For the first 50 years of my life, my perfectionist self mistakenly believed it was all about knowing more, getting it right, planning, attempting to prevent bad things from happening, and keeping all of my chicks in a row. It took me this long to discover that the JOURNEY is all that matters. This quote from Gilda Radner sums it all up:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
"


Monday, March 7, 2011

It's Puzzling.

                                 
                                     
               I LOVE JIGSAW PUZZLES!



I have been working for weeks on this puzzle.  It has been soooo difficult because so many pieces look alike.  But I'm getting there, slowly but surely.  I am drawn to it like a magnet.  I find it hard to walk by it without finding just one more piece.  And when I begin, time flies so fast that I realize an hour has gone by!

What is it about these puzzles that is so intriguing?

                Upon opening the box, the jumble of thousands of pieces
                          is screaming to be put into some kind of order.













My mind begins to calm as I look more closely and I am able to group them based on their similarities.



         Even though they all might look the same sometimes,


                each piece is unique with variations in
                    color, shape, patterns, and size.



                    No one piece is more important than another.



           Even though the surface may look even to the naked eye,
                    some pieces stand out more than others.



                    Sometimes it is difficult to see the picture
                                  when you are too close...

               so it is necessary to step back and distance yourself
                               to understand the bigger picture.

       While the front of each piece is smooth and shiny,
look a little deeper and they are all made from the same stuff.




    It really bothers me when I think I know EXACTLY
                        what I am looking for,
                            but I can't find it.


                       Have you ever looked at two pieces
            and wondered if they were really meant to be together?



     
       Yet at other times it is so blatant that they were meant to be.



      Have you ever searched for hours for a missing piece...

                          only to come back the next day
                    and see it staring you right in the face?


  There is SO MUCH to learn from a jigsaw puzzle!

 Addendum:   The puzzle is done!  Thanks to Kerry, Lucas, and Annie who worked on it with me this afternoon for a few hours to get it done!





Monday, February 28, 2011

A Long-Awaited Friend Request

When I joined Facebook in June of 2009,  I was very naive.

I naively believed it would be nice to be FB friends with my kids. 
I naively believed people didn't put private things out for all to see.
I naively believed my kids wouldn't say anything hurtful about me on FB.

I was wrong on all three counts.

My FB bubble was burst one day after I disciplined my daughter, Kerry, for stealing my hairbrush from my bathroom for the 20th time.  When I read the words "I hate mom", I knew deep down that she was just venting.  I knew she didn't really mean it.  But no mother wants to see those words.

So I made the decision to "unfriend" my kids.

Since that time, I've become more FB savvy.  And my kids have matured.  Adam and I have been FB friends for a while.  But Annie and Kerry have refused to accept every friend request I send their way.

My friend Ann's daughter Taylor sent her a friend request in September after leaving for her freshman year of college.   I thought maybe Kerry would do the same.  WRONG.

She has remained steadfast.

UNTIL YESTERDAY.   When I saw a friend request from Kerry I didn't quite believe it was for real!
When I asked her why she finally did it, she claimed it was because she wanted me to see the skiing pictures that she posted yesterday.

I like to believe there is more to it than that.




Maybe I am being naive,  but I would like to believe it means that our relationship is evolving from strictly parent-child to one that includes friendship.    I know that Kerry is a very loyal friend and I would value that friendship. 

                         But I'll take "Facebook friends" for now.





Thursday, February 24, 2011

NOW I Get It!

My mom has been gone for almost 4 years.  She died relatively young at the age of 78.

I wish she were still alive today so I could tell her "NOW I get it!"



As was common in the 1950s, my mom did not work.  She stayed at home with us while my dad worked.
She cooked, cleaned, shopped, did laundry, paid bills, and drove us around.  But the thing I loved most is that she was always there for me while I was growing up.

I thought my mom's whole purpose was to be my mom. That's how she made me feel.  And I loved it.


When I was a teenager, my mother and father began to go out more often on the weekends.  My mother loved to look pretty and dress up in nice clothes and my father was proud to be with her.  They would go to the lounge at the Ramada Inn and listen to someone play and sing songs from their era.  They had lots of fun and made lots of friends. 

Then it happened.  My mom became a singer.

It began with just a few songs, but progressed to where she was singing and entertaining much of the night.  She had always loved to look pretty, but now that she was in the spotlight, she began buying a lot of fancy dresses.










Frankly, I didn't get it.  I admit it - I WAS EMBARRASSED. 

This wasn't my mother!

My brother and sisters and I would go to the Ramada sometimes on Saturday night and listen to her sing and meet all of her new friends.  They were all from the "older" retired generation whose kids were grown. 

THEY WERE HAVING A LOT OF FUN AND JOKING AND LAUGHING.  I didn't like it much.

This wasn't my mother!

My father was very proud of my mom and enthusiastically supported her dress-buying habit.  What was he doing?

