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  • Important Women’s Health Issue

    A friend sent this which made me smile and also feel a little thirsty. I’ve not had many Margaritas in my life but remember enjoying the ones I did have. I have some lime juice in the fridge but will need to find somebody who will share their tequila. I guess I’ll just have to settle for the beer or wine the kids left when visiting last week!

    Important women’s health issue.

    Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
    Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the world?
    Do you suffer from shyness or awkwardness in some situations?
    Do you feel tired and overworked?
    Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive?
    If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about Margaritas.

    Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions.  Margaritas can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell the world that you’re ready and willing to do just about anything.  You will notice the benefits of Margaritas almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want to live.  Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will discover many talents you never knew you had.

    Stop suffering and start living, with Margaritas.

    Margaritas may not be right for everyone.  Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use Margaritas.  However, women who wouldn’t mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it.

    Side effects may include:

    - Dizziness
    - Nausea
    - Vomiting
    - Incarceration
    - Loss of motor control
    - Loss of clothing
    - Loss of money
    - Loss of virginity
    - Table dancing
    - Headache
    - Dehydration
    - Dry mouth
    - And a desire to sing Karaoke


    WARNINGS:

    - The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
    - The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
    - The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.
    - The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.

  • Welcome to the Neighborhood

    I’m so happy to have nice neighbors next door again. The condo next to me was sold to a very affable young man who shares his home with another 30 something fellow. Carey and Rob are making the inside look really nice and gave me a tour today when I was out sweeping my steps. I met one of their three cats. These fellows definitely have a flair for decorating! I gave Carey half of a blueberry-cherry cobbler I’d made to freeze, and we exchanged phone numbers. They have decorated their patio with planters full of colorful flowers. Now I’m hoping the two empty condos facing me and sharing our driveway will be sold to people who will plan to stay…instead of being purchased as investment properties and rented out to a revolving number of temporary tenants!

  • Had a Smashing Time!

    “Yes, I had my mammogram today! Why do you ask?”
    In honor of my daughter’s recent mammogram, I’ve posting this lovely tribute to her.

  • Oxymorons

    These may be old, but I hadn’t read them … at least not for a long time. As I get closer to the 8th decade of my life, I sometimes forget things, so these seemed new to me. Reminded me of some of the things the late George Carlin might have used in his stand-up comedy routines.

    1.    Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?

    2.    Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?

    3.   If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?

    4.   If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?

    5.   Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

    6.   Why does “slow down” and “slow up” mean the same thing?  

    7.   Why does “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing?

    8.   Why do “tug” boats push their barges?

    9.   Why do we sing “Take me out to the ball game” when we are already there?

    10.   Why are they called ” stands” when they are made for sitting?  

    11.   Why is it called “after dark” when it really is “after light”?

    12.   Doesn’t “expecting the unexpected” make the unexpected expected? 

    13.   Why are a “wise man” and a “wise guy” opposites?  

    14.   Why do “overlook” and “oversee” mean oppositIe things?

    15.   Why is “phonics” not spelled the way it sounds? 

    16.   If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it? 

    17.   If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

    18.   If   love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?  

    19.   If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?

    20.   Why is bra singular and panties plural?

    21.  Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead?

    22.   Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase? 

    23.   How come abbreviated is such a long word?  

    24.  Why do we wash bath towels? Aren’t we clean when we use them? 

    25.   Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle? 

    26.   Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one? 

    27. Christmas – What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?

    God Saw you  hungry & created McDonalds, Wendy’s, and Dairy Queen. He saw you  thirsty  & created Pepsi, Juice, Coffee and Water. GOD saw you  in the dark  & created Light. GOD saw you without some good looking , talented and adorable friends………so He created  Xangans.

  • Bye-Bye Planet?

    Help!

  • Copyright Explained

    I decided to copyright the book I wrote about my father’s side of the family. I had researched the descendants of his grandparents and then traced the ancestors of both of those grandparents back to the 1400′s….thanks to some German cousins who also enjoy genealogy and enjoyed sharing their research with me. I included lots of scanned documents.

