little mirror with a round wooden peg which I inexplicably love. My purse hangs there and every time I pick it up or drop it off, that mirror sparks a new round of joy in my heart.
See the item on the white board that says "laundry room floor"? Yeah. That's been there for years.
But otherwise, the laundry room carries on much the same as it always has. And it has become somewhat of a battered affair.
Natural birch peg railings came from Crate and Barrel back in the day. I think I may have bought them before we moved from Chicago.
Hanging baskets were a catalog purchase from the babyhood days. The larger one, which now holds my daughters' slip ons, used to house a stash of my favorite catalogs back in the day. Oh, the memories of the hours I used to spend quietly window shopping through catalogs while my babies took their afternoon naps. What an extravagant use of my precious time.
And that white board is a relic of the homeschooling era, when it was taken down off the wall and carted around the house for endless purposes, most of which had nothing to do with me. Now it mostly stays fastened to the wall, covered in lists of appointments, project notes, and the ubiquitous to-dos.
The dish to the right of the faucet is the cats' watering hole - usually there are a couple more dishes on the counter holding the dregs of one of their wet food feasts. However, Gracie makes a daily habit of jumping up and grabbing the dishes, carrying them off in her teeth to her spot on the couch where she carefully licks out every molecule of cat food. It's cute but very annoying.
I gotta be honest though - this room has been worn to a frazzle. The sink bears the scars of three decades of painting projects cleaned up here, the old Formica counter tops belong in a mid-century museum, and the floors - well, they have died an undignified death.
It's time - no, it's a decade beyond time - for me to get some work done here. The money has been set aside for a reasonable renovation and I've got a pretty good idea of what I want.
So why don't I just pull the trigger and give this room some love?
I can't say for sure.
Maybe it's these crazy, uncertain times.
Maybe I have attachment issues.
Maybe I secretly love that almond Formica.
Whatever the reason, I recently opened my eyes to find that my resistance to change has led this room to devolve to a messy, cluttered, and ugly space. I'd let the room languish. And a few weeks ago, I decided to fight back.
What do you do with wet dish towels that are waiting to join a load of laundry? My system is to hang them on the side of the washer so they can dry as they bide their time, a solution that is practical but not all that cute.
So I've dedicated myself to a new laundry room attitude. I cleaned out the cupboards so that my supplies no longer have to jostle for space. I restyled the shelves to my satisfaction. Bought a few new towels. Added a happy plant. Cleaned up the clutter on the peg racks.
And probably most importantly, I've been on top of my cleaning routine - sweeping the floor daily, staying on top of getting the clean laundry put away, wiping down the counter pretty much every time I walk by, And I'm finding, much to my surprise, that even with her obvious bumps and bruises, there's still some life in this old girl.
Someday, I will indeed get a new counter - running the entire length of the wall, fingers crossed - and a new floor that is not 80s vinyl. Maybe I'll even ditch the unsightly but incredibly functional plastic laundry baskets.
Gracie says she's not here to critique the decor - she's just hoping to steal some more cat food.
For now, I'll just keep wiping up the cat hair, acknowledging my resistance to change, and waiting for my laundry room's time to come.
You can't make them out in this photo, but beneath the glossy surface of chocolate icing stand three fluffy layers of decadently rich chocolate cake. And if that doesn't say happy birthday, I don't know what does.
Happy birthday to my first-born daughter. Today was her big day, and along with all of our usual ceremony and tradition, we found a way to celebrate Covid-style.
Though she lives nearby - when traffic is clear, just a fifteen minute shot down the expressway - we have kept our social distance these past few months. We text pretty much every day, and made a few six-feet-apart rendezvous for some drop-off and pick-up situations, but as far as actual visits go, we have not hung out since this all began.
But we both decided, she and I, that because we have all been very careful in protecting ourselves from infection, we all felt confident in our health and decided to give this visit a go.
And it was lovely. She rolled in around noon, and we went right to work in the kitchen. Taking turns, we pulled together a triple layer chocolate cake, a deep dish of homemade lasagne, caesar salad right down to the homemade croutons and anchovy dressing, and a loaf of garlic-rosemary bread.
In the midst of all that, we also fit in my usual walk with Gracie, plenty of texting with Younger Sister 2, and a considerable amount of tomfoolery with Younger Sisters 3 and 4.
We then ate dinner
opened presents
collapsed in the family room
eventually revived ourselves for cake and ice cream
and then collapsed again.
In other words, it was a simple and homespun day of birthday fun.
And though Covid forced us to keep the day simple, it also reminded us of what matters most.
Improve customer service while cutting costs with mobility solutions from Stratix. In this retail mobility success story, you'll see how fast growing PGA tour superstores are using mobile handhelds, and mobile printers to drive greater efficiency in their operations. Our philosophy is to grow the game of gold. We have a huge selection of junior products, as well as women's products that can't be found at any other golf store anywhere.
With a typical size of about 60,000 square feet, a PGA tour superstore stocks about 30,000 items, and serves about 750 customers a day. Their goal, improve customer service by reducing the time that store associates spend tasking. What is tasking? It's making price changes. It's taking cycle counts, be sure our inventories are correct, and making necessary adjustments.
PGA tour superstores turn to Stratix for help integrating a mobility solution that will allow to operate more efficiently. We run pretty lean and mean, as far as the back office infrastructure. Try to keep the overhead to a minimum, so that's why a partner in mobility is very important. For it's mobile platform, PGA tour superstore selected rugged mobile devices from Motorola, and mobile printers from Zebra.
