“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange

 

A quiet walk on an early summer morning.

 



 

 

Autumn glory

 

 

 

Autumn morning mist

 

 

 

Summer storm clouds

 

 

Paradise, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Hubby and me

Lower Tahquamenon Falls

Upper Peninsula

 

 

 

The shore of Lake Huron

Lexington, Michigan

 

 

 

Dear Hubby

 

 

 

Golden Sunlight on an early Autumn day

 

 

 

Watching chipmunks feeding on birdseed right outside the window.

They sat as still as mice.



You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job. ~ Laurence J. Peter

 

I have to tell you a funny story about something that happened to me today. As I was scrolling down my page on Facebook this morning there was a video one of my friends in Ontario, Canada, had posted of her uncle playing the accordion and singing during one of the Sunday services at the church we attend there and she'd written a description saying, "Uncle Obed did a nice job!" or something like that. I clicked on the video to see who it was because the picture of it on my page was quite tiny, and I am still not sure who is related to who there. Well, up pops the video and I'm thinking, "That's Sharron's Uncle Obed? But that's Hobart!"  Dear Hubby and I had been calling him Hobart for the past two years! And then it dawned on me that we had really lost his name in translation from the "Newfie" way of talking. 99% of the people who go to the little church there are originally from Newfoundland/Labrador and even tho they speak English it's a dialect unto itself. After spending so much time with them the past couple years we've grown accustomed to it and rarely don't understand something someone has said. But poor Obed! Here we'd been calling him "Hobart" all this time! You see, the Newfies drop the letter "H" if it shows up at the beginning of a word so 'home' is pronounced " 'ome"..."hair" is " 'air"...''heaven'' is " 'eaven." And then they add "H's" to the beginning of words that don't normally have them. "Amen" becomes "Haymen" and "air" will then become "hair". Kind of confusing until you get the rhythm and cadence of their speech patterns. They also don't say the "th" sound...it's just "t"...like 'thank' is 'tank'. So our friend "Obed" is pronounced the Newfie way: "Obed" becomes "Ho-bed" but they speak so fast it sounds like "Hobart". Ok, that's funny enough, right? So here, as we've shaken his hand when we've seen him, we've been saying "Well, hello, Hobart! How are you?" and he's been looking at us like "Who?" but he's so sweet and gracious he's never corrected us. And a time or two when we've been at the Pastor's house and I've said something about "Hobart" he or his wife will speak up and ask, "Who?" and I'll say "Hobart!" and they're like "Oh, yes, Ho-bed!" and I'll say, "Yes, Hobart!" LOL! Well....today when I saw the video and realized our Hobart was Uncle Obed I was mortified! I sent a message to Sharron telling her how embarrassing it was to admit our mistake but she and I got the virtual hysterical giggles over it, haha! We always have dinner at either the pastor's home or, if they have other social obligation with visitors (we're considered part of the congregation now) someone else will have us over. And when it's just us with another couple or two we follow the conversation just fine, but if we get into a big group....Sharron and her husband usually have a houseful....and they all get to talking Newfie together, oh my word is it a challenge to keep up.  They talk SO fast! I could listen to them talk all day tho, it's just so charming! There is one rather remote spot in N/L where even most of the Newfies have a hard time understanding the dialect of those who come from there. The head of our faith's Canadian churches is from that region and I haven't heard him preach often thru the years but he purposely starts out slow and easy when he does preach in the American churches.  Once he gets excited or passionate, fuhgeddaboutit! You can't understand a thing he says!   At least I can't!  When I told Dear Hubby about our goof-up when he got home we both had a good laugh over it. Just like Sharron did when I told her we'd been calling her uncle "Hobart" for the TWO years we've gone there! 

The years teach much which the days never knew. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a self-portrait I took of myself recently for a Photo-A-Day challenge I've been doing with a niece of mine.  My hair is not short...I have it skinned back in a pony tail.  I also don't have my glasses on, which is highly unusual because I can hardly see without them, but I had just come upstairs from spending 45 minutes riding on the exercise bike my family gave me for my birthday at the end of December. I had forgotten them and left them down in the basement near the bike.

Once upon a time I would never have posted this picture of me.  I would have scrutinized it without mercy, found a million flaws, and cast it into the Recycle Bin.  Now I am contemplating using it for the dust cover photo on my book if, by some miracle, my book ever gets published.  I like it.  I like the glow of the light reflecting off the snow that was outside the window that morning.  I like how it highlights the silver in my hair.  And I see some of the lines that are permanently etched and growing deeper every day in my face.  I see a woman who is overall very content with her life, and I see the peace in her face. 