This whole new life of theirs continued for many years until my mother's long-term smoking habit caught up with her.  She developed breathing problems (COPD) and had to be on oxygen 24/7.    Her singing career was over.  I knew she was sad.



This is a rare picture of my mother with her oxygen tubes.  She usually took the oxygen off for pictures.


Less than a year later, my mom noticed a growth on her neck.  She told me about it the day this photo was taken.  It was the last picture I have with my mom.  She really didn't look this good in reality.  I knew how important it was to her to be pretty, so I fixed her up a bit with photoshop before I sent it to her. 

Within 2 months from the time this picture was taken,  my mom was on a ventilator on enough morphine to keep her comfortable.   I wondered if she knew who I was.   She died a few months later.

I have been thinking lately that I am now about the same age my mother was when she began her singing career.  

After attempting to juggle motherhood and a job, I discovered I could not be the mom I wanted to be while working.  So I quit work before Annie was born.  I have never regretted it.

But now I am faced with Adam and Kerry away at college and Annie a sophomore in high school.  I have always LOVED photography and so I am spending lots of time learning about f-stops, exposures, off-camera flash, photoshop, etc.  It is SO EXCITING!  I can definitely see myself doing more and more as my mothering duties continue to subside.

I can't help but compare myself to my mother.  She had always loved to sing and be pretty.  She chose to do the things she loved after her children didn't need her so much anymore.   She needed to have SOMETHING ELSE. 


NOW I get it!  I REALLY get it.  I thought I got it years ago, but I really wasn't capable of truly understanding until I came to the same time in my life.



             I wish she had never been a smoker.


         I wish she was here to see my children all grown up.


           I wish I could tell her how sorry I am.


I am so sorry that I was embarrassed by her new passion. 

I am so sorry that I didn't fully support her new passion.

I wish I could tell her how PROUD of her I am now.   Now that I really understand.  Now that I get it.
























Monday, February 21, 2011

Meet Maddie!



                                               Meet "Maddie". 

Maddie is the newest member of our family.  We already have 2 cats and 2 dogs, along with 3 teen-age children.  Why in the world do we need another cat? 

We don't.  We have plenty of pet hair to vacuum already.  We have plenty of mouths to feed.  Plenty of vet bills.  We ALWAYS have at least one pet sitting next to us on the couch wanting our attention.

But you see,  I have a daughter with a HUGE heart for cats.  She met a 4 year old cat named Dora at the humane society in Burlington, Vermont.  She fell in love with Dora and wanted our family to adopt her.   I made a trip to Burlington on Friday to bring Kerry home for President's Day weekend and she asked me to meet Dora.  BUT,  Dora had been adopted already.  So, to make a long story short, MEET MADDIE!



We got her at the humane society in Springfield, MA on Saturday.

She is part calico and she has such interesting markings, like the ring around the tip of her tail!

             She also has 4 white paws!


Maddie is a bundle of energy!  The kids were young when we got our other 2 cats, and I think they are amazed at how curious and smart she is!



... and how fast she is!





... and how nimble she is!




... and how high she can jump!




In her quieter times, she is very sweet with a very loud motor that doesn't quit!




The furry members of our family have not officially met her yet, except through a 1 inch crack in the door of Kerry's bedroom.  We are taking it slowly.

Maddie (aka Mad Dawg) has already captured our human hearts!

We didn't NEED another pet.   But we don't always buy things we need.

We sometimes buy things just to make us happy. 




Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Gravity of the Situation

I WILL NEVER FORGET IT.



WHEN I SAW IT, I HAD TO STOP AND STARE.



IN ALL OF MY 51 YEARS I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO SCARY.



Ok.  It began as just an ordinary day, no different than any other.

I had taken a shower and was undergoing my daily beauty routine.  Face cream, concealer to hide the dark circles, face powder, eye liner, mascara. 

Time to do my hair.  I take my hair out of the towel on top of my head.

I have NOT been blessed with an abundant head of hair.  On top of that, my hair is very fine and extremely straight.  Over the years I have learned how to MAXimize what hair I do have.

Root lifter, hair styling gel. Dry upside down for volume.

BUT TODAY I DID ONE THING DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER DAYS.




While my head was tipped over upside-down, I looked in the mirror.


To this day it sends shivers up and down my spine.

A woman over the age of 50 should NEVER look at herself in the mirror with her head tipped upside-down.  If you're over 50 and you bend over, all 50 years fall with you.  Believe me.  If you are still in your youthful years,  just wait.  Gravity kicks in and every fold of skin that has even thought of becoming a wrinkle suddenly gets its wish!   Steven King may have gotten his inspiration for his last book after doing this himself (although I doubt gravity affects men's faces as much).


I don't recall this happening when I was young.  I could bend over to tie my shoes and my skin pretty much stayed in the same place!  I could look in the mirror upside-down and still know who I was.

But the person I saw that day was unrecognizable.

GRAVITY.




I guess gravity does have its advantages.  After all, it keeps us from falling off the earth into outer space!