Tag: changes

The Fat Lady Needs To Exit Stage Right, Now!

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Over the past four years, I have lost 168 pounds and change. Yes, I feel better, have more energy, look better, and enjoy my grandchildren more. However there are a few drawbacks that never occurred to me before hand.

Skin. Losing weight, even as slowly as I have, leaves a lot of saggy, ugly, rumply skin. Bat wings for upper arms, skin that sags down from thighs to knees, and it just keeps on going long after I stop moving. Totally gross, totally embarrassing. And wrinkles are much more prominent too. I always had a smooth face, now I have wrinkles that I never had before. The upside is I look a lot thinner, the down side is learning a whole new way to apply makeup – when I bother that is.

Clothes. For years, like most fat women, I tried to hide my weight in baggy clothes, ugly dresses, and lots of jeans and t-shirts. Underwear was pretty much limited to grannie panties, and because I am rather well endowed up top, very boring super strong support white bras. Now, I nearly have a panic attack when I go into a store to buy clothes. I have gone from a size 28-30 in Women’s (that means fat lady clothes in girl code) to a size 14-16. But because I still have the well endowed parts to contend with, I get a larger size top. I don’t like tight clothing, it generally shows every lump and bump, cellulite, and muffin top on a fat lady. But, I find if I get looser clothes, they fall off me, which can be horribly humiliating if it happens in public. Oh, and shoes. Did you know that when you lose a lot of weight your shoe size gets smaller? Neither did I, but I have had to replace a large portion of my shoes lately. I’ve gone from a 8.5 Wide to a size 7 average. How freaky is that?

Temperature. I have long passed menopause, but temperature change really causes me issues. If it is cold, I freeze when the same temperature in my fat lady stage didn’t bother me at all, because I was always too warm. I forget about that and pay for it by shivering constantly. Wind also has an effect on me. I used to relish the cool wind, not so much now. Besides, I actually got pushed hard enough to almost fall the other day. I am so used to being sturdy enough to stand up to anything up to about 40 miles an hour winds. Now I just feel cold and like a wimp. Heat still makes me miserable. I hate hot and humid climates, but I don’t get miserable as fast as I used to, and can actually stand hotter weather than before.

Hair. I have always had rather thin hair. Now, because I am healthier, stronger, and I actually take my meds and vitamins every day, my hair is thicker. So I have had to learn to change my whole regime while washing my hair. It is hard to break a habit of over 30 years. I keep heading for my old shampoo and conditioner when I simply do not need that brand any longer. It is, well, annoying to have a routine totally changed.

Food. I didn’t have surgery to lose weight. I became very, very ill. Even the doctors didn’t think I would pull through. Fooled them. Wasn’t my time yet. Anyway, I used to crave sweets, sodas, carbohydrates, and fatty foods. I could eat a full meal at any restaurant in America. I was always hungry, and I used food as my drug of choice to cope with life. Now, food – eh – whatever. I don’t often eat every day, and I rarely have more than one meal a day. I make it a policy to eat only half of what is on my plate when we go out to dinner. Because half of a serving is a bit more than a serving for one person should be. The standard meal is FAR too much. At least it is using American sized servings.

Attitude and Mood Swings. I have never been so easily angered as I am now. Part of that is hormonal because everything is still out of whack. But a lot of it has to do with my attitude. While I have never been one to be a door mat, I would often allow my feelings about being fat make me want to stay in the background and unnoticed. Today, I am pretty much one of those old ladies who says what she thinks and devil take the hindmost. Whereas, I used to stay quiet, I am now more than willing to debate and do verbal battle with those who oppose my stance on everything from politics to dealing with bratty kids. So, on one hand, I am dealing with moodiness, and on the other I am dealing with trying to shut the hell up and stay out of trouble. Not doing too well on either issue.

The up side to weight loss is better health, the downside is that my entire lifestyle had to change and catch up with my body changes. I sometimes don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I sometimes think that I am fooling no one, and the fat lady still resides in my mirror and every one knows it but me. I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the way everything changed and continues to change as I keep losing weight.