I have come to realize as I'm getting older that because of my aversion to having my picture taken I have robbed my family of my pictorial history, so to speak.  There are not very many photos of me in the thousands we have stored in various albums and boxes and storage bins.  If one were to go thru them all you'd find abbreviated bits of me...and in most of them I'm expressionless or scowling.  I was told early on in life that I 'took' horrible pictures, that I was ugly, and it's taken me 59 years to finally relax with it and figure, "Whatever!"  I never thought I'd see that day.  When I am the photographer, tho, I exercise editing rights...I took about 10 photos before I was satisfied with this one. I am happy with it because, in looking at it, I see me and I'm realizing I'm not unhappy with the person in the picture.  And I never thought I'd see that day, either.  But how I look at life approaching 60 is a lot different from how I viewed it approaching 50.  Or 40.  Or 30.  Or even 20.  We become much kinder to ourselves, we do.  And with that comes a relaxation of spirit within us.  We are who we are and, at least in my life, I've become content with that.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~ Sylvia Plath

From as far back as I can remember I have wanted to be a writer.  I have wanted to hold a brand new book in my hands, crack open the spine, and know that it's mine.  At the age of almost 60, I still dream about that moment.  I wonder how Grandma Moses felt when she finished her first painting?  She was in her 70s when that happened, so dreams can come true at any age.  Why do we feel we need to put an age limit on dreams? 

I began writing a novel a few months ago.  It has been percolating in a back corner of my mind, like an old-fashioned coffee pot on a back burner, for a long, long time.  I held off on writing it and I'm glad I did.  I don't think I had enough life experiences, enough perspective into the mindset of my characters, to do it justice when I was, say, 35 or even 40.  I was too busy trying to make sense of my own life and honestly, a woman of 35 is not very 'mature' when it comes to wisdom gained and hindsight.  I know for myself I never grew to be comfortable in my own skin, to know myself, until I reached my 50s.  Midlife is very liberating.  You start sloughing off so much 'stuff' that has held you captive your entire life, the baggage you've been dragging behind you like a martyred victim.  We're all victims.  We just need to get over it and move on.  I have never met even one person who hasn't been seared and scarred in some way, not even the most seemingly well-adjusted and successful ones.

I've hit one of those writer's blocks, tho...I am literally terrified to take the next step.  So I asked friends and family on Facebook to give me a pep talk and they have been so encouraging and supportive.  I'm thinking I may have it in me to kick it into gear again and get busy writing.  Because, you see, I do have a story to tell.  And it's time for it to be told.

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. ~ Neil Postman

I had posted a couple of very precious moments I've had as a grandmother in the past month on Facebook and a friend told me that I need to write them down.  So I thought what better place than here on my blog?  I began writing my blog before either one of them was even a blip on the radar screen of our family but since they arrived -- and enriched  --  our lives my blog has been a chronicle of their lives intertwined with daily life and oberservations.  The first one here with Dylan happened today.  The second, with Cooper, happened on January 24th.

Our grandsons spent the nite last nite and around 6 am Dylan came in and stood next to the bed. I grabbed a hold of his hand and he was FREEZING!  Dear Hubby told him to come over to his side of the bed and get in because he was getting up. I asked him, "Why are you so cold?!" as he snuggled in next to me. "Because I was reading the Holy Bible page 1 to 24", he told me...he'd gone in to Dear Hubby's den and was sitting there in the dark, pretending he was reading the Bible like Papa. How precious was that?

Out of the blue my little grandson came to me and asked "How do I become a Christian, Gram?" Mind you, he's only 4 years old. I told him he needed to pray and ask Jesus into his heart. He asked "Can I pray now?" I told him of course he could so he climbed up into my lap and said the sweetest little prayer...I'm sure it melted the Lord's heart as much as it did mine! When he got done he asked if he's a Christian now. When I said yes he gave me the sweetest smile and said "FINALLY!!" It made me wonder how long he's been pondering this in his little mind. ♥ ♥ ♥

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world. ~ Hans Margolius

I pass this barn quite often.  It looks like it's out in the middle of nowhere but it's actually at a busy intersection in the city where I live.  There's a Farmers Market held here.  There's a huge pumpkin patch at Halloween time.  I'm glad they never tore it or the old farmhouse down...every time I look at it I get a glimpse of the past, and it's good to be reminded of our roots, isn't it?  At one time it probably sat in the middle of acres of farmland, and not all that long ago, really, since the city I live in is a post-war suburb established in 1950.  Progress!

I am not purposely neglecting writing here.  There has been a lot happening in the past couple of months.  I did a long road trip with Dear Hubby.  There were the holidays.  On my birthday at the end of December my family gave me a surprise birthday party...and they pulled it off grandly because I was totally surprised!  Some good friends of ours from Kitchener, Ontario, even made it here for the party and that made me feel very special, considering she's quite pregnant and it's a 3 1/2 hour drive with two little ones in the back seat of the car!  My family gave me a brand new exercise bike for my birthday, and I've been putting it to good use every morning, pedaling away for 45 minutes to an hour.  It feels wonderful to have one again!  My last one fell apart not long after we moved here and I've just been too busy to replace it.

We had a bit of a health scare right after the first of the year.  Dear Hubby was in the hospital for a few days after having a spell of confusion and blurred vision.  This is the second time it's happened.  The first time was at the end of September, just before we left for vacation to the Upper Peninsula here in Michigan.  He underwent an MRI, an EEG, a stress test, carotid ultrasounds, EKGs...all kinds of labs and bloodwork.  Everything checked out fine and they still haven't quite diagnosed what the problem is.  He's wearing a heart monitor for a month to see if anything shows up, like an irregularity in his heartbeat that might restrict the flow of blood to his brain.  They tell him he's in excellent physical condition so they're rather mystified.  He's going a little crazy not being able to drive but it's actually working out fine.  The kids come by and pick him up on the way to work in the morning and then I bring him home in the afternoon.  He's an awful back seat driver, tho.  I told him the other day if he doesn't like the routes I take on the way home he can always get out and walk.  That shut him up, but mercy, he's bossy!

