Blogging on the Powwow

Five years ago this week I penned a blog post called " Blink ," in which I wrote about the fact that at that time, I had been married for 15 years. Fast forward five years to this week. On June 7, Neil and I will have been married for 20 years. In case it's not clear, that's two decades. So, this blog post title captures a bit more drama than the one before. Two decades? Blink. Blink. PAUSE. More Blinking!! What a beautiful day - and just look how red my hair was! I recently wrote a blog post about noticing that I'm in my mid-40s , so I'll just say what everyone says at these times: Twenty years?   How does this happen? When I was young I once overheard my mother talking to a high school classmate. They were marveling at the passage of time since they had finished high school. I remember my mother saying, "It's only the days that are long." Indeed, that seems to be the case. So, what does 20 years of matrimony look like? Three ...

I should probably be practicing oboe tonight. In fact, I know that I should  be practicing, but I'm "wimping out." After all, today I ran a marathon. Surely, a practice session would put me over the edge. We'll see how I feel about that tomorrow night when I'm in rehearsal... Today I ran my 11th marathon. In truth, in 2008 I also ran a 50k race, which is 31 miles, and of course, longer than a marathon. Anything longer than a marathon is called "ultra running." I think that's because you're ultra, ultra insane. But, to make things easier, I just tell people that I've run 12 marathons, because most people don't really care about the nuisances of 26 miles vs. 31 miles, etc. So, indeed, today I ran my 12th marathon at the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM). I ran this race last year, too. I didn't as much fun last year as I did today. Last year, I went into it totally exhausted - week 8 or 9 of the semester and I had been surviving on very ...

That's a good question. I'm in Washington, D.C. now and I keep asking myself, What am I doing here, anyway?!  I've been getting a lot of questions about why I'm in Washington, D.C. and what I'll be doing. Here's the Cliff Notes version. I have been appointed by the Society for Research on Child Development to serve as a Congressional fellow. What does a Congressional fellow do?  Another good question! Many professional societies/associations appoint Congressional fellows annually, where the goal is to bring highly skilled individuals (people with PhDs) to the policy arena and at the same time, to expose highly skilled individuals to the policy-making process. Here's what my sponsoring professional association says about Congressional fellowships. The SRCD Congressional Fellowship Program is designed to provide greater interaction between the developmental research community and Congress. Fellows spend one year with a placement that involves working for ...

I travel to Maine regularly since my step-daughter, Dorothy, is only about an hour away in southern Maine. For someone who commutes 90 minutes each way to work--through Boston--it is almost a treat to shoot up I-95 into Maine. Easy-peasy. But, every 3 months or so I plan a more extensive trip into Maine, north of Portland, to visit family and friends. I usually cram as many visits as possible into a single day. I'm someone who likes to be busy, so this works very well for me, and I like to think, for others as well. This past Sunday I made stops in Biddeford, Saco (that was for Reny's , I confess), Brunswick, Woolwich, and Topsham (where I got in another stop in at a Reny's) . I knocked off four visits with friends and family, made a drop-off at another friend's house, and hit two Reny's stores. It was a productive day! Here are some of my lessons learned and discoveries made on this quick trip back to my home state.  We've lived in Massachusetts for five ye...

My 40th birthday turned out to be great. I planned what I hoped would be a wonderful day for myself and indeed, it was! When I was 29 and about to turn 30, I attended a conference in San Diego. I spotted a colleague, who I had only briefly met back at the research center at UNH, at one of the conference sessions. I wasn't as practiced at making friends back then, but I pushed through whatever hesitation I had about approaching this colleague and was greatly rewarded! I discovered that Wendy and I had so much in common: we loved rural areas, mountain hiking, similar foods, exercise, and were both partnered with men much older than ourselves.  Wendy and I had both, independently, planned to leave San Diego on the same day at similar times; in fact, we shared a taxi to the airport very early on what was my 30th birthday. Wendy and I have remained good friends, hiking together in the White Mountains, sharing marathon strategies, and having dinners together with our husbands. Thus, it s...

There are lots of fancy ways to organize one's spices and I have tried many of them: shelves, uniform glass bottles with little labels, swiveling racks, etc. But, I always come back to the wooden soap box that came out of my grandfather's childhood barn in Gardner, Maine.  For a long while, probably more than 10 years, every time I would grab for a spice, I would grumble to myself that "this arrangement just isn't working!" - spices stacked on top of each other, unable to see the labels, etc. It can take several tries before one finds the desired spice. During one of these grumbles, I remarked to Neil that I needed a different system. He remarked that it would be a tragedy to put this old box out-of-use.  I gave it some thought and I couldn't agree more. This old, wooden soap box traveled from the barn of the Perkins' family farm to join our family and deserves to be put to good use. Now, it is. Well, it always was,  but now it is appreciated as we...

Twenty years ago this February, I was living in Worcester, MA while I attended college at Clark University. I lived on Hollywood Street, in the "Main South" portion of Worcester, which is not the most desirable place to live. One day, very near my 20th birthday, I returned to my apartment building after a day on campus, climbed to the third floor, and found a large cardboard box sitting outside my apartment door. A new Sharp TV  from my mother! Oh, the delight! At the time I had a black and white TV, which was probably 20 years old if it was a day old, which operated with the help of a failing antenna and  tinfoil. The Sharp TV has been with me/us every since. It has lived in Massachusetts and Maine; in Worcester, Old Orchard Beach, two homes in Saco, and Amesbury. It has been faithful, never failing us even once. I have the original remote control, which with some excessive pressure, still works. We finally decided to give into the pressure and get a flat screen ...

I understand that some people/families have "themed" Christmas trees. I only know this from what I see in Macy's commercials or Better Homes & Gardens  magazines - red and white trees, trees with seashells and starfishes, pink Christmas trees with white lights, and the like. Our tree is themed, but not nearly so clever. The Boylas family tree, (and for those of you who do not know, Boylas is a combination of Neil and Dorothy's last name and my last name - Boyer and Douglas), is like scrapbook of our lives. In high school I started getting my family members a new ornament every year; this is a tradition that I carried on with my "new" family in adulthood. When we travel to interesting places, I usually make sure to pick up an ornament as well. Here are pictures of some of our ornaments. (I know, who wants to look at Christmas trees in January; I definitely got behind on this post!) I made this ornament for Neil in 2011 - the year that we had our wond...