Memorial Day in America

My thoughts and prayers are with those of you who are remembering, possibly with pain and pride, today, the sacrifice of a family member or friend in the service of our country. On a personal note, thank you brother Greg for your service--Semper Fi.  God bless America. 

A Good Spring Day

It’s been a warm, well actually rather hot, spring Saturday here in upstate NY.  This is the time of year when there is plenty to do in the yard.  You can drive up and down the streets and find one person after another raking and planting and powerwashing, etc.  Most of us don’t exactly look forward to these spring tasks, but there’s nothing like being able to put a checkmark by items on your to-do list to make you feel good about life!  Today we opened the pool.  The cover was washed and dried in the sun and put away.  The filter for the mower was purchased, and the yard was mowed.  Flowers were planted. Weeds were pulled.   We made it to the Grocery store (and back, of course—with groceries even).  We went shopping and bought The Man some much needed clothes.  And, I managed to stay on my summer-vacation-at-the-beach-better-lose-15 pounds-because-you’ll-be-putting-on-a-swimsuit diet!  

  

Puppy update:  Cambridge was a little sick to his stomach yesterday.  He ate some grass and did what dogs usually do when they eat grass…. Now here’s a question:  When a dog is sick, does he eat grass to make himself throw up so he can feel better, or does he eat grass when he’s sick hoping it will calm his stomach, but it doesn’t, so he throws up anyway?  All I know is dog + grass = vomit.  (Unless of course, the dog sometimes feels sick, but we don’t know it, and he eats some grass and feels better and doesn’t throw up.  I mean, how would you know?) Anyway--later on I looked out the window and he was standing smack in the middle of a big bunch of oregano in our little garden.  He kind of jumped around in it for a minute or two and I wondered if it had some kind of healing properties or something.  It sure looked weird from the window.  

Today he seems fine.  He grabbed various items throughout the day while we were working in the yard and ran crazy with them as usual.  First it was a plastic bottle The Man had taken out of the pool skimmer.  Cambridge grabbed that while The Man was busy with something else.  Score!  Later, he nabbed the six pack plastic container that had housed the alyssum I was planting.  Good for you, puppy!  You rule!  He’s exhausted now.  He’s breathing heavily somewhere in another room—I can hear him. 

A few minutes ago he was on the rug by the front door.  Just imagine yourself trying to duplicate this position…..

Ouchy.  No--think I’ll keep my hip bones in their sockets for today, thank you.

Of course as soon as he noticed I had a camera, he had to turn around and try to figure out what was going on.  He’s a pretty nosy little guy.   

By the way--don't be alarmed--but that's a giraffe foot next to his head... it's a trophy he awarded himself after a hard fought battle with one of his stuffed toys.

Anyway—we had a good day around here.  I hope you did too!

Doodling

I like to doodle.

Leaf Lady

My mom has been a snow bird for the last several years.  She heads down to Florida after Christmas and stays there until my sister and her family drive down in the early spring to drag her home to the frozen tundra (also known as the state of New York). But I've had the pleasure of "fetching her back" a time or two.  Three years ago on our way back north, Mom and I stopped in Nashville to see my daughter.  We went to the Opryland Hotel like good tourists and were surprised to see this verdant young creature gliding around the shops. 

 I have just two questions:  

 1.  Why?

     

 2.  Does she have to be watered?

The Perfect Swimsuit

So that vacation is coming.  Yeah, the one at the beach.  The one where we take our normal clothes off and squeeze into thin pieces of stretchy material and walk around in front of other people like nothing weird is happening.  How did this become OK, I wonder?  Why not just paint our bodies different colors and march outside?  Those suits don’t hide much of anything.  Whatever happened to those attractive black swimsuits with the white trim and the bloomers?  Those outfits even came with fetching caps!

Honestly, which would you really rather wear on the beach--the 1890’s suit or the tiny scraps of fabric known as a bikini? 

Let’s go a step further; which would you rather force other people to wear on the beach?  Haven’t we all stared in amazement at one time or another at the woman who’s packing a good 200 lbs. and yet sporting a bikini?  It makes one wonder, does she stand in front of the mirror and suck her stomach in really hard and say, “Yeah—I look pretty good.  Let’s get to that beach, now!”  Did her eyes get scorched by the blistering sun the last time she hit the sand?  Is that the problem? 