All installed and maintained by Stratix. It's just basically pushing a button, scanning it, and turning on the printer and printing out a label. I mean couldn't be any easier. It saves us, I would say, at least 50% if not 75% of time.
You scan the skew, and it reprints a new price label for you, almost instantly, and away you go. It helps on returns. We take a return if it comes back with a receipt to the club desk here. It allows us to go ahead and type in the skew, and immediately put a label back on it, and get it back out on the floor so we can hopefully sell that product.
So with mobile allocation, what we can do is obviously run our low stocks, and help keep ourselves in a better stock position. Helps us with daily operations as far as price changes and cycle counts. So what were the lessons that PGA tour superstore has learned implementing a mobile solution for their business? For one thing, store associates quickly come to rely on. It has to work 100% of the time.
If it doesn't work, you know, the world comes to a stop, so you have to keep it up and operational, which is actually kind of lesson number two, you have to maintain the equipment. For PGA tour superstore the decision to implement a mobility solution, and utilize Stratix to install and maintain it has quickly paid off. It's helped the retail chain improve on job one, raising the bar on customer service. We are going to survive with good customer service, and the only way you can provide that good customer service is to actually be there and help the customer.
So to label the store, to be able to do inventories in the store, to be able to receive product quickly in the store there's no option, you have to do it with mobile technology. Mobile technology working for the enterprise. Stratix, we understand mobility, and the people who use it..
10. A little rusty by now, Burnout: Paradise
is a legend. I wasn't a big fan back then and still aren't, but anyone that knows anything
about racers needs to admit that this game hit the spot with the open-world goodness,
the excellently modelled crashes with the car-body being crunched, with different events
to be chosen from the map and great graphics for its time, this gem certainly may charm
many players. 9.
Ridge Racer: Unbounded is fairly similar
in both gameplay and graphics to Split/Second, but its at least 1 class quality lower. Its
not a top notch product, a rather boring one for longer plays, but if you ran out of ideas
- this one may kill it for ya. 8. The Crew was a major release and one of
the recent flagships for Ubisoft.
It is now pretty stable and awaits a big update with
the release of The Crew: Wild Run, when the graphics will be enhanced (allegedly). As
for the looks, the game did not impress me, as for the driving itself - the cars are poorly
responsive and require getting used to. However, the open-world setting with various tasks
to be done and a reasonably long campaign with random coop events prove that The Crew
has much content to offer. Keep in mind that we recommend trying it out first before buying.
7. Blur was a strong competitor to Split/Second
at the time of the release and many people tended to feel that Blur had the upper hand.
I can see where this was going from, but for me personally the steering and pretty monotone
graphics, as well as poor diversity of the single-player campaign left a lacking experience.
Nevertheless, if you are a fan of arcade racers - you definitely need to check this one out! 6. Skydrift is a game that has been neglected
by the community, so it died off concerning multiplayer real fast, for no good reason.
The game is superb with its nicely designed tracks, 3d maneuvering, various power-ups
and weapons that may change the course of every race in a matter of seconds. The single-player
campaign is enough entertaining to say that the game is well worth its price! 5.
The king of arcade racing for now, in its
raw classic glory, is Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. The notion of the tracks
requiring different types of vehicles and that your machine adapts to this, being either
a car, a boat or a plane is very refreshing and grants plenty of replayability. This game
has no competitor on the PC platform when it comes to couch coop party fun. 4.
Codemasters really made a gem out of DiRT
3, not only by incorporating an excellent gameplay model with a deeply customizable
difficulty level, but also with versatility of the events from standard rally and time
events, and gymkhana stuns, buggy and truck races as well. The scenery and weather conditions
vary and there's really plenty of content here, not to mention that it still looks great.
It's also worth mentioning that if you get the retail key and register the game on Steam,
you get all the available DLCs for free! 3. GRID 2 has the most awesome introduction
with the vintage Ford Mustang that likes to drift like a devil! As with both gaming series
from Codemasters (that is DiRT and GRID) you may setup your assists so you can actually
make an arcade racer out of it. The graphics are awesome and well optimised, a great choice
for all racing fans, especially those that are not maybe exactly up for simulation, but
some extra difficulty is welcome.
2. Split/Second is a vastly underestimated
game. The setting is quite simple, yet effective - you drive through rigged tracks through
cities or sites where explosive charges may be triggered by the racers, blowing up trucks,
collapsing buildings, but if you gather more power by drifiting and other stunts, you can
do even more damage and planes crash down from the sky, towers fall to the ground and
the track routes change to reflect the alteration of the scenery. A great game with terrific
driving model, very comfortable to steer.
1. NFS: Hot Pursuit and its close competitor
- Rivals are top racing games in this line-up. Rivals would've won, if not for the horrific
server disconnects, constant crashes and texture pop-ins in the distance. Nevertheless, the
driving experience, the graphics and audio are unmatched in the series.
Overall fantastic
arcade racing family, with these two as top of the line, also with The Run and Most Wanted
worth mentioning as well. That's it guys and girls, best arcade racers
there are. I'm sure you know at least a couple of more like Blazerush, Driver: San Francisco,
Distance or Flatout series and plenty of others. Let us know about them in the comments! Thanks for watching, this's been Godless from
Pitlord.Eu, now go burn some gas..
