We briefly considered sending him in his Godzilla costume (99 cents at the thrift store!) but thought he might get too warm and the tail might be uncomfortable. Then I remembered his little blue jumper. My parents cleaned out their attic last fall and found a lot of old clothes up there. One item was an adorable baby blue set of overalls that my brother wore as a baby. They fit Ian perfectly. So he wore a 40-year-old outfit to school for his picture.

We can get emotionally attached to clothes. My mother is an extreme example, but she has saved tons of our clothes from our childhood. When I was digging through our own attic the other day, I found a box labeled “Rich shirts – SAVE” so we have our own memories squirreled away. I watched an Oprah episode the other day where she was cleaning out her closet and they said you should get rid of any clothing that has bad memories associated with it. I assume the opposite is also true, though, that we should keep ones that have good memories. How else would people have things to loan to brides as their “something borrowed”?

This brings me to our Living Out Loud topic for March. Tell us about one or more item of clothing (or jewelry or shoes) you have that has special meaning for you. Is it something that would be obviously sentimental to others like a wedding dress or would it be something that could be easily tossed like an old t-shirt? Where did it come from? Do you still wear it? Do you have any special plans for it (whether it be to fit back into it one day or to pass it on to a loved one)? Spring is coming and folks get the notion to weed out stuff from our closets and lives, but what are those things you’ll be sure to keep?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I’m just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don’t email me, I’m likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, April 4th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Last month I had several people ask if it was okay to participate. I can’t stress enough that these projects are open to EVERYONE and it warms my heart with each entry I receive. So please, spread the good news about living out loud! I can’t wait to see what you produce!

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Heather’s Going Fishing – Eventually
I must say I felt a pang of jealousy over earning full health benefits when you retire. Health insurance has been this Big Deal for me and my chronic illness so to have that would be a big relief. And I applaud you for saving so early!

Jimmy’s Early Retirement
You are making the most of your situation and getting to do all those retirement things while you’re still young. Again life is that thing that happens when you’re making other plans.

Christina’s Living out loud …
Planning for retirement when single has its own challenges. But it can be full of opportunities too! It takes a village, and all that.

Deb’s Gone Fishin’
I suck at not working too. And I also hate pagers.

Dwayne’s Gone fishin..
You’re right, we all know that guy who has so much without working for it while we’re fishing all day and haven’t caught squat. And I also love the hill analogy.

Peg’s Whine With Your Egg
I cringed reading about your husband’s company. And I do agree that you can go home again.

Rachel’s (Crunchy Turtle) Blue Mountain Dreams
I love the idea of reinventing ourselves at several points in our lives. I’m a beach person myself more than the mountains, but I can see the joy in being near nature.

SuziCate’s Gettin’ the Heck Outa Dodge!
As someone who spends all day with her spouse at work, I still say it would be great to have a business with Rich when we retire. Just so long as we weren’t counting on it to actually pay bills.

Megan’s Once upon a time people retired
I wonder too if anyone will ever actually retire anymore. It’s much more encouraging to think about starting things than finishing things anyways.

Rachel’s (Tales of my 30s) Look into the future
Ugh, don’t even get me started on worry about the future with a chronic illness. And being a full-time writer is one of those scary dreams for me. So kudos for tackling all those topics.

Ruth’s This is My One Life
Best. Bulleted List. Ever. I also spent a good 20 minutes googling Machu Picchu.

Amy’s I wouldn’t have to work at all/I’d fool around and have a ball
Yep, retirement is wasted on old people. Why can’t we travel now while we’re young?

Karal’s This Little Dream
43 jobs? I’m on job number two since leaving college. We are so very different and yet so very much the same. Your retirement plan sounds pretty great to me.

Rich’s Iced Dream
Rich always teases that he never wins these LOLs, but I almost made an exception for him this month. He was the only person who had a concrete plan for what he wants to do when he retires. Sure others had general ideas but all with caveats (myself included) but his was simple. Now just to make it happen.

And my own Living in a moment

I picked Ruth’s entry as the winner this month. If nothing else because when she had a four month break between jobs, her list of things she did didn’t include “freak the fuck out!” like mine would. Maybe she just edited that part out. Regardless, I loved the list of things she did and I like the idea of tasting parts of retirement throughout our lives. She will receive a $20 Amazon gift card as her prize and I thank her for taking the plunge as one of our new participants!