This seems to be a transitional phase of life for me right now.  I no longer have my grandsons to care for full time.  I'm not working.  I have a lot of peace and solitude.  I feel like my arms are empty for the first time in as far back as I can remember...it seems like I've always had someone to take care of, starting with my younger brother when he was just a little guy.  But my life is full.  It's kind of nice to actually have some time to get reacquainted with myself.  I've missed me.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France

 

Don't you wish Life came with written directions?  When something comes your way where you need to make a decision or a change, you can look it up on page 37 and it says right there, in black and white, "Why, yes...you should do this."  And just as clearly say, "Ah ah ah...don't be an idiot! Say no!"

 

When we're little kids the decisions are all made for us, whether they're good, bad, or questionable.  We have no control over them and we live with the consequences.  And we can't wait to grow up, to have the power to make our own decisions.  That's when we learn a new respect for our parents, when we realize that decision-making isn't all that much fun.  Or easy.  Nothing in life is a given.  There's always a 50/50 chance of success or failure.

 

Dear Hubby and I have made some really dumb choices in life at times.  Like the time we bought a car from someone he knew who was anxious to sell it, only to have the transmission burn up on it a week later.  We've also made some excellent choices, like our decision to move here to the Midwest. The decision to buy the car was based on looking at the outside and liking what we saw.  Spontaneous.  No thought whatsoever as to what lay under the surface.  We liked it, we bought it.  Dumb dumb  decision.  Moving here, things happened very fast once the plan was put into motion but we prayed earnestly and asked God the entire time, "If this isn't meant to be, slam the doors shut!"  He in turn threw them so wide open we followed His lead every step of the way.  There is no place on this earth that is paradise but we have been very blessed by this decision and I know for myself I'm happier here than I've been in years.

 

I don't usually do well with change.  I don't like anyone rocking my boat, messing with my routines.  But I think that's true of everyone.  We all have our comfort zones and I know for myself I'm always afraid if I step out in one direction or the other I'm going to fall off the path and land on my face.  I don't know why, really.  Whether good or bad, I've survived every decision I've made in life so far.  I might've survived with a few bruises here and there, but I've also come out into glorious light as well.  I've always learned either good or bad lessons.  Hopefully I remember the bad ones and don't repeat them.  Sometimes wisdom comes at a high price.

 

I might have written about this before...maybe not.  But it's well worth repeating because it's the most valuable Life Lesson I've learned so far in my 59 years on this earth: 

 

99% of what we fret and stew and worry about never comes to pass.  The 1% that does...we face it, deal with it, and move on.

 

Somehow, I take a lot of comfort in that.  Because, isn't it the truth?

 



Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture. ~ Kak Sri

 

I am here to tell you that miracles still happen.

 

20 years ago the brother closest to me in age cut me completely out of his and his family's life. Many attempts were made by me and my other two brothers to reconcile...after me, he cut everyone off, including our father.  All of those attempts were ignored, even when we tried to contact him to let him know our father was dying, and Dad's dying wish was to see him.  I won't go into details because the  why of it is not the focus of what I'm saying here. It's because there's been a little tiny break in the ice.  It's taken the third generation of my brother's family to finally allow contact but contact has been made and I'm optimistic it will at least continue with my grand-nephew.

 

As I got online before going to bed, I was floored to see a message on Facebook from this grand-nephew.  I had found him on Facebook in May 2011 and attempted to contact him, especially when I found out he was going to college here in Michigan and lives only 20 miles away from us!  I never got a response, so I figured, "Oh well...at least I tried."

 

Then, lo and behold!  This message from him last nite!  He said my message had been stored in another folder and he never found it until yesterday.  His message was very friendly, very open...so I sent one to him and he was online and answered right back.  We ended up chatting for about 45 minutes! He is visiting my niece who is his mom and other family in Washington State during Winter Break but I told him once he gets 'home' here to contact me if he'd like to come have a homemade meal and to get to know us.  He said that sounded very nice.

 

We'll see what happens.  Dear Hubby told me not to get my hopes up and I haven't.  But even if this is the only contact I ever have with him, it's enough.  I have been praying for 20 years that this day would come.  Maybe it's the crack in the iceberg...maybe they'll be horrified he had anything to do with me.  But he seems to be a young man with a mind of his own and I have a feeling he'll do what he wants.

 

So...Merry Christmas to me!  This truly was a gift from God this year. 





 

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

I am a woman, and I have two pair of shoes.  Yes...you heard that right.  Two. I have my everyday pair to wear with my jeans and I have a pair of dress shoes for church.  I've probably had the dress shoes for 10 years, I kid you not.  They're flats and they're black.  Go with anything, don'tcha know. I had to replace my everyday shoes today because I'd sprung leaks in the bottoms of my old pair.  Oh, and I do have a pair of purple flip-flops and my snow boots but I don't really consider them shoes.  I slip the flip-flops on when I take the garbage out to the garage.  The snow boots...well, they're for snow.

