Monthly Archives: March 2017

31Mar/17
neighborhood kids

What Can I Be When I Grow Up?

what is left that I haven’t already done…

what do you want to be

Do I look like a nurse in my bikini?

I’m the one on the far right in the bikini. Not even sure it was a bikini, it was a two piece bathing suit. But that’s not the topic of this post. I loved my friends and the lazy summer days spent in our pool. We didn’t have a care in the world.  As you can see my friends had a dog. I wanted a dog too. A poodle..a toy poodle. My parents said they couldn’t afford it and if I could somehow find the money I could have one. I think they said that knowing full well I couldn’t possibly find the money. I was the oldest in the neighborhood and was also kind of bossy. So I told all the kids they needed to give me money so I could buy a poodle and you know what…they did. And their parents didn’t even seem to care. I got my poodle too as you can see in the picture on the right of The Helpful Hellion. I was such a little entrepreneur.

It was around this time in my life that I decided I wanted to be was a nurse. Mom’s best friend across the street was a nurse and I for some reason thought that sounded like something I should do too.. My Aunt Norma was also a nurse and she was awesome. So that was it…I was going to be a nurse. Every time I went to the doctor’s office all I would do was watch the nurses in their starched white uniforms and little caps go about their business and think someday that will be me.

That was the plan until I turned 13. I was going to be a nurse. However my teenage angst and thoughts of far away places changed all of that. Far away as in getting out of the house and moving somewhere exotic and doing something artistic. Since I didn’t have much artistic talent that anyone could see, even me…I decided I was going to be a writer. I was going to write and live in Paris. Yeah, I know…but it was the 60’s and people were doing all kinds of crazy things. So that was it then at 13, I decided to move to Paris as soon as I graduated and write. I started right away, every day when I got home from school I wrote. I was writing the next “Great American Novel.” I called it, “I Walk Alone.” It was about a woman living alone in of all places Paris. I still have it somewhere around here.

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” ~ George Elliot

I kept the writing thing going and really worked hard in English class until around the age of 15. After that, what I was going to be wasn’t as important as all the cute boys I had started being attracted to. When I got pregnant and married at almost 16, my future was decided for me. I was going to be…a Mom. Having 3 children by the age of 21 didn’t allow much time for anything else. I was a stay at home Mom and I loved it. I guess it was around that time I started working outside the house a few hours to give me some spending money of my own and a chance to get out of the house a bit.

I continued working a few part time retail jobs while the kids were growing up and enjoyed the interaction and loved the retail environment. I loved clothes and shoes and I got a discount and money to spend. I got divorced at age 27 and went to work full time. This time it wasn’t so much a choice of what exciting thing I wanted to do, it was what can I do that I can make the most money and be there for the kids. I got a waitress job and was home by 3 when the kids got home. I made good money and had benefits. So it worked well for all of us.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”~ E.E.Cummings

I am not going to list all the jobs I’ve had over the course of my years because it would take forever. Let me just say, I had more that 20. I have also lost a good majority of those jobs due to a changing work environment. One where companies get bought out or close and people lose their jobs unexpectedly. I had several that I really loved and with no warning whatsoever the company just left all of us go. Early in my 40’s I grew tired of working for other people and decided I want to have my own business. So I thought, what was it that I loved and had always wanted to do? The answer wasn’t hard to come upon as I for a number of years had wanted to have my own clothing store.

Once I decided this was what I wanted to do it didn’t take long for everything to fall into place. One day at work I was looking in the newspaper and saw a local boutique downtown was for sale and couldn’t believe my eyes. I loved this store. As soon as I got off work I went there to talk to the owner. A few days later I put a business plan together and presented it to the local bank. They accepted it and gave me the money to buy the business. All this occurred within the span of a few weeks unbelievably.  The day the previous owner turned over the keys I stood in the middle of the store…my store and thought to myself….this is mine. This is what I have always wanted. I am living my dream.

working in a store

Me.. in my store…living my dream.

My dream lasted for a little over 4 years. I loved owning that store, the buying trips, merchandising all the clothing and accessories and helping women look good. Both of my daughters worked there with me and it was fun. I couldn’t see myself ever doing anything else. Sadly, the climate of the downtown changed and in 1990 when the recession hit, it hit 20 stores plus mine. I had to close my store and lock the door for the final time. It is hard coming back after that. What do you do when you have your dream? Where do you go from there?

