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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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February 23, 2011

Oh Good Grief! Thirtysomething…it ain’t what they said it would be.


The other day I took the girl to the library. While she was wandering around looking at books, I decided to head over to the DVD section to see what I could find.  By the way, I do realize some people would probably say I should be looking for “books” at the library and not DVD’s…get over it.  

So I’m in the DVD section scanning for a certain television series I’ve been wanting to catch up on and as I look up…I see it.  My favorite show as a teenager. I watched
every season of it.  I hadn’t seen it in years and there it was.



Do you remember this television series?  I remember watching every episode in the 80’s.  As a recap I’ll remind you:


Thirtysomething was “introduced as a a new kind of hour-long drama, a series which focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group of young urban professionals.”  



You know cool people. 
Hip people. 
Grown ups with complex lives and secret relationships.  
People who have cocktail parties and couple’s dinners where they all sit around for hours and laugh and talk over their wine glasses. 



You know cool people. Who all gather on the front porch with their well behaved children, the token good looking single friends and the adorable dog who doesn’t bark at every car that drives by.
  
When they had a crisis it was wrapped up by the end of the show and even the “drama” in their lives was “cool drama.”

So there I stood in the DVD section of the public library, bent over staring at this television series all lined up one season after the other and I thought…

“Oh my gosh!  I’m thirtysomething!”  
“Oh crap!  I’m actually almost fortysomething!  And Bama Boy IS fortysomething.”
“And I’m not feeling so hip and cool.”
“I thought I was supposed to feel hip and cool when I was thirtysomething.”

“Instead I feel tired, my feet and back are starting to ache a little.  I still have acne which was supposed to go away when you’re thirtysomething. I am having to already help choose a college for my teenage son who’s closer to twentysomething than 
I. will. ever. be. again.
“I stay home most days homeschooling, and cleaning, and cooking and, cleaning up dirty stinky dogs who roll in poo…and washing piles of laundry.”  I’ve even been known to wear Bama Boy’s sweats around all day because all of mine are in the above mentioned piles of laundry.”

“This is SO NOT how I thought thirtysomething would be.”

They lied.

So I have decided that it is best not to watch television shows that portray certain seasons of life in unrealistic ways.  Especially ones you haven’t reached yet.  It just sets you up for disappointment.

Sigh…I guess I won’t be catching up on those Golden Girls episodes now.


at the fence…

24 Comments Filed Under: Good Grief

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  1. Judy says

    February 23, 2011 at 2:35 PM

    That’s hilarious. I remember that show, but I also remember not liking it. I thought they were “too old” at the time. Now that’s funny now that I’m 42 and feel 25.

    Reply
  2. Pam - diy Design Fanatic says

    February 23, 2011 at 2:47 PM

    Very funny. I watched the show, but not regularly. I was in my 20’s in the 80’s and rarely watched tv because I was going to school(college), going to school and working full time, getting married and then working two jobs to save for a house in California! Some of the 80’s were a big blur! I didn’t have my first child til I was 32 and now at 51(dang, that sounds old) our kids are not with us every moment. 🙂 This year will be the first year that we are going to start taking weekends away by ourselves and leaving our girls home. Raising kids is an 18 year sentence, I mean assignment, more if you have several kids. Raising kids is HARD work and not very glamorous, unless of course, you are wealthy enough to have someone else do all the hard work, and then, what’s the point of having your own kids???

    Reply
  3. A Vintage Vine says

    February 23, 2011 at 4:15 PM

    So true! I remember that show…their drama always worked out and mine does not….where’s reality in that??? HAHAHAHA!

    Reply
  4. Val says

    February 23, 2011 at 5:45 PM

    Too funny, I loved this show and at the time I did think they were old and with a blink of an eye I’m 35…A very hard reality for me. I can actually say I’m looking forward to my 40’s…they say it’s the best years of your life. = )))))))

    Reply
  5. Green Door Girl says

    February 23, 2011 at 7:41 PM

    I laughing so hard, so true, why doesn’t life ever mirror what you see on TV????? 🙂

    Reply
  6. Jane @ Jane's Junk and Treasures says

    February 23, 2011 at 7:52 PM

    OK that was hilarious!!!
    Lord I remember that show!

    I’m in my late 40’s and I love it!! Oprah was right!
    It gets better!!

    Reply
  7. EliFla says

    February 23, 2011 at 8:43 PM

    Nice to meet you…with this hilarious post!!! Have a nice afternoon, hugs, Flavia

    Reply
  8. Tammy@Beatrice Banks says

    February 23, 2011 at 9:43 PM

    Too funny! I’m glad they don’t have a show called 40 something but 40’s are supposed to be the new 30’s right?

    Reply
  9. michelle says

    February 24, 2011 at 1:01 AM

    Oh I think I almost peed my pants when I read this! Another down fall of being almost 40 something!! 😉 They lied and they lied BAD!!!!! I remember this show and thought how cool it will be to be 30 something! Some days not so much!! Thanks for the laugh and I am right there with you with the dog poo!!! Hugs!!! 🙂

    Reply
  10. Debbie says

    February 24, 2011 at 2:13 AM

    I did the “yep” all the way through this. I do remember the show. I was twenty something when I watched it. I found out ten years ago that the name of that show should have been “Liar Liar Pants on Fire.”

