Enumerated Update

Hello and good morning!  Did you have a good weekend? We had a wonderful weekend that left us wishing for spring. 

Typing "good morning" reminds me of a friend and former colleague who detested e-mail communication that began in a time-sensitive manner (e.g., good morning, good afternoon, good evening) because, he argued heatedly, how could the sender know when the missive would be read? To be fair, his peeve began with written correspondence. When he observed a letter with the salutation of "Good morning, Cathi" instead of the traditional "Dear Cathi" he launched into a routine about how unprofessional it was to assume I would be reading the letter in the morning... that I would retrieve the morning mail in a robe and read the letter just in time for the morning greeting.  He later extended his disdain to electronic communication. 

Anyrate, here's what's going on with us:

1)  #6: Catherine Grace lost tooth #6 last week while we were grabbing a quick bite to eat. Was that tooth #5 or 6? Honestly, they are dropping out like rain from the sky, and it's getting hard to keep track. I'll get back to you after I confer with the Tooth Fairy.

2) Bitter:  Lauren still hasn't lost a single tooth, and she is bitter.

3)  iPhone:  Now that Skip is an iPhone user, we have been comparing notes on usage. Since I have been a devotee since 2007, I showed him all of my tips and tricks for functioning in a non-Blackberry world.  He has made the transition surprisingly well for someone who vowed we would have to pry his Blackberry out of his hand. He has learned a couple of tricks, too. First, he clued me into a battery savings strategy by closing all of the open icons. (Double-click the home screen button, and then close the open icons as they appear in the bottom row.) I had been walking about with all operations and apps actively running.  When we closed the apps on my iPhone 5 (that I had been using for about 6 weeks), I had 32 operations running. However, when I tried this battery savings strategy on my old 3GS (that I have owned for years, since it was first available), I had 68 ops/apps running.  68!

On a somewhat related note, we disagree on the battery display. There are those who like having the battery percentage displayed, and there are those who do not.  Skip is in the former camp, whereas I am in the latter. The percentage indicator makes me nervous. Anything below 90% is unwelcome; anything below 50% makes me panic and immediately go into conservation mode, whereas Skip is perfectly comfortable dropping down to 10% or less.

3) Nerdy Union: Clearly, ours is a marriage built on nerdiness.

4) Bags: Can we talk about handbags for a moment? Are you all feeling the winged look for spring? As a perpetual fan of clean, sleek lines, I am struggling to get on board. From Tod's, Ralph Lauren, BCBG to The Sak, the wing is big.  For those who prefer a cleaner line, Celine nailed it perfectly here, but completely jumped the shark with the winged look here.

Since my children crumble Goldfish crackers in my purses, I'll probably stick with something in the existing inventory versus picking up something new.

5) Live: When is the last time you saw a live band or went to a concert? Since we budget our babysitting carefully, we rarely see live music.  The last band we saw in concert was REM in 2003 - 10 years ago! How is it possible that we haven't been to a concert in a decade?

Sure we have children for whom arrangements must be made, but there's also the rising cost of concert tickets. Somewhere in our home is a rather large stack of concert tickets stubs confirming that I used to go to concerts on a regular basis.  Of course, the dates on those stubs will reveal that attendance occurred when tickets were realistically priced

Do you still go to concerts? If so, how often? If not, when did you stop?

6) Selfies: Over the last few months, there's been a lot of buzz about moms who stay behind their cameras, safely documenting their families lives while making sure to stay out of the photos.  [Guilty.] The first photo I posted of myself was on 11-08-08, a year after I started publishing this site, and that was only at my husband's insistence. Since then, I have added maybe 6-8 photos -- all at someone else's  urging.  I don't loathe my photos (although I don't love them either), and the tendency to not publish photos of oneself is analogous to not wanting to hear one's own voice. It's as simple as that.

The mom-guilt angle on all of this says that moms are, in effect, not leaving an accurate paper trail. Our children will miss out on our images one day when they scour the family albums.  While there may be a scintilla of truth to that argument, there are likely plenty of images of all of us  -- without them finding daily images of me posted to this site.  Having said that, some of my favorite sites are those where the author posts "selfies" often, sometimes daily. In fact, I always feel a stronger connection to the writing when there are photos of the writer him/herself.  While that may not be for me, it's clear those images help the reader see how neatly the writer fits into her own story.  This may or may not make sense, but it's kind of like how revelatory dialogue is in a work of fiction. The author can describe a character, but until we hear the character's own words we don't really "get" him/her.

Photos are also analogous to conversation on social media platforms.  So... if we refuse to post selfies, are we refusing to participate in the conversation? How often is appropriate? Gabrielle Blair talked about this very issue last week, and here is Allison Tate's post that got the conversation started.

As for me, my frequency will likely remain the same.  In an effort to take some baby steps, I have posted more to Instagram in an effort to get used to the idea.

7) Indescribable: Do you know who first used the word "indescribable"?

I guessed Shakespeare, but Skip reports that Thomas Jefferson coined the word when talking about the Natural Bridge.  You may be wondering whether or not you need to know that bit of trivia.  Skip just asked me, and I decided to pose the question to you. Did you guess it?

8) Eagles: We watched a few minutes of an Eagles retrospective over the weekend. (I'm not that familiar with them... who knew there was that much drama?)  Our big take-away is this: Whenever William George gets angry and throws things, we say he's "Joe Walsh-ing" the place. 

That covers everything... the milestones, the trivial, the inconsequential... etc.  What is happening with you?