Embrace The Suck

OMG! The skies have opened up and rain is pouring down like angels are playing in an overfilled bathtub. It's awesome. Hasn't rained like this in ages. Except for the thunder and lightening I'd be out there dancing. Suzi doesn't much like it. I might have to make a fort under the dining room table so she will feel safe! Okay, so I can play! Maybe the day bring you joy, Merry ME

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all" Emily Dickinson Le Chat Noir Writers Circle You know how I said in a previous post how wonderful it feels to do good deeds for others. Today my writing group tackled the children's library and art room at city's Homeless Shelter. The job turned out to be more cleaning, sorting, arranging and organizing the room than alphabetizing books. My goodness it's amazing what can happen when you get 7 determined women together with cleaning on their minds. When it was all over we were hot, sweaty and hungry, but felt stupendous inside. There are many things about the Sulzbacher Center that make it an asset for our city. It is a good size, has medical and dental care on site, has libraries, TV's, a few computers, social/living areas and a devoted staff. But, it's still a place where people go when they have lost their home and everything that ...

I swear, will these blasted (as in blasted from the fires of hell) hot flashes ever go away? I'm 60 years old for goodness sake. I take all kinds of supplements to keep my pipes and organs running smoothly. Seriously, I know my body is low on estrogen. But do I need to be reminded about 50 times a day? Weneki told me a few weeks ago that she needed me to tell her all about the wonders of (peri)menopause so she'll be clued in as to what to expect. A little bit of drama runs in our family so she doesn't want to have a hot flash sneak up on her when she's not expecting it and take herself to the ER thinking she has a fever with no other symptoms which could possibly be the onset of a very dread disease. I hate to tell her the first lesson she needs to learn is they always seem to come when you are not expecting them. I mean if you could expect them, and prepare for them, you would know to strip down to your underwear before they attacked. I did mention drama, didn't...

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." Leo F. Buscaglia My friend Po wrote a post about a man who helped a sparrow who had flown into the warehouse where he worked. " The man gently cupped his hands around the bird, carried it to safety and released it to the sky. ”Oh! How that felt! Great!” he said." A dear friend has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks. She was diagnosed with lung cancer. This lady has been going to our church longer than my family - give or take 50 years. She is coming up on 95 years old. She was a good friend of my parents. On Wednesday last week, I visited her in the hospital. She didn't look sick at all. She gave me her big Shirley smile. As I held her hand she told me she's not afraid to die, but she is afraid of being in pain. So many times my father said the same thi...

Is there such a thing as a joy hangover? On the days when I've been really sad and spent time crying and hiding, I expect to feel kind of like the living dead the next day. And I understand if you have a hootin' and hollerin' party where you danced on the table all night, they you'd probably be tired the next day. Thank goodness my dancing on the table days are behind me. Today, I've felt a little sluggish. Not in a sad or depressed way. Not in a tired muscle way. Maybe in a butterfly who peeped out of the cocoon and decided she wasn't quite ready for world of opportunity that awaited her. Like telling your alarm to let-me-have-an-hour-more-sleep and hoping the snooze button is broken. Maybe that's what happens when you turn 60. Your body says, okay fun is fun but let's not push it! And maybe it's because a body isn't meant to stay on a "high" forever. And no matter how you slice it, coming down can be tiring. So, today, I rest in gr...

You know that saying about having grandkids first because they are so much fun. Well I'm thinking I should have had a 60 th birthday a few years ago. This has been a quiet day but so filled with joy and love and surprises that I couldn't ever had asked for more. All day long I've realized how blessed I am. I shouldn't need a birthday to remind me of that but it sure helped! And really every day should be filled with this kind of love. Would we lose appreciation for it then? I guess learning to live every day in gratitude takes some practice. To everyone of you who celebrated me today I'm honored and grateful. To everyone of you who shares a part of you with me I'm honored and grateful. To those of you who teach me how to be a better person - to love more, trust more, give more - I appreciate every lesson. To the Divine One who had the ingenious idea to make babies which sort of began the whole birthday thing, I bow down in humble adoration. On that note, ...