A fashionista, or whatever the word is, I'm not.  I have one purse and the only time I use it is when we go to church in Kitchener so I can keep our money and enhanced driver's licenses organized and ready for when we cross the border.  When we moved here I donated most of my 'church' clothes to charity.  I'd had most of them since...well, let's just say a long time.  But they were basic skirts, basic knit tops.  They served me well.  I kept two skirts and I rotate them each trip we take to church in Kitchener.  Since we aren't able to go very often, I figure my two outfits suffice, haha! Because going to an actual church isn't something I do much anymore, my logical brain says, "Why go out and spend the money?"  I wasn't raised by two New Englanders for nothing!  I heard "Use it up, wear it out.  Make it do, or do without" more than once in my life.

When we moved here we did a major, major purging of our lives' "stuff".  We tossed out and donated more than we kept.  We like our clutter-free existence.  We've found we haven't missed that stuff, not even one tiny bit.  Dear Hubby does wish he'd held on to a canvas wall tent but as we packed up our household and our son's and daughter's households into the back of the semi that brought everything 2/3 of the way across the country, we weren't sure how much room we'd have.  After he'd already given it away we realized we could have kept it...but oh well.

Do you ever watch "House Hunters International"?  It's the only show on TV I watch with any regularity.  I can't begin to count the times the foreign realtors say, "Americans have very high expectations" and it mortifies me when the American buyers belittle what other cultures and countries have to offer.  We Americans want it big!!!  We've got to have 5 bedrooms and 4000 square feet and pools and 3-car garages!  We want granite counter tops, and nothing but stainless steel appliances will do!  We want air conditioning!  We want...we want...we want...

Dear Hubby used to give me a bad time when we'd drive across the Columbia River towards Vancouver, Washington, from Portland.  It really bugged me, the huge estates perched on sloping land and bluffs overlooking the water.  Room enough for 5 families in some of them.  I'd shake my head quite often and say, "Why does anyone need that much room?  Don't they realize they have to clean it?  5 bathrooms means 5 toilets to scrub."  And he'd very patiently say to me what he'd always say: "If they can afford a house that big, they can afford cleaning women."  Yeah...I know.  But aren't we a country, a culture of excesses?? He couldn't understand why it bothered me so much.  I don't know why either, really.  It certainly wasn't because I was envious.  It takes very little to satisfy me.

I guess it's a matter of how much is too much.  Why do we have to acquire so much?  Why does it take room-sized closets to house our wardrobes?  When do we wear all those clothes?  How many bras and underwear do we need?  I mean, really.

But, as I said earlier, I was raised to be practical and buddy, am I ever practical.  Now, with my old shoes duly worn out (See, I wore them out, Mom!) I can put them in the garbage with a clear conscience.

You tell 'im, Lady!

This is hysterical...and it's a timely reminder to us all to have some respect and patience for our elders.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. ~ Mark Twain

As I usually do when I visit my blog, I always check my "Favorite Coffee Stops" list to see if anyone listed on there has updated recently.  This morning I noticed MerCyn had so I clicked on her link and was surprised to see she'd given a "Reality and Shone On" award to my blog.  Back in my early days of blogging when just about everyone on Earth had a blog, I used to really be into the awards that were passed around but as the years have gone on and one blog after another has disappeared into the black hole of cyberspace, award receiving and giving have gone right along with them.  Or so it seems in the realms of my blog reading.  I don't get around much, tho, so they might be doing just fine and dandy and it's me who has disappeared into cyberspace's black hole.

Regardless, since I really don't have anyone to pass this along to, I did tell MerCyn I'd write down 7 things about myself so she can get to know me a little better since we've just met.  So, here goes:

1.  I have no sense of taste. As to eating, that is, tho my sense of taste in clothing is mainly jeans and tee shirts.  And I go barefoot a lot.  An aging hippie.

2.  I love word games...I love words period!  And the hardest word I can spell is gastroesophageoduodenoscopy, thanks to working in Medical Records for several years.

3.  Even tho my Dear Hubby says I could carry on a conversation with a rock if I had no one to talk to, my basic nature is quiet and solitary.

4.  I love to read.  Dear Hubby says I've probably read 10,000 books in the years we've been married. I am also in the process of writing my first novel.

5.  I talk to the Lord all day long.  He is my best friend.

6.  After having spent 57 years of my life living in the Pacific Northwest, never further inland from the ocean than 100 miles, I am now living out the rest of my life in land-locked Michigan.  Tho land-locked isn't quite right, since we're surrounded on 3 sides by Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron...and Erie is just a stone's throw away.  I have grown to love these huge lakes every bit as much as I always loved the Pacific.

7.  My favorite kind of day is taking off with Dear Hubby and discovering new thrift or antique shops. I don't necessarily even need to buy anything...I just love to look.

And that is my list.  And now I'm off to do my Christmas cards.  If I continue to put them off like I have been, Christmas will be here and gone before I do.

Thank you again, MerCyn, for this lovely recognition!

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. ~ Irish Blessing

I don't think this is the correct year, but it's very similar to the car my mother-in-law had when Dear Hubby and I got married.  It was pale yellow and really, if you get down to it, ugly. But it was the car I drove when I got my driver's license.  It was probably the one and only time I ever drove it. And I almost got a perfect score.  The only thing I did wrong was make too wide of a left turn.  Good thing the instructor didn't ask me to parallel park!  With that big yellow boat we'd probably still be there.  That was 38 years ago.  I was a "late bloomer" when it came to getting a driver's license.  I was 20 years old.  Up until the time I got married I either rode my 10-speed bike or rode the bus.  Mostly I walked.  I walked for miles.  I loved walking then, and I still love walking now. 

