30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY EIGHT

Truth #8: Call me Scrooge! Call me The Grinch! But Christmas is not what it is supposed to be. People run out and put themselves in debt year after year and for what? Because they feel guilt if they don't completely fill their livingrooms with gifts? That's bullshit! Christmas has become a holiday for the merchants! Period! And each year it comes earlier and earlier. What ever happened to making things for people? Or would that insult someone if they received a homemade gift? I would rather receive a gift from someone that they made. It means so much more to me. In the past I've painted pictures for people and crocheted scarves, etc and yes, I do also buy gifts, but I truly do believe it's a big rat trap and Christmas is meant primarily for children. This year my family has decided since there are no children anymore we are foregoing the gift giving tradition. We're just going to get together, celebrate by being together as a family, have a nice meal, argue amongst ourselves, call each other despicable names and go home with full stomachs and hearts with our humanity and bank accounts intact.

DEAR SANTA

With all the hoopla about Christmas today, I decided to cave in and make a Christmas list. At the top of my list is this house. It has always been my favorite one here in Pensacola. It over looks the bay and I believe I could feel right at home in this lavish monstrosity.

*Repost from November 9, 2011

AN AFTERNOON AT THE BEACH

Yesterday was a difficult day for me as I reflected on my mother's death and emptied a box a Kleenex by 10am. I felt grateful for my friend, Jesse who chatted with me up until I decided I needed to get out and get some fresh air and clear my head. Then my friend and partner in crime, Linda (Martha) took over. We took quick spin out to the beach. It wasn't a bright, sunny day, but that was okay...it was 76 and the day was more like how I felt. I wanted to be strong because that's how my mother would want me to be, but when you love someone and they are no longer there and are gone forever, it makes for a gray type of day. 

There was a hint of blue and every now and then the sun teased us and tried to come out.

The Redneck Riviera at her finest! lol

We drove past the parking lot and found a spot that looked good. Off in the distance you can see some higg rises and the good thing about this part of Florida is that it isn't wall to wall high rises yet.  This is what the beaches look like.

I didn't even see many seagulls out flying around. 

A lonely shell someone left behind.

As the waves flattened the surfers, got out of the water.

A hint of blue sky!

I was glad to see that the winter has been used to replace some of the boards on the boardwalks.

Our sand is almost as white as snow, but a lot better because it doesn't need to be shoveled!

A lovely pic of my knees!

And one of my knees and shoes! lol

This is Linda gazing off down the beach (most likely watching the men in their speedos) What a wicked woman she is!

Linda was scanning the horizon and is deep in thought. She didn't know I was taking her picture and claimed nobody ever gets a decent pic of her. Looks like I proved her wrong!

 

As you see there isn't many people out here and believe it or not even in the summer our beaches don't get super crowed.

 

One surfer who came out of the water and peeled off his wet suit had a wicked sunburn. Oh, he was going to feel it later that evening.

Just more sugar white sand as far as the eye can see and water.

When we first got there, people were out surfing, but the waves started dissipating soon after.

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY SEVEN

Truth #7: Grief isn't something that ever truly ends. You take it with you until the day you die. You learn to live with it and over time the tears become less frequent. The pain fades, but the love you feel remains. The losses of loved ones that touch your life change you and mold you into being a stronger person until that next wave of grief hits. Then for a time you lose your balance and succumb to all the emotions of loss all over again. The process brings me to my knees because my heart aches for the people I no longer have in my life. My heart cries out for them and there is only silence. I know that may sound selfish and so be it. But today I miss my mother and she's gone...

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY SIX

Truth #6: This time of year many people tend to add new additions to their homes from local animal shelters or possibly from a breeder or a pet store. Truth #6 sinks to the core of my being because I am an animal lover through and through. I have always had a pet or pets my entire life and they are as much a part of my family as any of my family members are. When they die, I grieve and I miss them terribly. They leave a hole in my heart. These are the reasons why I feel people shouldn't own pets unless they intend to treat them as family members and to love them a such. When I see animals left outside in the heat or cold without food or water I truly do not understand why a person would get a pet only to abuse it. My truth here is that people guilty of doing such things should be chained ouside without food and water and shown how it feels to live that way. So if you intend to bring that new puppy or kitten home for Christmas and you don't intend to make it part of your family, do it a favor and leave it where it is because at least it's getting fed and it's sheltered and warm where it is.

