5 on Friday

1. If you could pick your own theme song, what would it be? Don’t worry be Happy by Bobby McFerrin.

2. Now be honest...if others had to pick a song that described you, what would they choose? Probably "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley—I am constantly reassuring people that every little thing is gonna be alright! or The Bitch is Back by Elton John..LOL

3. What song would be/was the first dance at your wedding? "Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. Need I say more?

4. What song gets stuck in your head most often?  There is always a different song runnin in my head..this is impossible to answer!!

5. What song would you want played at your funeral? I would like Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton

Dirty little Secrets

I have a few dirty little secrets so I thought I would get them off my chest on my blog. Because we know no one reads it anyhow. They are mostly embarrassing but what the heck.

1. I can’t spell. No I really can’t spell. I will write a word and the more I look at it the more unsure I am that it is the correct word and spelled correctly. I have spell check but that doesn’t always work.

2. I once stole something. I was a kid and it was a cheap plastic whistle. I had to return it to the store and confess to Mr. Baker the store owner. Mr. Baker was a scary looking man as he had a port wine birth mark all over one side of his face. He was very nice and forgave me gave me a “talk” about being honest. I was never comfortable in that store again.

3. I can’t do math. Calculators were invented for me. and to be honest I am not good at using them either. I am a functioning math illiterate.

4. I never pumped my own gas. It is not that I was lazy, but that the odor of the gas really causes me breathing problems. So I was one of Marv’s old ladies. And when I go down I am one of the lucky ones that they pump gas for. As a bonus my grandson worked there and I got to visit with him.

5. I cuss like a sailor sometimes. I am not proud of that and I am working on it.

6. Any time I get a new camera, coffee maker, computer, TV etc. I NEVER read the book. It drives some people crazy (you know who you are).

7. I am a semi-reformed whiner. No other comment necessary.

8. I immediately leave any website that has automatic music. Your taste is not my taste.

9. I snore, not a gentle tiny cute snore but a loud honkin wake up the dead snore.. No wimpy snore for me.

10. I have been homeless.

Memorial Day 2019

5 things that make me happy

1. Calls from my children and grandchildren. I can't get enough of them. I want to know what they eat, what is happening at their work, what they are reading, what they are watching on television.

2. A clean house.
Not the actual cleaning, but the result, the end result. I can sit and enjoy the results and feel as though the world is now all right again.

3. New seedlings peeking up from the ground.

4. Fitting into old clothes. I know what you're thinking. Some things I can't give away; so, if I get into those outfits and still feel pretty and young, then they were worth keeping.

5. Finding stuff in the freezer that I can warm up and serve for dinner. While I enjoy cooking, having meals ready to defrost helps my mood.

Bad Days

We all have bad days from time to time. You know the way a day starts out bad and just keeps getting worse and worse. It seems to snowball into a really bad day. Usually it starts with one negative event and then one leads to another. In this case, an early negative event put me in a bad frame of mind and I was so busy thinking about the negative events that I missed all the good and positive things that happened to me that day. I think it is a triggered stress response for me.

There are several things I do to drag myself out of these stressful times.

1. I talk to a good friend who is an excellent listener and who can always help me see the positive and he always makes me smile.

2. I try to look at it as a challenge, not a threat. And when I do that my feeling of being overwhelmed seems to vanish.

3. I Count my blessings. I try to name at least 5 things that I am grateful for.

4. I eat chocolate.

5. Lastly, I take a mini break go out in back of my house drink my coffee and watch the river flow by. It is so peaceful and quiet it always calms me down.

Hmmmm......perhaps I should take a closer look at these five things. First, I actually have a 'good friend'. How lucky is that!? Actually, on closer examination, I find that I have several very good, dependable friends. Not to mention my wonderful kids and grandkids.

Secondly, Lord knows that I have constantly faced challenges in my daily life.  And, I usually come out OK in that area too. Certainly, this is not unique to my situation; however, it does seem to help me face them if I make a concerted effort to meet them head-on and not 'sweep them under the rug'.

Next, I realize that I have many 'blessings' to count. One reason that I have temporally given up watching the news is that I was constantly bombarded with a seemingly endless stream of stories of hopelessness. Wow! that can certainly ruin your day!. On closer inspection, and comparing my daily life with some others that I could go on and on about, I am doing great!

I eat chocolate. Now, what can be said about this? Eating chocolate is an art form. There is nothing simple about it. One must, and I have made a comprehensive and thorough study of this over a lifetime of trials, one must take the eating of chocolate seriously. Chocolate is always 'nibbled', never 'chewed' and every effort must be taken to allow the taste buds to awaken slowly and savor the intimate, yet delicate taste that is chocolate. I could write paragraphs about this experience. Opps! I just did!

Lastly, what's not to love about watching the river flow by? Or watching the critters go about their daily chores with their existence. I would actually miss my ongoing war with the chipmunks stealing all the sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder if I didn't have it to 'worry about'. And, I find it very calming to watch the mother geese leading their goslings in circles around the river. Never mind that they revel in using my backyard as their own private outhouse! Watch where you step!