Since moving here to Michigan and having no church of our faith locally, if time and work schedules allow we try to go to the little 'branch church' of our faith located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, around 200 miles away. We aren't able to make it there anywhere near as much as we'd like to, but when we do we have a wonderful time.  For anyone who's been accustomed to having a 'real' church in their lives like we'd had for 36 years that we'd attended regularly, it was quite an adjustment to suddenly be out in the middle of nowhere, spiritually speaking.  But on the Sundays we can't make the long drive to Kitchener, we're able to watch our faith's Sunday morning service 'live' on the internet at 2 in the afternoon.  That was also an adjustment, having church in the afternoon, but now it feels so normal it would feel strange to go back to 11 am services.  Funny how we humans can adapt, isn't it?

It does make Sunday mornings stretch, tho.  So Dear Hubby and I got in the habit early on after moving here to the Detroit area to go for long walks on Sunday mornings.  We basically follow the same route and cover around 4 miles or so.  It's been lovely, watching the change of the seasons in the neighborhood.  Where we live 20 miles out of Detroit, you'd never dream there was a suburb as pretty as the one we live in...but there is.  It's 20 miles physically, but a million miles in every other way.  Our neighborhood is filled with brick houses that are similar in floor plans but it's interesting to see how everyone has individualized their homes.  They take pride in ownership and you don't see junk piled up in the yards.  The landscaping is very attractive.  There are coniferous trees around, mostly pine and spruce, but the vast majority are huge hardwoods that, by size, look like they've been here since the beginning of time.  In the spring there's the budding out of the leaves and the return of so many different types of song birds.  In summer there's plenty of shade.  Autumns are absolutely spectacular.  And winter has it's beauty, too, even with all the bare limbs.  It is so much easier to spot the elusive Cardinals and Bluejays, who usually live high up in the tree canopies.  Dear Hubby and I never get tired of it.

We walked a lot when we lived in Portland, too.  Our favorite walk was from our house to the top of Mt. Tabor Park in SE, a 5-mile round trip.  It was also beautiful no matter what the season, and so different from the flat terrain we walk here.  That is one spot in Portland I can say I honestly miss at times.  I also miss "our hill" a few miles NE of Madras in north central Oregon...a little knoll with a big juniper tree where Dear Hubby and I camped many times with a spectacular view of Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, and the Three Sisters mountains in the Cascades.  Talk about awesome sunsets!  I miss NoHo's restaurant on the corner of SE 26th and Clinton in Portland, as well as the Canton Grill on SE 82nd and Division.  I sometimes get a hollow feeling in the middle of my chest when I realize I'll probably never see my hometown again.  I don't even know if I'll get back to Portland to see friends and family face-to-face again.  Of all of us adults in the family who made the move here...Dear Hubby, my son, my daughter, and my daughter-in-law...I'm the only one who hasn't been back in almost 2 years now.  Two years!  There has been so much adventure crammed into these two years, sometimes I think I've done and seen more here than I had living a lifetime in the NW. 

I remember a dear friend of mine who cried for me when we left Portland.  She was so afraid I'd be lonely and homesick living here in Michigan because she'd had to move several times as a young wife and mother, all over the West and Midwest because of her husband's job and she just about died of lonesomeness.  But that was back in the day when there wasn't cell phones, computers, Skype, Facebook, Twitter...what have you...that keeps the world in almost constant instantaneous contact.  I am in touch on a daily basis with everyone I "left behind" and outside of living in a different house, sometimes it feels like I never moved.  Tho one of Dear Hubby's cousins told him it feels like we're a million miles away now.

But homesick?  Lonesome?  No.  I love it here.  My son made a comment to me a while back.  He said his only regret in moving here is that we weren't able to do it sooner, so Dear Hubby and I would have more years to enjoy it.  Ah well.  What time I do have, I am thankful for.  I feel blessed to have even had this much time.  I take it a day at a time.  Besides, we don't know if we have any more than that anyway.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every now and then someone will mention a person who passed away a few years ago. People still talk about what a wonderful person she was, how much they miss her.

Am I missing something here? Are they talking about the same person I knew?

You see, she is one of those people who seemed to take an instant dislike to me, from the minute we met.  For the life of me, I can't think of a thing I said or did to make her react to me that way, but she did.  Her animosity towards me lasted until she died.  I thought maybe I was imagining it, but my Dear Hubby picked up on it, too, so at least I knew I wasn't crazy.  Try as I might, I couldn't change the way she felt about me.  I didn't lose any sleep over it, but it always puzzled me. Because of the way she treated me I have to admit she wasn't one of my favorite people on earth.  Tho a lot of people were devastated at her passing I can't say I spent any time grieving. That bothered me, because I'm usually a person who generally gets along well with just about anybody.

They say pheromones are what attract us to people, especially those of the opposite sex.  Do you think pheromones also have something to do with the attraction between friends as well?  I mean, I don't go around sniffing at people to see if I want to befriend them or not, but what else would cause someone to take an instant dislike to another person?  I can't imagine why she would have been jealous of me or felt competetive with me or anything else. 