I guess, because I can spot a phony a mile away, and because I don’t suffer fools gladly, that I tend to step back from every compliment. Like most fat ladies, people would compliment me on my eyes, color of my clothes, hair, but never say I was pretty. Now, folks do say I am pretty, but the fat lady hasn’t sung and exited stage right just yet. I really wish she would shut the hell up so I can get on with who I am becoming. Hateful cow.

“Inaction is not an excuse for failure to thrive.”

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“Inaction is not an excuse for failure to thrive.”

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of people my age tend to simply stop. They stop doing fun things, they stop being involved, they stop thinking and growing intellectually. They just stop. Then they sit about and complain about how boring life is, how hard it is to do things they used to do, how much they wish they had done such and such before they got too old. They are failing to thrive in the late years of their lives. And there is no excuse for that- period.

I know, things are a bit harder to do when knees hurt,backs don’t want to bend, and the body gets tired much easier than it did at the age of forty. We all have to slow down,but that doesn’t mean we have to stop. It may take longer, but there is no reason not to at least try.

Years ago there was a movie entitled Cocoon followed by another, Cocoon Returns. If you haven’t seen them, I suggest watching them at least once. It starred a lot of “stars” who were getting quite elderly. All stuck in a nursing home, waiting to die, fussing at one another, etc. Until things change due to a visit from the aliens. Look, I know it is really a sappy story, but what I loved about it was the willingness of almost all of the elderly folks to embrace that which was different. If their youth didn’t return, their joy for life certainly did. And, at the end of the day, their inaction became action, and their lives infinitely better.

Another movie I loved was Driving Miss Daisy, a stellar performance by one and all. Again, another character that defies the tendency to just sit down and stop. Fried Green Tomatoes is a fantastic film. Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy were great together and the flashback between Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson is equally dynamic. At the end of the day, we are still not sure which woman Jessica Tandy was as the elderly friend of Kathy Bates. Ambiguity saturates the film, while turning Katy Bates’ character from a meek doormat into a woman filled with confidence. And, of course, the character played by Shirley Mclaine in Steel Magnolias is just like I want to be when I get old.

I see many older folks off and doing things all over the world. They travel, explore, serve missions of compassion – regardless of sore knees and aching backs. They move, act, and they live every minute of every day. That is what I want to do too.

When our youngest son went off to college, my husband and I decided to work our way around the world. Eight years later, we finally returned to the US. As we were raising our granddaughter, she went right along with us. We lived in London, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, and only came back to the US due to health issues and the awful Socialized Medical care in NZ. We traveled all over each region and were enriched many times over by our experiences.

But I was in my forty’s when we did that. Now I am sixty, and it is going to become more difficult to do some of the things we did. So, we chose other things to do so we could travel. A cruise or four, a road trip across the US, and our big adventure this year is to travel across country by train. I don’t hike for miles any longer, but I sure can sit and enjoy the view from the train.

So there is no excuse not to thrive, people. Just get up, take a few steps, find a hobby that fulfills you, volunteer as a surrogate grandmother to rock babies at the hospital. Volunteer at the schools or libraries to help kids with their reading skills. Go help out a nursing home if you have a talent like playing the piano. There are a multitude of things you can do to overcome the lack of inertia and sedentary inaction. For me, being with my grandchildren is one of my greatest motivators. I write, I hang out on social media sites, I keep up with friends and work on my family history, and I am planning on taking art lessons. I have always wanted to learn how to paint. That will be so much fun!

So, you are old, so what? Inaction is not an excuse for failure to thrive. Just because your body is starting to creak and moan, it doesn’t mean your brain isn’t functioning. (Unless you have a serious condition, of course.) With all the medical miracles out today, most of us will live well into our eighties or nineties.

