Friday 5: Play Ball!

1. In what area of your life are you on a roll? This isn’t technically true, but it feels like it is–writing and publishing. I think just by virtue of deciding to really hit it hard this year, I feel like I’m doing a lot, even if most of what I’ve done has been tweaking pieces and submitting them and I’ve only had one published so far this year, a piece on the confidence boost I got from dyeing my hair on Atta Girl. It’s also very counterintuitive, but I’m doing more writing with a 9-month-old than I did pregnant.
2. What’s the most recent spherical food you consumed? Not quite spherical–or at least, they’re spherical when they go in the oven–but strawberry-cheesecake cookies I’m making for Easter. The first tray didn’t turn out great, but that just means we get to eat those. Save the prettier, better ones for the festivities.
3. In what way has your life taken a strange bounce? All of the circumstances surrounding my husband’s job loss last year. In short, in 2019, he found out the site would be moving to Mexico, but with no clear timeline, we didn’t see a point in putting plans to start a family on hold, and because of the relocation, he was entitled to benefits like going back to school for free. I got pregnant that fall. He got word his last day would be in July of last year, a few weeks after my due date, and two weeks before our son was born, they told him to just stay home and he’d be paid through the original end date. He enrolled in school to get an MBA, which is allowing him to stay home with our son for the next two-ish years. So having a nine-month-old while his dad is going back to school wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but hey, it’s working.
4. When did you last hit a home run? I’ll go with that essay published by Atta Girl.
5. When did you last attend a special event for which you needed new clothes? Probably my own wedding, honestly. I tend to think it’s not necessary to buy new clothes for every wedding you’re a guest at, so I don’t–I think people like to use it an excuse to do so, and it is a good one, but I also think people confuse “want to” with “have to” on that one. And while I wasn’t really attending anything, I’d say being pregnant was a special event, and I certainly did need new clothes for that. Not many, since I was working from home and COVID hit and I barely left the house, but still.

From Friday 5.