Melissa, Oh?

Things I learned while staying with my grandmother at the hospital and rehab center:
= Nurses at the rehab center are not the same as nurses at the hospital. Nurses at a hospital are nice, with good bedside manner. And they come when you push the call button. And they don’t roll their eyes and act [...]

It’s 1980-something and I’m in the back of mom’s station wagon, sitting on blue vinyl with my neighbor Lauren sitting across from me, and we’re on the way to school. Jenny and Kevin are in the car as well. Lauren says to me, “Why don’t you ask your mom if the tooth fairy is real?”
It’s never [...]

So, better late than never on the Christmas blog post, right? I’ll try not to bore you with all of the details, but I wanted you to see what my grandmother thought of this present I made for her. Instead of telling you, I’ll show you with pictures, all beautifully captured by Jeff:

 
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Also, I had [...]

Spent the night at my grandmother’s the night before Christmas, so I put on the pants I had packed to go over there. I knew they were too big when I was wearing them and I spent the day pulling them up. But wow, I didn’t realize how horrible they looked until I saw the [...]

When I was a child, going to visit my grandmother, who we all call Mia, I would ask her what we were going to eat for dinner.
“Food,” she would always reply, in a tone that clearly conveyed “Get the hell outta my kitchen” or “Whatever I serve, you will eat.”
Mia has never been much of [...]

I am a half-marathoner.
I did it. And I can honestly say it could not have gone any better.
The weather was absolutely perfect (overcast and rainy, around 60 degrees) for the Spinx Runfest Half Marathon in Greenville, SC. My clothes were perfect, nothing was rubbing or hurting or cutting or annoying. The new race number belt [...]

Last night I dreamed I was 5 years old. I was at my parents’ old house on Silverwood Drive, the one with wood paneling walls and linoleum everywhere. My brother was a baby, sitting in his high chair, getting spoon-fed by my mom (ok, so he would have been nursing probably. My timing is off. [...]

Kids. I don’t have any. I don’t want any.
But don’t say I don’t love them. I absolutely love them.
I’ve spent the past few days babysitting for my nieces (ages 3 and 1) while Kevin and Jenn are on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico), and I have learned a few things about kids:
= a sippy cup [...]

This weekend, in pictures and thoughts:
The run:
I didn’t take pictures of everything, of course. I didn’t photograph me waking up at 4:30 a.m. just to get my run in because I knew I had a busy day ahead. I was home before the sun came up, so it would have been a picture of darkness [...]

This was not my race to run, and when I approached the team van near the end of it and saw the physical pain written all over their faces – I was both relieved and jealous I hadn’t been a part of it.
This race falls into the category of “insane.” When I asked veteran runners [...]