Being in the downtown area I got to know people in the community and was offered several jobs, thank goodness. I appreciated every single offer and worked hard over the next few decades. I thought I had found another dream job about 7 years ago in the jewelry business. I was merchandising and traveling to stores all over the place. I loved it. Again it wasn’t to be and I was left go. While working at a few of the jobs I have had over the last decade I had also decided to keep my one part time job as a vendor of a large cosmetic/perfume company. I kept it due to the money, the people I worked for and with and basically being able to make my own schedule. Well as of 2 weeks ago that job has now also gone the direction of so many others I have had due to a recent buyout and reorganization…so here I am at 67 looking for a job.

“Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t , do something else.” ~ FDR

I know you’re asking yourself, why is she looking for work at 67?..well, I enjoy getting out of the house and being with people…I enjoy working at a job I love and doing it well. I like the satisfaction of a job well done and feeling like I am still able to accomplish something even at my age. I am asking myself once again…what is it you always wanted to do and haven’t done that yet? Anyone that follows this blog knows I love to write and started doing that when I lost the jewelry job. I do love it and I am not planning to stop. I don’t make any money doing this and keeping a big old house going takes a bit of money.

I have had so many jobs I loved and would go back to them…if they were still there to go back to. People keep saying to me, “oh, don’t worry, when one door closes another opens”… I have had so many doors close on me I think I will have to hire a locksmith this time. At this point in my life I want to be happy and want to do something I love doing. I also would like to make a difference in some way. So here I am asking myself, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I honestly don’t know the answer this time.

So here is the question of the day..What do you want to be when you grow up? I asked my grand daughter this questions today and she said… “a park ranger.” Sounds good to me.

“What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.” ~ Carl Jung

 

 

 

 

 

24Mar/17
older women

15 Signs You Are Getting Old…er

how do we know we’re getting old, let me help…

older women

Do you think we’re old?

As usual this topic came up in conversation with some friends the other night at dinner. Well we really didn’t talk about getting older, we like to avoid that subject, but so many of our topics of conversation that night made me think about this. I thought about it the whole day and decided to put together this list of 15 signs you are getting old..er. So if you’re in doubt this may help.

1. You used to love going to crowded places like bars and concerts, but now if someone is even in the same aisle at the grocery store as you, it bugs you. Why is it so peoply everywhere these days?

2. You have to sit down to put on your socks or take off your pants. If you don’t you may fall over. Remember the days when we had perfect balance and could take these things off while standing up? Yeah, me neither cause I can’t remember a damn thing.

3. You print out the map quest directions when going somewhere you’ve never been before because you can’t see the tiny map or directions on your phone. And quite honestly I don’t trust those GPS things anyway. Remember those people who drove into the water cause the GPS told them to go straight…and they did… Straight into the water. Yeah, that ain’t happening to this girl.

4. When any of the music awards shows are on TV you don’t know who half the artists/bands are that are up for any of the awards. Really, who are these people and why haven’t I heard of them? I watch The Voice, I listen to the radio… I’m guessing listening to the oldies station doesn’t help.

5. When you get together these days with your high school friends… instead of talking about the cute guys you are dating you talk about your aching joints, back spasms, recent doctor visits and your upcoming cataract surgery. I want to talk about the cute guys I’m dating again…

6. You avoid people in the store when you see them because you can’t remember their name…and you know they remember your name because they did the last time you ran into them and till this day you still can’t remember theirs. It’s easier for everyone if you just avoid them altogether. 

7. Everyone is speeding by you on the highway. Remember when it was us speeding down the road yelling at all the old people to go faster or get off the road. Yeah. Karma…

8. When you can’t lose 5 pounds in one day anymore by just cutting out one  thing like soda or ice tea. Now I couldn’t lose 5 pounds in a year if i stopped eating entirely.

9. You tear up at almost anything these days. TV commercials, Hallmark movies, puppies, babies…Folgers commercials…yeah, I get all teary at coffee commercials..

10. Your sentences these days go something like this…”where is the thing that goes in the whatchamacallit?” And sadder still is the fact the “old” person you ask this question knows exactly what you are talking about.

11. You wish you could trade some of your body parts in on new ones. Your ears have gotten bigger, your hair has gotten thinner(some places have lost all of it) and your feet don’t look cute anymore, they look like something the Hulk walks on. And speaking of feet, no more high heels. You know I think maybe they are to blame for the “Hulk” feet.  Sneakers and really slippers are my best friends. 

12. You make those horrible old people sounds when you get up off the sofa. I remember looking in horror at my Grandfather when he did this. Now I do it. Where do these noises even come from? Do they help us to get up?

