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The weather here has been hot, we're talking in the low 90's. I'm OK with the heat. I would rather have heat then snow and cold. This is probably because I have central air conditioning in my home and when it gets too intense, I can always find things to do inside and cool off. My job has air conditioning. I spend most of my summer in air conditioning. So, when the weather is hot on the weekend I like to spend most of my time out doors. One day this past weekend we went to a park along the Niagara River. It's a nice park. There are benches along the bike/jogging/walking path. People young and old settle down to relax in the breeze coming off the river and watching the river traffic. As I strolled along with my husband we past a woman sunning herself in a bathing suit. I couldn't help but notice this woman was about my age and I thought.. If I had a body like her's you would never catch me sunning myself in public. Being some where in her 50's she had the thickening middle, the flabby thighs, the "bye-bye" arms. You know those arms... you wave hello and the skin under your arms wave bye-bye back. Next a young woman in her late 20's came jogging by. Beatiful tan. A body sculptered into a work of art and I thought..."if only I could look like that". It was a most enjoyable afternoon. Once home, I glanced in the mirror and Oh My God! when did this happen? Looking back at me was a woman with a thickening middle, flabby thighs and those dreadful "bye-bye" arms. I knew I gained a little weight....OK maybe more then a little, and I have been trying to lose, but it's a losing battle. No matter how hard I try, I never lose an ounce. I think it's time to break all my mirrors. But wait....I ran across an article that I would like to share. It's called "About Bathing Suit Season", by Turla S.A. Raheem, Capitol Heights, MD. Most of us 50+ers don't give a darn about how we'll look in a bathing suit. We're not getting anything nipped or tucked so we can wear the latest fashions. We didn't start any special diet on New Year's to prepare for the big beach body-fest this summer. And we're not having anything custom-made for our huge-breasted-small-hipped (or vice versa) bodies. We see bodies like ours all year long at our swimming or water aerobics classes. After class, we sit unashamed in the locker room, some of us completely naked, catching up on grandchildren, sharing cake recipes and discussing articles we've read, movies we've seen and the upcoming presidential election. With so much to explore, we have no room for bathing suit dread. We've tried every whole-piece, two-piece, bikini and tankini on the market. We've finally found the skirted ones we really like, ordered two, and hope the catalog will carry it for years (otherwise, we might have to resort to a T-shirt over shorts). What I really know is that most of us are too happy about being healthy enough to swim-in our bathing suits or anything else we darn please-to worry about how we'll look doing it. I love how I find articles to help me through life. I am healthy, I am happy. For this I thank God. I hope you will also see things differently this summer. |
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Mother's Day has come and gone. My children are grown, young adults now, living a life with their significant other. Thus they have to fit two sets of mothers in their plans. My oldest invited me to brunch on Saturday. I sat with my daughter's mother-in-law, a lovely lady, and chatted for two hours. It was a most enjoyable two hours. Food was excellent too. My youngest invited me to dinner at her home, but unfortunately she got sick and didn't want to give me what ever she had as a mother's day gift. Thank you sweetheart. I didn't want to get sick either. We postponed the dinner for this Sunday. I am a little nervous of meeting her boyfriend's mother. I want to make a good impression. I'm sure it will be fine. So, on Mother's day I was free to do as I pleased. Something that doesn't come along often enough. My husband, (not the father of my children) felt he should do something for me for Mother's day and took me out to breakfast. At our favorite restaurant, I picked up the local neighborhood newspaper and there found an article titled "This is for you Mom! I read it and thought of my own mother. Passed on now 27 years ago. I miss her so much and I wish she was still here to give me her wisdom. I want to share this article with you. (D...get the tissues out, you're going to need it) THIS IS FOR YOU MOM! For those lucky to still be blessed with your Mom...this is beautiful. For those of us who aren't...this is even more beautiful. For those who are moms...this is for you! The young mother set her foot on the path of life. "Is this the long way?" she asked. And the guide said: "Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it...but the end will be better than the beginning." But the young mother was happy, and she would not believe that anything could b better than these years. So she played with her children, and gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams; and the sun shone on them, and the young Mother cried, "Nothing will ever be lovelier than this." Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was dark, and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother drew them close and covered them with her shawl, and the children said, "Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come". And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead, and the children climbed and grew tired, and the mother was weary. But at all times she said to the children "A little patience and we are there." So the children climbed, and when they reached the top they said, "Mother, we would not have done it without you." And the mother, when she lay down at night, looked at the stars and said, "This is a better day than the last...for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I them courage. Today, I've given them strength." And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil, and the children groped and stumbled, and the mother said: "Look up. Lift your eyes to the light." And the children looked and saw above the clouds and everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the darkness. And that night the mother said, "This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God." And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and the years, and the mother grew old and she was little and bent. But her children were tall and strong, and walked with courage. And when the way was rough, they lifted her; for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill, and beyond they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And mother said "I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them." And the children said, "You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates." And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed after her. And they said: "We cannot see her, but she is with us still. A mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence! Your mother is always with you...she's the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street; she's the smell of bleach in your freshly laundered socks; she's the cool hand on your brow when you're not well. Your Mother lives inside your laughter. And she's crystallized in every tear drop. She's the place you came from, your first home; and she's the map you follow with every step you take. She's your first love...and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can separate you... Not time...not space...not even death! May we never (ever) take our mothers for granted!