Talking about what to do when we’re old can be depressing, but you all really rallied. And with these “tough economic times” a lot of people’s nest eggs can seem pretty skimpy. But it’s good to ponder all the chapters of our lives no matter how far off they may seem. I look forward to hearing from you all again with our next month’s theme so we can revel in the chapters we’re in right now a little.

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Why do I make Living Out Loud topics that I then have a hard time writing about? I have no one to blame but myself.

I was just telling my therapist Gary on Friday that I’m feeling comfortable living in the now. He did that therapist thing where he says, “it’s good to see you like this, Genie.” But it is good to see myself like this. I’ve been a planner and a fretter my whole life, always worrying about what the future may hold. I see it in my father now too where he not only worries about the uncertainly of the future but laments decisions from the past when there’s nothing that can be done about them. I don’t want to worry about what my life will be like in 30 years. It will probably be nothing like what I can imagine.

I don’t know many retired people. Mom and Dad are 72 and 68 and are both still working. Rich’s parents are retired but between all their own medical ailments and Uncle Tommy’s, it seems like they spend as much time at doctor’s appointments as we do at work. It’s like retirement is wasted on old people.

I’ve thought about this more now that we have a new member of the family who’s just starting out his life path. When my mother had us kids she looked at all the other mothers who stayed home and rocked babies. Daddy told her that he was sorry she couldn’t stay home and rock babies but they needed her to work. So they both worked, Mom nights and weekends and Dad during the day (and weekends too), and we still got rocked. When I turned up pregnant, Mom talked about retiring so she could finally stay home and rock babies. But here she is still working and we’re paying $850 a month for very nice Hispanic ladies to rock our baby. Even if Mom did retire now, I’m not sure if she could keep up with an active baby at her age with congestive heart failure. Our front porch steps give her hell.

So with my parents as a model, should I think about what I will be doing in those last chapters of my life, when I’m not even sure how long the novel will be and what kind of energy I’ll have? Maybe the story of my life should be more like a choose your own adventure book where you can jump all around from page to page based on what decisions you make in the moment. Mom is much more tired these days than when she was 21 with her first baby, but this grandson has reopened a whole new part of her life. She’s singing songs and using pet phrases I haven’t heard in decades. Giddy up, giddy up into town. Watch out, little boy, dontcha fall down.

I also wonder if retirement isn’t necessarily the point when you’re no longer working, but the point when you’re no longer putting up with other people’s bullshit. Like the pithy signs in Cracker Barrel say, work would be great if it weren’t for all those customers (where you can substitute customers for co-workers, bosses, colleagues, interns, etc.).

I assume at some point I’ll stop working full-time. I’d like to have a ton of pets. I’d like to work at a coffee shop that has regulars I can chat with every week. I’d like to write more. I’d like to sew more. I don’t think I would care to travel that much. Maybe a trip once a year. I’d like to rock babies.

Looking at my life now it isn’t that different than what it would be 30 years from now. We already have a ton of pets. We’re those regulars at the coffee shop chatting with the workers (our coffee gal is having her ultrasound on Wednesday to see if she’s having a boy or girl). I do a fair amount of writing, but could stand to do more. I do a little bit of sewing, but could stand to do more. We make about one or two major trips a year. And I rock a baby every day.

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Now that I’m nursing, I am an eating machine. I’m like a hobbit going from breakfast to second breakfast to elevens. I read somewhere that nursing burns 600 calories a day. I’m having a hard time finding things other than a pan of brownies that use up those calories. Who knew this could be so hard?

My rough estimate is that I’ve had about 1200 calories so far today. People say that 2000 calories a day is normal, right? So if I’m supposed to get an additional 600, I’m not even halfway to my goal. No wonder I’m always hungry!

All of your suggestions for lunch were super helpful and I’ve been rocking the leftovers this week so far. While the Healthy Choice meals are tasty, I felt like I needed to eat two so I could fill up! I never thought I could be sick of brownies, but it’s coming true.

And all the things that fill me up are typically things that I would never normally eat. Fettuccine Alfredo? I’ve avoided it for years because it normally sends my blood sugar into orbit, but now here I am stuffing my gob with it. And whenever Rich looks at me in wonder as I shovel more food in, I just blurt out, “600 CALORIES A DAY!”