13. When you and a group of your friends are at dinner and every single one of you have special requests of the waiter when ordering your food. Can they hold the sauce.. is it gluten free… dressing on the side, please… what kind of oil is that fried in? You get the picture. Remember when we went to the old burger place and just ordered a burger and fries. No questions asked…those were the days…

14. You are filling something out online and it takes forever for you to scroll down to the year you were born. You could leave the room and get a coffee and come back and it would still be scrolling. Sometimes it doesn’t even go that far back, you have to fill the year in yourself….very disappointing.

15. And last but certainly not least…you have a note on your front door that says, “Did you remember your cell phone?” It was written by your grand daughter because you have forgotten yours so many times. And even worse is when you look at the note on your way out and still forget it.

That’s my list. I am sure there are many more you can think of. I would love you to leave some of them in the comments below. What’s a sign of growing old? And remember old is always 20 years older than we are….

“The older you get the better you get unless you’re a banana.” ~ Betty White

17Mar/17
Love

I Want To Know What Love Is!

thank you Foreigner, so do I

Love

What is Love?

Really, I am asking you…what is love? Is it the thing we see in the movies between a man and a woman? Is it the way it is in the countless books we have read? Surely it’s not the childhood fairly tales where Prince Charming finally shows up with the shoe or kisses us out of a deep sleep. And by the way, if I have to wear a glass shoe, then just no..

If it’s not that then what is it? I don’t know the answer, hence the reason for my question. So if you came here looking for answers you came to the wrong place. I thought I was in love several times in my life. But was I? From everything I have read and heard about how it is supposed to be and feel, maybe I never really was…

There are many different kinds of love..at least I think so anyway. Love of our parents and grandparents, love of our children and grandchildren, love of other family members and our friends who we love like family, even the love of our dear sweet pets. But what is the love between a man and a woman supposed to be like and is it meant to last forever? Can it?

I looked up the word “love” on Dictionary.com and here are a few of the definitions it had listed:

  1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
  2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection as for a parent, child or friend.
  3. sexual passion or desire.
  4. an object or thing so liked.
  5. a score as in tennis of zero or nothing.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. Thank you so much Dictionary.com! I feel a little better now…maybe I “have” loved. I certainly have had a “profoundly tender, passionate affection” for a man a time or two….maybe more. I definitely have had and still have  “a deep affection” for my parents, children and friends. I won’t bore you with all the “sexual passion or desire” encounters I have had. My “thing so liked”…. I love to write. And as for the “zero” thing, yeah, had that a time or two as well. Alright!!!

Even after reading the definitions of “love“…. and admitting to have felt each of them at least once or twice, my question still remains. What is love? Does the very fact that I ask this question mean I haven’t had true love or the everlasting love we hear can exist? The kind of love that endures many years as in a long marriage…when one person dies the other isn’t far behind… the love that lasts forever. But does it? When I got married I believed it did. I believed our love would. But it didn’t. He didn’t love me enough to be faithful and I didn’t love him enough to overlook it. I loved him for many years after our divorce. Or maybe I just loved the thought of him and what could have been. He was my first love..maybe that is why I still think of him from time to time and wonder.

I had a dream last night about another one of my “loves”, it is what made me think about all of this in the first place. I woke up wondering why I had dreamt about him when I hadn’t seen or heard from him in 25 years. And then I wondered, did I love him… Was I in love with this guy 25 years ago or was it something else? I felt like I was at the time but when something doesn’t last we are very quick to think it can’t be real. So does the fact our relationship didn’t lead to marriage or last more than a few years make it any less of one than the couples that stay together forever?

“Love is all you need” ~ John Lennon

Here is what I think real love is… It means you can’t do anything wrong, the person that loves you will love you and you will work out any and all your problems. This doesn’t mean you can abuse the love or the person. That isn’t what love is. The reason you can work out your problems is that you have an underlying basis of trust and respect. If you have that you can surmount any problems that come up. But if that trust is ever broken, it is very hard to repair it. If not impossible. And it is very hard to open yourself up fully to another after going through that in a relationship.

Good times are wonderful..but bad times do happen. Only if you have that solid underlying trust, respect and true love will your relationship survive. We can’t change people or force them to be something they aren’t. They either have these traits or they don’t. This is true in any relationship, not just the one between a man and a woman. If you have a friend or family member who you can’t trust completely or they try to change you and don’t respect the person you are.. then it is time to move away from that relationship. We must be true to ourselves. We have to first love ourself enough to step away to be able to become the person we want and need to be. The person we truly are. I have made the mistake of sacrificing who I was a few times to keep the relationship. It doesn’t work and the relationship still ends. I will never do it again.

