Perhaps those women’s magazines I vacillate between loathing and buying aren’t so awful after all.
You know the ones I mean. They publish writers who wax about the joys of reinventing oneself and casting sensibilities — along with one’s Visa card, apparently — to the wind in order to find your bliss. In their world, dietary fiber, Manolo Blahnik pumps and Costa Rican eco-resorts cure most evils. And what they don’t, an excellent moisturizer will.
Frankly, I don’t have the energy to finish my original self, let alone contemplate reinventing it. Finding my bliss through breeding pygmy goats or restoring a rusted-out Airstream trailer wouldn’t work if Matthew McConaughey himself (I may be middle-age but I’m not dead) was my 4-H adviser.
But all was forgiven when I happened on an article in More magazine by someone who believes smart people are always making everything harder than it needs to be. Simplicity, she insisted, is the key to less-stressful living.
Finally, vindication, my as-yet-unfinished inner self exclaimed. What I always figured to be lazy or clueless behavior just might be the directional sign for the road less traveled. After all, I seem to arrive at the same destination as my fellow travelers, just along a more circuitous route.
This is quite a breakthrough for me, the daughter and wife of Real Men who can repair clothes dryers gone bad, wire their own houses and whose idea of a good time is assembling Heathkit (Original box! Manual included!) radios. I’ve gone through life figuring everyone rinsed 15-year-old paintbrushes until the water ran clear so they could look as good as new for another 15. Overspending is not an option in my household, where Quicken software tells me in no uncertain terms how much I’ve dropped this year on personal grooming (category 108) and miscellaneous household operation (category 099).
But thanks to that article, I feel liberated. Why break out a tape measure and level when you can duct-tape pictures to the wall when they won’t hang straight? Call me wild and crazy, but maybe buying pasta sauce in a jar rather than making it from scratch won’t cost me my heavenly rewards.
Iron only the upper one-third of top sheets? Plop a preassembled planter of flowers into my patio pots and call it good? Wow. This girl’s on a roll.
As wonderful as it is, simplicity doesn’t stretch far enough to cover all situations. Like saying goodbye to The Enterprise and my job as the Edmonds reporter after nearly 2-1/2 years on the beat.
I’ve lost the wrestling match with that still small voice that’s been telling me I no longer can do this job justice on a part-time basis. With tremendous growth on the horizon for both Edmonds and Woodway, this beat deserves someone’s full-time attention.
To share what I’ve learned during more than five years of covering Edmonds for community newspapers would take more space than I have here. But I will say I am the envy of my fellow reporters because of the civility and customer-service orientation of the Edmonds city staff and elected officials with whom I deal daily.
I’ll spare you the long list of what I’ll miss as your Edmonds reporter. I will say, though, I already am saddened about not being here to finish covering redevelopment plans for the Harbor Square/old Safeway property near the waterfront. I believe that project literally will define Edmonds for years to come and it is the most exciting thing to land on my plate, journalistically speaking, in a long time.
I can’t say goodbye without thanking all of the people who have been helped me appreciate all things Edmonds. That also goes for my bosses, who gave this at-home mom with an 18-year gap on her resume and laughable computer skills a chance to return to the only job she’s wanted to do since she was a kid.
I don’t know in what direction I’m being nudged, but that’s part of the adventure — maybe even reinvention — isn’t it?
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
