Flatlander (flat • land • er), noun

1. Someone not from around these parts.

2. Someone from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey or New York.

3. Outsider who calls New England “quaint,” “so cute,” and/or drives like a maniac.

Uses:

“Got behind a #$%^& flatlander today on route 2.” 
“Can’t wait until the flatlanders go back home. GO BACK HOME FLATLANDER!”

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Jake’s Barn (Jake’s • Barn) / jah • akes bahn  /,  noun

1. Something you have to go around when (a) cows are blocking the quickest route home, (b) there’s road construction on the bridge, (c) you can’t get there from here.

2. Barn belonging to person named Jake.

Uses:

“Had to go all the way ’round Jake’s Barn to get to the Hannaford this morning.” 
“Did you see Jake’s barn? It’s wicked round.”

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Wicked (wick • ed) /wah • ick • ed/, adjective

1. very

2. a lot

3. awesome/cool/stupendous

Uses:

“It’s wicked cold outside!”
“I had a wicked good time going ’round Jake’s Barn today.”
“Flatlanders are wicked annoying.”

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Leaf Peepers (leaf • peep • ers) /lee • f • pee • pahs/, noun

1. People who drive to New England to look at foliage in the months of September-October.

2. Extraordinarily slow drivers who take pictures of foliage from their vehicle while driving.   

3. Refer to New England as “quaint,” and/or “so cute.”  

Uses:

Got behind some leaf peepers this morning. They are wicked annoying. Almost as bad as the flatlanders that were here during summer!

Can’t wait until the leaf peepers come home, but I hope they buy lots of stuff. 

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Round Barn (round • barn) /round • bahn/, noun

1. A meeting place where you cannot be cornered.

2. A barn that is round in nature.

Uses

“I’ll meet you at the round barn, they can’t corner us there!”

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Sugaring Off (sugar • ing • off) /shuh • gar • ing • off/, verb

1. The process of boiling down maple sap to produce/yield maple syrup and maple sugar.

2. The end result of boring meetings, processes, etc.

Uses

“Uncle Jeff is in the sugar shack. Hopefully the sap sugars off wicked good.”
“We’ll see how this all sugars off.” 

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We hope you enjoyed your very own guide to understanding the complicated dialect of New England!

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
Link up your post below.
Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

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Kid: I am Mario the Great! SUPER MARIO THE GREAT! I am master of snow mountains, rock hopping, and…. I can fix your toilets, too! (6 y.o., after a little too much Super Mario World).

Me: So what have you been doing over vacation?
Kid: Oh you know. World domination stuff.
Me: What?
Kid: Oh, I wasn’t supposed to tell an adult. (10 y.o.)

Kid: Mrs G, I learned something today.
Me: Oh yeah, what?
Kid: Adults are totally boring. Can I be excused? (11 y.o. in a meeting with his parents and myself).

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Your turn! Got a funny quote or story about your kids or kids you know? Share it with us!

You, who has celebrated many milestones with me. Who has sent me endless cards, letters, and pieces of treasured artwork.

You, who has given me advice, and so much love.

You, who was one of the first people I told about our miscarriage, because you got it.

You, who throws on sneakers, goes into the snow and creates a snow pony for your daughter just to make her smile (even though she whacked off the head 20 minutes later)

You, who inspires others every day with words of encouragement, love, wisdom, and support.

You, who is an inspiring person who is always willing to offer words of encouragement. She has especially helped me with remembering that I’ll make it through training for the 1/2 marathon! Big hugs and happiest of birthdays to her!


You, who is very wise and grounded. Her advice is very balanced.

You, who seems like such a beautiful person. I appreciate that she takes the time to respond to my tweet-vents when I’m having a rough go of things and that she reads my blog and comments. She makes me feel less alone when I’m feeling lonely. Since we live relatively close to each other, I hope to someday meet up with her in person. I wish a very happy birthday to her today.

You, who without we wouldn’t know that #VelmaIsAHo. I shudder to think where we would be without that knowledge 🙂 You Rock Sweets- thank you for making me stronger. And being my fight when I have none. Super duper mega ginormous hugs

You, who is another year older today. Another year wiser. Another year loved.

Happy birthday, you. From all of us.

Linked up with Bits of Bee, for Quotable Bits!

I don’t know if it’s because it’s been a year on Saturday, or if it’s because we should have a three month old in this house, or if it’s because my mind is quiet and the sadness of our miscarriage is seeping back in.

Most days I go about my life fairly normally. I don’t burst into tears randomly much anymore, and I can even be 98% happy for my friends who have announced their pregnancies since our loss (okay,  maybe 95%). I only listen to depressing songs on repeat every couple of weeks.

But some days, like a sucker punch out of left field, I crumble. Maybe because it’s been a year and we still aren’t parents.

I despise the fact that even if we do get pregnant again, that it will never be a joyous, ignorant pregnancy. That I will hold my breath, knowing that at any moment it could all slip away. Just like it did for several women who write blogs that I read. At 20 weeks, 28 weeks, full term. It’s too fragile. And it can be fine one moment, and gone the next.

But I won’t be quiet about this. Even though society says I should be. Even though sometimes I feel like smacking myself and saying GET OVER IT, ALREADY! Which is sort of ridiculous because I would never say that to a client, or to a friend, or to any other human being. So why can’t I afford myself the same space? I’m not superhuman. And it still hurts.

One year later, it still hurts. 

Positive to negative.

Two lines, to one.

Baby, to no baby.

Hello, to goodbye.

When I was in high school, we had a teacher – Mrs. Morris. For extra credit, we could bring in photos or cut outs of advertisements or things we saw in public that purposely spelled things incorrectly. Like “Krazy Glue,” and other similar items. I’m pretty sure, in today’s world, I could have passed that class on extra credit alone.

I have actual fear that in not-that-many-years-from-now we will all speaking in this weird shorthand that we’ve created. Maybe we’ll be speaking in 140 characters at a time that will force us to drop some words entirely to the point where we have to sound out the sentence so that we may actually understand it (yes, I have to do this with lots of the text message “shorthand”).  Honestly? Most of the shorthand isn’t even that much shorter. Is it that hard to spell out Y-O-U… so hard that we have to simply put U? Really? I can’t bring myself to do it.

How did we get here? More importantly, how can we get back?

This epidemic goes far beyond my continuous grammar faux pas of starting sentences with And and But. This is serious, people. It’s a matter of saving lives!

So, today over at The Good Life, we are talking about things we’d rather be doing other than cleaning the house. Because of my new romance with Pinterest, I’m going to let it do the talking for me in this post.

1.Eating These

2.Working Out

3. Traveling. Or even just looking at pictures of when we were here:

4. Drinking Tea. Preferably from this teapot. If you could buy it for me. Thanks.

5. Figuring out my life. I really should build this into my schedule.

6. Watching Friends. (This scene is from  my all time favorite episode!)

7. Reading. And I will be re-reading the first of this series in preparation for the upcoming movie! Squee!!!!

8. Listening to music. It’s pretty much a constant around these parts (even when we *are* cleaning)

9. Sleeping. Or at the very least, laying down on the couch watching random Disney movies (not that I did that yesterday or anything). 

10. Shopping! Target! Happy Jenn!

It would be remiss of me not to mention that if you enjoy reading lists of things that I write, please visit me over at Mrs. H’s place where I am listing all the things I’ve learned about marriage (so far).