Jim Rogers, CEO, Duke Energy

Since the primary election is almost upon us here in North Carolina–and since early voting starts this week, I want to urge all of our North Carolina readers to vote against the so-called “marriage amendment” on May 8th.  Even if you weren’t intending to vote in this primary (which I normally wouldn’t be, since it’s a Republican primary), PLEASE PLEASE go vote against this ridiculous amendment to our state’s constitution.  This amendment will, to put it simply, set us back several hundred years by institutionalizing and legitimizing discrimination.  Not only that, but it will also make life harder even for heterosexual couples who live together.  As I understand it, under this change in our state’s laws, businesses would no longer be able to offer domestic partners of any kind–homosexual or heterosexual– any kind of health insurance benefits.  Also, people who are not married will have no protection against  acts of domestic violence.

This kind of change has already taken place in the other states in this country that have voted a similar amendment into law.  So readers in other places, watch out!  You could be next!

This type of backlash against the progress of human rights is well-funded and beautifully orchestrated.  And it’s no accident that this important vote has been placed in the middle of a Republican primary ballot–certainly not a normal hangout for liberal voters!

I was proud to see that Jim Rogers of Duke Energy,  joined other business leaders across the state, including the head of Self-Help Credit Union and top officials at Bank of America, in speaking out against the amendment last week, stating that if we are to be a state that wants to conduct business with other states and especially with other nations, then we cannot afford to be seen as discriminatory or not inclusive.  He also said, “I’m old fashioned.  I believe we’re all children of God, and we shouldn’t have special rules for some and not for others.  We have to recognize differences in people and celebrate those differences.”  

I am embarrassed that my state is even debating this subject.  This kind of legalized discrimination should be something in our past, something we have risen above, not something right here in front of us, and definitely not something we are trying to vote into law.  Isn’t it about time that the citizens of our state showed that we are educated, thinking people with hearts,  who care about the rights of all North Carolinians, not just the fill-in-the blanks  (white, straight, male, wealthy, married, whatever) ones?

Please join two former mayors of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt and Richard Vinroot (from opposing political parties) and the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Orange County Board of Commissioners and, among others, the city councils of the cities of Greensboro, Durham, and Asheville and vote against this amendment.

To read the rest of Mr. Rogers’ speech, go to www.protectncfamilies.org.  That website can also tell you other ways to support the campaign against this amendment, by sending in a donation, signing a pledge to vote against it, or participating as a volunteer.

Let’s protect ALL North Carolina families, not just the ones who look like us.

Totsie Marine

Our Friend, Totsie, disappeared from Asheville, but we found her in Panama.  Here is her story.

Part 1: Making the Decision

“Wanda fell and broke her (other) arm. She is doing better but can’t remember why she has a cast on her arm.” This email came after we made the decision to move to Boquete, Panama and help take care of my 83 year-old mother-in-law, Wanda. It sealed the deal for us. We said we would come to Panama for a year.

How it came to be:  

My husband, Winn, and I had toyed with the idea of moving to Boquete after visiting there in January 2011. Winn’s brother, Kevin, and his wife, Tammy, had been taking care of Wanda for three years and had moved their whole family, including three school aged children, to Boquete about a year before our visit. Their decision to relocate there was based on Tammy’s parents, who had retired there, and their own research on cost of living, quality of medical care and the desire to scale down their expensive lifestyle in the states.

Family in Boquete

Winn and I have a web development business. I started the business in 1996 and he joined me in 2006. We re-branded the company in 2011 from Totsie.com to Webonobo and positioned it to be “Local Global Mobile Web Solutions”. We also had our site translated into Spanish to attract clients who needed multilingual sites. We had always been told “Oh, you could do your business from anywhere in the world.”, so now seemed to be the right time to see if that was true.

Our original thought was that we could move to Boquete, live near Kevin and Tammy and help take care of Wanda while continuing our business. We knew we would have a cable internet connection and with modern conveniences like Skype, we could still have personal connections to our clients.

The deciding factors:

One factor in our decision to move was that our business had slowed, like most businesses in the states, and while we still had a stable roster of 60+ clients which we host and support, the requests for new sites had slowed to a trickle. Even though we had re-branded and felt positive about the new direction, we were still in the early stages of marketing our new global potential.

Another important factor came when I had a reading with an intuitive in Asheville who helped me admit the fact that I was personally burned out. Being entirely self-taught, self-motivated, self-marketed, I had been working long days for 16 years and even though I thought I had a few good business years left in me, the truth came out in the reading and I had to admit that I was just plain tired, that I had become one-dimensional in giving all my energy to the business and what I really wanted was a big change in lifestyle.  

When I told Winn about my true feelings he immediately said “Absolutely, no problem, I can take over the business. I want you to rest and find yourself.” His next thought was that HE wanted to meet with the intuitive. In truth, he had been wanting to change the hectic lifestyle we had created but hadn’t figured out how to make that happen. So now he was motivated to not only take over the helm but also to do it in his style and at his pace.

And yet a third factor is the fact that I turn 62 on March 6, 2012. Yes, I’m a baby boomer. It seemed unreal to me that people really used to retire at 62 but here I was actually considering it! Of course I would have to give up the CEO position in the company and work less hours to qualify for Social Security but that quickly became a no-brainer. Winn, being 5 years younger than me, still felt excited about our rebranding efforts and could see himself running the business with me as co-pilot.

Running the numbers:

Winn loves spreadsheets so he spread us out in all the ways he could think of to evaluate the wisdom of our move. No matter how you sliced it, it looked like a really good idea!

Based on Kevin and Tammy’s experiences and cost of living, he decided that (as the new CEO) we could offer our services at a lower rate to our clients since our cost of living would be lower in Panama and that would create a win-win for our clients, who had smaller marketing budgets because of the downturn in the economy, and us who had lower living expenses. We could continue running the business, just on a smaller more sustainable pace. We would be living internationally which could eventually meet one of our rebranding goals which was to produce multilingual sites for international clients. We both got excited about the positive possibilities of this move and after we found a great renter for our house-someone I already had an acquaintance with who is in our industry-we felt like the light was green to go.

Part II – Next Monday!  In the meantime, Happy Birthday Totsie. 

Moi Zip Lining

The idea of a cruise first came to me in a dream while my husband was recuperating from a hip replacement last year.  I dreamed about being waited on hand and foot and not having to wash dishes, do laundry, cook or even think about cooking.  So, after my Dad passed away last April, my sisters and I decided to take a cruise with our husbands as a way of spending time together and not having to work at it.  And since my Dad loved cruises, we settled on a cruise for our journey together.

Norwegian Star

We boarded the Norwegian Star in Tampa Bay (Feb. 5-12^th) and sailed to Honduras, Belize, and the beautiful beaches of Costa Maya, and Cozumel in Mexico.  I have to admit, right from the beginning, I was struck by the customer service.  For example, when we first boarded the ship, it seemed like thousands of people were boarding with us and not only was the process quick and organized, the staff smiled all the way through it and were amazingly friendly – nothing like the airport scene where personnel often act like they are doing YOU a favor.  Everyone I came into contact with on the ship seemed to have one priority – to make sure all passengers have a comfortable, relaxing, and fun time.  If the crew was faking it, they did a great job.

What did I like?  I loved sitting on my private balcony listening to the ocean and keeping the door slightly ajar at night so I could hear the sound of the sea while falling asleep.  I loved sitting on the upper deck in the quiet zone reading, uninterruptedly, Deborah Reed’s new novel,  Carry Yourself Back to Me.

And, I loved the excursions on land.  We zip lined in the rain forest in Belize and later with headlamps on, we floated in tubes through the Mayan cave system.  Other days we relaxed on the gorgeous beaches sipping margaritas and pina coladas.

Coupe Car Cozumel

And when we were at sea, there was the spa with hot tubs, hydrotherapy pools, and cushiony lounge chairs looking out at sea.  Of course there is the dining and endless buffets culminating in the last night’s chocolate buffet.  And, should you get bored, there are endless musical shows that aren’t too bad.

Chocolate Buffet

What didn’t I like?  Just too many darn people – almost everywhere.  I also didn’t like not having enough time once we docked to truly explore any one place.  Basically, you get a sampling of what the country might be like.  It would have been fun to spend the week in just one place but clearly cruises are not designed for that.  All in all, the best part of the cruise was spending time with my two sisters who I don’t get to see enough and of course, not having to cook, clean-up or do anything but visit.

The Brown Girls Cruising

Oops, I was supposed to post this for Jane as she was flying off to Botswana with Josie to visit her daughter, but I had too many things on my list this past week.  So, here is Jane’s post -  just a little late!  Annice

Tell me again, whose idea was it to schedule a surprise birthday party for her husband’s 60^thbirthday one week before Christmas?  It was worth it—I’ll say that.  The party was a blast.  Tom was surprised beyond my wildest hopes.  Our friends and relatives came from far away places.  My wonderful niece and her husband came from Virginia with their two baby girls to complete our workforce made up of Lizzie and Janson (her fiance), Josie, and my wonderful friends Heather, and Nora, her daughter.  Together they decorated, cooked food, took pictures, arranged the room, welcomed guests–and generally made it all possible.  And Sadhvi gets an Oscar for her acting job that led Tom into the room “to borrow chairs for the weekend.”  Josie made an incredible 4-tier cake with the theme of “A Man For All Seasons” (with a season on each tier).  I got so wound up from seeing so many people  I love in one place that I’m still having trouble unwinding!  It made turning 60 seem like a great thing, and I’ll let you know about that in a few years.

Tom, Josie, and the Birthday Cake!

But whose idea was it to schedule a trip to Africa 3 days after Christmas?  This trip promises to be an adventure, and, most importantly, I’ll get to see my baby girl instead of missing her for another six months!  But, needless to say, I’m not ready for Christmas, and I’m not ready for Africa.  I’m guessing it will all come together, “one way or t’other,” as my mother used to say.

Here is what remains to be done today:

1) Shop for about five things that are still missing for Christmas

2) Find a plug that can convert to African power, so that I can plug in my C-PAP machine and sleep at night while I’m traveling around Botswana

3) Buy wrapping paper and wrap presents

4) Get international texting put on my daughter’s phone so that we can let my husband know that we arrived safely in Botswana

5) Call my credit card company to let them know I will, in fact, be in Botswana, so that they don’t kick out every transaction I try to do

6) Find the passports that I stored in a safe place for the trip

7) Get one of those passport holders you can wear around your neck

Go to the evening service at our church for Christmas Eve

Jane and Josie

9) Breathe deeply

10) Pack for Africa

11) Clean the house

12) Bake Christmas cookies.