    Before submitting a copy of the family history for copyright, I did a little research on the process, etc. with our genealogy interest group. The following says it all, however, it didn’t have an author or source listed with it…..so don’t know the author’s name. Hope this doesn’t infringe on this unknown author’s copyright rights!

    Copyright Explained

    When you write copy, you have the right to copyright the copy you write, if the copy is right. If however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy. If you write religious services you write the rite, and have the right to copyright the rite you write. Very conservative people write right copy, and have the right to copyright the right copy they write. A right wing cleric would write right rite, and has the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copy right before the copyright can be right. Should Thom Wright decide to write right rite, then Wright would write right rite, which Wright has the right to copyright. Duplicating that rite would copy Wright’s right rite, and violate copyright, which Wright would have the right to right.

  • Some Things Literally Bug Me

    Some corrections to daughter “murisopsis” blog about her mom (me) and the grasshopper: 1. It was during my senior year in college 2. I was a student teacher in fourth grade. 3. It was in the spring of 1954. The rest of the account, as she told it, is quite accurate. (So read her blog for Wednesday, if you don’t know what this is all about! She’s really quite an excellent prose and poetry writer.)

    Anyway…to add to Val’s account: I did genuinely love playing baseball with the children….even got to bat sometimes before they decided and convinced me that I should be their umpire and sometimes coach too. They learned when to bunt, and everyone always won a game before the end of the week. (They were convinced I was related to baseball great Ted Williams.)  If it hadn’t been so late in the afternoon, I probably would have stripped out of that girdle in the lady teachers’ lounge/bathroom to see what was causing the itch and discomfort; but I did have to teach the lessons following that memorable afternoon recess baseball game…..and didn’t have time to go there to check it out. After school, the lady’s lounge was full…standing room only, so decided to just get back home instead! I walked home since I was doing my practice teaching at Riley Elementary School which was less than a mile from our home. I went straight to the bathroom without even speaking to anyone, and I remember shuddering when seeing that dead grasshopper which plopped at my feet when I stripped out of that girdle. By the way, I’ve always hated grasshoppers ever since that time!!!

    I also had  a bee fly up my dress about 6 weeks before my third baby daughter was born. I was sitting on the porch glider at my parents’ home and enjoying the early June weather and admiring my mother’s beautiful climbing roses on the two trellises that graced each side of the front porch. I wasn’t even aware of the bee’s presence until crossing my legs which killed my curious attacker…..but only after it got even by stinging me in the process.  I can’t tell you how difficult it is to remove a stinger on one’s inner thigh….near the crotch….when one is eight and a half months pregnant!!! These run-ins with insects happened years before pantyhose were invented…..what a blessing that has been!!!

    Now the past two years my bug fights have been with those almost invisible chiggers! I guess I should start wearing pantyhose when working in the yard and garden in the evening! On second thought, maybe I should hire a gardener….a handsome hunk of a gardener, ha! And in the meantime, if you want to exterminate any bugs, I suggest using Raid instead of my methods of years ago.

  • More poetry: Airborne

    Two years ago I was spending most of my time at our local hospital….witnessing my husband’s final struggle to stay alive just a little while longer. It was rough….living through those days of uncertainty and at times recalling the promises we had made over a half century before in our marriage vows: “for better or worse…in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.” He died the next week, free from all of this world’s trials and tribulation…the day after Independence Day.

    This year is better than last year. I’ll have family with me during the week, and I no longer suddenly shed tears in church during the weekly holy communion service.  I’ve been keeping busy, and although I say “Good morning”   to my husband’s photo on the stand next to my bed when arising and “Good night” before retiring, I mainly think about the many GOOD times of our life together instead of that painful struggle of the final weeks of his life. He did want to live awhile longer but had requested years earlier to not be kept alive artificially if there were no reasonable expectations for recovery. I dust the wood box which holds the metal canister filled with his ashes and know he is with the angels….a soul airborne and free.