Skinny women should be happy to slip into the 19^th century suits.  They don’t have to worry about their ribs showing or people commenting on how thin they are.  The inevitable bothersome comments about how little they must eat can be avoided.  Perfect.  

“But,” you may be asking, “what about the women with nice figures?  Why should they have to wear big frumpy suits?”  You silly goose!  Those are the ladies you really want to cover up!  If that needs to be explained, you need to wake up and notice all the men on the beach wearing those dark sunglasses.  Yeah, the ones that are pretending to doze off….

Yep—it’s time to turn back the clock.  This summer, bloomers for one and all!    

Goofy Family Memories

Want to hear what made my brother and I laugh ourselves silly when we were young?  It was the memory of an experience that happened on a four week long summer road trip my family took from Missouri, where we were living at the time, to California and back.  We stopped for gas at some beat up old gas station in the middle of nowhere.  There was a gumball machine at the station and my brother, Eric, and I wanted some gum.  Now this was in ancient times when a gumball was only a penny.  Unfortunately my brother didn’t have a penny, but he did have a nickel.  So we walked up to the not-so-very-bright-looking attendant and asked if he had change for a nickel.  His response was, “What do you want--pennies?”  Well, we thought that was the funniest thing we had ever heard!  What else could we have POSSIBLY WANTED, but pennies?  Was there another option we didn’t know about?  Gold dust, perhaps?  Anyway—we laughed about that for years.   Probably no one else in the world would find that story funny at all, but to us it was a real knee-slapper.  This is the kind of weird memory that binds families together—that’s all I have to say. 

Cambridge the Pup

What silly ninny came up with the idea of bringing animals into the house to serve as “pets,” I’d like to know?  Right now there is a four month old puppy messing around at my feet, passing gas in the rudest fashion, and tearing up a plastic flower container he snagged when the flower was planted a couple hours ago.  He grabbed that cheap piece of plastic off the grass and ran across the yard holding it high in the air like it was the mirrorball trophy or something.  

One of the victims

The house is a wreck.  The stuffed toys our son bought him (it’s really his dog—the one he’s going to take care of—honest—uh-huh) are lying about in shreds—the stuffing long gone.  His rope toys are strewn about the floor also.  Then there are the partially eaten rawhide bones…boy, they’re pretty to look at!

February--On his way home from the breeder's

Cambridge (yeah, I know—strange name for a dog, right?) is a Staffordshire bull terrier.  We were told that this particular breed will adapt to your lifestyle.  For example—if you like to run, he’ll run with you.  If you like to sit on the couch and watch TV, he’ll be right next to you with a bowl of popcorn on his lap.  What’s wrong with that, you ask?  Well it can go too far, let me tell you.  When you’re trimming the bushes, he starts chewing off branches.  Unfortunately any branch will do.  If you’re weeding; he’s going to dig a big fat hole next to you.  Inside, he has taken to following me all around the house.  If I leave the room, he’s right behind me.  It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of gobbling down his food, taking a nap, or tearing up a favorite toy—if I go, he goes.  Got to run upstairs?   Yep, he’s up for it.  Need to get something from the basement—here he comes!  I’m starting to wonder what’s going to happen when I take the bike out for a ride….guess I’m in the market for a Big Wheel...and a little puppy-sized helmet, of course. 

Mr. Cambridge keeping an eye on me.

Exhausted after a long day of following me around.

Nirvana in the Afternoon

Are you a late-night type of person?  Do you wake up in the morning not knowing where you are--or maybe even who you are?  Do you stumble around semi-conscious until about 2:30 in the afternoon?  Does it seem like your energy just begins to rise around dinner time?  Do you “hit your stride” at around 10:00 at night? 

If that’s you--you may not relate to the following discussion of afternoon naps.  Being a “morning person,” I rise early and am ready to take on the day the second my tootsies hit the ground.   I want to rush through my to-do list as fast as possible because I know what’s going to happen by afternoon.  At about 2:30 it starts to feel like a leak has sprung somewhere on my person and all the potent morning energy is draining out.  The thoughts get fuzzy, and the fatigue becomes overwhelming.  And if I’m driving, Lord help the other motorists. 