I have a feeling that numbers 11 and 12 are probably going to go down the tubes!

Happy Belated New Year to all of our readers!  Off to Botswana!

SADHVI

I’ve started to get into the Holiday spirit.

It started with the first snowflakes last week, the Christmas songs I’ve been playing while baking the things that I love to send to my family, and the tangible joy I feel when I roast chestnuts as a street vendor with my husband.

This year there are more and more people who are trying chestnuts for the first time.  And loving them.

Knowing that they aren’t nuts, that they are a complete protein (you can live on them), that they’re alkaline, and they contain very little fat might be the reason.  Or could it be that they’ve been growing all summer in Italy, so that you are, in fact, eating “Italian Sunshine”?

HOT ROASTED CHESTNUTS!

Without chestnuts, I don’t know if I could handle winter.  I’ve made a simple Chestnut soup for dinner tonight.  I like easy, simple, and satisfying.

For my family who are far from me every year, I used the recipe that I have for making my Swiss Linzer Torte.  But instead of rolling out the dough for the torte, I just pinch off some pieces and roll it in a ball, press down in the middle with my thumb, and fill with raspberry jam, if I have it.  And some other kind if I don’t.  I bake them for about 15 minutes, and then sprinkle with some of the ground almonds.  Everyone loves them.  You will too!

“Swiss Linzer Thumbprint Cookies”.

SWISS LINZER COOKIES & ST. NICK

 Here are 10 things I’m thankful for this year:

1)  We have wonderful friends who make us feel thankful to be alive and sharing this planet with them.

2)  Our daughter Becky in Africa is feeling better, so maybe she doesn’t actually have dengue fever or some other horrible tropical disease (what I immediately assumed upon hearing that she had a fever and muscle pains). And our daughter Josie does not have a stress fracture on her leg—just shin splints!  Yaay!  And she’s going with me to see Becky soon.

3)  Our daughter Lizzie has Janson in her life—a thoughtful, loving guy—and Janson may even have a job soon, thanks to some great folks who read about him in the paper and decided they wanted to go out of their way to help a Marine veteran!

4)  Our son, Parker, is very happy at Bard College—and, even though he won’t be home for Thanksgiving, he gets to have turkey dinner with Janet and Jerry, our wonderful friends in New York.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OOPS50!!!!

5)  I have three powerful and loving sisters (and a host of wonderful blood kin) and terrific, loving in-laws (how lucky is that?).

6)  Tom can still, after 28 years (is that possible?), make me laugh so hard that I risk embarrassing him in public (but I never really do).

7)  Obama is still in the White House.

  Even though I’ve gained some pounds and need to get rid of them, I’ve managed to keep off most of my weight loss.

9)  Our dog Tater loves to chase a laser around our floor—over and over again—without ever getting bored or tired.

10)  Ultimate Ice Cream (in Asheville, NC), especially the Coffee Heath Bar (perhaps this last one should be avoided). 

Dee Charlton

I’m grateful to be one of the lucky, reunion re-connections that formed over the past 18 months with Annice, one of the co-founders of this wonderful blog Oops50.com.  Our friendship goes back to 6^th grade summer camp, and if my math is right, that’s 47 years ago.  The camp was devised by the school district to facilitate kids from several grade-schools to meet and spend time together prior to the major transition into the adult world of 7^th grade!  We became fast friends.  We were 12 years old.

October 23, 2011 – I turned 59.  How strange it feels to be writing for this blog and and saying, I’m almost 60 !!   How did that happen? The Bonnie Raitt song; “Nick of Time” keeps playing over and over in my head, especially the lyric; “… no matter how I tell myself – it’s what we all go through,  those lines are pretty hard to take when they’re staring back at you..”   In the Nick of Time  You ain’t never lied sister Bonnie!

My husband, Scott and I have been traveling the country in our motor coach since April.  We just returned to beautiful Sarasota, Florida Nov. 1^st, and I’m sitting in front of the computer looking at our wedding photo taken in Italy.

Dee's wedding in Italy

Next to that is the photo we had taken last month in Las Vegas, it was our 5^th anniversary – wow.  What a life, what a journey this has been!  I can’t say I remember what I wanted my life to be when I was younger except that I wanted to be independent and travel, and now I can say yes to both of those goals.

I’m also feeling how fortunate I’ve been to experience the wonder of this country – the canyons, the mountains, the Bad Lands, Death Valley, White Sands, Alaska and hot air balloon festivals.  I’ve even jumped out of an airplane and para-glided off a mountain.  I’m grateful for it all, and for Scott.

Next - Pilot's license

Back to my birthday – it was harder than I expected it to be.  All day, I was fighting back tears.  I know I’m not afraid of death, I’ve been faced with it on more than one occasion.  So what was tearing me up?  Aging?  Vanity?  Am I that vain?  I guess I am, but is that worse than death??

I think it finally hit me when I texted Fran (my wonderful step-daughter) something my mother said to me on my birthday: “Welcome to the last year of your 50s!”  Thanks Mom.  Her stand-up routine could use a little refining, but I love her anyway.  And thank you Fran for letting me cry on your long distance shoulder.  For every year that passes me by, I come one more year closer to losing my Mom, and that hurts a lot.

Dee with Mom

Honestly, I’ve just gotten to know my mother well about seven years ago, and I cherish her as my real best friend.  I am a lucky 59 year old woman in so many ways!

Born in Collinwood (Cleveland) OH, Dee’s family followed what she likes to refer to as the Italian Migratory Route from Little Italy in Cleveland to the ‘burbs where her mother still resides. 

After graduating from high school, she struck out on her own in her first apartment, later to be hired by the same people who built, owned and managed the complex.  

Her career in Property Management took her to New York, New Hampshire, and finally Florida, a place she wanted to stay.  In the early 90’s, Dee was hired by a national company and traveled the country promoting motivational speakers to help people get rich quick – just like they did.  It wasn’t unusual for her to come home with half a million dollars in her briefcase.  Eventually, Dee settled down in Sarasota.where she met her husband, Scott, and married in Santa Maria di Castellabati, Italy, just south of the Amalfi coast.  Today, they live in Sarasota during the winter months and travel the rest of the year in their motor coach.

.

Every autumn, it’s the same thing: it takes me a while to get used to the idea that all the leaves will fall from the trees, it’s going to get cold, and winter is coming.

I have never lived in a place where there were NOT four seasons, so why does it come as a shock each and every year?

Maybe it’s simply because I don’t like to be cold!

Here’s a joke that I find funny ever time I read it:

On a small iceberg, somewhere near the North Pole, a little bear goes up to his mother and asks, “Mom, what kind of bear am I?”

“You are a polar bear, son,” replies his mother.

“Are you sure I am not a brown bear?” he asks.

.

“Quite sure, son,” she replies, “you are a polar bear.”

But the little bear is not satisfied. “Mom,” he says, “maybe I am a grizzly bear?”

“What are you asking these questions for, son?” asks his mother. “You are a polar bear.”

So the little bear walks across the iceberg to his father.

“Pop,” he says, “am I a panda bear?”

“No, son,” says the father, “you are a polar bear.”

“Not a koala bear?” asks the baby bear.

“No, you are a polar bear,” says his father. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Because,” moans the little bear, “I’m cold!”

So postponing the inevitable is why I like to have as many Zinnia’s around me as possible.  They seem to continue to bloom and flower until the first hard frost, which around here can be in November.  They require nothing more than putting some seed in the ground once the Spring frosts are behind, and then continue to sow some in little corners until mid-Summer.  Oh, and deadhead when needed, saving the spent flowers to use for next year’s blooms.

Remembering to do this is not hard, once you’ve experienced the joy of their colorful blooms.

Wishing you Well,

Sadhvi

Zinnias from a few days ago!

Lynne

Our guest blogger, Lynne Roche Matthews, grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio and went on to study at Kent State University.  After college, she worked in the hospitality industry for over 29 years.  She moved to upstate New York in 1990 and became Vice President for the motorcoach tour & charter company she and her late husband owned until retiring to Punta Gorda, Florida in 2001.  She now spends her time volunteering for the yacht club, chairing the PR & Marketing Committee, and the annual Bridal Expo.  She also is active in city politics, serving on the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals.  In her spare time, she loves to go boating, read, travel and shop.  AND, she just got married this past Saturday and looks forward to many new life adventures with her new husband.

Thanks to my High School Reunion, I reconnected with Lynne after 40 years.  And, by the way, if you’re going to a reunion any time soon,  just pray you have someone like uber-planner, Lynne, running your event.  This woman knows how to have fun!  After our reunion, I asked Lynne to write a blog post about her experience locating all our classmates and what it all meant to her.  Here is her story.

Annice in 1967

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to chair my 40^th high school reunion, reconnecting with so many great friends that I had lost contact with back in the day.  It was truly an inspirational weekend after planning it for almost two years.  I got on the plane to return home to Florida, only to see one of my classmates, Annice, who had also been at the party, so we sat together on the flight and talked non-stop for a couple of hours.  It was great fun just catching up with each others lives.  So she told me about this blog she started with some friends of hers, and one thing led to another…well you know how these things happen.

When asked to write a blog for Oops50, I started thinking of all the things I could write about.  I’ve often thought about writing a book about some of the crazier things in my life, but I just never had enough time to do ii…ah yes, TIME.  That evil four letter word.  If only I had TIME.  It made me think of something that really stood out in my mind, something that I wish I had made the time for.

Reunion Fun

When I first started working on the reunion a couple of years ago, I discovered a classmate (Roberta) who lived just 5 miles from me, here in Florida.  So after almost 40 years, here we were, almost 1000 miles from where we grew up, living the good life in sunny Florida.  After a couple of months of knowing she was so close, I called her one day (it blew her away), we laughed, we cried and found each other again.

I had already found another one of my BFF’s from high school (Barb) just a few miles away, and she and I have gotten together frequently over the past 10 years to have lunch every month or two.  So we made arrangements for the three of us to meet for lunch.  Here’s where the “if only” comes in.