Happy Mother's Day Mom, Thank you. I love you and miss you so much. |
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I have noticed that as I get older I have lost that desire to work. Every Saturday I would clean house. Every Sunday I would do yard work. During the week I would work my full time job and in the evening there was always some kind of chore to do. But now, as I get older and especially now that the weather has become nice, I don't want to do those things. I would rather sit in my Florida room with a good book in my hammock chair. Or maybe catch an hour nap in the sun. I would rather play then work. I want to spend my time taking walks along trails in parks, bicycling around neighborhoods, and going to estate & garage sales to find a special treasure. But I feel guilty. My friends call and I listen about their day. They tell how they prepared their gardens, cut the grass, cleaned the house. When ask what I'm up to, I say I'm sitting in my hammock, with a glass of wine, reading a book and waiting for my husband to tell me dinner is ready. They say "What a life you lead, you are so lucky." Yes, I am lucky, but I made my life this way. I don't worry about ALL the work that needs to be done. It will be there tomorrow. I'm also lucky to have a husband that likes to work around the house and since I still feel guilty I get off my fat behind and give a hand. But it's tough.
Dear Bertha, I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the year & admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them. I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china & crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, or getting the sink unstopped. I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank. "Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's work seeing or hearing or doing...I want to see and hear and do it NOW! I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was. I'm guessing...I'll never know. It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my hours were limited. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and parents often enough how much I truly loved them. I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special that I awoke! Tell those special people in your life how much they mean to you. Don't put if off any longer. Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here...we might as well dance!!! Every day every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God!
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My cat, Dakota sits in a corner staring at the wall. Ever so slowly a paw comes out and almost touches the wall before slowly repositioning on the floor. She continues to stare. Again a paw reaches out. This time she touches the wall and her eyes quickly drop to the floor. She looks and looks and then walks away. OK, she's got my attention. I go to where she sat and I look....and look and see nothing. Oh silly little girl, playing tricks on mommy. I go back to my chair and pick up my book. Dakota jumps on my lap and demands attention before settling down. The minutes go by, I am engrossed in my book. Dakota jumps off my lap and rushes to that same corner. She sits ever so quietly, just staring into the corner along the baseboard. Suddenly her paw reaches out and swats the floor, again....and again. I run to see what she has.....a mouse? Oh no, something worse. Ants! I run for the Raid. Spring is here. |
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I have been diagnosed with a sleep apnea. For those of you who don't know what that is, Sleep Apnea is a disorder that interrupts normal sleep patterns with intermittent pauses in breathing. I was always tired. I could fall asleep at a dime and when I woke, I was still tired. It was an awful way to live. Did I know I had a sleep apnea? No, I never even knew something like that existed. My former doctor told me to quit smoking, exercise more and I would feel better. So I did. I was still tired. Did you ever try exercising when you were so tired that it was hard to keep awake? It doesn't work. I suffered for years. When I remarried, my husband would wake me because I was snoring and keeping him awake. Sometimes I snored so loud, I woke myself up. My cat would wake me up by patting my face...because I was snoring? Who knows, but between everyone waking me up I was not getting a good nights sleep. A new doctor sent me for a sleep study. There I learned I had a mild sleep apnea and to solve this problem a cpap machine was recommended. Now a cpap machine is a device that looks like something from outer space. The mask is attached to your face covering your nose and mouth and hooked to a machine that blows air up your nose. If the seal around your face breaks you hear this rushing sound of wind sounding like the cave of the winds at Niagara Falls. The only way for this to work for me is if I slept perfectly still on my back. Not going to happen. I thought my only choice was to suffer and keep apologizing to my husband and cat. But not so. There is an oral appliance that seems to be working for me. The purpose of this oral appliance is to reposition the lower jaw, tongue, soft palate, and hyoid bone into a certain position, to keep the airway open with stabilization of the tongue and jaw, or to provide artificial muscle tone to prevent collapse and resulting airway blockage. I am not going to go into detail about this device, but if you want to know more please visit their website at www.ihatecpap.com. All I know is since I stated sleeping with this device, I have stopped snoring and I’m starting to feel better. I’m not tired during the day and can actually stay up past 9:00 p.m. I highly recommend it. I’m happy, my husband is now getting sleep, so he’s happy. But my cat? She’s still patting me on the face. Maybe she wants to play? |
