We had our housewarming party this past weekend and it went very well.

My parents drove from Grand Junction to attend. As a housewarming present, they brought all my junior high and high school yearbooks, letters, journals, all my college notebooks, plus a few items from childhood, including Holly and Heather Hobby dolls and my Cabbage Patch Kid, who was tragically named Merle Hara.

The most interesting box contains treasures I saved from my early high school years. Mixed in with magazine clippings of 1985’s most energetically pastel fashions was a list I made the summer before my freshman year of high school.

I must have checked the goals I reached. I’d like to congratulate myself for the complexion improvement and the BLAST I had at camp. It is fortunate I realized how to spell candystriping, or my summer may have been much different than intended.

Part of me snickers at Young Gretchen fretting over memorizing the map of my future high school. Hubby thinks my dude-meeting goal is hilarious. I gave up making lists of my goals a long time ago, unfortunately. There is great value in the act of expressing the direction you hope to steer your life. I admire the optimism of goal-setters and would love to feel the rush of making a checkmark next to a goal, accomplished.

originally posted October 2005…summers are for re-runs, aren’t they?

This time around, I am experiencing strong aversions to all kinds of food. This is unusual for me.

Consequently, trips to buy groceries entail filling the cart with Kleenex and 30 containers of yogurt and some Snickerdoodle cookie dough. Nothing sounds appealing. Dinnertime rolls around and the thought of cooking makes me teary-eyed. Thankfully, my husband has taken over mealtimes on most nights.

A few days ago, we were talking on the phone. He was at work, I was at home. He asked what I was going to make for dinner, with a note of hopeful naivete in his voice. I said I hadn’t a clue. He replied that I just don’t cook anymore.

I reminded him that the previous night I cooked dinner.

“You boiled noodles and microwaved some corn dogs.”

We said our goodbyes. I made no food-related promises.

A few hours after this conversation, Righteous Indignation smacked my forehead. Where had she been all afternoon?

My husband didn’t give me credit for the ice cream sandwiches.