Upon a Sunny Day

My daughter and I are magazine people.  By that I mean what probably seems obvious.  We like magazines.  She actually subscribes to Vogue, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar.  I check House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living and an occasional Vegetarian Times out at the library.  Today I even picked up an American Craft.

It’s not that we don’t like to read books.  Believe me, we do.  My daughter just finished The Fault In Our Stars (can we say tear jerker) and I’m reading Divergent.  Yes, we like YA (young adult) lit.  And books made into movies starring Shailene Woodley.  Really, we read a variety of things, as does my son.

And speaking of my son, he is currently the biggest news hound I know.  The missing airplane?  He knows the facts.  That ship filled with rats headed for England?  Ask him the details.  North Korea?  South American dictators?  He keeps up with it all via the internet.  You know, Twitter feeds and tumblr and all that sort of thing.

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Today I turned in our cable box to Time Warner.  And that’s okay because cable is not a necessity.  Truthfully I don’t care so much about tv.  And despite the fact my kids recently became strangely interested in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, they can handle not having cable.  Son Jamie is away at college until summer break and daughter Allie needs to prepare for AP exams and the like.  So…..cable is again, not something we can’t live without.

Yet turning in the cable box was an emotional experience.  Why?  Well, I turned it in because we need to make some financial adjustments.  Cut back, so to speak.  And while I enjoy being frugal, the reason behind the return business was because of the marital separation our family is experiencing.  I found myself struggling this morning as the kind young lady helping me with our account told me she could help me find a less expensive plan.  I wanted to shout, “My husband and I are separated!  I don’t care what other plans are available.  Just let me sign the form and get out of here.  Please.”

Lately, so very much becomes an emotional struggle.  People tell me that’s natural, considering the circumstances.  It’s an extremely difficult time of life.

So I suppose it’s a good thing my daughter and I are magazine people.  She can get lost in a world of fashion and I can obtain decorating ideas.  We can try new recipes.  We can experiment with Martha Stewart’s “good things”.  Son Jamie can keep up with what the Louisville Cardinals are doing (which is most likely more healthy for him than the Kardashians) as we enter March Madness as well as keep an eye on the Mexican drug cartel news.  And we always have John Green books to read.  Life, however slowly, goes on.  And as Martha says, “that’s a good thing.”