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Welcome
Snapshots from a full & mid life perspective. With all the wondering, wandering, what ifs, whys and why nots.
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Blogs I Follow
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Video
Grandchildren are a great reason to behave like a kid again!
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Video
Today Amber turned 34. I still recall the sport model at the end of the diving board holding court until all eyes were on her. Cute as a button grew up to be a natural beauty and now, mother of a Lily bug. Who is asleep in the next room. After playing in the rain and at the shore line tonight. Babajoon and I are appreciating the very good life tonight.
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Quotation
Though, it doesn’t feel right to call them “step.” As long as I can remember, they have been in my life. I feel very “blessed” (in quotations BC I feel like it has a religious meaning, not what I am going for) to have them in my life. For those of you that don’t know, FQ is quite an incredible man and Jo Jo and I are no longer just sisters, we are friends.— My youngest, 21 now, talking about my husband and our (technically ‘his’) Joanna…I don’t like to say ‘step’ either.
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Video
I miss my girls this Labor Day weekend. They all love the beach and when any of them are here…I feel complete. I have been very homesick for all of my kids lately.
We raised them to go do their own thing & I am proud that they are. But some days, for some reason, I just want them all here. Doing nothing special but being around. Maybe playing Scrabble. Or maybe not!!
Still I try to get family in however I can. Lily and Amber hung out with us and my niece and her husband came by with my grand nephew and that was a good time. We are lucky to have all these little ones around now…somehow they make life new again.
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Video
The best reason to get up on Tuesday’s and soon on Friday’s.
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He looks miserable but he secretly loved it. Lots of human entertainment, trust me!
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Saw Jamie Foxx tonight. He is so talented but matches that in equal parts of vulgarity. A little is fine but he’s over the top. I’m no prude but really - using the ‘Ef’ word is just not that creative.
FQ was miserable, covering his ears half the time. I kept pointing to the 80 year old in front of us who was NOT covering his ears. And was dancing with the very chic black woman next to him, who was NOT his wife…though his wife also seemed to enjoy their show!
I was one of the few white women there but one of ‘us’ had to get on stage and be a damned fool. She was competing with a ‘thick’ woman, a ‘big’ woman, all Jamie Foxx’s words, in his pole dance-off kind thing…I hurt for them all.
Sexual grinding, necessary for lovemaking but not for public display makes for nothing short of public humiliation for most middle aged women.
We might have had our day - but that window’s closed now and looks better with a little draping if you get my drift!
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Amber is a mom now so there is always something big happening in her world by proxy…aka LILY!
Joanna and Cheyenne had big wins this week. I don’t want to brag but it’s hard to balance being so proud and then NOT bragging. But I am proud. They are owning their lives.
The boys are less forthcoming so I don’t really know what happened in their world this week. But I do know George is excited that we will be in NYC to visit him soon.
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HAIL BRITANNIA! Worth every bit of energy it took to get to the beach to see them after a long weekend where I practiced my moving-Chey-in-the-rain skills!
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Found lurking in our back garden. Web is over two feet across. Black and yellow argiope characterized by the Z-like formation in web and spider spinning head down. Almost as large as my entire hand. Scary since I HATE spiders. But I would never disturb this amazing process. And I hope I don’t dream about it either!
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Quotation
I am becoming okay with the idea that sometimes things end and sometimes they are supposed too.— My 21 year old daughter. She’s learning.
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Quotation
Why are you swimming in your work clothes Aunt Lisa?— My 5yo niece who didn’t seem to notice that her 3yo brother was bobbing in the pool after she whooshed him off the ‘noodle’ while playing. Thankfully, I did.
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…it works both ways. Meaning sometimes - it is more than fair.
As we mature we learn to better understand of our own sense of ‘fairness’ and to do our part to live fairly too…or as objectively as we can anyway.
And to accept that no matter what, things won’t always be fair or go our way. So then we have to learn to let it go. I have learned to visualize holding ‘it’ and then opening my palm and watching it float away.
It helps.
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An old friend - 30 years worth - made an absolute pass at me today. Very strange.
A) we are both married though neither spouse was there today and b) while he is very good looking, he is not nor has he ever been - my ‘type.’ When I said flat out ‘Are you serious?’ he replied that he’s often wondered about me over the years…and he added that he ‘did not mean to offend or harass’ me.
Then I turned my attention back to the burial we were attending.
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Feeling intense emotion as youngest just left for her senior year at FSU. With each of the five kids, I remember clearly the set of emotions as they left for school for the first time. One has not made it to the end of his senior year but with that exception, I can easily recall their senior year good-byes too. They were joyful and hopeful with no exception. I felt somehow that I had helped launch them to their adult lives and it was satisfying in every instance. Kind of like that easy breathing stage one grows to appreciate with enough good living…
Maybe because it brings an obvious conclusion to much of my life’s work, this time feels weird. Somehow my own mortality is staring me down. Even though I have built a full life - more so as each has ‘flown’ the coop, collectively they represent the place where I have spent most of my emotional energy and they are without question, my finest investments. None is perfect - just as I am not, but each has a set of strengths that make them enjoyable company and fun to be with. And lately it seems we are growing more able to all be together and forgive the little annoyances that can turn a spark into a fire fueled from leftover childhood vapor.
Having just returned from a perfect family reunion where all the girls were with me, maybe I am feeling the strain of separation that I have not felt in awhile. I was keenly aware of my hesitance in saying good-bye to each of the three. I just didn’t want it to end.
I’ll keep processing this and see where it takes me. One thing I am even more thankful for is the company of a husband that I still love and enjoy. He is like a warm and worn blanket and keeps me glued to the world in a way that I appreciate…which is why I made him home made blackberry cobbler today. Truly, the way to his heart is through his mouth…;)