    Of course, I think the gals in that new show “Hot in Cleveland” are supposed to be my age. I look at them and down at myself and think it ought to be named “Yeah… Rrrrright”

    Reply
  11. Amy @ 11Magnolialane says

    February 24, 2011 at 2:14 AM

    OH I love your post on 30 Something. You summed it up so well! I am right there with you. Thanks for the laugh that hits close to home. I can’t wait to check out the rest of your Blog.
    Thanks for stopping by Magnolia Lane!
    Amy

    Reply
  12. NanaDiana says

    February 24, 2011 at 2:53 AM

    LOL- So, I suppose I have to give up my dream of being like Maude on The Golden Girls? I LOVED her wicked sense of humor. I do remember 30 something…I watched it when I was 30Something and wished I could be like that..then..and then reality would set in when the show ended and one kid or the other would puke down my neck…Just sayin…that’s life! Hugs- Diana

    Reply
  13. Sonya@Beyond the Screen Door says

    February 24, 2011 at 2:59 AM

    You are too funny! I fondly remember that show! I was twenty-something at the time! I was so focused on the couple with the fixer-upper house! Remember that house?

    Reply
  14. Lynn Richards says

    February 24, 2011 at 3:23 AM

    I LOVED.THAT.SHOW.
    I was in my mid-twenties and they all seemed so together. Edgy, knowledgeable, talented….well. Like you said, they lied.
    I hope to goodness they never put on a show about 40-somethings, because I will cry all the way through it. Wait. Is that Desperate Housewives? If it is, I’m all clear, ’cause I KNOW better than they do!!
    Thanks for the memories!
    xo
    lynn
    p.s. moonlighting was my next favorite!

    Reply
  15. Christie says

    February 23, 2011 at 11:13 PM

    Heather, you are so funny! That is why I love coming to the fence…for a good laugh…and lordy, I needed it today!! Of course, I love all the decorating and yummy food, too! I do remember that show, but it was lost in my memory until I saw the pictures and then I could remember the characters so clearly!! You know, I think I rotate about 4 outfits of different kinds of sweats…oh, the days when i used to dress pretty!!! seasons, seasons of life!! I am dying to know how Vanessa liked her video…will scroll back and see if she responded!!!

    Reply
  16. Kim @ Quit Eating Out {Recipes to Make Dining Out a Choice, Not a Chore} says

    February 24, 2011 at 2:23 AM

    I hear you Sweetie…. and I AM in hubby’s sweats bc of lack of laundry! 🙂 Love love love the new site. So happy for you and your sister.

    Reply
  17. Melanie says

    February 24, 2011 at 11:47 PM

    That is to funny! I use to love that show. I just turned 43 and it isn’t the way they said it would be but I love every minute of it:)

    Thank you for the gift card. I got it today.

    Reply
  18. Jennifer says

    February 25, 2011 at 12:50 AM

    Amen sister. You seriously took the words right out of my head on put them on “paper”. I’ve thought of this show about a million times since I got married and had kids.

    I’ve always thought my life would make a wonderful television dramedy. I would, of course, play myself but I would find someone else to play Hot Jeff and the kids. Hot Jeff would never want to be on TV, plus I need a good reason to kiss another hot man. I would have other kids play my kids because the whole point of having a high profile TV job is to get away from my kids.

    You know, I’m taking this all back. I am actually going to star in my own show about a ThirtySomething single woman with no kids. Then I can kiss a lot of hot men as the show chronicles my dating life and I won’t have to have my kids or anyone else’s on the set.

    This is going to be perfect. I’m not sure where I was going with my original comment but I’m glad I got to go on this wonderful little daydreamy tangent.

    Reply
  19. Life in Rehab says

    February 25, 2011 at 10:21 PM

    I was cool in my thirties, my forties, and now I’m cool at 50. Cool is a state of mind, wallow in it.

    And yes, wallowing is cool.

    Reply
  20. Pamela says

    February 26, 2011 at 3:58 PM

    I use to watch this show. I always thought it was neat that in real life the two were married but on the show married to differ people. Then they show up on Brothers & Sisters as old flames! I also LOVE the Golden Girls and am sad Lifetime no longer plays it though I can catch them on Hallmark. Sad to think only one of the gals is still with us and funny enough she was the oldest of all four of them.

    Reply
  21. Sarah @ Modern Country Style says

    February 26, 2011 at 8:42 PM

    Yep, that’s so true. But I bet that they’d look at your life and only see the warm, snuggly bits. Playing with the dog. Cuddling with the children. Smooching with your husband.

    😉

    Sarahx

    Reply
  22. heather arbuckle says

    March 2, 2011 at 5:02 PM

    This just cracks me up! That was one of my favorite shows when I was in college. I was newly married and I imagined our lives looking just as cool when we hit “30 something”. Now I am “40 something” and I am still not that cool! hahahaha But, I am still happily married to the same wonderful guy. We have 3 sometimes well-behaved, always well-loved angels from Heaven, a stinky puppy, who seems to have no bladder control whatsoever, and a house in the burbs that is never clean for longer than a few moments at a time. But, we have love. We have laughter. And we have each other. And that is enough. Thanks for the giggle this morning,.

    Reply
  23. Kimberly says

    June 3, 2012 at 7:11 PM

    Your last comment about not catching up on the Golden Girls made me laugh out loud. I’m so glad to see someone who remembers the show Thirtysomething. –I watched this show when I was in my 20s. I was looking forward to being 30something based on how cool this show made it look. When I got in my 30s I forgot all about the show. –Something about raising kids and making a living got in the way. But there is this one episode of the ELLEN sitcom that is so hilarious. Ellen is borrowing a friend’s childbirth video and somehow tapes over it with a re-run of Thirtysomething. !!

    Reply

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  1. Planning a Dinner Party | says:
    October 10, 2013 at 12:32 PM

    […] to have some “quality” adult time. I also admit to being  inspired by this post at  At The Picket Fence that Heather wrote about the TV show Thirty […]

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