So back to the question I asked, “what is love?” I’m going to go out on a limb here after thinking about all of this and say I think I may “have” been in “love” once or twice in my life. I think there are different levels and different kinds of love. I am not sure if what I have experienced was “real love.” One thing I don’t even have to think about and I am definitely sure of is that I have the real thing with my family and the great friends I have in my life right now… at this moment in time. While I don’t have a special man in my life, I would like to believe enough in love that maybe that could still happen one day. Ok, now I know I’m starting to sound like the fairy tale books I read as a kid..but maybe that is what I need…what we all need…something to believe in…to think maybe just maybe that guy will ride up to my door in his “white car” and whisk me away. Who knows, crazier things have happened…

Do you believe in real love? The kind that lasts forever, that kind of love…

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.” ― Oscar Wilde.

 

 

 

 

 

10Mar/17
fun

I Want To Be Fun Again…

is that even possible at my age…

fun

Like in this picture, see how much fun I am having…

That’s me in the center in the blue dress. Don’t I look like I’m having fun? I must have been, it was my birthday. So I should have been… But was I? Evidently my mom wanted everyone to and was passing out little boxes of it because as you can clearly see, the little girl in yellow has one. Maybe I didn’t get one and that is why I was so upset. Or maybe.. I just didn’t like my hat!

I did have fun as a child even though most of my pictures don’t show that side of me. We played outside all day long and didn’t go in until the sun went down. And we were never bored. I also had lots of fun as a teenager, while most kids in their teens have that teenage angst.. I really don’t remember ever having that. I’m sure my parents would most likely disagree with that statement but I just didn’t.. I had fun. I wasn’t sitting around in my room playing on my phone like kids today, I was out having fun with friends.

Ok, maybe I was having a little too much fun since I got pregnant and was married at 15, but whatever, it all turned out ok. I had 3 beautiful kids before getting a divorce when I was 27. The kids were older and because I never really had most of my teenage years I had them when I was around the age of 30. I started working full time and met this fantastic group of people at work. We became like a family and did so many different things together. Everyone in the group thought I was so much “fun.”

“If you never did you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.” -Dr. Suess

We spent a lot of time together as a group. We went out for dinner together and one of my most favorite things we did was going dancing a few times a week. We danced and we danced. We danced from the time we walked in the door until the time we left. We knew all the local bands and they knew us. We hit all the local hot dance spots of which there were many back then. We were the fun crew and I was the “fun” girl.

I did most if not all of the arranging of our get togethers. I did it simply because I enjoyed being part of this group and I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. And boy did we have fun? They even came to my house and my kids danced with us. This went on for quite a while. I was living life and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Oh, believe me, I had bills, a job, a house to take care of, kids to take care of, meals to make, wash to do, etc…the same thing everyone else had but some how I fit having a little fun in there too. It made being a single mother of 3 a whole lot easier to deal with.

 

dancing

me dancing…

As I said this went on for a while. A few years in fact. And then some how, some where I lost that fun girl inside me. I don’t remember when it happened or how it happened. Oh, I still have fun, believe me. My friends and family and I have so much fun together. Lunches, dinners, trips to the beach, road trips, shopping and concerts. And let’s not forget “Wine and Pie” days. (we need another one soon) I have fun. Lots of fun. But I just don’t feel like that girl dancing in the picture did…Something inside me was gone.

What happened? Where did that girl go? Did life get in the way? Jobs that took me away from home for days on end, stress, the loss of so many important people in my life…Did all that take the fun out of life, the fun out of me… Or is this just something that happens as we age? Do we have so much on our shoulders these days that life can’t possibly be fun?  I thought I would always be that girl, I just thought I would always be fun.

This whole “me being fun thing” came up today while talking with a friend that I used to have fun with. She had brought some pictures along of us back in the 80’s when we were out having.. fun. Looking at those pictures made me think. I had been feeling like I had lost something and right then and there I knew what it was. As I looked at my face I could see the carefree me just enjoying myself and having fun. We both decided we were going to have fun again. It had been way too long for both of us. And I made a decision right there during lunch that I was going to be the “fun girl” again. We don’t  know how many times we will be able to get out of bed and walk, let alone dance. We aren’t guaranteed anything in this life. We aren’t certain of how many tomorrows we have left. But if there is one thing I am certain of it’s that I am going to have fun! And I will be that “fun” girl again.

When I thought about all of this on my way home from our lunch, I came up with this. I think when you start to forget who you are, you have to think back to a time in your life when you loved yourself the most. That is the real you. I know I loved myself during that time. I thought maybe I loved myself to much. I had obligations. I had a family that needed me. So is that what changed? Did I stop loving myself? Is that what happened? I don’t know the answer. But I am going to try and find that girl in the picture, the one having fun. The “fun” girl.

