I was 12 years old and in 7th grade when I decided I wanted to be a journalist. Not simply because I wanted to be ‘on TV’, but because I was fascinated by storytelling, by interviewing, by news, by the men and women who shared it every day, and who gave us the information we needed to know. I watched NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, The Today Show, 20/20…. anything I could.
In our 7th grade classroom, parents constructed a ‘set’, we were broken down into ‘news teams’ – each team with a day to deliver the news and each team member rotating their role in the newscast: news, sports, weather and ‘special’ stories. I was fascinated by it all.
I grew up to be that journalist. I covered politics and crime, military and immigration, school board debates and the havoc of mother nature. I even tackled the really hard stuff – entertainment. Through it all, my goal was always two-fold: to be truthful and to be to be fair and honorable to both sides.
I will spare you the pictures of me with my anchor-bob haircut, but I will tell you this, some of the displays of ‘journalism’ I have seen in the past 24 hours made me alternately want to burst in to tears or throw something at my television for what I am witnessing of what was once a proud profession.
Few stories in the news have turned my stomach like those I have heard surrounding the rape of a 16 year old girl by two teenage football players from Steubenville, Ohio. As if the crime itself wasn’t horrific enough, the attitudes of those involved – both the boys committing the crimes, taking pictures of the young girl and sharing them via social media, but the number of people who KNEW, SAW IT HAPPENING, HEARD ABOUT IT, or SAW THE PICTURES and yet did nothing is, in itself, beyond baffling. What is happening to teenagers that the line between right and wrong is no longer discernible? What is happening in HOMES that we, as parents, are raising children without a CONSCIENCE?
Fast forward to the trial and subsequent guilty verdict. And the media’s reporting of that guilty verdict. My blood begins to boil anew. I can’t remember a time that I have been so thoroughly disgusted by the media in general.
You know I’m having fun with the hair tutorials, right? My husband has always encouraged me to wear my hair up – has always liked it when I have worn my hair in a ponytail and the like, but I have always hesitated. Some silly insecurity. Wearing my hair down has always been easy – it has always felt like ‘me’, but doing these tutorials and experimenting – learning new options has been fun.
In January, I had friends in my home who I hadn’t seen in half a dozen years. In a normal situation, I would have spent a week fussing over the details, making sure their rooms were perfectly clean and welcoming, but in this case, their visits were a surprise. My sweet husband invited five of my closest friends from all over the country to our home for the weekend of my 40th birthday. It was divine.
My small girl plays on two basketball teams. She does it because she loves it. She doesn’t get her athleticism from me. She gets that and her love of the game from her Daddy. She also gets her stamina from him. Which is a good thing since her most recent tournament required she play 4 games in one day. Add that to the one game from her second team and she played basketball at 10am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm. If her team had won that 7pm game, they would have played AGAIN. It always amazes me to watch these girls play their hearts out.
I don’t know about you, but I am actually counting down the days until Spring officially starts – 16 – in case you are wondering. In the middle of the country where I live, we’ve seen more snow and lower temperatures than we have in quite some time, and I’m desperate to start seeing buds on trees, tulips popping from the ground and temperatures that hover somewhere about 65 degrees.
We moved in to our house six years ago next month. I can hardly believe it has been that long. But what I really can’t believe it that I spent the better part of that time – more than 5 of those years, in fact, sharing an office with my husband. It is a wonder we are both still standing. Remarkably, from the time we were moving in, we planned to share an office. We thought it was a brilliant idea. But it wasn’t.
I love wine. We’ll call it a hobby.