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

1/4 of red onion, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Serrano pepper, minced
juice from 1 lime
2 avocados
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

Combine red onion, salt, garlic and serrano pepper in a bowl. Squeeze lime juice over mixture, cover and refrigerate for two hours. Remove from fridge and add contents of avocados, tomatoes and clinatro. Add any additional salt to taste. Mix and enjoy!

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Ok, fine, that was a little melodramatic. But I’m having a really hard time figuring out what I should be reading and when.

Kim mentioned all this the other day when she talked about her audience and blog fame and it got me thinking. My Google reader is out of control. When I find a new blog, I scoop it up and squirrel it away in a folder where it languishes. I’m suffering from social overload. Just look at my list of feeds.

I have Flickr contacts that may not match my Twitter contacts that may not match the folks in my RSS feed or those on Facebook. And don’t even get me started about LiveJournal. I can’t make heads or tales of any of it.

Should I just trash all these people I’ve collected? What if one of them is a gem and I’m missing out? Should I read all these hundred of personal blogs from people I hardly know? Or should I pare my list down to a dozen or so folks that I really love their writing?

There was a blog that I read in my giant “parenting” category. Some mommy blogger. Honestly, I got her confused with other mommy bloggers in that folder. I must have heard her blog name at a BlogHer once. And for the most part I skimmed her entries. Blah blah kid said cute thing blah blah daughter growing up so fast blah blah husband never does the dishes blah blah. But one entry stuck in my head as she talked about trying to explain right and wrong to her son and how this was much harder than she thought it would be. Rich and I still talk about this entry and she wrote it in November of 2008, before I was even pregnant with our first child. So this random woman who I could have forgotten all about affected me. It would be a shame to miss that.

But wow there’s just so much! It’s too much to read! I’m still missing out on stuff regardless of if I have the blogs in my feed reader. Ironically, I never told that mommy blogger that wrote such a great entry how much I like it. So I’m not living up to my part of the deal in this whole community thing either.

Are there people that you read online that you don’t have a personal relationship with? Do those people outnumber your friends? At what point do they become a friend versus some random person you’re reading about? Are you content to read about the lives of strangers or are they all pathways to meet people that you’d invite over for dinner if they were in town?

I should have it so hard that there is so much good writing out there for me to scoop up. I just need a way to better digest it all.

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

When Rich was in the Army, he had a first sergeant who had joined when he was 18. His plan was to put in his 20 years, retire and drive a beer truck. He had it all figured out. That was his plan. We’re not really sure if he fully understood that driving the beer truck doesn’t mean you get to drink the beer in the truck.

If you’ve seen the E Trade baby commercials, I’m sure you’ve noticed that planning for one’s future is important. Everyone talks about making sure you have what you need for retirement. But most of what they’re talking about is just the money part.

This brings me to our Living Out Loud theme for the month. Tell me what your retirement plan is. Do you even have a retirement plan? Do you figure you’re just going to die at your desk? Do you want to travel? Do you plan on starting a side business? Do you think you’ll be a Wal-Mart greeter? The point isn’t really about the money. It’s more about where you see yourself when you’re in those “autumn years” or if you plan on getting a head start on those in the summer years of your life. Do you have ideas of what you’ll do in the next phase of your life?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I’m just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don’t email me, I’m likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, March 7th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Because it took me forever to pick a theme this month, you’ve got less than two weeks. But if you’re like me, most of you wait til the last minute anyways. I look forward to hearing what your plans are!

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Since I’m nursing Ian at lunch every weekday, I’m going across the street to the day care for that hour. Because of his feeding schedule, I generally leave from 12:30 to 1:30. Rich and the others go out to lunch from 12-1. So even if Rich got me something while he was out, it would be very cold by 1:30 when I could eat it. That and I would starve by then.

I’ve been trying a variety of frozen meals from Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine. One day I had nothing but edamame and crackers for lunch. I’m feeling uninspired by all of it.

So this is where I turn to you all. What do you eat for lunch? Do you pack something each morning? Do you have a cafeteria in your office? Do you go out for burgers etc? I have read horror stories of vending machine meals that make me cringe. I don’t want that. I just want something tasty and easy and healthy.

Help!

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

I’m in a surprisingly good mood, which makes me want to write. But I can’t think of much to write about, so I think you’re going to get a brain dump.

My Google Reader is officially Out of Control. I literally need to assign myself homework of reading blogs to keep up. And I think I’m going to dole out a little tough love and pare down my reading list. If it’s taking away from sleep or laundry (two of my highest priorities these days) it has to be better than mundane.