Do you still have fun? Is it different now than when you were younger? I really would like to hear your comments.

“Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun.” ~ Randy Pausch

 

 

 

04Mar/17
chilling on the porch

Packing Up My Childhood Home

and who will be doing mine….

chilling on the porch

me on the porch of my childhood home

My friends are always a veritable source of blog ideas and chatting with them yesterday about this subject brought back memories of when I packed up my childhood home. Several of my friends have had to do this already and another one is dreading the time that will inevitably be in her future.

Packing up the home you grew up in is not an easy thing to do…ever. Even under the best of circumstances. And I really don’t know that there are any good circumstances….maybe if you are helping your parents downsize to a smaller place and they are both still alive. But even that would have to hold some sad moments for the ones who are never going to see the inside of of that house again. However most of the time that isn’t the case and the children are left to pack up the home and all that belonged to their family.

My daughter and I worked alone for months on my parents house. This was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in more ways than one. My father had already passed and Mom was in a nursing home with Dementia and was never going to return to the house I grew up in and that she loved so dearly. Mom hadn’t been well for awhile and left things go and the house was in bad shape..it was almost like an edition of “Horders.” When we walked in and looked around we almost turned right around and walked back out….we didn’t know where to start.

The whole situation was unbelievably hard emotionally and physically and also because we were doing it by ourselves… we were just overwhelmed. We finally decided to sell the place “as is” and found a local buyer who did “flips.” That decision saved us from having to get everything out and clean what would be a feat not even Mr. Clean could or would tackle. But, we still wanted to go through as much as we could to make sure there weren’t any “gems” left in the house before we turned it over to the buyer.

Going through my parents things gave me a whole new view on who they were and what they had been before I came along. We found letters from camp written to old boyfriends from Mom and letters from Dad written to Mom while he was serving in the Navy. It brought up so many questions and I really wished I could ask them about some of them. But sadly that was not meant to be…with my Dad gone and Mom having Dementia that was impossible. Not to mention all of my parents siblings had passed as well so there was no one left to ask about the things that were left behind or the people my parents once were.

The letters and items from Mom’s childhood gave me a whole other view as to who this woman was. You never think of your parents as even having a childhood and being young and carefree with hopes and dreams just like us. I wanted to know this person, I wish I could have been friends with her. I think I would have had a lot in common with the young child and person she was before she became my “Mom.”

We found paintings Mom had done upstairs in the storage area. I knew Mom had this talent as I had seen some of her paintings early on in my childhood. But I forgot how good she was at it and would have loved to ask her why she stopped. Why didn’t she continue to paint and what would make her give up this talent? Did she do it for my sister and I? Did she think she wasn’t good enough? I will never know the answers to these questions.

Mom loved to shop and that was never more evident to us as we went through the closets full of clothing, shoes and handbags. This whole shopping addiction has been passed on to me and my daughters. So you see it is not our fault we shop! Going through the stacks and stacks of clothes with tags still on them made me decide I wasn’t going to do this anymore. And I have tried to be better about what I want and what I really need. If I buy one thing I must give up two items. I give away a lot of things to my friends and family too. I would rather give it to them than make a few bucks on it or give it to Goodwill. So I have learned something from this experience.

While going through one of the closets I found something else that totally blew my mind. Something so horrible and vile that it is forever etched in my mind…As I lifted a pile of pants something hard touched my hand. I lifted the item out from between the clothes so I could see what it was. OMG!! It can’t be…it is…it was… a “dildo.” I screamed and dropped the offending thing on the floor. Yes, you read this right… My Mother had a dildo in her closet. Believe me, this is not something I thought my own mother would even remotely know about, let alone me finding one in her closet. I ran in the bathroom and scoured my hands with antibacterial soap for much longer than needed and tried to regain my sanity. My daughter was screaming too so when we finally both calmed down, we got a trash bag and threw the heinous thing inside and sealed the bag tightly so it couldn’t escape and do more damage than it had already done.

This whole “dildo” episode made me think…what will those left behind to pack up my house find….I did call my friend and made her promise to go through things first so nothing would scare my children or whoever is left to do this. I got rid of the most offending items I could think of…however, there may still be a few things I need to lock up in a box and then maybe even swallow the key….

As you can see there are many ways to look at doing this life changing thing of cleaning out your childhood home. There will be a lot of good memories to be found and also some sad ones. But then you might find something that will make you laugh. Almost as though it was left there for just that reason. I know I sure have a good laugh whenever I remember Mom’s “dildo.”

Home Sweet Home

My childhood home

Have you gone through this? Have you packed up your childhood home? What did you find?

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes