Bear and I were watching TV the other night, and a laundry detergent commercial came on. It was very retro and showed all the generations of women who have been doing laundry, with the dress and the basement décor changing with each generation. It was very banal and just meant to show the history behind whatever brand of detergent it was. I wasn’t even paying attention, actually.

All of a sudden, Bear sits bolt up in his chair and starts giggling like a 4th grader.

“Did you hear that? Tell me you heard that.”
He tivo-ed back a couple seconds to show me the part of this boring commercial that had him crying and pounding the floor.

The voice-over is babbling on and on about the historical thread of laundry and how it ties all of us together and talks about all the generations that have spent their time washing clothes, especially with their brand of laundry detergent.
We have looked for this commercial everywhere online and have had absolutely no luck finding it. But I promise, this is verbatim what the narrator of the commercial says:

“….your great-grandmother did it, your mother did it, your grandmother did it, and maybe even a man or two.”

Are we alone in seeing the humor here? Of course, they’re just trying to throw a bone to all the responsible men who do some laundry, but thanks to a lazy writer, it sounds like your female ancestors were running a dry cleaners-slash-brothel.

This is how I spent my weekend:

These are Giant Tecolote Ranunculus…es. Ranunculi?

I had actually never seen these flowers in person before, but apparently the farm here in Carlsbad grows like 90% of these flowers in the country. They were so exquisite I was just in heaven. The petals are incredibly dense, yet paper thin, and they have a lovely subtle fragrance.

The Flower Fields also grows incredible roses, poinsettias of all varieties, and glorious sweetpeas.

They actually created a maze out of the sweetpea, full of little signs giving you directions and then teasing you when you followed them straight to a dead end.

Don’t you love all the little ladies in their sunhats. They ended up splitting into a couple groups and shouting instructions to each other to try to find their way out.

I was so thoroughly charmed by this place, 50 acres of flowers in the middle of a busy resort town, that I caught myself grinning all day long. The best part about the day was the knowledge that since this place exists about 5 miles from my new house, all these wonderful blooms will grow in my very own yard. My mind is full of sweetpeas climbing up the side fences and roses in the back and ripping out the sensible shrubs in our little front swath of land and filling it to the brim with a riot of these flowers. I just hate silk flowers, so I love love love the idea of having a yard full of flowers I can spread throughout my house.

Even the kitties like the idea:

Up until a few weeks ago, I have never in my married life gone grocery shopping by myself. Whenever I say that to someone their eyes immediately try to escape their face. Believe me, I am well aware of how spoiled I am. And I revel in it.

Until Polly came along, we were a one car family. For our entire eight year marriage, except for a brief period of a few months when Bear borrowed a car from his parents that broke down every time he took it on the freeway. This never really presented a problem because I quite enjoy being home by myself, and we could always arrange it so that I had a car when I needed it. The added bonus behind this minor inconvenience was that I never had to run errands, which I hate with more force than I can hold in my weak little muscles. If we had to go buy something, we’d do it together when Bear got home. I never had to shop for him, or myself for that matter, I never had to go to the post office or the bank or the DMV. It was bliss.

But since we shelled out the funds to get Polly, I feel obligated to make it a worthwhile purchase. Even though I would still rather spend the day making stuff, I have to force myself out of the house occasionally. Today my errand will be going to get a mani/pedi. Oh gosh, I’m so SoCal. But no one wants to look at winter feet. They’re disgusting. I’m not vain, I’m performing a service for all mankind.

Tomorrow I think I’m getting a cut and color. I haven’t dyed my hair since my wedding (boy is that a story for another day) and I’ve decided to lighten it and bring out more of the red. I’m thinking something like this:

I don’t really have a way to justify that.

The other day, in an attempt to get out of the house and to be a better little wifey, I sacked up and went grocery shopping all by my lonesome. I made my list, I brought my iPod, I was ready to face this new challenge. I don’t think I even made it out of the produce section before I was sweating and wondering how in the world people do this with kids in tow. Seriously, do you just buy what you need one day at a time?

It took me three hours to do my shopping for one week. Granted, it was my first time in that grocery store, but still, 3 HOURS! When Bear and I go together, we speed through. I never go without a list, so my job is to consult and keep track and tell him what to look for on every aisle while he pushes the cart and pulls stuff off the shelf. By myself, I had to keep trying to find a spot to pull over where I wasn’t in someone’s way or blocking someone else’s view while I read my list while scanning the shelves while getting my headphone cord tangled around my cart and yanking my iPod onto the floor. And after all that I kept missing items on the list and had to go back and do the whole store over again.

Yesterday I not only went grocery shopping, but I also went Costco grocery shopping with my sister-in-law and her two kids. If she’s any indication, grocery shopping with kids is apparently just a race to fill up the cart with whatever happens to land in there and then you hope something in there can be scavenged together for dinner.

Ten miles away from my current apartment, and five miles away from the houses we’re looking at, this is what I get to see.

I took that last weekend. We had gone to the temple and seen my old friend Mark, driven home and changed, and it was only 5. Bear’s been having wicked stressful weeks lately, and we wanted to pack as much fun and adventure into his day off as was humanly possible, so we raced the setting sun to see how much time we could get strolling along the beach. It took us five minutes to get there, we parked at the little free parking lot up the street, walked out on the sand to take a few pictures and a few deep breaths of salty air, and then just turned around and headed home because that was enough.

Other than the couple of years we lived in Costa Mesa, we’ve never been closer to the beach than 1 1/2 hours. That’s always suited me pretty fine. Whenever presented with the option between ocean or mountains, I’ll choose the mountains. When we plan vacations we have to take turns because Jared always wants a relaxing beach vacation, and I always want to go somewhere where I’ll learn something. I don’t surf, I don’t swim, and I burn like the red head I am. I can never go without sunscreen and a big floppy hat or I’ll be crying for a week.

For some reason, the beach is starting to seep into me now. In the past two weeks, I’ve been down there five times. When prior to this I could probably count my beach experiences on my fingers. I think that knowing we’ll own a house here, and that this will finally become home, makes me think differently about it. When you have to drive a couple hours to get to a beach, it had better be worth it. You’d better get wet and covered in sand, you’d better swim and get some sun, and get your money’s worth out of the day to make it worth the trouble of travel. And I don’t want to get wet or get some sun and I’d like to keep the sand down to a minumum, so it’s never been worth it for me. I never understood what the fuss was about.

Now, all I have to do to make it worth the trouble is take a few deep breaths, admire the view, and listen to the waves. That was worth the drive. Everything else is gravy.

So I get it now.

In these past few weeks, as my emotions and mental health have been all over the map, I find myself sneaking away to the beach more and more. Sometimes for a whole day, sometimes for just a couple of minutes, but I go to get away from myself and my pity party. To see something much bigger than myself and all my problems, to just rest and relax and appreciate.

And I always find myself leaving a little lighter than I came.