    And so it was sort of like fate that Xangan friend Sandra (“Harpos Mark”) sent me a copy of her second published book of poetry this past week…..full of wonderfully creative poems exploring the theme of death. I remember my father telling me back in 1961, in his unique way, that he was “not long for this world.” He was just 53 years old and in constant pain at the time. His words made me very angry, and I let him know I didn’t want to hear him talk that way! He then patiently reminded me that death is as natural a part and process of our human condition as being born. And although we usually do not welcome death, it need not be feared either. He went on to say that he believed death was not the end but another beginning. He died the following year after being hospitalized for almost 5 months…..six months before his 55th birthday…..too young!

    Reading Sandra’s book Airborne reminded me that there is a special kind of beauty in  exploring our feelings about the end of life as well as its beginning, and we need to express those feelings and talk openly and freely about them with one another. Sometimes it’s hard to do. At age 29 I was unable to accept what my father was saying….. but I am relieved that Leonard and I were able to talk about our own mortality and had discussed our wishes and had made living wills.

    I recommend Airborne highly not only for the beauty of Sandra’s thoughts and words but also for the illustrations (photos) of cemetery angels….which really is a special kind of art. Some genealogy friends and I selected a beautiful photo of a tombstone angel for the cover of the Beech Grove Cemetery records book we did over twenty years ago as a project of our local county’s Historical Society. We received an award for compiling and preserving all those records which took so many years to complete, we sometimes feared our own names might end up in it as part of the burial records!

  • Beyond Time

    I have a beautiful little book titled Beyond Time by the late Michigan block print artist, poet and paper maker and printer, Gwen Frostic. I got it a couple of years ago while working our AAUW annual book sale. This book is physically so beautiful ….with each page on a different type of paper and with lovely nature inspired block prints of animals and plants to enhance her lovely words. Frostic really was ahead of her time! I was reading it again this week and realized the truth in her writing…especially in light of the news about the damage being done to the waters and shores of our southern states because of BP’s oil spill. Her words…in the first poem in this book published about forty years ago…..are so relevant today:

    This Earth…
        with its great great trees..
              its infinite life..
                   and boundless beauty…
         the only earth there’ll ever be………

    These Waters..
         of deep springs
            of rivers and lakes..
                drops of dew..
                     and clouds above…  
        all the water there has ever been…
                 all … there will ever be ……….

    The air all around…
          that everything must breathe….
                over and over …….
                      forever and ever……

    Love this earth….
        love it as much as life itself…
           earth from which all life has come..
                earth to which all life returns…
     
     Love its waters…
            and keep them clean……
       water on which all life depends……
            Love clear air….
                care enough to keep it clear…
                      clear enough to see the stars…..

          And earth will remain…
                                          beyond time……………..

  • Saying Goodbye

    Saying “good bye” is hard to do. But I don’t cry like niece Linda always did when people leave and say goodbye.  The house really seemed so empty and quiet after youngest daughter and her family left this Wednesday morning to visit relatives in Ohio. However, in just 9 days, middle daughter’s family will be coming to visit. In the meantime, I’ll catch up on working in my gardens and keeping out of trouble and off the streets.

    Being an only child did sort of prepare me for my old age and for being alone for long periods of time. I learned at an early age how to entertain myself and keep busy. As a child,  playing with  my Lincoln Logs building houses and making villages was a favorite pastime. Mom would save the metal Log Cabin Syrup cans for me to add to my villages.  Haven’t seen Lincoln Logs OR those Log Cabin Syrup cans for years now….wonder if they still make them…hmmmnn. I do plan to call my 94 year old friend, Barbara, this week and have dinner out. We always have lots of coupons or eat out on “senior discount” nights.

    I also miss the kids’ blue tick coon hound “Beaureguard” …. “Beau” or “Bo-bo” for short! Even if he did insist on napping in the middle of my king size bed…..a really sweet tempered canine pet.