I have a friend who is ninety-eight. For the several decades, she has traveled the world following the performances of the operas of Wagner. All on her own, she would jump on a plane and off she would go to Italy, France, Germany, or any place in the world that the operas were being performed. What an amazing lady

who just kept on going like an Eveready Battery. She is running down now, but she is still in control of her life and decided to go home until the end of her days. It is heartbreaking, but at the same time, what a life she has had! Even now, she keeps busy with doing her family history and chatting with her friends and family.

Even if you are homebound, unable to walk, unable to drive, so what? There are a million things you can do to keep your brain healthy and busy. Never just stop and wait to die. We all have a finite amount of time here in this life. I could spend it worrying about death, or I can just get on with living while I am still here.

The more we let inaction rule our lives, the less likely we are to live a long life. Not just because our bodies need to move to function well, but because our brains atrophy at an alarming rate. Inaction is not an excuse for failure to thrive. But it is only you that can take that first step. I can’t wait to become a feisty old woman who says exactly what she wants to say about everything.

Come on people, get up, find a cause, reason, purpose, or passion to fill your life. Go on!

 

Where Is My Phone?

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I have a love/hate relationship with my cell phone. I love to have it when I really need it, but I hate dealing with it most of the time. I am one of those people who lets the phone battery go dead, and forget to charge it for days at a time. I once managed two weeks of no phone until my husband charged it for me. I guess it makes sense, because I don’t like to talk on any phone these days.

I have an old AT&T phone that has the slide out keyboard. It doesn’t get on line, or do all the apps (Thank Goodness), but it does take photos, does texts, and, of course, makes phone calls. And really, that is all I need. My phone is small, light, fits in my pocket or hand, or handbag easily, and it still works just fine. I don’t see any reason to run out and buy the newest toy that comes out every year or so. I am 60 years old, why in the world would I want to try to watch television on a screen that is six inches wide?

We went into a store last night to check out a new program for our family package. Since my phone is old, and I bought it off e-Bay to replace my original phone, it is unlocked. Easy peasy, switch over. But, the sales girl just didn’t understand why I didn’t want to carry around one of those monster phones that also serves as a video player, music player, e-book reader, and does everything by touch screen.

First of all, I am married to a security IT guy. Paranoid doesn’t begin to describe how he is about security on all electronics in our home. After listening to him telling about what the FBI told him in a meeting on Internet security, I am a bit paranoid too. It is easy, super easy, beyond super easy to hack into a phone that has all the bells and whistles and gain access to all your information.

Second, I have issues with touch screens. Ask my family. They do not work for me. I touch the darned thing, it just sits there. I swipe my fingers in the right order, and it still just sits there. No matter what I do, or how I do it, the darned thing will not respond in time to answer a call. I had one of those for a few days, then I gave it to my granddaughter. I blame it on always having cold hands, but I really think that electronic things simply do not like me. My husband says it is because I zap everything with my electric personality. (rolling eyes here)

So, I finally convinced the 20ish girl that I really didn’t want a phone with all the bells and whistles, I quite liked my little old phone, and as long as it works, I’m good. Does that make me an old grumpy lady? I use tech stuff all the time. (Duh, I blog don’t I?) I don’t love every bit of it, but I am capable enough to make things work most of the time. (I do love my Kindle, saves on room, and I can carry around dozens of books all at once.)

However, I will probably forget to charge the phone, or I will charge it and leave it sitting on the table the next time I go out of the house. I keep trying to lose it altogether, but if I do, I will be stuck with one of those monster phones, or digging around e-Bay to find a replacement for it. See, love/hate issues ensue every time I bring up the subject of Where Is My Phone?

Somewhere Out There

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Out there, somewhere, in all the documents, papers, and stories of humanity, is information concerning one Thomas Napoleon Vandenburg, born in 1814 in either Germany or Holland, and died – according to lore – in 1864 in an insane asylum in Tennessee. We know he married a woman named Elizabeth, had three sons, all of which are easily documented, and the descendants of those three sons are scattered world wide. That’s it, that is all we have about this man who is my direct descendant.

