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I like to say that my aunt is a live copy of Our Bodies Ourselves. By that I don't mean that she is an open book. Rather, throughout the years she has given me honest information about what happens to our bodies as we age. She tells me all the obvious things like at 35 I'll have to get a mammogram, but she's also told me a lot of things that no one ever talks about like floaties in your eyes

The week Merlin died was terrible to say the least. A couple days after he passed away, I got a phone call from my ob/gyn. Since when do doctor's ever call with good news? I couldn't figure out why he was calling me at all.I forgot I had gone in for a pap smear. Every year since I turned 18 I've gone in for one without fail and it's always been negative. This one it turns out was positive.

Did we really light the last candles of Hannukah tonight? Is Christmas really next week? The holidays seemed to pop out of nowhere...as they do every year. Seriously have you ever had a year where you felt completely prepared and unrushed? Our younger son (YS) finished his last day of school before break complete with a holiday party with terrible looking hair. Somehow I never got around to

This past fall I needed to go buy Sudafed for my cold. It was either that or walk around feeling like my teeth were going to fly out of my mouth any moment and zoom across the room like a button popping off a pair of pants that are too tight. Apparently it had been a long time since I had bought Sudafed because I was surprised to learn it is now a controlled substance. I needed to go up to the

Today is the winter solstice and my younger son's half birthday. He was born on the summer solstice, June 21.As Unitarian Universalists, we hear about the winter solstice in the winter pageant the kids in our church put on every year. We talk about the physical and the historical aspects of it. There's one family though in our church who actually celebrates it, and it's such a neat story of

It's no secret that I hadn't been feeling too much in the Christmas spirit this year between Merlin and the my surprise procedure that I had last month. In fact the Big Giraffe was the one who did all the Christmas shopping this year because honestly mental state aside, I just physically felt crummy.Christmas can be a tough time for me anyway because I tend to get homesick. As much as I enjoy

Sometimes there's nothing to do, but laugh, right? The Big Giraffe and I do not have the same last name. Here's the honest truth about it. It really annoys me when people call me Mrs. Giraffe although not as much as when they call me Mrs. Big Giraffe and use my husband's complete name. If your name is Susan would you want to be called Jane? Probably not. You would probably correct the person

Back in November my aunt had offered to let us use her time share in New York City for the New Year. Not the whole year, silly, from December 30th - January 2 at the Manhattan Club which is located just north of Times Square! This was right around when Merlin got sick though and so while we really appreciated the offer, we couldn't accept it. A little while after he passed away though I called

Not surprisingly there's not exactly a lot of downhill skiing in Chicago or its suburbs. I didn't learn to ski until I was 14. After that, I went skiing with my youth group in Michigan once a year. Also not surprisingly there's not a lot of skiing in NYC. The Big Giraffe didn't learn how to ski until he was 27. The state of New York was offering a wonderful program called 1,2,3 Learn to Ski

I entered the last year of my early thirties yesterday. Oh come on! 34 is still early thirties. At least that's what I've been telling myself! Some birthdays are obviously better than others. This one takes the cake, so to speak, for being one of the best ever. Yes, it was really that good!It started on Thursday. Sally HP had previously IM'd me to tell me that she would be picking me up at

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