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY FIVE

Truth #5: When something bad happens you have three choices: You can let it define you. You can let it destroy you. You can let it strengthen you. I encourage each of you to reflect on your life and look at those dark times. What did they do for you? Or what did you do with the dark times? Do you wear those times like a badge? Did those times cripple you? Or have those times taught you to be a better person so you can reach out and help others going through similiar times?

SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS

When you've been hurt, what works best to help you heal? For me, I find writing is very therapeutic. It allows me to vent uninterrupted and it also allows me to see the problem as a whole instead of in disjointed parts that often times make no sense. This blog has been a blessing in many ways and one added bonus of blogging is getting other people's opinions on whatever the topic I choose to tackle. Interacting with others not only helps broaden my perspective and gives me much food for thought, but it helps me to see that I'm not alone even when things seem to be at a low point. The truth is that we all share the same human experience. We all hurt at times. We all get disappointed by people we love and we all can help each other by reaching out and sharing our pain and experiences with one another.

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY FOUR

Truth #4: With the second anniversary of my mother's death in a few days, death has been on my mind a lot lately. I know death is a difficult concept for everyone from the time we are small children until our final days. Maybe it isn't meant for us to actually understand it, but sometimes we go from fearing it to actually welcoming it depending on our circumstances and health problems. Over the course of our lifetimes our views on death may change, but one thing for certain, the topic death makes people uncomfortable even though it's something each of us will experience at some point. It's inevitable! So with this truth I know we can cheat many things in life, but there's one thing that no one can ever cheat and that's death.  

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY THREE

Truth #3: No matter how bad things can get at times, those times will pass. I truly believe that there are valuable lessons to be learned from those times if we open both our eyes and our hearts and reflect honestly on them. For one to find the true reason and worth in their life Socrates claims "an unexamined life is not worth living." As with the tides, our lives have highs and lows and we must flow with it or drown in its current. Socrates may be correct, but Sylvester the Cat calls his version of this lesson of "Brotherly Love": Survival of the Fittest!

BANG! BANG! SHOOT! SHOOT!

WARNING:  WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ COMES DIRECTLY FROM THE IRRATIONAL BRAIN OF A BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL! 

It's been ages since I've written a blog post regarding religion or politics.  I've purposely done that because those issues tend to ruffle too many feathers and quite frankly, I haven't felt like reading a lot of other people's bitching and moaning lately.  What a selfish wench I am!  Although we all like to believe we're 100% correct regarding our political ideology and spiritual beliefs, I'm intelligent enough to know that rarely is one side completely right about anything. The exception to that rule is the dogma surrounding Mildredism. Mildred, after all, is right about everything! 

Today is the day I'm going to break my dry spell and jump back into the insanity of public opinion.  One issue I'd like to weigh in on is the increased gun violence in the United States. Without stepping on anyone's toes or Second Amendment rights, I really believe something concrete needs to be done to curb the violence.  Too many innocent people are being slaughtered daily.  I listen closely to all the rhetoric surrounding this hotbed issue, but all I really hear appears to be are confirmations of an irrational need to be heavily armed and a quite twisted relationship between weapons and their owners.  Instead of people focusing on a very real problem and having a rational discussion about it so a consensus can be reached, all I hear are people wailing about their guns being taken away from them.  To that I say BOO FUCKING HOO!

