Embrace The Suck

I realized yesterday that taking care of Dad is a little like living in a children's book. Check out these similarities: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs While Dad is not what one might call a "dwarf" he has lost some of his stature over the years; shrinking from his fighting height of 5'8" to something less than that! When asked how tall he is (usually in a doctor's office with his shirt off, his pale wrinkly skin looking a bit like the Saggy Baggy Elephant of Golden Book fame), I've noticed that he stretches himself to his greatest height by throwing his shoulders back and holding his head up as if a senior officer had just yelled "Attention!" Not surprisingly for an older gent who still needs to feel tall in the saddle, Dad's answer is apt to include every quarter inch like a toddler who adds even half-years to his age. In reality it doesn't matter how tall Dad is, added partial inches or not. I outgrew the other members of my clan, i...

“The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and scented massage every day. Hippocrates It may be hard for the generations behind me to realize this, but when I was growing up the Bath and Body Works stores that are in every urban mall today didn't even exist. Our choice of soap was somewhat limited. There was 99% pure Ivory (for babies) and yellow, antibacterial Dial. Nothing came in pretty squirt bottles except Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo. We made do with a 2x3x1 inch bar. Since five girls used one bathroom, we all shared the same bar. How's that for personal hygiene? We also used, if you can believe this, terry cloth washcloths, not plastic scrunchies that come in various colors. Mom shopped at the Navy commissary so we pretty much made do with the basics. Looking at my shower enclosure and bathroom closet today, it would be hard to realize I grew up with this kind of soap deprivation. Or maybe because I grew up with no choice at all, it explains the eight ...

"That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along." Madeleine L'Engle At the same time I was complaining about having no inspiration, I was reading a book that was clearly inspiration just waiting to be realized. It just took me a couple of days of pondering to figure it out. Mothering Mother by Carol D. O'Dell is the author's story of caring for her 90 year old mother who suffered from Parkinson's disease with a couple of years of Alzheimers thrown into mix to keep things interesting. It's a great book and should be on every caregiver's bookshelf. Coincidentally, O'Dell lives here in Jacksonville. When she wrote about walking along the river to clear her head, I imagined she was just down the street. Feeling like we were neighbors who could wave to each other on the occasional outing, made her story even more recognizable somehow. Not that it was difficult to believe what the auth...

" You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club." Jack London Besides having other things to do, AntiJen says she hasn't been inspired by much of anything worth writing about lately. I've got to agree. My well of ideas has dried up like the water around Atlanta. Perhaps I'm just in a post-Christmas funk. All that joyful activity is bound to lead to a kind of blah new year beginning, isn't it? Try as I might, I just can't get excited about boxes of Valentines that were put on sale next to the Christmas leftovers. I might not feel this way in February, but right now I long for a simpler, doily and red construction paper kind of holiday. I guess I should just face facts. My life is pretty boring. There just isn't a lot of inspiration in my days' routines. Another, more experienced writer might be able to tell an interesting tale about the number of times a week I go to the grocery store. Personally I find it weird ... In c...

Once upon a time, in the land of evergreen trees, majestic mountains, and abundant flower markets, a baby was born. At twenty-nine minutes past the stroke of midnight, on the first day the new year, Ivy Jane Wichansky came into the world (in the words of her Aunt Wendy) "ready to rock." And just like that, the world was changed. What might have been just another ordinary year, with its usual hillocks to climb and valleys to cross, became a time of excitement. What could have been just a ho-hum day took on an air of expectation. Lights became brighter. Colors [especially pink] became more vibrant. Ordinary little body parts, like eyes and ears and fingers and toes, instantly became objects of wonder. Even poop took on an extraordinary air! Ivy Jane is not just any baby. To her parents, extended family and friends, she is unique. No one just like her will ever be born again. That is miracle enough. Yet, like all newborns, Ivy Jane came into the world bearing a single message. ...

"I believe with all my heart that we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. " Eleanor Roosevelt Today is the first day of a new year. Already the world has been blessed with new life, as it has been diminished by the destructive side of human nature. The good news is this - we still have the power of choice. We can look towards the light, or we can choose the darkness. We can reach out in love or we can choose to remain cold and isolated. As with any rose, we can choose to see the beauty and embrace it, or we can complain about the thorns. Life is all about choice. Believing as she does that "conscious choices make for conscious living," Sandra Magsamen wrote this New Year's afffirmation in the January issue of her studio newsletter, Living Artfully ( http://www.sandramagsamen.com/ . It is a little too early in the day - and the year - to come up with anything better...