Oh, kettle, you are so very very black!

I’ve been working on our taxes lately and let me tell you, it’s a giant pain in the ass. Not only am I delving into the world of depreciation for our rental property, I’ve realized I should have done our taxes last year differently. Hooray amended returns! I am dreading doing that too, but really shouldn’t since it could possibly be enough of a difference to pay for a new refrigerator, one that doesn’t spontaneously wet the floor and has a handle on the freezer door. I could paperwork my way to a new fridge! I just have to get off my ass and do it. Any second now. Just gonna download those forms and hop to it. Here I go. Watch me.

Our entire household has colds. Rich stayed home sick today and I brought Ian home at lunch because he was probably going to infect all the other babies and I didn’t want to be That Mother That Selfishly Spreads Baby Plague. So he slept for four hours in his car seat while I worked. All in all, not so bad.

I think he’s getting a tooth since there has been increased drooling and some general weariness. Here’s hoping he sleeps a little better tonight since he kicked me in the belly all last night. I still love having him in our bed, I just might need to fashion padded booties to put on him.

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Jeb’s My Old but Rarely-Seen Friend, John Barleycorn
I admire his dedication to the finer qualities of scotch. Personally I think it tastes like dirt. But I also like the image of Jeb throwing back tequila shots.

Gina’s Drinkin’ Buddies – NOT
I can imagine that working as a volunteer EMT, you only see the bad side of alcohol. Moderation sounds like the way to go. It also goes to show you that while drunk dwarfs sound like they would be funny, they’re not so much in real life.

Kim R’s Drinkin’s Buddies
Indeed, it ain’t easy being green.

Rachel’s Without you
Isn’t it funny how the booze can seem like a character all its own in our lives and not always a passive one.

Jen’s Closing Time
Here’s to being a cheap date! I love it too! And I can totally understand using alcohol to slow down my brain without necessarily turning it off.

Candice’s To all the cocktails I’ve loved before
I’m glad your best friend and your husband, who seem on opposite ends of the drinking spectrum, both support you so well. And I’m gonna have to try one of these mythical pear mojitos at PF Changs.

Peg’s Hi, My Name is Peg, and …
You bring up an interesting point of how your kids would react to your drinking. I’ve never experienced my parents even a little tipsy and I could see how it would be hard to explain.

SuziCate’s Jose Cuervo Is Not My Friend
I’m no fan of tequila myself. It just stinks to me! Rich loves it, though. I like the idea of healthy relationships with liquids.

Deb’s I’d Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me
I can’t agree more with the biggest problem with excessive drinking being missing out on stuff.

Karal’s To retch or not to wretch
I laughed out loud at the confusion over retch and wretch (and Googled the spelling for both).

Rich’s Cause I’m Clever When I’m Drunk
My husband is a late bloomer to the drinking scene but quite clever. We seem to make a good team taking turns having a few too many.

Kim S’s But the Bush is Comfortable!
I hear ya about the baby birthday parties being more our style these days than swinging at the club. But yeah, social lubrication makes a big difference in some situations as to how much fun happens. Just look at the dance floor at any dry wedding reception.

Megan’s Straight Edge Girl
The first thing I thought after reading this was “Oh my God, I forgot about mojitos! I love mojitos!” Ahem. Then I realized how it is a big advantage to have time to figure out your relationship with alcohol on your own terms.

Amy’s A Complicated Relationship
You know I’ve never had a tab at a bar. Probably because I feared when it was time to pay up the total would floor me. I’m trying to appreciate food more myself these days so I can see how alcohol helps that. Here’s to putting alcohol in its place!

And my own It’s so good!

As always I had a hard time picking a winner. Everyone did a great job of sharing something personal, and that really means a lot to me. Some were funny, some were touching, some were a little sad. The best one for me, though, was Karal’s since it was a bit of all of them. I laughed out loud over the play on words and I got all verklempt when she talked about disappointing her friend. So Karal is our winner this month and earns a $20 Amazon gift card. (Since I’m way behind on delivering prizes, I’ve decided to keep them simple going forward. I’m sure no one is writing their entries simply for the chance at a prize.)

Thank you all for playing along. Thank you for having as much fun with this as I am. Thank you for reading. Thank you for stepping a bit out of your comfort zones. And thank you for living out loud!

©2010 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.