Does any of this help me to get rid of my daily blues? You bet it does! I'm in a better mood already! And I bet that we all have a 'river' to go out and watch. We only have to look for it.

Child Beauty Pageants.

So I am sitting here flipping thru the channels and I come across WE TV. A show called Little Miss Perfect. It is about little girls and beauty pageants. Would you consider it a sport much like football is for boys? That is how one mother described it. She explained that dressing her 7 year old daughter like a hooker is just a different sort of sport and compared it to dressing your son for football with helmets and pads. This show has pushy mothers spending hundreds of dollars to enter their child in this pageant. Hundreds of dollars more in seductive clothing for this child. They then apply heavy make up and hair pieces. One little girl even has fake teeth. The child ends up looking like a mini 21 year old hooker. IMHO. I am surprised that the girls can even recognize themselves in the mirror. I suppose you can argue that this provides mother daughter bonding time, poise and confidence, I think it must have a negative effect on the child.

While other kids the same age are out playing baseball, riding bikes and having fun these girls are spending time learning new routines, attending dance classes, and photo sessions. And don’t forget the practicing for hours on end in what looks like very uncomfortable shoes and clothes. One little girl whined that the high heels she was wearing made her feet all sweaty. I think it creates a stressful environment with all the emphasis is on beauty and winning. And they coach the girls to act “sexy”. I am amazed at parents that would press their girls to do beauty pageants, there is something perverted in wanting to see a little girl sexualized with makeup and provocative clothing. There is a parental perversion in teaching a child how to moisten their lips, flirt with judges and convey sexuality that would cause alarm bells to go off in most “normal” parents.

These beauty pageants enforce the idea that to succeed you must be beautiful and don’t forget to be skinny. All the mothers say “she loves it; I am not forcing her to do anything she does not want to do.” And maybe a few of them do enjoy it. But why not teach them to enjoy some thing that does not focus on looks so much. Looks will only get you so far in life. These girls are so sweet and innocent they have years to learn to apply make up, wear high heels. Why rush their child hood for a few cheesy trophies?

5 on Friday

1. Do you have a dream you will always strive to achieve until your dying day?
I do have a goal, but it's one I'd like to achieve before my dying day.

2. Do you believe in fate or free will, or something else?
A little of both. Fate deals us the cards, we play the hand.

3. Marilyn Monroe. Conspiracy or tragic accident?
Conspiracy.
 
4. Favorite childhood sweets/candy?
I am more of a chocolate girl – Mounds 

5. Favorite cocktail (alcoholic or virgin) and it's ingredients?
Strawberry Daiquiri and I have no idea I just know it is goooood. 

Lilacs and Peonies

When I was a kid my grandma and I would go to the cemeteries every Memorial Day. She would begin worrying in early May if the lilacs and the peonies would be blooming. We would cut giant bunches of flowers; load them in her old car along with glass canning jars and a small shovel. Off we would go, first to the Star City cemetery. It was my job to dig a small hole, place the canning jar in the hole, pump water from the well and carry it to the gravesite and fill the jar and place the flowers in the jar. Also I was to pull any weeds that grew up around the headstone. All the time I was doing that my grandma was talking with other people who were also placing flowers on the graves of their loved ones. It was a busy bustling place. My grandfather was buried there. (My grandma now rests beside him) He died 3 years before I was born. But my grandma always told me how much he would have loved me. After several hours we went on to another cemetery. My grandma would visit with others and that cemetery even had benches for folks to sit and chat. I wish I had listened closer to her stories. She was the one person in my childhood who was always kind to me. To this day come spring time I hope the lilacs and peonies are ready for Memorial Day. Today   it dawned on me... we are all just passing through this physical life. I know I know.. I am slow to catch on. We will all die and turn to dust, sooner or later. We can fight it but we can’t change it. One day our bones will lay forgotten, and all the things we worked so hard for will be laying in some landfill. All of our things will be lost and forgotten, this made me question what will I leave my children and grandchildren and some day great grand children? I hope I leave a legacy of fighting for what I believe in. I hope I am leaving some thing real something worthy and not just stuff. These days, I can't physically visit those cemeteries any longer, but I can still recall all those stories and the good times I spent with someone whom I know in my heart cared about me. Perhaps that is the best gift that I can leave my own loved ones. I will try harder to do that.

All you ever needed to know about the ocean

Children Writing About the Ocean.
1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles.(Kelly, age 6 )

2) - Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3) - If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't
have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, age 7)

4) - Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily
Richardson . She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5) - A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head.
(Billy, age 8)

6) - My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and
pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)

7) - When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross
the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle
to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been
better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8) - Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful
and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant?
Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9) - I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is
always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has
just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6)

10) - Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels
can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think
they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)

11) - When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it
makes my willy small. ( Kevin , age 6)

12) - Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't
go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. ( Becky , age 8)

13) - On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she
was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired
right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14) - The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't
drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)

15) - My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the
ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my
mom. (James, age 7)
copied from an email.