Here I sit on the eve of my 60th birthday, wondering why this decade feels like it lasted 100 years instead of just 10. I have a favorite picture taken when I turned 50. My mom, my daughter and me are standing in the living room looking not just happy, but birthday happy. There was some tough stuff going on with my daughter then, and my mother would only live for a few more months. But there we are smiling from deep down inside. I made a pretty big deal out of turning 50. I threw myself a party and let Little ME be the center of attention. It was a grand time. Tomorrow will be a much quieter turn of the calendar page. I don't know why, just not feeling the whole party thing. That is not to say that I'm not digging a day of celebrating Merry Me. If you feel like singing happy birthday or raising a glass in my honor then please do. If you feel like sleeping in late or eating a piece of cake as part of my celebration, I say go for it. But what I'd really like is for you to s...

The purple sign on the stack of Coke products said 6 for $10. (The small print which I didn't read until later said a $10.00 Walgreens rewards coupon would be given at the register.) I picked up 4 regular Coke 12-packs and 2 Caffeine-free Coke. (I didn't realize til I got home that it was not Caffeine-free DIET coke. Damn!) Upon checking out I put one 12-pak each on the counter. I was told the price was 3 for $10 and needed to be bought in separate transactions. Huh? I complied even though I was beginning to be very confused and feel a wee bit on the ditzy side. After making my purchases I went back to the original sign. Okay, so I didn't read the small print, but still 6 for $10 is NOT 3 for $10 twice. I showed the sign to the cashier who may have been an assistant manager. Oh, its the same thing he told me. Feeling undone, I said okay and left the store. But the whole way home, I was trying to do the math. I passed College Algebra but me driving and doing math at the same...

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." William Arthur Ward Thanks to all of you, my blog friends and followers, who have have commented on my recent whiney pants posts about writing or, more to the point, not writing. Seriously, you guys pump me up. You give great advice for which I am most grateful, not to mention impressed. Even if I never have my life story published and made into a movie where Meryl Streep plays me I have the pleasure of writing right here. I gotta say that's pretty awesome. Bless your hearts, Merry ME

Last fall I dug up a lily bed in the front yard that Dad planted eons ago. To tell the truth it was his pride and joy. I didn't mean to dig it up. I was just going to thin it out. As it happened the bulbs were so overgrown I had little underground bulb villages all huddled together. The only way to separate them out was to just keep digging. I gave a lot of bulbs away and transplanted that many more. The circle in the middle of the yard, however, stayed empty, because it seemed to me it would be easier to plant some grass so the yard guy could mow straight lines instead of circles. All winter I looked at the empty patch and told myself come Spring I'd tend to it properly. My excuses for not doing so because it was winter, or cold, or rainy went for nought. We've had a very mild and quite pleasant winter. Much better weather to dig in the dirt than the 90+ degree temperatures of summer which are right around the corner. I hopped out of bed this morning with the clear inte...

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." Sylvia Plath I think this is the 4th year I've been meeting with my Black Cat writing buds. You'd think I would have a lot to show for it, but my list of written stories is not very long. Since I was writing in between chores with Dad, I did a lot of my storytelling here on this blog. Wanting to spur us into action and have us stretch our writing muscles our facilitator, Carol O'Dell, has been urging us to submit our work for publication. A couple weeks ago some of us spent most of one whole day searching the Internet for places to send our work. Since them I've been trying to match up my stories with e-zine, magazine, and anthology publishers that are looking for creative non-fiction pieces. What Carol made look pretty easy, I found frustrating. One piece had too many words. Another had too ...

Gracie and G-Pa Can't a girl have some privacy? Say Cheese! For two hours tonight I helt Baby Grace in my arms. She snoozed some. Cooed some. And sang a lovely song. As we rocked, I could feel all my cares slip away. Sweetie, I said, this must be what heaven is like. I think I'm in love. Merry Me