Oh, I know, he is long dead, and that the stories about him died with his children or grandchildren. No one who knew him still walks the earth. But it bothers me that a man who was a father, husband, and no doubt, friend is simply erased as if he was unimportant in the formation of our family line. To me, he isn’t just a name and date on a piece of paper, he is part of who I am from the smallest part of DNA to, perhaps, how I look and act. It is a connection that becomes more important the longer I can’t find an answer.

As most genealogy enthusiasts know, there is always the one brick wall that makes us keep on pounding away. So many things can cause a brick wall. A name change, a spelling change, someone just decides to drop out of sight and moves on with a new life. All of that was much easier the further back one goes in history in the United States and other wilderness areas that became dumping grounds for criminals and religious fanatics. That very combination of rebelliousness was ripe for anarchy. Wars added to the losses, and sometimes, the soldier joined up using a fake name and disappeared into the chaos of history ending in a nameless grave somewhere on a nameless piece of land.

Disease, insanity, grueling hard scrabble lives, starvation, and wanderlust added their share of ghosts and lost men and women who became vague names in some old Bible or land document. There are thousands of ways a man could die in the past that would be cured with a simple pill today. The greed for gold alone took thousands of men from their families into the gold fields of California. A multitude of them were never heard from again. Some simply slipped away, some died horrific deaths, some drank themselves to death, and some managed to make it home, or bring their families to them to start a new life.

Today, it is rare that someone can simply disappear. We have documentation from the second we are born until the day we are buried or cremated at the end of our lives. Millions of tons of paper and ink are outlaid on each person born in a modern society. And now, with social media, computer hackers, and everything available electronically, we are even less likely to be able to disappear. Eventually, someone, somewhere, will recognize the missing person or discover when and where he or she died. I abhor the modern world of constant surveillance and intrusion, yet still wish that our ancestors had been a bit more organized and determined to keep records straight.

However, as I beat against that brick wall that is Thomas Napoleon Vandenburg’s history, I know in my heart that he is happy that someone cares enough to search for him from so far in the future. One day I will find him, and when I do I will do my Happy Dance and know that all the late nights, road trips, digging around in ragged paperwork and frustration was worth it. His story will be written again, and we will be able to move on to the men and women who brought him into this world. I know he’s out there, somewhere. Hang on Thomas, I am searching as hard as I can.

Brown Eyed Boy

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arron_6yrs“Well, hello little man,” The new mother said when she first held her baby boy. He looked at her with his big brown eyes and cried. She cuddled him close and told him not to cry because she would always hold her brown eyed boy in her arms.

“Look at you, you’re walking!” The mommy said as her brown eyed boy took his first steps across the room on his own. He looked at her and smiled a drooling smile as he took his first steps away from her.

“Hurry! We’re late! You don’t want to miss the bus on the first day of school” she said, as she rushed him out the door and down the street to the bus stop. The big yellow bus pulled up and he climbed on with all the other children in his neighborhood. His mommy stood on the curb and smiled at him as the bus moved away. He didn’t see her cry as her brown eyed boy took his first ride away from her.

“Here’s your uniform, you need to change so we can get to the meeting on time. Tonight, you get to move up from a Bear Cub to Webelos in scouting” his mother said, as she rushed from one task to another. When he walked across that bridge to move up to his next rank, she applauded and smiled while he grinned with pride at his accomplishment. He didn’t see her cry as her brown eyed boy took one more step toward the future.

“What have you done!” The mother whispered in a quiet voice, as he was rolled into the emergency room. “We won!” He shouted as they gave him medicine so they could set his collar bone. He didn’t see her cry as he drifted off. But he knew she was right there by his side. She prayed for her brown eyed boy.

“Where have you been!” His mother shouted at him when he stumbled in at daybreak. He knew she had been waiting up for him all night, afraid he wouldn’t come home, afraid he was hurt. “Mom, we were out night fishing. Don’t worry, I’m almost a teenager I can take care of myself. Then he wandered off to bed. He didn’t see his mom cry in relief he was fine, and in sorrow that her brown eyed was one step further away.