I dunno.

I'm up way too late, but this was puzzling me once again, as I saw something written about her once more. 

I wish I could say I loved her, that I miss her too.

But, in all honesty, I don't.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

My four-year-old grandson spent the day with me earlier this week and as I sat with him at the kitchen table during lunch he told me about something that he considered ugly.  We got into a conversation about the word and I told him it is ok to call things ugly but he should never use that word about a person.  I told him God made each of us the way He wants us to look and it's no one's fault how they were born, ugly or beautiful.  I then shared with him how I'd been bullied in middle school especially, how kids used to tell me I was so ugly they wanted to puke when they looked at my face.  Let's just say it wasn't a real self-confidence building time in my life.  As I told this story to Cooper his eyes became huge and he told me, "Gram, I will go find those people and GET them for you!"  Ahhhhh...where was he 45 years ago when I needed him? I wrote about that on my Facebook page, and one of my friends commented it's because of the human sin nature.  It's been going on since the Garden of Eden, that's for sure, with all the bad blood Cain felt for Abel.  Wanting his offerings to be the best...his envy for Abel causing him to kill his brother.  I can't remember ever saying anything as hurtful as the things said to me.  I just wanted to be left alone...I just wanted out of there, and moving away from that particular school was one of the happiest days of my adolescent life.  Not that the bullying didn't happen in other schools, but it was never again as vicious as it was there.  I could deal with it.

What is ironic is a few years after I'd graduated from high school, Dear Hubby and I were at a little cafe having breakfast and who should walk in but one of my former tormentors.  As we made eye contact I could feel myself shrinking up inside, but she walked over to me and started talking to me, telling me how nice it was to see me....how was I? How was life treating me?  It was all very surreal, let me tell you.  And I saw her a time or two after that, at the same cafe, and it was like that horrible time never took place between the two of us.  How strange.

Dear Hubby had a conversation with another man about bullying the other day.  Dear Hubby had his issues with it happening to him, too.  This gentleman told Dear Hubby that he'd had it really bad in school but there was one boy in particular who tormented him especially.  But he said not long ago this same boy...now a middle-aged man...had contacted him thru Facebook and apologized.  He said he'd been haunted by his actions for years.

I know it has to be some kind of basic insecurity in the one who does the bullying, his/her attempt to make themselves feel important or 'better' by tormenting those around them.  I know I survived my bullying but I can't say it hasn't left its scars.  When Dear Hubby or my little grandsons tell me I'm beautiful, I just brush it away...I will never be beautiful.  The ability to believe that was taken away from me 45 years ago.  But I wouldn't go back and change those years.  Sure, those words hurt and life lessons like that really stink.  And yet those years helped shape my character...and I am compassionate, loving, and empathetic because of them.  I won't go so far as to say "Thank you" to my tormentors, but I would like to tell them  I survived.

Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you! ~ Tommy Smothers

Ah, my little blog!  How I've neglected you lately!  But amazingly, I went to check my stats and I have had a ton of visitors, almost 9000 in the past month.  That's a ton of visitors for me, anyway.  I must admit I wonder if it's mostly SPAM but I've gotten some nice comments from people who've never spoken up before...so maybe they're real, haha!  Whatever...I'm happy that anyone stops by.

Speaking of Spam, do they still make the stuff?  We didn't have a lot of money growing up and I can remember my Mom 'baking' Spam and that would be our meat entree for dinner.  When Dear Hubby and I got married, he used to love Spam and eggs for breakfast.  Yuck.  Maybe I could handle it now since I don't have a sense of taste, but I think I had enough Spam in my childhood to last me the rest of my life.  Another childhood staple?  Browned ground beef with a couple of cans of Franco American spaghetti mixed in.  I actually liked that one.  Now it just sounds so gross, lol!  But it stretched and it fed four kids and my parents.  We never went hungry.  Add a stack of buttered bread and we were filled up just fine.

So...to Spam!  Canned and cyber. 

You Know You're Living in 2012 When....

1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family ... of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your mobile phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries...
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen
8. Leaving the house without your mobile phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no 9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a 9 on this list
16. You steal from peoples walls on a daily basis, and no one bats an eyelid or tells you off or reports you to the Police

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder. ~ Charles Morgan

This is a photo of Dear Hubby and me taken not too long after we'd been married. Weren't we a couple of young kids?! Oh my word, when I look back and think of how we thought we were so grown up.  We were both around 21 at the time. 38 1/2 years later...well, we've been thru tough times and we've been thru good times. Thankfully, the good times far outnumber the bad ones. Our love for each other has strengthened thru the years and I can't imagine life without him.

But, you know, the years do march on. We're beginning to see more and more of our contemporaries dying. Both my parents are gone and Dear Hubby's dad as well. His mother is in her 80s and getting more frail with each passing year. We're gradually becoming the "older" generation.  Now, there's a sobering thought.