What is needed, of course, is an afternoon nap.  When the kids were little, the routine was pretty simple.  I’d tell them I was going to rest for a few minutes and not to knock on the door unless something reeeeally important was happening that I needed to know about.  Then I would go to my room, shut the door, and flop on the bed for 20 minutes of glorious rest.  Things have changed.  I now have a special napping chair.  It’s a green tweed recliner, bought at a local garage sale for 30 bucks, six years ago.  Its mechanism is a little clunky and I think it actually reclines farther than the manufacturer intended it to.   (The chair did flip over backwards once, with me in it, pinning me upside down against a storage trunk—that was weird.  The act of extricating myself from that position was surely something to behold.)  

Anyway—back to the chair.  It has to be pushed over near the green painted ex-toy chest that now serves as a catch-all for junk.  The top makes a great side table for all the other paraphernalia napping now requires.  The following items will be placed on the top of the chest:   cell phone (duh), house phone, TV control (or “changer” as it is called in our house), radio controller (not like for a toy airplane or anything—it’s really for the radio that sits next to the bed), some paper and a writing utensil (‘cause you know all kinds of important ideas are going to come to mind the minute you sit down), a book or one of the zillions of magazines I subscribe to but can never seem to find the time to read, and in recent years a pair of reading glasses in case I actually want to see the words in one of the aforementioned magazines or (let’s be honest) even hold it right side up.  I won’t use most of those things, but they’re there if I need them.  Now we move on to last few items that don’t sit on the makeshift table but are desperately needed for a proper nap.  (We’re almost done—hang in there.) They are:   my favorite down pillow, a blanket if it’s winter, and the floor lamp.  There—that’s about it, I think.  Once all the various items have been assembled, it’s time to park my fanny in the chair, yank on the old wooden lever to lift the foot rest, and lean back to start the gentle descent to Nirvana. 

Suffering for a Shameless Vacation

 

So we’re planning a big beach vacation this summer.  The whole extended family will be there.  Well, not the whole entire extended family, but my parents and siblings and nieces and nephews.  Our kids we be there too. You know what a beach vacation means, right?  Yep-the dreaded swimsuit reveal.  (Actually, it's not the revealing of the swimsuit that's horrifying, it's the body in the swimsuit that has me a little concerned.)  As soon as I knew the dates, I marched myself right over to the kitchen calendar to find out how much time I had to  lose some weight before hitting the sand.  This is how it goes--  First, there’s the counting of the days—“OK— March has 31 days—add that to the 30 days in April, and you get 61.  Add another 30 for May….” and so on.  Eventually the total number of days till vacation is established.  Then it’s time to divide by 7 to figure out how many weeks those days represent.  Say it's 20 weeks.   Now comes the fun part—“OK—so if I lose 1 pound a week, I could be down 20 pounds by the end of August!  But what if I can only lose ½ a pound a week—that would only be 10 pounds.  Well, that would still help a little, I guess....”  

So what happens?  OK--the truth--pretty soon I notice that I’m not losing a pound a week or even a measly ½ pound a week.  I’m losing a big fat “nothing” a week.  It's just too much of a drag to cut back on the food and feel lousy.  But the image of stretching that swimsuit over this body and sashaying down to the beach comes into focus again, so we’re on to plan B—“OK—if I can lose 1 ½ pounds a week, I can still do all right in the time that's left.”  Well, you know the story by now, don’t you?  Maybe you’ve even lived it yourself.  When that plan fails and not one ounce of weight has been lost, desperation starts to set in.  Next thing you know it’s, “OK, I've got to get a move on —if I can do 2 pounds a week….”  As the time slips away (like sand in an hourglass), the weekly weight loss goal has to keep increasing.  It's 2 ½,lbs. then 3 and so on.  What’s that you say?  It’s pathetic?  No kidding--tell me something I don’t know. 

But I’m happy to report that this time it will be different.  I’m ready to embrace the discomfort of feeling hungry.  (And don’t let those “you won’t ever be hungry on our diet!” people fool you—it just doesn’t work that way for some of us.  Self-denial and deprivation are the only functional tools in this girl’s arsenal.   As a matter of fact, I’m hungry right now.  But you know what I’m going to do?  Brush my teeth and get in bed, that’s what.  And when those hunger pangs start in on me when I’m lying in that bed trying to sleep, I’m going to think about how great it’s going to feel to slip on a swimsuit and run down to the beach shame free.     