“What is this?” His mother asked. He knew she knew what it was as he tried to think of an excuse or a reason he had it in his room. “It’s just pot mom. It isn’t going to hurt me.” He said it with a tone of contempt for her. She threw it away, and he was punished, but it didn’t bother him ’cause he knew where to get more. She knew he knew, and when he left she cried at the dullness and sullenness in the brown eyes of her boy.

“Get Out!” His mother shouted in anger and frustration. “Live by our rules, or live somewhere else.” He grabbed his pack, threw on his boots, and stomped out of the house. He was tired of being treated like a kid, and he would show her that he didn’t need her at all. He didn’t hear the painful sobbing of his mother as her brown eyed boy walked away in rage.

“Mom! It’s a girl.” He sang down the phone in joy when his baby was born. He was overjoyed and so was she. When she got to the hospital, he hugged his mommy tight and whispered, “I never knew, I never knew, how much a parent loves their child until now.” He had tears in his eyes as he held his daughter in his arms. “Well, hello there, little angel baby.” She looked at him with wise brown eyes, and sighed with content.

“Hey Mom! Merry Christmas!” he shouted over the popping phone line! He was, he said, doing great. He had a great woman, a beautiful daughter, a good job, and that is really all a man needed to be happy. “Mom….. Mom…. I’m losing you. I love you,” he shouted just before the line dropped the call. He didn’t hear her say “I love you, too, or see her cry because he missed it, and she deeply missed her brown eyed boy.

“He’s dead! He’s dead!” came over the phone in the deepest part of the night. His mother and father rushed back home to find it was true. It was… it was – inexplicably painful, horrific in every moment of pain. She went to the morgue to identify him. When she started to leave him, she turned back, and gently closed his eyes. He didn’t see her cry as she walked away from him, knowing she wouldn’t see her brown eyed boy until she joined him on the other side one day.

“Nana, can I play my daddy video again?” Her little voice asked. “Of course,” and she put the video on.” She didn’t she her Nana cry as she walked down the hall, knowing her brown eyed girl was getting to know her daddy the only way she could. She didn’t see her smile as her Nana stood still and listened – remembering her brown eyed boy.

No New Year Resolutions.

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I have no New Year Resolutions, not a one. I stopped torturing myself with those things ages ago. Every year I would start out with a list of things I wanted to do. Most were self serving, like losing weight, and some were grandstanding, like I will not let others tell me what to do. Of course, they were destined to fail, leaving me feeling like an idiot. I mean, how can one be so stupid as to always let themselves down, every year, on a regular basis?

After failing so many years in a row, I finally realized that I was simply setting myself up to feel like a loser. I hurt my own feelings, and made myself mad at ME, all for some stupid non-tradition that is encouraged by popular demand. Why? I don’t know, maybe it was just a desperate attempt to fit in, to succeed, to find something worthwhile about myself. But it always worked just the opposite from what I planned.

So, a few years ago, I decided that I wasn’t going to give in and make impossible resolutions about my life. Because, you see, life doesn’t stick to a plan. It has a way of making its own path, and we are pretty much along for the ride. I can’t control life around me, only myself. Most of the time, life around me is on a whole different page than I am at any given moment! How can we resolve to accomplish anything in a measurable way when it comes to feelings and thoughts? If it is something concrete, for instance, completing a course at school, going to the gym, or getting a promotion, perhaps we can make a plan. However, you might get sick, and miss a lot of school. You might be too tired, busy, or bored to go to the gym after a week or so. You might be downsized at your company and have to start your own business to survive. There is no getting around it, no matter your resolve, life just keeps happening while you plan. And it almost always throws a spanner into the works to muck everything up.

Now that can be a good thing, making you move outside the box and do something different and new. But, it means that you will have to forsake your resolutions – again – and if you are emotionally tied to those resolutions, it can make you pretty miserable. Or not. Depends on how much you have invested yourself in the process and plan. I suppose, one should be flexible with resolutions.