Perhaps when the Constitution was first written a need to be armed was a truly legitimate need, but it's an entirely different world now than it was then.  At that time people had to hunt to provide food to feed their families.  Veganism wasn't the going rage back then. People were meat and potato connoisseurs not bean sprout and tofu gurus.  Back then guns were a person's only defense in the savage environment they were settling. Today fewer people hunt to feed their families and those who do hunt, do it more for sport than for dietary need.  Those who chose to hunt and it is a choice because meat is readily available for sale at any store near where they live certainly can do so without doing it with a semi-automatic firearm.  Wouldn't hunting be more like hunting if it were done with bows instead of guns? Just a thought! 

Having a fully equipped arsenal of weapons seems a little bizarre to me and just a wee bit on the paranoid side.  Maybe I feel this way because I've never felt a need to own a gun.  As many times as I have attempted to discuss this issue no one has ever adequately explained to me any rational reasons why people have a need for weapons in this day and age.  What I generally get are loud tirades that come off sounding more like something an emotionally unstable person might rant. And oh boy, that's the kind of person I want armed and ready for anything! Today's savage environment doesn't include marauding bands of Native Americans or outlaws who rape, plunder and pillage.  The savage situations of today are school shootings and crimes of passion.  Could the answer be as simple as taking all weapons away except those used by law enforcement and the military? Perhaps if that was done, the violence might vanish.  Just a thought! 

So what's it going to take to turn the violence around?  Any thoughts on the subject? Other industrialized countries don't seem have the amount of gun violence we have here.  Are we not doing something right?  What's their formula for a relatively peaceful co-existence? Are we just a nation of spoiled children who want what we want when we want it regardless of the consequences of our actions?  Have people become incapable of compromise? Has our gun violence gotten so out of hand that it can't be fixed and why does the NRA seem to wield so much power? Who made them Grand Poobah of Gunslingers?  These are just some of the questions floating around in my bleeding heart liberal brain. 

* Repost from June 25, 2014

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY TWO

Truth #2: I was browsing through the news this morning online and came across an article where Supermodel Paulina Porizkova stated that dating at 57 sucks. Hey, if it sucks for her, you can only imagine what it's like for us ordinary folk (the fuglies). I hate to break it to her by letting her know that it doesn't get any better with age. In fact, I believe the older you get, the worse suckier dating gets. Perhaps by middle age most people are just burnt-out by the whole process and know their chances of finding that forever love is slim to nil. Why keep doing it then? Truth? Most people would rather have someone...anyone than to die alone. Me...I'd rather be alone than be with the wrong person! It's a sad state of affairs when men your own age want women half their age and us "cougars," are left to find a worthy 35 year old! But if I do find one, do I have to talk to him? lol 

BUBBLE ALLEY

Bubble Alley's multi-colored aerial display of large balloons in the heart of downtown Pensacola is getting an encore and contract extension. The more than 3,000, 18-inch diameter balloons suspended over one block of Intendencia Street between Jefferson and Tarragona streets were originally scheduled to be on display Nov. 3-14. But due to the display's growing popularity among downtown visitors, the bubbles will remain in place through the end of the year and perhaps beyond, said Walker Wilson, Downtown Improvement Board executive director according to the article in the Pensacola News Journal.

I wish I could have gotten on top of one of the buildings to take a few pictures from there.

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY ONE

Truth #1 - The elderly have wisdom to share and once they are gone so is their wisdom. I often wish I had written down the stories I was told as a young person by my elderly relatives. Instead of rolling my eyes and thinking that the old fools knew nothing and that I knew everything, I now know that the old fools knew everything and I knew nothing at all. What the old fools tried to give me was something more valuable than gold itself, but I was too blind to see what was right in front of me. All I needed to do was stop and listen, stop and learn and stop and love. It really is such a simple thing to do, but as a young person it was probably one of the most difficult things to do in life.

THANKSGIVING BLESSINGS AND UNBLESSINGS

I was fortunate enough to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my children and their spouses, one of my nephews and one of my closest friends. We had a beautiful dinner...nothing burnt! Everything was perfect! But not all people were as fortunate as I was.

Of the people I did spend Thanksgiving with the roll call is short by a few people: my grandson couldn't make it in from Massachusetts (but will here for Christmas with his girfriend Sophia) and my friend, Linda's husband, Max (is still working in Maine for a few more weeks.)

During the day my thoughts lingered on other people in other places far and near:

I have a few friends and relatives going through difficult emotional and stressful times (you know who you are.) I have a few friends and relatives going through serious medical issues (you know who you are.) 

Today I found out I have a friend that was basically forgotten about by her adult children. No phonecall! No nothing! That makes me sad and mad that people can be so thoughtless and selfish regarding their parents at times. I encouraged my friend to not keep her feelings bottled up, but to express her feelings to her adult children and let them know how much they had hurt her. After all, she is 1600 miles away from her family and no one called her except her husband. What's up with that? Did they all have broken fingers and laryngitis?

Drumroll please...the biggest blessing-unblessing: the week's worth of leftovers I'll be eating!

Is it spring yet?

BEHIND BROWN EYES

Somedays I have to remind myself that being alone is okay. Others days I know being alone is better than being with the wrong person...or the right person at the wrong time. Sometimes I feel compelled to say out loud that "finding home" or my center of gravity isn’t anything I can discover externally. This quest is all about me and no one else. I've had a void in my life for so long that I’ve come to accept it as being as much a part of me as are my long legs. Every now and then I throw myself into the abyss of relationship uncertainty and drama. Each time I explore it, what I find is the same old thing. That brick wall never gets easier to run into no matter how many times I do it. 

The inner peace and happiness I’m lacking is not in someone else nor is it somewhere else. I know that happiness lives within and radiates outward. The missing factors in my life are factors that left me at an very early age. The void I feel I often times think is simply the childhood I never had and will never have. How do I fill that void? I often wonder who I would have been if I had grown up in a family where love was not a painful thing or if I had never left home as a young teenager. Would I have perished or would I have survived? Could I have thrived? Would I have learned to stand and fight instead of running away? Would I have learned how to ride something out from beginning to end? Would I have ever known the taste of sweet success? And would I have learned how to love myself without this path I chose? Can anyone really answer those questions with absolute certainty? I certainly can't! 

Sometimes nostalgia floods my thoughts along with thoughts of "what if". What if I just stopped running into that brick wall time after time? The last time I made that mistake was several years ago. I allowed myself to once again believe that loving someone could change my life. Silly me! I really did know better than that, but foolishly got caught up in flood of feel good moments. I let how I felt when I was with this person grow into believing that love conquers all obstacles. What I forgot was that unreciprocated love and one-sided relationships conquer nothing. From my track record, one could assume that I’m everything from a glutton for punishment to being just plain stupid where love is concerned. In reality, I’m neither. In reality, my interest in finding that special someone has waned drastically to being almost non-existent. Now finding home has become more of a quest for inner strength as I deal with my declining health. 

 As I've developed several health problems and often times feel as if I'm quite literally falling apart, I find myself less interested in the whole relationship scene. The memory of my last cruise on the Love Boat still haunts me. My entire worth was measured in terms of my physical performance or should I say my lack of physical performance? How could I have been so wrong once again about someone who had captured my heart? I remember feeling crushed, disappointed and unworthy. But unworthy of what? Of not being able to do something I’ve never been exposed to doing before or ever attempted to do before this person came into my life? Would anyone be able to climb a high mountain on first try without climbing the small ones first? I now believe by letting this fish go without a fight, it was I who lost nothing. In my quest of finding home, I found where home isn’t and was reminded that being alone is okay.

*Repost from November 28, 2011

NINE SECRET RULES FOR BEING HUMAN

 

According to an article a friend sent me there are 9 secret rules for being human handed down from ancient Sanskrit literature. These rules are:

1. YOU WILL RECEIVE A BODY.
You may like it or not, but it will be yours for the entire period round.

2. YOU WILL LEARN LESSONS.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, ONLY LESSONS.
Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.

4. A LESSON IS REPEATED UNTIL IT IS LEARNED.
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, then you can go to the next lesson.