House or fun?

I’m awfully sorry if you’ve had the misfortune of landing on my blog today—see, I’m trying to make myself write something every day, so there’s bound to be some garbage thrown the reader’s way occasionally, right?  (I know what you’re thinking if you’ve read my other two blogs—if only “occasionally” was the right word.)  Hmmm, what should today’s random topic be?  How about—Oh I know—let’s talk about how great life would be if my husband and I sold our house, moved into an apartment and actually had fun on the weekends….or better yet, we’ll move in with my mother.  We could save a pile of money if we did that.  Then we could have even more fun!  I remember the early years—we had zero, and I mean zeeeero money, but we lived in an apartment in San Diego and had our pick of fantastic beaches to park our fannies on.  Sometimes we’d walk around Old Town or Seaport Village or La Jolla.  We loved going to La Jolla—there was no riff-raff there, well, except us, of course—just nice beaches, gorgeous houses, and expensive shops.  We couldn’t buy anything, but it was fun to look.  We also used to go to the malls and walk around.  I’d try on clothes I knew we’d never buy, but it was fun to see myself in new things. 

Time passes, you make a little more money,  you have children and it’s time to buy a house.  Sure it’s exciting at first.  You don’t have to hush your children any more for fear they’re bothering the neighbors in the apartment below.  You can finally paint the walls any color you want without begging for permission.  You don’t have the creepy feeling that someone with a master key can march right into your place when you’re gone.  Yeah, it felt good at first—until we stopped being thrilled with what could be and looked around and saw what was.  The neat house from the 1880’s needed a wee bit of work!  Wonder why someone figured it would be OK to take out 18 feet of a load-bearing wall?  Is that why the ceiling is sagging and the window above looks like it’s from a fun house?  How about that wallpaper in the upstairs parlor—yeah, the one with the dark rectangles on the wall where pictures had hung for 50 years.  How does a whole room of wallpaper fade?  And that kitchen floor--when your 1940’s linoleum has a break in it that goes from one wall to the other, is nailing it down with roofing nails really an acceptable repair technique?  Yeah, those are oak floors in the dining and living rooms, but they sure could stand to be refinished—I don’t think they're supposed to be bare wood.  The list went on and on and on.  Oh, and the siding—here come the memories—I’m starting to smell the burning paint....Wood siding—zillions of layers of paint—leaning on the top of a ladder with heat gun in one hand and scraper in the other--hour after hour….Where was the fun now, I ask you?  Nowhere to be found at our old beater of a house!  

Now here’s the crazy part.  We eventually had a job-related move, so we put the house up for sale.  It was one of the slowest markets in a loooong time, so we moved to the new area (house unsold) and rented a duplex.  Then, and here’s the stupid part, once the house sold, we BOUGHT ANOTHER ONE!  Granted, this one was many decades newer, made of brick, (no more heat guns), and was over all in good shape, but there was interior painting to do (aesthetics), and a bunch of ceramic tile to lay (our preference), and a big old deck to clean and stain.  Two years later, another promotion prompted yet another move.  This time the market was hot, hot, hot!  We ran around like maniacs trying to find a place to live.  Houses were rising in value, so we felt we’d better get into something as fast as we could.  The problem was, the houses were flying off the market before they were even listed for sale.  One lucky (?) day, we shoved our way through the crowds at an open house, noted the house was functional enough for our family and offered well over the asking price.  A couple of days later, yee-haw, we foolishly bought our third house!  Here’s the list:  redo the basement rec room with the plaid carpet on the walls.  Yes the walls.  Strip the green astro turf (technically probably an indoor/outdoor carpet—glued on with some kind of space-age glue) off the front porch (I'm not kidding), redo the kitchen countertops, tear out a moss-covered 20 foot long cement block planter that ran along the back of the house, completely tear out the pool deck and replace it one cement pad at a time over 3-4 years (By the way, that cement mixer was well worth the money), get a new liner for the fireplace, replace the avocado green bathtub, sink, and toilet.  Put a new sink top on the bathroom cabinet, cut back the evergreen bushes that were attempting to move into the house, strip wallpaper, paint, put in new windows, fix the fence, etc.  

What would it be like to hop into the car on a Saturday morning and drive to some interesting place?  Heck, how about having time to go to garage sales or the library?  I want to drive down to Hyde Park and see the fabulous old rich-people houses.  (They were smart enough to be rich enough to be able to hire people to do their work.) But, I’m not bitter!  I’m actually a pretty skilled homeowner, that’s what I am!  At least for now.

Know Thyself

The forecast for this week:  rain, rain, and more rain.  This is not what anyone wants after a loooonng, cold, snowy winter.  It’s morning and I peek out the window.  Yep, there it is, an overcast sky, the ground is still wet from yesterday and you know it’s going to rain some more today.  The sad feelings start to wash over me….the usual morning-person energy starts to slip away….hey, wait a minute—I can fight this!  It’s not raining this minute—a walk would really help about now.  So what if it’s 5:30 in the morning—the point is, it’s not raining right now!  I slip on my yoga pants (an invention created in heaven), some socks and shoes, grab a jacket and the dog, and out the door we go.  It doesn’t take too many steps before my sagging spirits start to revive.

This is one of the beautiful things about being a little, ahem, more mature than some folks.  (Okay, than a good many folks.)  You finally start to figure out something about how you “work.”  For me, not enough sunshine leads to sadness.  Not enough exercise--agitation.  Not enough contact with others--negative thoughts about life in general.  Hormones having a field day—all the above.   How very liberating to know what makes you tick!  Suddenly you have power.  You can actually do something to make yourself feel better about life.  And the wonderful part is that most of the “solutions” are as simple as can be! 

How about eating better?  Sleeping a little more?  Yes, there are times when you’re under a deadline or you have small children or an elderly parent to care for or some other serious issue shoves its way into your life—but it’s still good to know there are things you can do to keep a healthy attitude.

Another area I have to monitor—what’s been going into my mind?  When you're  a news hound there can be trouble.  Listening to talk radio, watching the news channels on TV, gathering more news from websites—I mean, come on now—you know darn well that’s going to bring a person down!  So when I start to feel too agitated, I realize it’s time to turn all that stuff off and tap into something beautiful for a while.  Classical music soothes this savage beast.  I read the Scriptures and revel in God’s promises.  Suddenly the world is not the scary, horrific place it was a few hours ago.  There is hope.  There is security and protection and peace.  

Have you developed strategies to keep yourself "up?"  I'd love to hear them.

Diaries and Embarrassment

While growing up I, like many other young girls, kept a diary.  In elementary school they were small, with little locks and keys (which never seemed to work right and certainly weren't hardy enough to keep out snooping brothers).  Of course, there was no real reason to keep out snooping brothers—I wasn’t writing deep, dark thoughts as a 9 year old.  As a teenager I deposited my inner self on run-of-the-mill spiral notebooks.  There seemed to be so much to say--it felt good to dump the thoughts and feelings (mostly feelings) out of my adolescent head and onto paper.  The problem was, I would occasionally pull out an old diary to re-read, and when I did-- oh what embarrassment awaited me!  What ridiculous stuff was written on those pages!  How stupid those words sounded!  How dramatic I was!  How could I be such a weirdo?  You’d better stop writing, I’d tell myself--you’re making a fool of yourself.  (This was a strange reaction to have considering the fact that due to good hiding procedures, I was the only one at this point reading the things!)  So I was making a fool of myself in front of whom?  That's right, myself-- so why should I have cared?  Oh, it’s rough to be 16 years old….

So what was the problem, you ask?  Oh, I don't know--I think I just didn't like my writing "voice" for some reason.  (I repeat, Oh, it’s rough to be 16 years old….)  But that was then.  I’m now an adult (have been for decades, actually) and ready to try writing again.  There’s a good chance the embarrassment reaction will be repeated if I ever look back on what’s been written here, but oh well, big deal.  The fantastic part about sharing personal humiliation is that there’s a good chance someone out there in this big, wide world has had the same experience and will graciously commiserate with me!  (Any kindred spirits out there?)