I know many folks out there in the world managed to stick with a resolution come hell or high water. No matter what life throws at them, they stick to the plan. But, have you ever wondered what would have happened if you went out to your friends dinner party instead of going to the gym? Maybe you would have met the love of your life, or, if already with the love of your life, maybe you would fall into romance all over again. You see, your choices always have a possibility of at least two outcomes. If you stick to the plan, you know exactly what will happen. You will be tired, smelly, and sore from a workout. But, maybe the second or tenth outcome, well, it might be magical enough to change your life forever.

Now, in my crazy life, I no longer set myself up to fail. Because I have finally figured out what a New Year means. It isn’t a do over, remake, new start, or second chance. It means that you get to change course, learn from last year, and make a choice to be flexible in all that you do. All the New Year does is to make it easy to switch paths, change gears, explore something new, or simply stop always doing and just be. A New Year is a date on the calendar. Nothing will be any different on the first of January than it was on the thirty-first of December. All your problems will still be there, the difference being, that after the holidays, time with family and friends, maybe you have a clearer vision of your life.

No New Years Resolution means I am not locked into a plan. I can do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and with that flexibility, I cannot fail. I can only move forward, just like the path in front of me encourages me to do. Happy New Year everyone, I hope you find it magical.

Three Generations

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As I was holding my new great granddaughter and watching her milk drunk little face fight off sleep, I was struck by a sudden, overwhelming, love for her. It felt, in many ways, just like the love I felt for my new born sons many years ago. I guess those innate nurturing emotions never fade.

I was a young mother. By the time I was twenty-one, our two boys were born. It wasn’t easy to be so young, poor, and parents. But we were, so we just worked harder, made do with less, and loved our kids. We learned to accept the fact that one of us would be out driving around in the middle of the night to sooth a grumpy, over tired baby. We learned to live with sticky mystery goo on hands and faces. We could wrangle a two year old into the bath while talking on the phone and feeding a new born. We were fast diaper changers, quick to feed a baby, and very good at carrying on a conversation with each kid and each other at the same time. Our house was loud, active, and somewhat crazy.

I never got the laundry completely done, not even when they were teenagers. I was always facing a sink filled with dishes, and a house that was beyond messy. But, my boys and I had fun, and it was much more interesting to be with them than it was to clean house. We survived bumps, bruises, bike wrecks, fist fights, stitches, and broken bones. Not to mention childhood illnesses and germ filled school days. It didn’t matter to me that things went unfinished or undone when a Scouting project or school project took up our evenings. Dishes would still be there the next day. We managed the teenage years. Not as well as we could have, but we managed.

Then, suddenly, my boys were grown. And, before I was ready, our first grandchild was on the way. She was born between Christmas and New Years, and we were thrilled to have a girl to spoil. We never really thought we would raise her, but when we lost her father, we did. So instead of cars and building forts in the woods, we had a little girl who knew she was a princess. She spent six months of her third year determined to turn used computer parts into a time machine. And she refused to go to sleep unless her Papa told her about another Princess Crystal adventure. I honestly think that those stories were as real to her as her own life. We did all the things we did with our boys, only differently. She was, and is, high maintenance in many ways. And our greatest delight was to see her riding on her horse in a show. She is a natural. But, suddenly she was a grown woman, with a baby of her own on the way.

Our second son gave us two delightful grandchildren. A boy and a girl. Both are smart, funny, opinionated, and a joy to us. It is different from our first grandchild, it is more like being a real Nana and Papa rather than a parent. Our son is a single father, and he does a super job raising his children. The divorce was not amicable, but at least he gets to see his kids every day. When I see him telling them the exact same things I told him when he was in trouble as a kid, I smile inside knowing I did something right.

Now I have a great granddaughter. She is only three weeks old, and, like most babies, she has taken over our home and our hearts. I have raised, or helped to raise, two generations of children. And at the age of 58, I get to be involved with a third generation. And as I talk to my granddaughter, I hear the words I told her about raising her come straight from her heart as she talks about raising her daughter.