Sometimes we talk about what we might do if one of us dies, how we'll handle being alone. Both of us are adamant in saying we wouldn't marry again. I can almost guarantee I wouldn't. I am very solitary by nature and independent and I think I would survive ok. I won't know that for sure until it happens, and I pray it doesn't for a long time. Dear Hubby...well, I'm pretty sure he won't remarry either. As some of the spouses of our friends are dying and we're seeing the survivor trying to get back into the dating game at 50, 60, and even up into their later 70s...it doesn't seem to be too appealing. For one, especially if you've been married a long time, you're so used to the habits, the sounds, the presence of your spouse the idea of adjusting yourself to allow another person into your life seems pretty overwhelming.  At least it does to Dear Hubby and me. What if a new guy chews with his mouth open? What if a new lady wears stinky perfume? What if he's addicted to sports and game shows and has the TV on 24/7? What if she's a "Honey Do-lister" and expects Dear Hubby to spend his time on little projects that fill up his weekend? What if her adult kids don't like him? And what if his adult kids don't like her? It happens, more often than not, because this new person in your life is intruding on the children's memories, the spaces inhabited in their lives, of the parent who is gone. And dating! It was hard enough at 16, trying to impress someone of the opposite sex. I can't imagine having to start....all...over...again.  From square one. There are plenty of times when Dear Hubby and I go out to dinner and hardly say a word to each other, but it's a comfortable quietness. Same thing here at home when we're reading together and listening to music. We don't have to fill the air with chatter. If we have something to say, we say it. We have both said the idea of going out on a date and having to make conversation is exhausting!

I have had two children and three operations. I have silvery-white hair and wear glasses. I am no longer slender and lanky like I was at 21. I have scars and wrinkles and droops. But am I self-conscious in front of Dear Hubby? Goodness no.  He's been here with me every step of the way, and I with him.  We don't see the physical changes so much...we see the richness and beauty of the life we've created together, for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren.

I don't want to share that with some interloper, some stranger, who comes along. What Dear Hubby and I have is something rare and precious and I don't see it ever being repeated with someone else.

We both have said we'll get a dog, tho.

Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are! ~ Charles Dickens

I have a serious pet peeve. It centers around how American English is spoken. I know I've written about this before but to my sensitive ears it seems to be picking up at an alarming rate. Maybe it's just me. Since I don't spend a lot of time around people every day I don't know if this occurs in day-to-day speech so much, but I do notice a fast-growing trend happening amongst newscasters and reporters around this country.  Alarming to me anyway, because one of these days I'm not going to be able to understand a word they're saying. Or I'm going to strangle every last one of them because I'm not going to be able to take it anymore. I plead my case:

When did it suddenly become ok to pronounce "str" words as "shtr".  Words like "street" are now "shtreet".  "Shtrength".  "Shtratosphere".  "Inshtruction" and "shtir"....it's even creeping into the middle of words. "Shtrawberry".  "Shtrudle".  "Shtrip". "Shtrucshure" - now that's a good one. I first became aware of this strange phenomenon when we lived in Portland and a weather forecaster -- who I believe now reports weather for CNN or some big news channel  --  started talking about "the shtrength of the winds". Say what?! Now I hear it everywhere. This morning as I watched The Weather Channel a reporter on there was driving me so crazy with "shtrength" and "shtreet", etc., etc. I finally turned her off.  It was like every other word out of her mouth was distorted this way.

Another word that drives me nuts:  "tour" pronounced as "tore" now.  Why? And "often" as "off-ten" instead of off-en. Why did that happen?  When I was in elementary school in the early 60s we were taught very precise pronunciation as we learned our alphabet and how each letter and combo of letters was pronounced.  We even did little exercises with our mouths on some of the harder ones.  But "shtupid"? I even heard that one the other day. We were taught the "t" in often was silent, and even tho the vast majority seems to say "off-ten" now I just can't spit that "t" out there.  It seems too...foreign...to me. Last nite a young lady was being interviewed about Hurricane Sandy's aftermath and she said she was appalled at the "deshtruction", how "impordunt" it was to get out before it hit. Impordunt?  Hmmmmmm.

Ah well.

It's like, you know, like, getting harder for me to, like, sit around and, like, listen to this, like, you know, any longer.  It's, you know, like, just driving me, like, you know, crazy.

And with that I bid you adieu. I think I'll go read some Shakespeare.  Even he's easier for me to decipher now.  Like, you know what I'm talkin' about?

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~ Dr. Seuss ~ Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

 

Deserted House by Tenmakuro

 

 

Once upon a time I wanted desperately to be an architect, almost as desperately as I wanted to be an author. I collected floor plans of houses out of magazines: House Beautiful, Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal. Quite often when they featured various houses in these magazines the floor plans were also included and after my mother was finished with the magazines I'd confiscate them and snip the floor plans out very carefully with a pair of scissors.  I had a paper bag I'd store them in and quite often I'd sift thru all the floor plans in the bag until I'd found five or six I felt like 'playing' with and I'd spread them out on my bed.  I had two favorites I played with the most.  One was of  a beach house...a mansion, really, somewhere in southern California with a huge lanai overlooking the ocean. The other was a bird's eye view of Queen Elizabeth's childhood doll house with the roof off, looking directly down into all those sumptuous rooms. I could play with these floor plans for hours, dreaming up families and different scenarios for each one who lived in the houses.  The children would go to school, the father would leave for work carrying his briefcase and a cup of coffee as he scurried out the door. If the furniture settings were already drawn into the floor plan, all the better. I used my index finger as I moved in and out of each room in each house.  I quite often drew my own floor plans and filled them with furniture I drew as well, creating my own imaginary families who lived in them.  I even landscaped the yards on those...a tree here with a swing...a bed of day lily and roses over there.  It gave me endless hours of entertainment on rainy days when I couldn't play outside.

