New Gadget

I don't really have a lot to post today, but I had to share my excitement with the new gadget I found yesterday, Shelfari.  I love that I can show all the books I'm currently enjoying. I have to admit though I haven't read much during the past week. I have had a horrible sinus infection and my head hurt so bad for a couple of days I couldn't concentrate on anything. It seems to finally be getting better so maybe I can start catching up after I get my house cleaned and all my Super Bowl party preparations done. There are also several quilt projects I need to finish, the treadmill is collecting dust and several school projects that need to be finished- I need more time!

Something New...

I saw this Friday Follow on a blog I visited this morning and it looked like a great way to find new blogs to follow. I have no idea what I'm doing exactly but I just cut and pasted like the directions said!

10 Days and Counting

The days leading up to the super bowl will be very stressful for my family and I. No, we are not Saints or Colts fans. None of us have a gambling problem and are agonizing over the odds. No, our stress all comes from OMG WE HAVE TO GET THE HOUSE READY.


Every year for the past 18 years we have hosted a Super Bowl party for the same group of friends. These are people who probably wouldn't even notice, let alone care about, dust on the baseboards. But every year I drive my family crazy with the annual pre-Super Bowl cleanup. I have to confess- the reason this is so stressful is it really is the only time during the year that I REALLY clean house, I'm talking move the furniture, clean the grout with a toothbrush, wash the curtains kind of cleaning. If I don't do it now, it probably doesn't get done.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could just clean. But before you can clean you have get rid of the clutter. We are "collectors" (OK, we may be on the next Hoarders show.) I also never learned those little parenting strategies like getting your children put away their toys at night by singing cute clean up songs or teaching them not to take something new out until you put away what you are playing with. My strategy was more like waiting until I couldn't walk through the living room anymore and then shouting "If you don't put all these *expletive deleted* toys away right now they are going out with the trash" and then for effect, start throwing things in trash bags. (At this point they would grab the bags and run upstairs with them. I always thought they were trying to get away from me and then I'd feel all "bad mommy". Now I realize they were probably up there high-fiving each other because they got Mom to pick everything up again.) Toys have been replaced with school stuff, makeup, and "Why is there a hair straightener in the living room?" but the mess still exists.

So I will spend this weekend reorganizing kitchen cabinets, cleaning baseboards and wondering if I have time to paint the kitchen. I'll go to Hobby Lobby and Home Goods looking for "decor" items. I'll cry at least once because "I should have finished that quilt/cross-stitch picture/afghan I started 5 years ago cause wouldn't it look great on the sofa or wall". By 3:00 Super Bowl Sunday I'll be a wreck (I also have an annual panic that I won't have enough food and send someone out for another bag of chips or something. We live on the leftovers for a week but no one wants to mess with me so they go get whatever I ask for. Hell, at that point they are all begging to go so they can escape!) However, once the gang's all here, the game starts and the beer starts to flow, all is forgotten (sort of like the pain of childbirth) and I start planning for next year.

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

I love looking at old photo albums!  My mom keeps all of her old albums in the hall closet, and it is one of the first places I go when we visit every summer.  This summer it seemed especially important to see them since it was the first summer visit since my father's death.  Looking at pictures from my childhood just seemed to bring him closer.

My mom also had a "little job" for my husband.  (She always has little things she likes him to do when he visits- the man can fix or figure out how to work just about anything)  This time she had purchased a gadget  from QVC that would scan your old photos and put them on a memory card.  My mom is the queen of  QVC shopping but that's another story.  Anyway she wanted Ralph to figure out how to work it which he did.

Going through all those pictures and scanning them was definitely an emotional roller coaster type experience.  Seeing my dad the way he was before the Alzheimer's made us smile but it was also a reminder that he was longer with us.  Ralph and the girls had not heard all of the stories behind the photos so I think they enjoyed the glimpses into our past.