5. LEARNING LESSONS DOES NOT END.
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6.'THERE' IS NO BETTER THAN 'HERE.'
When you're 'there' it has become 'here', you will simply another 'there' that will again look better than 'here'.

7. OTHERS ARE MERELY MIRRORS OF YOU.
You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects you something you love or hate yourself.

8.WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU.
You have all thè tools and resources you need, what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. THE ANSWERS LIE INSIDE YOU.
The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

Live Life With A Meaning...

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

What doesn't kill us, only makes us stronger! Does survival really mean we are stronger or does it merely mean we're smarter and more leary of placing our hand in the same fire that burnt us the first time? Stronger would imply that if faced with same battle whether it is an emotional or a physical one, we would be the victor the second time around. But doesn't it take more courage to walk away from a battle sometimes than to stay and fight? Isn't that wisdom, victory in itself? 

Gratitude statement: I am thankful to be a survivor whether or not that means I'm stronger or smarter or both! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO THOSE FAR AND NEAR

I don't remember any one particular Thanksgiving while I was growing up.  It's more an accumulation of all of them rolled up into one pleasant memory that makes me smile. The song "over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go" definitely was the theme of the day for my family.  Yes, over the Penobscot River and through Brewer to the picturesque countryside of Holden was the route to my grandmother's house where a feast always awaited us.  Sometimes winter had already begun and the landscape was delicately draped with snow.  My brothers and I were always filled with anticipation of the exquisite meal we would eat and the days ahead that led to the grand finale, Christmas. 

My Nana's house was filled with delicious holiday aromas from the pumpkin and apple pies.  My guilty pleasure was the suet pudding soaked with hard sauce.  The dessert was so rich and flavorful, I could only eat a small serving even though I always wanted more.  The hard sauce was spiked with a splash or two of my grandfather's whisky so I felt all grown up eating it. Cinnamon and other spices masked the smell of the turkey roasting in the oven and the medley of garden-grown vegetables on the stove. Native-grown McIntosh apples would fill the apple pies and sweeten the day as their flavor mingled with the vanilla ice cream slowing melting atop the warm pie.  Their aroma is so distinctive that I could always tell if they were being sold in a store and now whenever I smell them, I'm instantly transported back to autumn in Maine when the orchards are bustling with business. 

There with her colorful bib apron on, Nana was the captain of her kitchen and always busy making sure everyone present was thoroughly sated. As she baked the pies, she always baked one pumpkin pie just for herself and she would eat it while preparing the rest of the Thanksgiving dinner. She rarely used a recipe, yet everything she made was baked to perfection. Her culinary expertise was strictly from instinct and the experience she had mastered many years before made her like some legendary figure from a Norman Rockwell illustration in my mind.

My choice from the turkey was always the wings, but when my Great Aunt Leah, one of my grandmother's sisters dined with us, I had to share the wings because they were her favorite as well. I never minded and to this day whenever I eat poultry, I always announce out loud that this one is for Aunt Leah as I eat one wing for me and one wing for her.  I know she'd like it that she's still remembered and included in all our holiday meals. Nana piled our plates beyond capacity, but no matter how much we ate, everyone always had room for a little dessert and then a little nap before going home. Nana always told me that my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  I suppose she was right, but on holidays even a child can have a hollow leg and be a bottomless pit. 

As the table was cleared and the food put away, my brothers and I did the dishes while the adults went into the living room to take a much needed breather. Nana always saved the paper tablecloth so I could cut out the turkeys and other Thanksgiving pictures printed on the tablecloth.  By the time I was done cutting, it was late in the afternoon and time to return home back through the woods and over the river to Walter Street we would go, but each time I went to Nana's house before I would leave, I always made sure I signed her guest book she kept on the desk in the corner of her living room. Doing that always made me feel as special as the others who had been guests in her house.  I'm sure the thought never crossed her mind to tell me not to do that because it was only for guests.  After all, I was her only granddaughter and I'm sure she indulged me in many, many ways.

*Repost from April 4, 2019