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Happy Easter eveyone! This year Easter was very different for me. As you know I am remarried. I have 2 children of my own and 3 step children. It is hard for them to split their time to visit both sets of parents, plus also their significant other's family or in some cases, families. My one daughter has to juggle 4 dinners. It's surprising she isn't fat. This year, I thought to give everyone a break and not have Easter. No cooking for me! No entertaining! Just a quiet day with my husband. Well, this was harder then I thought it would be. When we woke up, there was no rushing around to get the ham in the oven or boiling the polish sausage. No table to set, no last minute run to the store to get that "must have forgotten item". So, what do we do with our day? Now that we have the day to ourselves, we can't think of anything to do. We can't just sit around all day in our PJ's. My husband gets on the computer to search for things to do. Nothing is scheduled for Easter Sunday. Everything is closed. We decide to go to Birchfield Park. A park not to far from us, but one we have yet to check out. Birchfield Park is dedicated to the artist Charles Birchfield who lived and painted from 1893-1967. We arrived and parked our car in the parking lot. The air was crisp, the day was sunny. It was a beutiful day to travel along the trails in the park. You may be thinking who would want to walk along a trail full of bare trees and spongy grounds? What makes this park different is along the trails, there are paintings of Birchfield's work along with what he saw when he painted them. It was very interesting and his work is beautiful. And yes the ground was spongy, some places still snow covered and even a huge ice patch that we crossed ever so slowly. We saw a Nut Hatch and a Cardinal. The wood was alive with bird sounds and we stood for the longest time trying to find them. We spent about 2 hours just walking, listening and enjoying the first signs of spring. When we got home we had the luxuray of a two hour nap. No rush for dinner. I bought a tiny little ham that I smothered with brown sugar, pineapple, cherries and applies. Bob made a delicious onion/lentel soup and homemade bread to finish off the meal. We have lots of left overs. After dinner, we took a walk around the neighborhood and then home to snuggle in front of the TV to watch a movie. Before you know it, it was time for bed. So how do I feel about this new way of celebrating a holiday? I don't know. I enjoyed my day very much, but yet.... I missed seeing all the children and grandchildren, my sister, brother-in-law and Aunt. I missed the excitement of having everyone over, the stress of hoping dinner would be eatable if I did the cooking. But as our family continues to grow it is almost impossible to have everyone over at the same time for a sit down dinner. I have a thought.... next holiday I'm going to have an open house. I'll invite all the family and any one else from the extended families that want to stop in, say hello, have a drink and a little food before they have to go on to other commitments. Holidays are to be spent with family and friends. |
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This is about the house that Dad and Mom built and that I first lived in for 16 years. I have fond memories of this house. Playing in the backyard, swimming in our above ground pool, playing cards with Mom and my sister at our "snack bar"; the long hall that ran from our kitchen to that last bedroom that was once my sister's, then mine when she got married. I remember running down that hall with my mother chasing me with that god awful "army strap" threatening to beat the "daylights" out of me. You could walk from the kitchen to the living room, through the living room to an archway to the kitchen again. Or run...as my sister and I often did chasing each other until my Mom had enough and made us stop. It's amazing how a house goes through changes. My mom decorated it to her taste. Very 50ish but that was modern in the 1950's. Then when I was 18 we had a kitchen fire. The kitchen was remodeled. The snack bar was removed, and a smaller one installed on the opposite side. New kitchen cabinets were installed...stained antique black, a poppy red floor, refrigerator and stove. The kitchen now had a new look. The living room had a new look too. Now my mother favored the Mediterranean look. New furniture and a burnt orange rug. When my mother passed on, the house took on another look. It seemed to morn the loss of my mother. My father as he grew older couldn't keep up the house as my mother did. The poppy red floor grew dull. The living room rug grew old and ragged. The refrigerator and stove broke. Slowly things were replaced. New rug and drapes in the living room. New living room furniture. New appliances. The style? Dad's. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. When Dad passed on, I moved in with my new husband. That poppy red floor? We got it to shine once again. We couldn't update the house and boy did it need updating. The house needed new windows, new furnace, new hot water tank. It cried to be remodeled, but we couldn't afford to do anything. We were living from pay check to pay check. We never could make it "ours". It was always my parent's house. And I had the ghost of my father to prove it. So after much debating we decided to sell. The new owner had the money to put into the house and I heard she gave it a new look. Would the house like it? I heard the other day the house was up for sale. I ran to my computer to see if there were pictures on the realtor site. I was dieing to see what she did to my parent's house. I was not to be disappointed.... She favored black and white. The kitchen was redone. The poppy red floor now white. The antique black cabinets, now white. The countertops now black. The appliances? Stainless steel. The rugs were torn up to find beautiful hardwood floors, polished so they gleamed. (If I would have only known). She took our pink 50's bathroom and tore out the sink and vanity and replaced it with a pedestal stink. Pink is now gone. Everything is white, with blue accents. So many changes that it was hard to believe it was the same house. It was beautiful, but not my taste. She went totally modern. A New York City look. And the house looked happy. But what happened to my dad's ghost? This definitely was not his style. I can't imagine him still wondering around in that house. It's not the same. I hope he was able to "move on" to a better place. I am sure once the house sells, it will again be changed and take on a new look. I am lucky to have pictures of the house when I moved in and pictures of what it looks like now, but wouldn't it be fun if I could have left a photo album of day one, when the house was built and all the little changes over the years, leaving this album with each new owner to add their pictures. And wouldn't it be fun to be able to go back many, many years later to see all these changes?
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The other day I caught the ending of a radio broadcast about settling. The guest's opinion on the show was that after a certain age a person should not spend so much time searching for the perfect someone and that they should settle for what they find out there. Settle??!!! Why would anyone settle? She even set an age limit...after the age of 40. What happens to us after 40? Are we no longer desirable? Granted I believe by that age we are more set in our ways, not so willing to change, but isn't that because we have matured over the years and know what has made us comfortable and hopefully happy? Or is she saying that the men out there that are single are losers and if we haven't found the perfect someone by then, it's just not going to happen? I wish I would have caught the entire program.
I met my husband at the age of 45. I wasn't searching, it just happened. We met by chance. After talking for hours on the first encounter we found we had so much in common. We were also able to tell each other our faults, what we expect in a relationship, what we weren't willing to change and what we weren't. Because of this we entered our relationship with open eyes knowing what the other was like and not just a physcial reaction like when we were young. We knew we weren't going change. Take it or leave it. I didn't settle. His faults were the same as mine, his likes were the same as mine. I found my soulmate.
I have talked to others about this and they agree that they would rather be alone then to settle with just anyone. Being alone is not a bad thing. Loneliness is the killer. I know single people that are so busy with their interests, and meeting new people that they never experience loneliness. Will they find their soulmate eventually? One woman thinks she did, she's 58, but she's not really willing to commet at this time. She wants to make sure he's perfect. If not...life goes on and she's happy because she hasn't settled. |
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I decided to start this blog because finally after more then 30 years I have found happiness. It wasn't easy to get to this point. It took a lot of searching. Soul searching, trying to figure out what I wanted in life, what was missing and finally who I wanted to share my new life with. It took a long time to get to this point. I have learned a lot along the way. I experienced extreme lonliness even though my significant other was in the same room. I raised my children alone, even though I had a husband during that time. I went to holiday gatherings alone, parties...alone, sports my children participated....alone. So much being alone and back then I wondered why my marrage wasn't working. Duh...I was alone. No one should be alone. But back then that's the way I thought it should be. I was in charge of the children and the household. I did the food shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc. He went off to work and took care of the outside chores. How wrong I was. I learned in my new life with my husband, we share everything, housework, outside chores, food shopping, raising kids. Well, our kids are grown now, but we consult each other if a problem occurs. And though we don't always agree on things or the way they should be done, we listen to each other and learn there are two sides of everything. |
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