One backstory seemed to sum up my personality as a child pretty well- at least according to my mom.  My dad had purchased one of the very first Polaroid cameras from a coworker. (It was the kind you had to rub the picture with some chemical and wait for it to appear.)  He was constantly taking pictures of us.  Not being the most patient child or the most tolerant of things I felt were stupid, this was a real source of annoyance for my 8 year old self.  One weekend morning I had just taken a bath.  My hair was wet and I was wearing a bathrobe.  For some reason he wanted to take  pictures that morning.  Probably because my 3 year old brother looked so adorable in his footed jammies and his "porcupine" hair sticking up everywhere.  But I was NOT feeling adorable.  The first picture went OK but just as he went to shoot the next one I said in a voice just loud enough to be heard by all, "I just ought to stick my bare ass up in the air."

There were no more photos taken that morning.

(This is not THE photograph but I think you get the idea- doesn't everyone look pleased with me!)

Who is that old woman in the mirror?

I decided this morning I need some new friends.  More specifically, Lady Clairol, Jenny Craig and Mary Kay.  Getting old really just sucks sometimes.

I Love My Kindle!

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own."

— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 I have always loved reading.  My mom tells me that I liked nothing better than to sit on someone's lap and hear favorite books read over and over. As soon as I could read myself  that is all I wanted to do.  I checked out my 2 favorites, Madeline and Horton Hears a Who, from the public library over and over.  I remember my first "chapter book" that was in my Easter basket is 1st grade.  It was The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore. I went on to read many other stories about Ned, Nan, Flossie and Freddy and then moved on to Nancy Drew, Donna Parker and basically anything I could get my hands on.  I was never without a book.  I read in the car, in bed at night, and even in the midst of family gatherings.  I kept a book in my desk at school and secretly read holding the book on my lap under my desk.  This caused a little trouble now and then especially if the book was funny and I laughed out loud during a lesson. (Sorry Mrs. Probst!)

My First Post

As a teenager I was fascinated with the 1950's. The idea of wearing a poodle skirt and hanging out at a soda fountain or drive-in listening to the Big Bopper sing about "Chantilly Lace" was in many ways more appealing to me than the styles and music the 70's had to offer. I loved the movie "American Graffiti" (If you haven't watched it recently, check it out for a look at young Harrison Ford.) and "Happy Days" was one of my favorite television shows. I knew all the words to songs by Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka. My record collection included the soundtrack to "American Graffiti and compilations of early rock-and-roll along with my John Denver, Jim Croce and unfortunately, Captain and Tenille albums. (This all changed when I discovered Springsteen, but that's another story.) Even now I look back at the 50's and early sixties wistfully. ( I was born at the end of 1959 so I have no memories of the fifties and only hazy memories of my early childhood in the sixties, but I'm convinced I was meant to be a child of that era.) Anyway, the words "the fifties" always made me feel nostalgic and happy.

Until this past November. On November 4, the unimaginable happened. The
"Fifties" no longer just described a peaceful decade in time, it now described my age! The images of pony-tailed girls swooning when Elvis gyrated and bad boys in leather jackets slicking back their hair have been replaced with AARP cards and the prospect of unpleasant medical procedures. I left my last annual checkup with a packet containing information about colonoscopies, reducing high cholesterol and calcium supplements for bone loss. I now qualify for a senior account at my credit union. Can eating dinner at 4:30 to take advantage of the early bird senior citizens discounts be far behind?

I've spent the past few months coming to terms with this new stage in my life and have decided that since I have survived moving 2000 miles from home, childbirth- 3 times, Texas summers, cancer, a double bypass, and 28 years of teaching, and my 3 teenager/young adults-all still living at home-haven't killed me yet, I can survive and possibly even embrace being 50. I'm even looking forward to the things this next decade and beyond may bring- retirement, grandchildren(but not right now, girls) and being able to say whatever I want without censure because I'm old!

So this blog will be my attempt to chronicle my adventures as I go through this next stage in my life- The Fifties.