 

I was a weird kid.

 

Yesterday evening I picked up someone I know who is interested in buying a house  and went to meet my old friend Bill the Real Estate Guy. After a big bear hug from him...he was our Guardian Angel who helped us thru a botched-up mess with a mortgage fiasco when we first moved here...and after catching up on the "How ya doing'?" "How's the family?" questions we went inside to look thru this little house my friend is interested in.  I asked Bill, "Does anyone live here?"  There was a couch and a TV, a table and chairs in the eating area in the kitchen, a double bed in the master bedroom, clothes in the closet.  A picture of a smiling little girl around my grandson Dylan's age with "Happy Birthday Daddy!" on it was fastened to the refrigerator door with a magnet. But the house was cold. There was grime built up on the hood over the stove, piles of laundry on top of the washer and dryer and a table in the basement that looked as if they'd been sitting there a long time. The second bedroom had a few little-girl type toys in it but no bed. There was shampoo in the tub shower.  And yet, it just didn't feel as if the soul  of a family lived there. It felt creepy, like we were some kind of voyeurs, and I hesitated to look at plumbing or for cracks in the walls or any other kind of 'red flags' you look for when you're walking thru a potential home for yourself or someone you care about. Bill told me that yes, someone was living there but I just kind of shook my head and "Hmmmppphhhed" my way along behind him.  He's used to me.  He says "You're not called krazy miss kris for nothin', you know" and I tell him yeah, yeah...I know already, and we laugh about it.  But he also knows how sensitive I am about houses, how as we walked into one of the houses he was showing me when my daughter-in-law and I came househunting that I stopped as soon as I walked in and said, "Bill, I don't even want to go any further inside this one.  Something's bad here." He also knew, when he showed me the one I live in now, that when I turned to him and said, "Bill, I want this house!" I meant what I said and he told me, "Kris, I'll do everything I can to help you get it."

 

The one we looked at was a cute little house, structurally sound. Perfect for this friend of mine.  A nice private back yard with lots of landscaping that's scruffy and overgrown at the moment but will look lovely once she takes some shears to the bushes.  Big trees are in the front yard and will offer lots of shade in our hot summers.  She'd probably be happy there if she decides she wants it.  I know she'll bring the warmth, the homeliness, the soul to it that's missing now.  She'll put up artwork and have plants and photos around, a bed for her dog, the shades open to let in the streaming sun. I hope she's able to get it.

 

But ever since I dropped her off and was driving home I couldn't help wondering about who lives there now. My grown-up version of an imaginary family.  But my childhood ones always had happy endings.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk. ~ Susan Scarf Merrell

This is a photo of myself, my brother who is 2 1/2 years older than me, and my beloved paternal Grammy. I say 'beloved' because, even tho I have no conscious memory of her, whenever I think of her I have this feeling of deep contentment and warmth come over me. I never realized as I took this  'photo of a photo' with my Android camera that the image of me snapping the picture is super-imposed on top of the original. Over 56 years time span between the original and the copy.  By the looks of my age in this photo I'd say it was taken sometime in 1955. On Easter Sunday the following year, my Grammy died of a stroke. My oldest brother, 6 years my senior, can still remember her. How I wish I could, too.

As to the other brother, the one with me in this photo, we became estranged over 20 years ago. I have not seen him face-to-face or heard his voice since he so abruptly cut me out of his life because I missed the wedding reception for one of his daughters. I was caring for an aunt of my husband's who was like a second mother to me while she was on her deathbed and couldn't break away. He told our father as far as he was concerned I was no longer a part of the family, and he meant what he said.  Not only was I cut off from him but also my nieces and my grand-nephews and grand-niece. If it wasn't for Facebook I wouldn't have any idea what any of them look like. Until recently I had no idea what my brother looks like now either, until one of his daughters posted a photo of him with her. To say I was shocked puts it mildly. The last time I saw him he was 41. He's now 61...silver-haired like me but he looks 10 years older. Has he been ill? Or is it all the bitterness piled up inside that's taken its toll on him thru the years?

I know I've posted about this in the past.  I was heartbroken when this estrangement happened and it took a long time to accept it and realize he truly was unforgiving and wanted nothing more to do with me. At this stage of the game it's one of those hurts that's kind of like a tooth going bad, a dull ache every now and then when I think about it. But a couple days ago I was searching thru our thousands of photos, trying to locate one for a friend of mine, and I came across this one and a few other rare ones from my early childhood. And I got to thinking about him. I thought about sending a copy of it and a few others to my niece...I have sent her a Message in the past on Facebook without any response.  I don't imagine he has many, if any childhood photos. Honestly, I doubted whether he'd be interested, so I put the photos away after I'd taken pictures of them and posted them on my Facebook page.  I shut the lid, put the box on its shelf in the basement, and resigned myself  -  once again  -  to the fact that the days when we sat side-by-side next to our beloved Grammy are part of a past I can never regain.