Roberta announced to me she had just come through a rather intense session of chemo, having a rough round with ovarian cancer.  What a true trooper she was, braver than most, and she was doing well.  Sporting a beautiful wig and her ever present smile, she arrived, nervous as all get out, but we quickly settled in for a wonderful lunch and conversation.  We did the same thing several other times since, hooking up with other classmates I found nearby (there are 17 of us here in SW Florida), and had a wonderful time reconnecting everyone.

There was to be a group dinner with spouses back in late winter of 2011, and she opted out, saying her husband was out of town on business.  And then she cancelled out on a girl’s day lunch.  Well I think you know where THIS is going.  I had a bad feeling, but I just didn’t follow up on it.  And then I got the call from her husband…she had succumbed to that evil disease in May.  I hated myself for not doing what I knew I should have done, but I also know she wouldn’t want anyone to dwell on the illness.  She kept it very private, and that’s the way she wanted it.  But it was way too soon to see her go, and I will always second guess myself for not doing better at keeping in touch.

That's Roberta next to Lynne

I’ve mourned the loss of my dear friend, Roberta, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret waiting to get in touch with this beautiful, kind soul.  It just proves that there’s no time like the present – don’t leave this place we call earth with any regrets, and don’t wait to reach out to those who mean something to you.

If only I had started sooner, I would have had more time to spend with her, and maybe, just maybe I could have helped her get through the times when she really needed me to be there for her.  I know she loved that we reconnected, and she loved the time we spent together.  I just wish there had been more of those times.  So RIP sweet Roberta – I will miss your beautiful smile always, and I’ll see you on the other side.  Dance like no one’s watching ladies – you never know what’s around the corner!

Annette

SADHVI

I wanted to share my secret to eternal youth this week, but I couldn’t think of one.  Then I thought I could let you in on how at the age of 53, I’ve invested wisely and am now retired, except that this is not the case.

So instead I’m going to share something that I think is pretty interesting.  I was looking at the data collected from GoogleAnalytics, a free service from Google that shows which key words people are punching into their search boxes, and how many of them there are.  What I discovered is that the majority of people using the web are trying to find their perfect mate!  Uh oh, wait!  I think that also includes porn sites.  Geez.  I shouldn’t be surprised, since just about all of my single friends use online dating these days.  I even have friends who tell me, “I’ve got to find time to get on Match.com!”.

If only they realized that their type of “Mr. Right” is not anywhere but between the pages of a book.  Because having been in a relationship for over 25 years with the same partner, I can attest that it ain’t like what these single friends are yearning for.  It is not necessarily bad, it just isn’t romance every day!

MR. RIGHT THERE ALL ALONG

If I were looking, I definitely wouldn’t look for a potential relationship online!  They pick the picture themselves and they write things that make them appear like they are auctioning themselves off on the block!

If I were looking for love, I would join a tango class, or a bowling league, or maybe just go the library and get some Harlequin romance novels and drift away in a comfortable chair.  Or just order online at my favorite book site: Better World Books.  A much better company than Amazon to support, by the way.

Here’s a quote from a summer read that I recently picked up (no pun intended).  Let me know if you agree with me that reading about romance might be better than an actual relationship.  It’s cheaper. There is no compromise.  When your heart gets broken, vicariously of course, it will be better by the end of the book.

Enjoy!

Sadhvi

Monica Devine

Monica Devine is an author, photographer, therapist, and baby boomer who lives in Eagle River, Alaska. She also studies and practices yoga – one of the most beneficial practices (spiritual and physical) for women over 50. Today, Monica reminds us of what yoga teaches us about Ahimsa.

Ahimsa means to do no harm; to practice non-violence. When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished, and others abandon hostility in one’s presence.

This is one of the teachings in the Yoga Sutras that I’ve given a great deal of thought to lately. Have you ever noticed how angry speech begets defensive behavior? How violent behavior begets retaliation? We see this on the world stage, between nations and cultures at war with one another. And we also see it on a smaller scale at home with the people we love most.

Explosive anger and negative speech towards another creates a climate of defensiveness and hurt that can last for years. Sticks and stones may break your bones? Sure, but violent and aggressive speech toward another is just as damaging. I remember my sons resorting to shouting matches and highly charged fighting when they were younger, the days when sibling rivalry was intense. This was a highly stressful time for me as a parent; I’d immediately get sucked into their disagreements and feel I had to diffuse the argument with an even louder voice; I had to take control, offer a quick solution, make everything okay again. But in doing so, I was trying to bring about peace in a way that wasn’t, in and of itself, peaceful. So I began to examine these behaviors by practicing staying in the midst of an argument and remaining peaceful inside. By pulling myself aside mentally, breathing deep and slow, and staying consciously aware of the encounter, a neutral ground was established where emotions were not allowed to run amok. Over time, I learned to shape the encounter, rather than control it, and to calmly shift the responsibility for a resolution back on them rather than carry it myself. When I spoke softer, so did they. When I offered and modeled an alternative way to communicate, they responded. This was a huge accomplishment for all of us and took years to hone.

Monica & Mt. Drum

Kind speech begets kind speech. Carrying the thought of peace in our hearts naturally invites a more loving and clearer expression from others. We would do well to remember that families are microcosms of nations. The knowledge and courage required to lay down our sticks and stones and practice daily the essential and vital energy of peace, starts at home, with ourselves.

If you want to hear more about Monica and her life in Alaska where she writes about about art, nature, travel, and more, visit her at her very own blog.

Multi-media piece of my Mom by Monica Devine

SADHVI

I knew the moment we saw our house that it was the one.  The place where I would plant the flowers and things that I loved.  I didn’t do much the first summer, wanting to see what kind of things were here…an old snowball tree, lots of “Rose of Sharon”, an old Lilac tree, a huge Oak tree, and lots of hemlocks.  That was also the first year they started to die off around here; some sort of aphid was killing them.  It also started to get warmer and we went from Zone 6 to Zone 7.

MY POTTING BENCH

I got a tree man to come and treat all 24 hemlocks, and they are still standing.

I feel cozy and protected with those hemlocks surrounding our little half acre.  This month it’ll be 9 years living in this old farmhouse.  It was so much work to gut it and redo it, but it’s wonderful having a place that feels like a haven from the world each night when I come home.

Each year what grows and blooms is a little bit different, and maybe in a different spot.  It’s as if the plants and flowers start to have a life of their own – and I love that.

I would be lost without the Maria Thun BioDynamic Planting Guide.  It’s now online, and it is easy to read and use.

MARIA THUN

I highly recommend planting at the time that Maria Thun says to!  It’s the best thing you can do to get the strongest plants and best harvest.

ONE PURE DAISY

With such a small life, with such a small energy source, it is simply stupid to waste it in sadness, in anger, in hatred, in jealousy.

Use it in love, use it in some creative act, use it in friendship, use it in meditation: Do something with it which takes you higher.

And the higher you go, the more energy sources become available to you.

At the highest point of consciousness, you are almost a god.

OSHO

ZINNIA'S ARE MY FAVORITE!

Annice

I wanted to write about my dad on Father’s Day and now it’s too late.  You’re probably thinking who cares about Father’s Day now?  But I do.  You see, my dad, Sanford Brown, died April 28^th, barely two months ago, and I’m still grieving.

Me and my Dad only 2 years ago

It feels like I always will grieve, and maybe that’s why I haven’t been able write about him.  If it were any other topic, I’d just call it procrastination, but here, now, it’s more poignant.

I want to write about how close I was to my dad–tell you how I miss our telephone conversations about politics, books, current events, my work, and family, especially his grandchildren and great grandchildren.  At times, I find myself reaching for the phone to call, and then I realize that I will never hear his voice again.  Yes, it’s very sad.

My dad was 85, and one week before he died, I traveled to Cleveland to celebrate his 85^th birthday and Passover with our family.  He was especially proud to witness his nine-year-old great grandson, Jacob, conduct the entire Seder not only in English but Hebrew, too.  It was truly a spectacular day.

His great-grandson Jacob wanted to see the company my dad founded

Days after I got home, my sister called to say Dad was in the hospital, and it didn’t look good.  Back I went, hoping it would all work out.  Like many of you with aging parents, I always knew that dreaded call would come one day, but somehow, I still wasn’t prepared.  Despite the fact that my dad was 85 and had lived a good long life, it still seems too short.  And, despite the fact that he was not really sick and lived in the same house for the last 56 years surrounded by family and friends, it’s still too short.

Dad and grandsons Alexander & Mason in DC

If anyone were to ask me what I learned from my dad, I would tell them: how to love unconditionally, the importance of family, loyalty, forgiveness, charity, to travel and see the world; maintain a strong work ethic, and make sure there is laughter in your life.

While I haven’t perfected all of these qualities, I am forever grateful to have my dad’s teachings to guide me through my life’s journey.

Dad's 83rd birthday with a rare glass of cognac

Annice

.

It seems like the media is never short on scandals about married men behaving badly.  Even Marlo Thomas has written about it.  I admit, I am fascinated by scandals about men in positions of power or men who put themselves up as role models and then get caught with their pants down.  (Check out our archives about other stories I’ve written abut men behaving badly).   And, isn’t it great that wives today (many are women over 50) can decide for themselves whether to stay or go?  But, I am waiting for one of these wives to stand up at a press conference and call her husband a big jerk.

I played a little game with myself to see how many of these jerks I could remember, with little effort, I came up with this list:

• Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for sexting
• Strauss-Kahn (Director of the IMF) accused of rape
• Schwarzenegger (no explanation needed)
• John Edwards (former Senator and Presidential contender) for having an affair and love child while his wife was dying of cancer
• Newt Gingrich – ditto (minus the love child)
• Governor Sanford (South Carolina) for having an affair who he claimed was his “soul mate”
• Elliot Spitzer former Governor of NY caught in a high-priced prostitution ring
• Tiger Woods professional golfer and admitted sex addict
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (sexual harassment scandal)

Seems like the cure-all for all these boys behaving badly is simply to hold a press conference, tell us they are seeking professional treatment to focus on becoming a better person, and then they’re all better.  Really, Rehab for Jerks?

Rehab for Jerks

Where are they?  I’d like to refer a few.

SADHVI

SEDUM AND ROSES

I don’t watch TV.  I just don’t have the time.  Sorry Oprah!  Sorry Dr. Oz!  I realize I am in the minority, and to tell you the truth, that is where I have felt the most comfortable my whole life.  Under the wire, so to say.  I don’t go to the gym.  I don’t go shopping and I don’t belong to many clubs.  Really, I am not that social and am somewhat of a hermit when I am not working.

I would even say that I need a lot of down time these days in order to survive and stay somewhat sane in a world that I find increasingly fast and intense.

GROUP SHOT OF ORIENTAL POPPY'S

I am a big fan of all the flowers that open in my garden.  That wonderful progression starts in late winter, and doesn’t stop until late fall.  And to think that leaving Cleveland, Ohio back in 1976 made this all possible!

BELLO, MY SHADOW!

It’s funny, but I’ve planted things only to find them in completely different places the next year.  Like the hundred or so larkspur’s coming up in a corner completely different from where they were originally planted; and they were originally maybe a couple of dozen from a seed pack!  Oh I know, those are from the many seeds that were blown there in a strong wind.  But I find that magical!

Then there’s the 3 butterfly bushes which have now multiplied into a dozen thriving plants in different parts of the yard!  It’s like: “Where did those come from?”

I like to let the garden do what it wants, because it simply thrills me to know that I am not in charge!  And it really feels like it has a life by itself, and will continue long after I am gone.

SAGE

These are the pictures of what I saw this morning.  I hope you are finding beauty and joy in the flowers and fragrances that you see in your world.

MANY RED POPPY'S

PINK POPPY

BEAUTIFUL MULLEIN

PURPLE POPPY

Annice

If you recall, we rescued him nine years ago, complete with a bullet underneath his belly.  And since that time, he’s blessed us with so much love and affection, charming anyone who’s ever been to my house.  He was my boy.  I’m so sad to say that he died suddenly of liver cancer (at least that’s what the doctor thinks) three weeks ago.  It happened so fast, I still can’t believe it.  I was in Cleveland coping with the sudden death of my father when my husband called to tell me Gus was sick.  I wish I could have been there to say good-bye, but since that was not meant to be, indulge me in a few photos as I say my sweet good-bye to my sweet Gus.

Gus with Stick

Gus taking it easy

Gus Sleeping

Jane

My mother always said she hated Mother’s Day.  Like a few other women over 50, members of the baby boomer generation, I grew up in a household where Mother’s Day was looked down upon as something artificial, created by marketers in order to sell products.  So, I believed that when/if I had kids, I would probably continue to look down my nose at Mother’s Day—and would say to my kids the kind of thing my mother used to say to me: “Please don’t give me anything on Mother’s Day.  Every day of the year is Mother’s Day for me.  You certainly don’t have to prove your love for me on some artificially-selected day!”

When our first child was born, and my first official Mother’s Day rolled around,  I was surprised to see how happy I was to get flowers from my husband.  But my real change of heart didn’t happen until those years when my children’s pre-school teachers (bless their wonderful hearts) started helping my children to create little Mother’s Day presents.  I remember when my oldest daughter brought home her first creation: a big flower made out of paper that opened up to reveal all kinds of nice words about mothers.  (The poems were furnished by the teacher, but the flower itself was cut out by my daughter.)  I found myself having to sit down—because I was crying!  I couldn’t believe it: I was a complete sap!  The marketers had won!

Give Mom the gift of love with a photo book filled with loved ones and cherished memories.

But what’s a girl to do?  Just consider these: the Mother’s Day in 1992 when our third child, Becky, was born—right on the very day!  Or the time when my son drew me a heart, that was signed, “I love you, Mama, Love, Parker Hatley.”  Or the Mother’s Day when my youngest, Josie, brought me a bouquet of paper flowers attached to straws (that are still sitting on my desk at work).  Or the more recent time when my adult daughter, Lizzie, brought me a little sign for my desk:  “I smile because you’re my mother.  I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it.”

Or this year:  when all four of them put their hard-earned money together to buy me flowers, a gift certificate for Ultimate Ice Cream (how well they know me!) and a locket with their pictures in it.

So, I’m in:  I love Mother’s Day.  Every year, I am caught, again—not by the sappy ads on t.v. (although I have to admit that when I was pregnant, I even cried over these)—but by the loving actions of my kids.  I’m a complete convert to Mother’s Day.  I say: Hurray for Mother’s Day!  Down with disbelievers!  I guess every good thing has to also have some accompanying hype.  Just consider Christmas!

A follow-up:  I’m happy to say that I stopped doing everything my mother told me to do when I was a teenager—and one of my rebellious acts was to bring her flowers on Mother’s Day.  Although she still pooh-poohed the day, she admitted she liked the flowers.

I wish I’d rebelled sooner.

KATINA

I’ve known Katina since 1983.  We were young and had no fears about anything, and, we laughed a lot.  We share the same guru, we share astrologically, the same degree of moon and sun, and we share that wonderful connection of being loved and accepted by each other, no matter what.

I hope you enjoy what I found out about Katina that I didn’t know before this little interview.

1.  What was the name of the first record you ever bought?

I remember buying the Beatles album with the song, “I wanna hold your hand”.

2.  Who did you like more, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

The Beatles.

3.  What is the one thing you have to put on or have on that makes you feel good before leaving the house?

My push-up bra from Chantelle!

4.  What’s your favorite lipstick?

I like lip glosses instead of lipstick.  I like to go to Sephora online and try different ones.  I like one now that’s called “Sephora: Nectar Shine”.  It’s in a tube.

5.  What is your favorite comfort food?

I would have to say it’s a glass of Shiraz or a Zinfadel.  Lately I really like the Predator 2008 Red Zinfadel that’s around $13.99 a bottle.  Oh, and Archer Farms Cheddar Sourdough Twists!

6.  What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about being over 50?

My favorite thing is that I still feel and look OK.

My least favorite thing is that I have been dealing with a back problem for the last 7 years…and thankfully it’s getting better and I am starting to feel like my old self again.

7.  What is your most favorite thing to do that is “creative”?

Meditation is my most favorite thing to do because it makes me feel so good and connected and I’m creating awareness within.

Ah This!

We had to take her to the vet in Clayton, an hour away from our farm in Rocky Mount, and she hadn’t been in a vehicle since we’d first gotten her.  We’d always had to drug her with Ace to get her there for regular visits, and even then, she drooled, panted and tried to escape from the truck for the first 30 minutes.  I figured that by the time we’d get there, she’d be practically asleep– but I knew it would be stressful on her system.  The vet wanted to try her coming without drugs.

On the fourth trip there, we made it, with just some hard breathing, and Ems was the perfect lady in the waiting room.  She let the vet techs draw her blood with no problem.  Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks.It worked—for a while.  Her appetite returned.  We had read that a high-protein diet would combat the cancer, so she feasted on stew beef, pork chops, turkey burgers and chicken.  No more biscuits for treats: she had beef jerky.  As a vegetarian, I’ve never bought so much meat in my life.  Thank you, Costco!  My carnivore stepson, who became Emmy’s personal chef,  also benefited from this diet–probably not in a good way.

She was eating and maintaining her weight and energy, so we had high hopes for the follow-up ultrasound to see if the tumors had shrunk. We were wrong.  But, since they hadn’t gotten any bigger either, we took that as a positive sign.

Emmy had always been a tough character.  She appeared a little over seven years ago near the road in front of our farm, limping—probably from a run in with a car—and we had to trap her to catch her.  She was just about the homeliest dog you can imagine, maybe a cross between a pit bull and a sharpei.  Plain black and tan, and tough.  We were afraid to let her near our other dogs, so somehow she ended up ruling the kitchen, prime real estate that I’m sure the other dogs grouched about.  She wouldn’t go in a crate, wouldn’t ride in the car.  She was highly opinionated.  She didn’t like thunder and would bark for hours at a storm: she wasn’t afraid, just pissed off by it.  And she didn’t like people other than us.  There were two instances where she actually bit people, one being the horse vet.   (How embarrassing!)

She seemed destined to live out a solitary canine life, until Otis came along.  Otis appeared in my yard in Hillsborough, an obviously purebred pitbull, wearing one of those massive spiked collars and dragging a huge chain behind him.  My first thought was to look for my cat, but I quickly saw Taff checking him out from the barn.  I got the chain, and Otis obediently followed me into my kennel.  He had little wounds on his cheeks.  I took his picture, printed it out, and took it to the convenience store, about two miles away.  About an hour later,  I went back and took it down.  He didn’t deserve to be chained, and if those wounds were from fighting, I didn’t want him to go back to that environment.  I decided if he was a beloved pet, I would check for lost ads, and if they didn’t care enough to look for him, then I would find him a better home.

That was wishful thinking—because, although I did post him at my vet’s and asked a couple of people if they were interested in him, I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.  But he was scary looking.  I walked him on a leash, and this was before I had my knee replaced, and one day I fell, on him, and I thought I was going to die.  I looked at him; he looked at me.  We were both scared of the other.  I think it was at that point that we jointly realized we had nothing to fear.

Otis didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but I was afraid to let him in with our other dogs, so, with Emmy in the kitchen, Otis took over the living room and the couch.  This arrangement went on for a while, until we finally had had enough of the put-one-out-then-take-out-the-other-one stuff.  We took them out together on leashes.  The two of them walked along as if they’d known each other for years.  I think they saw they were evenly matched, so there was no need for that aggressive silliness.  After that, they became inseparable.

So, along with my stepson, Otis reaped some of the benefits of the new diet.  As Emmy got thinner, he got fatter.  He loved her beef jerky treats.  But Otis also seemed to know something was wrong.  Ems didn’t run out the door so much any more, and she didn’t rush down the fence line after the squirrels.  She did enjoy sunbathing, which is what she did all the time.

She did it on her last day.  She lay in the sunshine with Otis.  I saw him give her kisses.

When I went to the truck to take Emmy, Otis jumped in.  At first I got him back out.  Then I selfishly let him jump back in.  No one else was going with me, and I wanted his company on the way back.  I also thought that Emmy would be calmer with him along.  I always struggle with when it is the right time to let go.  But the chemo wasn’t working.  Emmy wasn’t eating.  She was losing weight, and her breathing was becoming labored.  To an outsider, I suppose it would have been obvious that the time had come–but it is so hard to say goodbye.  The vet made me feel better.  She said she would rather see an animal come in before they get to a crisis and everyone is stressed.

Otis and I drove home.  My daughter sent me a text picture of Otis and Emmy.  Not wanting to stop and text her back, I just sent a picture of Otis back.  She asked, “Did Otis go with you?”.  I stopped and wrote “Yes”.  She wrote,  “Makes me think of Up.”(the movie).  I wrote back:  “Of the couple or Doug, the dog?”  She replied, “The couple”.

Emmy’s buried now in our front yard– right by the fence where Otis runs to chase after squirrels.

Annice

Is it just me or is it because I live in NC where basketball is king that I’m overwhelmed with March Madness?  To be honest, I really don’t care about it.  There it is.  I’ve said it.  I’ve got enough madness in my life, thank you very much.

Another truth, I never even heard about it until I met my husband 16 years ago.  He loves college basketball, and all sports except NASCAR (thank God).  Come mid-March, Madness lives in our living room because we are not a home with multiple televisions, something I insisted on long ago.  That means whenever there is any kind of tournament  (World Series, Super Bowl, PGA Golf, Wimbledon, etc.) the T.V. is on and on and on until I try to convince my husband to go downstairs to his office to watch this Madness on his laptop.  Needless to say, he doesn’t enjoy that AT ALL.

When I can no longer endure the basketball game in our house, I politely hand over the Sennheiser wireless headphones (which I highly recommend)  to  my husband before muting the T.V.

Sennheiser Headphones

When I question him about all this basketball, he thinks I’m crazy.  “Everyone watches college basketball this time of the year,” he assures me.  Really?  I’m pretty sure most of my friends don’t watch it.  I’m sure if I had sons who played basketball I’d be more interested.  Don’t get me wrong, I admire, even envy the talents of super athletes and their victories.  Who doesn’t like to see their team triumph?  But two weeks of basketball?  So, I’m asking, how many of you are really into all that March Madness?

Gwendie

There’s a blog that’s getting lots of attention.  It’s called “postsecrets”  (http://www.postsecret.com).  People send in anonymous handmade postcards with a personal secret on the back.  Things like “I wish my life were exciting”, and “When you see me in public and I seem to be reading a book, I’m really eavesdropping on you”.  Some are darker, more intimate.  I’ve been thinking about sending in one myself.  One of the things that holds me back is that, unlike the postcard makers who get their submissions posted, I’m not the least little bit creative in the visual sense.  Check out the website to see what I mean.

But my secret, like most of the ones on the website, is one that possibly a lot of other people, especially women, share with me.  It is this: I don’t feel sorry for women whose husbands have died; I feel envious.

There, I’ve said it.  Another problem with this secret, unlike the ones on the website, is that it needs more explanation to make any sense.  And that won’t fit so easily on a postcard.

I have friends and relatives (sometimes these are the same people), men and women, whose marriage partner died, and they were devastated.  They grieved and cried and missed their mate fiercely.  They yearned to have him or her back.  Some of them really look forward to reuniting in heaven.  They feel awful, at least for awhile, sometimes for a long while.  But still I am envious.

Here’s why:  to feel that bad about the loss of a spouse, there must have been a lot of good things about the marriage.  Good times, good experiences, good feelings to be so acutely missed.  Even the good memories are bittersweet; they remind my friends of their depth of their loss.

I never had that.  So I am envious.

I would trade places in a heartbeat.

Annice

I hope this is the last post I write about taking care of my husband and all my tsores (yiddish for troubles).  As expected, Len turned the corner from being in pain all the time and taking lots of drugs to moving about more, going up and down the stairs, and reducing his pain meds.

Better Days

Like him, Gus  also turned the corner so we are all doing better.   I’m even back at work part-time.  Being home-bound with Len has been a true learning experience, and, as a woman over 50, I feel liberated enough to say, I didn’t like it.  It made me feel isolated and anxious, and considering I am a 7 (Enthusiast) on the Enneagram that was tough.  By the way,  if you’re not familiar with the Enneagram personality profiles, check it out!  Seven’s are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous.  At their best, they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.  At their worst, well, let’s just say that nursing would not be good for a 7, as being patient often feels like being stuck.  Needless to say, I have work to do on that one.

.

Being home-bound has made me realize how much I like my work.  I’m not a workaholic, but I like my work and love the interaction with people.  Friends and family asked me what I did all day during the downtime.   Well, what kept me from going over the edge emotionally was getting on the yoga mat, reading wonderful novels, facebook, and re-visiting cookbooks.  I’ve been preparing 3 square meals daily for almost 6 weeks, and I’ve never done that before.  I’m pretty much cooked out!  Last night I made an “Indian Samosa Casserole” and a Green Bean Salad with Miso dressing, compliments of the  January issue of the Vegetarian Times. You can be sure with me back at to work part-time, the food fest is over.  Let the diet begin!

Last night's dinner

Ingredient List

Serves 6

Crust

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbs. vegetable oil

Filling

• 1 Tbs. black or yellow mustard seeds
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes, optional
• 5 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered (1 1/4 lb.)
• 1 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, diced (1 cup)
• 1 medium carrot, diced (1/2 cup)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (1 Tbs.)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
• 2 tsp. agave nectar or sugar
• 2 Tbs. soy milk

To make Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Whisk together flours and salt in bowl.  Stir in oil until clumps form.  Add 6 to 10 Tbs. cold water, 1 Tbs. at a time, until dough holds together.  Shape into ball, cover with damp towel, and set aside.

To make Filling:

2. Stir together mustard seeds, curry, ginger, cumin, and red pepper flakes (if using) in bowl; set aside.

3. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water 15 minutes, or until tender.  Drain, return to pot, and mash, leaving small chunks.

4. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat.  Add onion, carrot, and garlic, and sauté 5 minutes, or until carrot is tender.  Move onion mixture to side of pan, and add mustard seed mixture in center.  Toast 30 seconds.  Stir in peas and broth.  Fold onion mixture into potato mixture; stir in agave nectar.  Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

Spread Filling in 9-inch pie pan. Set aside.

5. Roll out Crust dough to 11-inch circle on floured work surface.  Cover Filling with dough, pressing down to make sure no air pockets remain.  Trim away excess dough, and crimp edges with fingers.  Cut X in center to vent steam; brush with soy milk just before baking.  Place pie on baking sheet, and bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until crust is golden. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

6. Frozen cooking instructions:  Preheat oven to 375°F. Place casserole on baking sheet, and bake 75 to 90 minutes, or until Filling bubbles and Crust is golden. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Nutritional Information

Per slice: Calories: 299, Protein: 7g, Total fat: 7g, Saturated fat: <1g, Carbs: 54g, Cholesterol: mg, Sodium: 469mg, Fiber: 7g, Sugars: 7g

Annice

Just when I thought my care-taking days and nights were diminishing, life decided otherwise.  For starters, my husband’s surgery to pin his hip back in place failed, and ten days later he was back in the hospital for a full-blown hip replacement.  While I know this is a very common procedure, it doesn’t mean it’s easy or pain-free, not to mention what it’s been like for moi.  This time, the doctor recommended home health care, and thank god for Care Partners (and drugs).

Care Partners is providing quality nurses, physical therapists and even an occupational therapist who come to our house for support and care which is not only needed but greatly appreciated.   But, it’s a slow recovery, and my husband hates being dependent on anyone, even me.  And he won’t let me insert a photo of him doing his physical therapy, claiming he has privacy issues.

And for those of you who asked about my sweet rescue, Gus, I’m happy to report that his anal infection is practically gone and he’s doing much better thanks to the very expensive auto-immune drug treatment he was on for thirty days.  Now, he/we have a new problem.  Well, it’s not entirely new as he already had a bad knee (ACL) so, you can imagine the beating his knee took while being severely constipated and forced to squat to do his business.  This all happened while Len was in the hospital, and I had to actually help Gus (all 85 lbs. of him) get up and down despite the customized dog bed I had made for him and Carli.  Thank you Kathleen for making such cool looking beds for both my dogs.     

In between Len’s surgery, I found myself scurrying home to help Gus go out and then finally taking him to the vet – very difficult getting him into the car.  The doc gave him a stronger anti-inflammatory (short term because it could damage the liver) and after 2 days he was improving.  Now he is back to himself and Len is home and I’m exhausted.

And just when I was feeling sorry for myself, I turned on Dr. Oz (daytime T.V. is quite an experience), and  on that particular day I saw a short piece about a young mother who has three (NOT 1 but 3!) autistic children.  That certainly put it all in perspective for me.

Jane

Now that all 4 of my kids are either adults or within spitting distance of adulthood, I have moments where I  actually get a glimpse of the things—good and bad—we did in raising them, and the things I wish someone had told me when I was starting out.  (“Oh, so that’s how it works!”)

I’m never going to write a book on the subject, since I still feel pretty clueless on the whole subject. (Being a parent offers you such a host of ways to feel like a failure at your job.) But I do have some off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions for young parents (not in any logical order, since raising 4 kids has destroyed any logical sense I may have ever had before):

1) No matter how bad things seem when your children are infants and toddlers (and you are a) sleep deprived b) at your rope’s end with frustration over ‘potty training’—I put that in quotes because I no longer believe in it—or c) ready to blow up at your child’s pediatrician/teacher/fill in the blank because they don’t “get” your kid, keep in mind that some day you’re going to look back on these days as the glorious time when you still had control over their physical location!

At the beginning: my husband, Tom, with Lizzie

2) When a toddler is defiant, try to keep your sense of humor.  Try to avoid letting their defiance go deep down into your gut where it can threaten your whole psyche—or at least your confidence in yourself as a parent.   Remember:  even if you are in the middle of a grocery store and a really patient mother of toddler triplets is watching you with mild condescension or a highly professional and important-looking person is trying to step over the massive pile of cereal boxes your child has created by emptying a shelf, and even if it is all being broadcast over the store’s tv monitor, it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things.  Think of it this way:  keeping a sense of humor now will be good practice for later, when your child is a teenager.

3) When a teenager is defiant and insists on doing something that you know is bad/dangerous/unhealthy for him/her, don’t back down!  No matter what!  Try to remember the 2-year-old inside that teenager body, when he/she says something like, “You are completely psycho, Mom.  Why in the world should I do that?” and answer proudly the words you should have learned at your mother’s knee: “Because I’m your mother, and I said so!”

4) On the other hand, when a teenager really wants you to let them try something new, even if you know they will struggle at it and even possibly fail, hold your breath and let go.

Teenage Years: the 3 Girls

5) Grades aren’t everything, but they also aren’t unimportant.  No one wants to be the parent who is obsessed with grades, but you also don’t want to end up watching kids who are dumber than your kid delivering the high school valedictory address just because they had parents who gave them $10 for every A!

6) Sometimes your children will get a) physically injured or b) mentally or emotionally pained or c) both, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, except to avoid falling down the rabbit hole with them.  When they are going through terrible times, your job is not to empathize, it is to sympathize and help pick up the pieces.  If you empathize too much, you either make them think things are worse than they are or you make them feel responsible for your happiness—and that’s no fun, especially not to a teenager.

7) Enjoy the time you have with them at home and try to make it about something more than chores or homework or responsibility.  Even if the house is a pigpen, play with them every now and then—and even if they get to choose the game—and even if it’s Monopoly!

Pat yourself on the back occasionally.  It’s okay, as long as you don’t overdo it and become Ms. or Mr. “ Perfect Parent,” which is really obnoxious to all the other poor schmucks struggling through.  But remember to do it when you know you’ve done something right—or at least that you haven’t botched things too badly—because those moments are few and far between and you need to grab hold of them.  They give you strength for the moments when you really screw up.

9) Remember to take time for yourself every now and then and take good care of your health.  Nobody needs/wants/or likes a martyr! Besides, if you’re just starting down the parenting highway, you’ve got years ahead of you of getting up in the night to a) change a diaper b) help Santa Claus deliver his presents c) hold a sick child’s head while he/she throws up oatmeal and blueberries d) make a screaming kid get up out of bed and walk out the cramp in his/her leg e) deal with a child’s “night terrors” without giving them a heart attack f) talk them down from whatever ledge they are on.  Conserve your strength. You’ll need it.

10) Remember that love is everything—and the best guide you have.  I seriously do not believe that you can love a child too much.  You might do stupid little things because you love them.  You probably will say the wrong thing, over and over (“I’m sorry” is a handy phrase, even for a parent.)  But if you really love them the way you probably can’t help and the way you’ve probably done since you first saw their little monkey face in the delivery room or at the adoption,  you won’t mess up the big things.

Now

Annice

It’s not supposed to snow a lot in Asheville, but this winter (like the rest of the country) we were covered up.  During the last snow storm, my husband decided to shovel his car out of the driveway even though I told him there was a huge sheet of black ice and it was too dangerous, and in fact stupid.  However, my dear husband was determined to get his car out of our driveway no matter what.  Did I say I live on a mountain 2200 ft. high and our driveway is one hell of a steep slope?

I won’t bore you with all the details about our driveway and the fact that a standard 8 ft. plow is too wide to go down it.  So, on that particular day, two weeks ago, my husband slipped and fell.  He said he didn’t hurt himself and proceeded to walk around for almost a week with pain that eventually got so bad he had to go to the doctor.  The next day, he was in surgery for a broken hip and 3 pins.

broken hip with pins

When accidents happen and you’re forced to get out of your daily routine and take care of someone, you get to look at how compassionate you are (or not) and how you react to change.  For me, it began even before the accident.  Unlike my husband, I just accepted the blizzard and the fact that I was stuck in the house and would be for a while.  We had food, heat, books, music, T.V., computers, telephone, beer, wine, chocolate, bread machine, flour, etc. so why was he so anxious about getting off the mountain?  Well, I asked him that question.  And here’s what he said:  “I just don’t like the idea of not being able to get out!”

The infamous driveway

I probed further.  “What do you mean?  What’s the big deal if you have to stay home for a few days?”

Husband: “I want to be able to get down the mountain in case of an emergency.”

Me: “What kind of emergency?”, I wondered.

Husband: “You never know.  An E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y.  It could be anything.”

Me: “Oh, I get it.  We have to be ready for an E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y.”

So, here I am, being a caregiver to someone who is stuck on pre-emptive emergency planning who happens to be an impatient, cranky and frustrated patient relegated to a walker for maybe 6 weeks.  So, thanks to my husband, I get to practice patience and compassion every day.  Sometimes, I make his favorite comfort foods, and bring him éclairs when I am running errands.  Sometimes, I want to punch him.  This past Sunday, I even dropped him off at a Super Bowl party, very eager to do it, I admit.  Of course,  I had an ulterior motive.  I wanted to do a two hour yoga class.  Thank you very much Cindy Dollar One Center Yoga, Asheville for that opportunity for harmony and balance in my life this week.  

SADHVI

As a woman over 50, I’m amazed at the number of products and plans to help me stay slim, healthy and young.  As if I better do something now or else I will get old, ugly and fat!

I had the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Weight Watcher’s before I graduated from high school.  I also knew about the state of ketosis, fasting, and complete protein shakes before I started college.

I remember going on a cleanse and becoming a vegetarian in 1978, and believe me, not only was it considered odd, but so was I.

I even had the perfect morning yoga routine down in 1980 when I was 22 years old that incorporated Pilates!  Funny enough though, the older I get the more relaxed I become and all the rituals, along with the “should’s” in my head are disappearing.  And I feel good.

Lately I’m meeting more older women who become instant friends, and after talking with them for a short while, I feel like there is some sort of magical transference of wisdom that makes me smile.

For instance, I met Helene at the Swiss Club that I belong to the other night.  I was hungry and there was this incredibly addicting spinach dip that was mostly sour cream and mayonnaise.

I looked over while dipping my umpteenth pita chip into the dip, and saw Helene doing the same a few feet away.  She looked over at me and we both just laughed.

Helene told me about growing up during WWII, in North Africa, and how they had no food for 2 months and were starving.  It was a very hard time in her life.

We talked about how there are so many people on some sort of prescription drug, and how so many of the commercials on TV are for drugs that make you fall asleep at night.  She laughed, saying she has never had much trouble falling asleep.  She told me that after she gets into bed, she goes back over her day and remembers three wonderful things that happened to her, and then drifts off into a peaceful slumber.  I told her I was going to have to remember to try that; it sounds like something that could become a nice little ritual.

Then I ask Andrea (who turns out to be 72 but looks my age: 52), who was sitting across from me what her secret to looking so fantastic is?   She told me that her only secret is that she never thinks about getting old.  I found this to be quite profound!  I thought she was going to tell us about her daily routine of juicing, meditating, yoga, chanting to the One, and fasting every seventh day because she looked so vibrant!

Instead Andrea simply said that we are all going to die, so why spend so much time preventing it?  She prefers to enjoy it!  She paints, drinks coffee and eats well, but is not fat.

So maybe instead of feeling guilty about anything and often having the thought that I can be better,  I will become more aware of those thoughts, and I will enjoy life, including the spinach dip moments, because they don’t come every day!

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
— Mae West

MAE WEST

Jane

I just heard about a website that may be of interest to our readers:  the North American Menopause Society’s website at www.menopause.org.  It’s got all kinds of interesting information, so it’s certainly worth a visit!  Also, they now have a special extra resource:  a whole page about sexuality and menopause.  Who knew?!  I’ll just attach the press release they sent, since I might get too embarassed if I tried to summarize it:

guest writer Kathryn Wilson

Following Kathryn’s story on Monday, we’re continuing with Part II of E., One Intrepid Senior

E. worked as a model in post-war Manhattan for the Elizabeth Arden Salon and lived in the famous Barbizon Hotel in the mid 1940’s. This glamorous part of her life led her to meet Gloria Vanderbilt, Marlene Dietrich, and her first husband, D.      

After marrying D. and living in New York and Cincinnati, E. returned to her hometown of Louisville after the death of D. to start Louisville’s first finishing school. Once the charm school was successful, E. moved on to pursue her true love—art.  She and two friends started Talents Unlimited, a company that sold art supplies, taught classes, and specialized in unique Christmas dioramas that E. designed and crafted.  These wreaths were hot ticket items, frequently requested and often selling for more than $300 a piece.  Each wreath was highly specialized, electric, and musical, and featured detailed Christmas scenes.  E. even had one of her more elaborate wreaths, modeled after the Kennedys’ last Christmas in the Blue Room, accepted by the Kennedy Memorial Library.  The wreaths have been showcased in museums and craft shows across the country, winning many awards.

Eloise's wreath

E. has traveled to many exotic locales, including Paris, Hong Kong, Haiti, and Thailand.  She has had many adventures abroad, including meeting Maria von Trapp and, in a separate instance, nearly being kidnapped.  E. and I spent an entire day viewing slides of these beautiful trips to near and far.  She will soon be leaving for her yearly sojourn to her condo in Highland Beach, where she will wait out the icy Kentucky winter in the peaceful warmth and light of Florida.

In short, E. has had an amazing life, one worthy of transcribing and well-deserving of the title she’s chosen: Yes, I’ve Had a Life.  She is an admirable woman who has made the most of her life.  I have found myself inspired continuously throughout the process.  Yes, I hope my life will be just as exciting as E.’s, but I also hope to never forget the importance of each person’s life story.  I know now that these small anecdotes are always worth observing more closely, no matter how high the pile of surrounding souvenirs may be.

Kathryn Wilson

Our friend, Kathryn Wilson is not one of us.  She is NOT a woman over 50,  but we want to introduce her to you anyway.    She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and is currently enrolled in Pacific University’s M.F.A. in Fiction program.  She is an aspiring writer and editor.  She hopes to one day relocate to the Pacific Northwest with her boyfriend and two cats.

Kathryn is writing an autobiography of a beautiful woman 85 years old, so we’ve invited her to share part of her work with us.  So, sit back and read Part I of this lovely woman called E.

Eloise Then

For the past two months, I have been assisting a charming 85 year-old woman with the writing, formatting, and editing of her autobiography.  As you can imagine, this is no small task.  This lovely woman (let’s call her “E.”) is a somewhat disorganized and very busy woman with mountains of newspaper clippings, photographs, and other detritus that must be incorporated into her story in some way.

Why, you may ask, did I take on this arduous task?  There are two reasons.

First, I have always gotten along with elderly folk; I love their stories, their idiosyncrasies, their endearments, and free cookies, so getting paid to spend time with someone from my favorite demographic seemed too good to be true.  Secondly, I have always been inspired by my own grandmother’s stories of her life in the coal country of southern West Virginia.  My grandmother was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so I have quickly learned the importance of recording memories.  I related to E.’s wish to record her life story for future generations.

E. is, on the surface, just as sweet and amicable as your own grandmother; she frequently calls me “honey” and shares delicious Modjeska candy.  But it was in working on E.’s story and delving into the details of her life, that I found she is so much more than a delightful, polite elderly woman who just happens to live in a condo with seven bathrooms.

E. has witnessed a great deal of tragedy in her life.  She married three times; her first husband, the love of her life and a famous radio and television personality, died in a car wreck after they had only been married nine years.  Her son contracted polio, but luckily survived.  Her second husband, who she was married to for over thirty years, died after a lengthy and painful illness.  E. lives now with her third husband, J.  They were married in their childhood church and just happened to be the oldest couple ever wedded in the chapel.

E.’s adventures were not limited to her love life, however.  To read more, stay tuned for Part II.

Eloise Now

I know this is a blog about smart and beautiful women over 50, but I could not, in good conscience let this day pass without honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.   And, in an odd way, it reminds me of how much I like writing for   us women over 50, because Dr. King (like so many other great people of our era) is etched in our memory, and I       don’t  have to explain a thing.  All of us come to this blog with similar reference points in life which means so much   between us does not have to be explained.

Every year, I make it a point to listen to MLK’s 17 minute I have a dream speech delivered on April 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been listening to this speech for over 40 years, and every year when I hear it, I’m amazed at how relevant and prophetic Dr.King’s words remain, especially given the recent I have a dream tragedy in Tucson.  So, without having to say more to my fellow sisters, I hope you’ll to listen to MLK’s great speech before the day is over, and I encourage you to share it with your children, and grandchildren who might  need some explaining about what this great man stood for.

To quote MLK, “Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics –  will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Jane

I  just finished watching an episode of “North Carolina People” where William Friday interviews Lillie Sanders from Magnolia, North Carolina (July 2010). Mrs. Sanders is a 2007 recipient of the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award given by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to  ”recognize the unsung heroes of North Carolina whose vision, determination, resourcefulness and strength of character have caused them to make a positive difference in the state.”

This incredible woman spends her life helping the people of her community by finding ways to give them the basic things they need for life.  She grew up in poverty, working hard on her grandmother’s farm, and she has had lots of hard times in her life, but instead of getting overwhelmed or depressed, she has  “taken every negative and turned it into a positive.”

She started in 1998 with the Clothes Closet in Duplin County,  in order to “make sure that people could stay warm and look decent, whether they had money or not.”  Giving her own clothes away first, she soon attracted donations of clothes from churches, agencies, and concerned citizens.  People can come to the Clothes Closet and shop for clothing, and they can choose to leave a money donation or not.

Annice

If you recall, over a year ago, I wrote about Gus, my 10 year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever.  We rescued him eight years ago, complete with a bullet underneath his belly.

Gus taking it easy

My post at that time was about how constipated he was and how putting him on prednisone turned him into the dog from hell.  Needless to say, it was a messy time for both of us.

Well, poor Gus is not only constipated again but it’s much worse: perianal fistulas.  When the vet gave me the diagnosis, I immediately went home to research it.  I already knew the condition was painful because poor Gus took forever to poop, and moan while doing it.  Besides the pain, there was the itching, and irritation of the skin surrounding the anus.  Worse still, the poor guy has the beginnings of small ulcers surrounding his anus (I’ll spare you the photos).  Since Gus can’t take prednisone, he has to take an immunosuppressive medication (cyclosporine) which costs almost $300 for a month’s supply, and that’s if I buy it in Canada.  The doctor doesn’t know how long he has to be on it, but Gus doesn’t care than it costs more than my car payment.  Oh, he’s also on an antibiotic, and Flagyl (prescribed for  anti-inflammatory bowel).  And don’t let me forget to mention, he’s also taking Tramadol for pain relief for the ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) connecting the shin bone to the thigh bone.)

Gus at play

Good dog

Despite all that, Gus is still very athletic, eats like it’s his last meal, and scares anyone who comes to the door unannounced.  And most of all, he’s extremely affectionate and worth all my efforts.  Obama care for dogs?  That’s what I’m talking about!

Jane

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this,
and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

A friend of mine sent me this as part of her holiday greeting this year, and I love it.  It sums up how I’m feeling about things these days.  This has been such a stressful year for so many people, with the economy’s troubles hitting people directly in the pocketbook and on their nerves!  It has made it difficult at times to feel very optimistic (and I’m speaking on a personal level)—and even harder to take a minute to just breathe in and breathe out.  I feel that I’ve been running around this whole year, chasing my tail, figuring that if I just moved faster or worked harder, things would somehow turn out better!

Well, birds are soaring outside my window today.  And we are due to have snow on Christmas—a white Christmas for the first time in at least 15 years!  Our Congress just passed some major legislation to make our world a better place:  the Stark treaty to limit nuclear proliferation, medical coverage for 9/11 rescue workers, and getting rid (finally) of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”   Too bad they couldn’t find the nerve to pass the Dream Act!  More good news:  home sales are up for the first time; teen births and our national crime rate are down.

So, I want our readers to take a minute with me and remember to breathe in and out, especially during the holidays!   And while I’m at it, all of us at Oops50 want to thank all our readers, advertisers, and guest writers for their comments and support this year.  It’s been a good year for us:  our numbers of subscribers are up; we’re reaching a wider audience of women over 50 around the globe; and we got noticed by Oprah Winfrey!  Life is good!  And we owe it to all of you.  To those who read us and never commented or subscribed, we hope you’ll take that big step into cyberspace next year and do it. To those who happen upon us from time to time, welcome!  A big Thank You from all of us at Oops 50!  In case you don’t know it, we love you!

And here is to breathing in and out in 2011!!!

Jane

I’m having trouble with the season this year.  First of all, it’s been a hard year—with everyone having financial troubles, getting by on getting by.  And now, here comes the time of year when people are expected to be happy and cheerful and—most of all—to spend money.  It’s almost your patriotic duty to spend money this year, since it will help the economy! But spending money is hard in hard times, so why do we do it anyway?  Even though the economy is in terrible shape, Americans are out, crowding the stores, buying presents.  I sometimes get a physical feeling of revulsion when I go in a crowded mall full of people spending money they don’t have.  And I’m not excluding myself from that group.  I’m out there, with the best of them. 

My family celebrates Christmas, and I wish the burden of our particular holiday could be lifted a bit.  I think it’s wonderful to give people gifts and show people you love them, but I wish there were not so much guilt wrapped up in this season.  The mother’s version goes something like this: “But if I don’t buy my daughter those $200 boots, she might think I don’t love her.” Or, “But she has been wanting that Wii for ever, so really we should just put it on the damn credit card.” Or “If I buy this present at the bargain store, will she be able to tell somehow?” 

I suspect the guilt factor is worse for mothers than for fathers, but fathers feel it, too.  They just express it differently:  “I should have gotten him that warmer jacket, no matter how much it cost!”

I’d like for there to be a big confession booth in the sky, where we could all step into at this time of year and say, “I have sinned.  I came up short.  I couldn’t buy all the presents I wanted to for people.  I couldn’t give my children the trip to Europe that so-and-so gave to theirs. But could I please just get some extra credit for wanting to give them those things?”  In my dream confessional booth, there would be a spiritual guide behind a curtain who would say, “Don’t worry.  You are doing the best you can.”  Then, maybe, we could walk out, our shoulders lighter, and enjoy the season more.

 I hope we’ll hear from our readers about their ways of dealing with the stresses of this holiday season.  I know that, for many of our readers, it helps to focus on the manger scene or the menorah or their own religious symbols that remind them of the wonder of life on this planet.  And I agree that is important. But religious belief doesn’t always eliminate the demands of the season that can drive us to distraction.   So I’m going to pretend that booth is there for me, and I guess I’ll have to be my own absolver, so that I can relax a bit and think about what really matters:  my family will soon be gathered together for Christmas, all in one house, safe and sound for a little while, before we all scatter again to the four winds.

Sadhvi

 As a woman over 50, I do notice myself becoming lazier as a gardener.  It’s as if I conserve my movements and tasks to adjust to where my body is now.  I still shift into automatic, where time just is, and my body is in motion with no sense of hurt or pain or overexertion.  I am just more like a slow-moving dancer, instead of a fast-moving one!  If I am sore the next day, that’s Ok, since my love of gardening will never fade; and I figure that’s what Epsom salt foot baths are for!  

Where I live, summer is officially over.  The leaves are falling, and the color of the sun feels more golden, like honey.  But the temperatures are still hitting the upper 80′s, and I still have the fans running.

Sadhvi's Quan Yin & Cosmos

It’s been such a hot summer with temperatures above normal that I am not feeling too melancholic about it slipping away this year.  Twice I had friends knock on our front door to escape the heat from where they live an hour south.  The night temperatures did not change much here, but where they came from, they didn’t change at all, they said!    

Sadhvi's Sally Chicken

With summer fading, I went out to take some pictures of what is still flowering.  And to show you a picture of one of our 11 hens, all named “Sally”, after my Mom.  It’s so funny to yell, “Sally” and see the whole bunch running fast towards me…it makes me laugh every time.  Well, I hope you are enjoying the shifting of the seasons, wherever you are.  Oh, and Happy Fall!    

Sadhvi's Everbearing Raspberries!

Sadhvi’s Sunset Torchflower

   

This whole thing of releasing kids into the universe should be easier by now.  After all, parts of it are so much easier:   we are not ingénue parents going to our first college to drop off our first kid; we don’t take long, extensive notes at Orientation sessions; we smoothly navigate college websites. And we are no longer intimidated by the process of packing enough stuff to make sure she has all she needs.  We know there is always the U.S. Mail.  Most of all, we no longer stay up late, worrying that our child might be homesick—or worrying more when she isn’t. We know that, either way, there is nothing we can do about it.  Not a damn thing.

 But that’s part of what makes this whole process hard, every single, damn time:  there is nothing we can do about anything any more.  Once again, one of our children—in this case, our daughter, Becky,  has stepped over the threshold that takes her out of our home, out from under us, into her own world.  We may still be here to provide financial—and occasional emotional—support, but, really, our work is done.  As the colleges love to point out these days, she is on her own now, making her own choices, setting her own curfew (or not), and we won’t even hear about it unless she chooses to tell us.  No helicoptering allowed! 

Becky with her sisters at high school graduation

So, it’s damn hard.  First of all, there is the big, gaping hole that one person’s absence creates in a family.  Secondly, there is the emptiness of rooms once occupied by Becky.  But, worst of all, there is the suddenness of it all.  In one breath,  you have moved from waking up at night and feeding a baby to pushing that baby out the door.  Overnight, you have gone from soccer practises and piano lessons, in a land where time stands still, to this strange, alien planet where kids become grownups and function on their own. Overnight, you’re supposed to make that dramatic, sudden shift that is required—from being an active parent, overseeing a teenager’s actions, keeping track of a teenager’s hours, to being a calm, uninvolved, hip, laissez faire parent who trusts that her child will be fine, no matter what.  It’s not a natural process.  It throws off all your signals. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

Becky's stuff on the ground outside her dorm

 But I’m working on it. 

It helps to make promises to myself:  I promise I won’t go whacko and think up bogus reasons to drive to Greensboro in order to show up on her doorstep in tears, with homemade brownies in hand.  I promise that I won’t cry in my beer about the fact that I never read all the Harry Potter books to her out loud.  I promise that I won’t do again what I did the first night and eat five bowls of ice cream to try to make myself feel better.  But I also promise that I will cry, damn it, when I feel like it and to hell with how pathetic I look!  Most of all, I will celebrate the fact that our daughter is happily ensconced in college, so I will be a saint and not get angry when I read her Facebook status that says “Yaay, College!” at the same time that mine says, “Bereft.” 

Becky's dorm room

Jane

I need to rant today!  All four of our kids are home this summer.  All four of our kids are teenagers–or close enough for government work!  The youngest is 14, the oldest 23.  Here’s the deal:  they are all in transitional stages.  One is finishing up college by going to summer school.  One is doing a gap year from college and getting ready to embark on an adventure in Mexico.  One is starting college in the fall.  One is starting high school in the fall.  So all 4 of them are in an antsy, restless stage, wondering if their new life will be ok, wondering if they’ll be content and happy, wondering, off and on,  how they can stand to live with their parents without shooting them in their sleep!  It’s a lot of fun.  They go back and forth between unbelievable sweetness–the kind that brings tears to your eyes–and complete irritability with everything parental. 

Mostly, since they all 4 see their freedom coming to an end in the fall, they are determined to take full advantage of it now–and I mean full advantage, in the way that only teenagers can.  They want every hour of every day to be filled with interesting activity.  So they stay up as long as possible every night and sleep all hours of the day, while working whenever they can fit it in (my son, for instance, has a job that starts at 9 p.m. and goes until 4 a.m.!) and trying to see all their friends as often as possible (when they are not facebooking them or texting them). 

One of the results of this restless, live-for-today behavior is that we never know ahead of time  1) how many mouths will need to be fed at the dinner table 2) where each of them will be spending the night (except for our 14-year-old, thank goodness!) 3) when/if they will get their respective forms filled out for their respective financial aid, job applications, applications to programs, etc. and 4) if we can survive on sleep deprivation caused by loud, raucous laughter at 4 a.m. in the downstairs guest bedroom (on the good nights, when they bring their friends to sleep at our house).   Mostly, I’m turning into a crazy woman who thinks it’s 6 a.m. when it’s 2 and yells down the stairs at a room full of kids:  “Everyone go to bed NOW!” Don’t get me wrong.  I wouldn’t change a thing about my 4 kids.  They are loving, open, generous, funny, smart, hardworking (when they have to be) people, and we’re very proud of them.  And part of the problem is that I am a crazy, neurotic mother who cannot sleep without knowing that each one of them is safe in his/her respective location.  I don’t have this problem when they are away at college.  I sleep like a baby (that is, until the phone rings at 2 a.m. because one of them has had some kind of crisis).  I don’t know why it is that when they are home with us for the summer, I have to know they are safe inside a house somewhere before I can drift off.  I guess it all boils down to this: I wish that I had started having kids when I was 10, so that I would be 33 now instead of 56 and could handle this phase of my life with more energy and a better sense of humor!  I think the answer is clear:  

Here’s what my husband and I decided last night (after five interruptions of our sleep that created a situation where we were wide awake at 4 a.m.): if there is a God, he/she must have created teenager behavior in order to make the empty nest syndrome easier to bear.

Sadhvi

I remember reading the book, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert when it first came out in February 2007.  It was so good that I didn’t stop until I was done, and I continued talking like Ms. Gilbert for a few weeks after.  Then again, I also dressed and talked like Diane Keaton’s character in the Woody Allen movie,  ”Annie Hall” for a long time after seeing it.  I guess I’m just a wee bit impressionable, no?!   

I knew when I finished the book that it would be made into a Hollywood movie at some point, and sure enough, Julia Roberts bought the rights shortly after it came out.  She stars in the movie that is coming to the screens next month.  So if you have NOT read the book, DO!  The book is gonna be hard to beat.   

Here’s the trailer, take a look, and hopefully, we will all enjoy a good film this summer taken from a great book!

Sadhvi

It’s the 4th of July tomorrow, so before the summer is over, I want to share some pictures of the poppies that came up this spring in my garden.  I think I might have one or two that are blooming right now, but most are gone.  I’ve seen a couple of birds eating the seeds out of the pods, which helps the seeds to spread.   I always save some seeds to give to others…there is always more than enough poppy seeds to go around!

I picked my favorite pictures so I hope you enjoy them.  For me, having some joy in my life is important.  I don’t think I would be still around at 52 if I didn’t!  So I have planted my garden only with the flowers that make me happy.  It’s one of the main reasons that I love living in Western North Carolina.  It has such a long growing season.  Oh, one of the best sources of poppy seeds to plant is the online store onestoppoppyshoppe.  Seriously, this is the place to go and get you some poppy seeds!  They have an amazing selection…just looking through their online store is a simple delight!

So, on with the show…it really was a spectacular season of poppies! 

Pink Poppy

Purple Poppy

Watermelon Poppy

  

White Mauve Poppy

Red Orange Oriental Poppy

Double Red Poppies

 

 

Poppy close up

Oriental Poppies Group Shot

Poppy and Calendula

Content coming soon.

Sadhvi

I have never been a big fan of February.  If February was at the beginning of winter, I think I would choose to live closer to the equator and put up with scorpions and cockroaches and hurricanes.  In Cleveland where I grew up, I don’t remember having any conversations with anyone in February simply because the only thing that was on anyone’s mind was another month of winter, and to talk about it only made it worse.  One thing that makes these cold months bearable for me is cooking and baking.  I am no David Lebovitz although I feel closer and closer to him now that I have read several of his books, and get his blog regularly.  In fact, I even had a wonderful dream about him, which as I remember, made my day.  Among other things, David has made me aware that there is a difference in chocolate!  My favorite in the moment is Callebaut’s, which is available from two of the health food store in town, and not so expensive – lucky me.

So here’s the recipe for one of my favorite’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  It’s so easy and so much more delicious than the traditional ones, that if you make it once, I have a very clear psychic message from another dimension that this recipe will become one of your favorites.  It is adapted from Alicia Silverstone’s vegan recipe, and it is as follows:

Sadhvi’s Peanut Butter Cups

½  cup Earth Balance Butter, or some regular organic Butter

¾  cup of your favorite organic peanut butter

¾  cups of your favorite organic graham crackers, ground up in the Cuisinart

¼  cup organic sugar

1 cup of the best chocolate you have, like Callebaut’s

¼  cup or so of organic half and half

¼  cup of chopped smoked almonds, peanuts, whatever you like or have around!

Line a 12 muffin tin with paper liners.

Put the butter and the peanut butter in a small saucepan, and over low to medium heat, whisk and stir until it’s combined.

Add the sugar and combine.

Add the crushed graham crackers and mix.

Now pour this mixture evenly into the muffin tins.  Or spoon it.  Whatever is easier!

In another small saucepan, combine the chocolate and half and half over very low heat.  Whisk it.  Smell it.  Love it.  Just don’t cook it too much!

Pour over the peanut butter mixture in the muffin tins.  Put some chopped nuts on top.  Refrigerate overnight.

Then, before you let anyone try one of these the next day, sample one yourself.

And be transported to another time, another place…maybe another month!

May the Being of the Universe

breathe into you the light of blessing and ripeness,

the fulfillment of health and balance.

May it protect you from

distractions brittle and bent

with a sphere of lucid fire.

May it enlighten

the heart of your passion

with the contemplation of living energy.

May it uncover the

hidden strength within you,

insight gathered from the eternal now.

And may it show you its face

of secret grace and silent refuge

in a communion of deep peace.

(Translated from Hebrew by A.M. Habermann

 from the Qumran (Dead Sea) Community around 100 B.C.E)

Happy Holidays from all of us at Oops50!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, our best wishes for
an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress,
non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday,
practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion
of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the
religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice
not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also would like to wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. 

Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere.  Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To Our Conservative Friends:

 Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and a Happy New Year!

Sadhvi

Every year I plant flowers and seeds and marvel at whatever comes.  But this year, something happened in that I got flowers all summer long – a first!  I feel like I have reached a new level of understanding as to how a garden works.  In August, I planted cosmos and zinnia seeds –and even some more summer squash and basil seeds–because I thought I might be able to extend summer and make it stay.  And you know what?  The first cosmos just opened a few days ago; we ate the first zucchini from that second batch; the basil is really healthy and vibrant, and the zinnias are just about to open.   So I feel like I have fooled fall into thinking it still is summer for just a little bit longer… 

My summer garden still brings me delight with the four o’clock’s still blooming and oh-so-fragrant.  The moonflowers are amazing, and their fragrance is divine.  The morning glories are incredible, and so are the Mexican sunflowers.  But still, it’s all fleeting and will be gone soon.  So, if you are like me and feel a little melancholic at the thought of winter, you can make it stay just a little bit longer if you can remember to throw some seeds into the ground just when you feel like summer is at its peak, so that, maybe, it will last forever. 

Sadhvi's Morning GLORY!

Sadhvi's Lovely Blanket Flower

Sadhvi's Sally Chicken and Pink Zinnia

Looking under Sadhvi's Torchflower