I am a mother, grandmother, and a great grandmother. My life has been raising kids, encouraging my husband, and constantly improving me. I do not regret one moment of being a parent to two rowdy boys and one little princess. It has been the greatest accomplishment of my life, better than my degrees, and all the world travel we experienced. Raising kids to be faithful, hard working, patriotic, and dedicated men and women is the best thing I have ever done, or will ever do.

If you take the jump to parenthood, you will see that all the work, lack of sleep, school projects, and laughing at the dinner table is well worth it. Because that crying baby in aisle two of the grocery store that annoys you now, is going to grow up one day, and he will take on his world from the lessons his parents taught him.

Three generations of children fill my heart. I am blessed and thankful for the opportunity to love them.

Comforting Traditions

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I have come to the undeniable conclusion that I am turning into a pack rat. (shudder) I figured that out by taking a look at the exterior of my refrigerator this morning. It had become, one bit of stuff at a time, the standard hoarding place for magnets. Under those magnets were photos, old phone numbers, ancient appointment cards from all sorts of places, bits and pieces of tools, keys, reminders, sticky notes, and plain old STUFF that should have long since gone into the rubbish bin. There were some great things on there too, like the drawings made for me by my grandchildren – two years ago, and a few of the awards Crystal got when she was doing martial arts, when we lived in Virginia – six years ago or more. But most of it was just stuff we all got too lazy to throw away.

What wasn’t on the refrigerator, was our yearly calendar – something that was a mainstay in our home for the past 41 years. Our lives went on the calendar, and when it got too busy, everyone ended up with a different color pen to write in their events, just to keep straight who I was taking to the soccer practice, and who was going to be dropped off to hang out with a friend. School assignments from the class syllabus went on there too, so I could stay on top of what next important project had to be finished first, or when a big exam was coming up. That way I could do the Mom thing, that makes our kids hate us, and nag them to get it done.

Calendars used to be important. At least they were when I was first married and then raising my boys. Now everyone has a smart phone, or PDA, or laptop, or an i Pad. Who needs something hanging on the fridge or bulletin board that has cheesy pictures or boring sayings leaching down the pages, when they can download, upload, tweet, text, FB, or set up the phone to ring an alarm to remind them of the things going on in their lives? Yet another casualty to the advent of the every changing tech world.

When I was a little girl, getting a new calendar each new year was a big deal. At first we got one from the garage where my granddad worked, but when we got old enough to know when the picture of the girls on each month were, shall we say, a bit saucy, my Grannie would get one from the grocery store for free. It was boring, and didn’t have many things worth looking at other than the food we knew we couldn’t afford.

The first time I got a calendar for Christmas, I was thrilled! I was allowed to put everyone’s birthday, important dates, and appointments in the blocks under the pretty picture. It was so exciting to be able to cross off days for big days and events. My first calendar was all about Pioneers who settled in Oklahoma and the west. Old photographs, drawings, and on the page for September, a map that I studied until the page fell out. That was when I realized the world was massive, and to find my way around I would need to understand maps. I am still a map junky. Forget Map Quest of any of the maps on line, give me a paper map with a million details and I go anywhere my dreams take me.

I’ve had calendars with cats, dogs, horses, Harley Davidson Motorcycles, cute kids, bratty kids, dolls, Scouting, guns, cartoons, castles, great writers, great artists, and much more gracing the months and edifying those who take the time to read the words on them. One of my favorites was a calendar that Riley made for me in Cub Scouts. Each month had a finger print or hand print turned into an animal on it. It was stapled at the top, and not all of the boxes were straight, but I loved that calendar and used it for the whole year.

So, this year, I bought a calendar with silly cartoon cats doing all sorts of obnoxious things. I wrote in everyone’s birthdays, added a few anniversaries, big events, and goals. Now that my refrigerator is DE-junked, I have put it on the front with huge magnets that will hold it all year. Now I feel organized and a bit more in control. Like comfort food, comfortable traditions can make our world right in the midst of change and chaos. All I have to do now, is keep everyone else from using it for the family bulletin board and a place to stick stuff they don’t want to take the time to put away.