A Day in the Life ~ Or My Last Birthday Post Until Next Year–I Promise!

 

Casino  (Photo credit: geek7)

  I do not have a gambling problem. But I have got to say I just love playing the slots. In the past ten years I have been to the casino three times (big spender, I know).  And I have joyously bet my $20, five dollars at a time—first on the penny slots, then the nickel, the quarter, and yesterday I went all out—I tried the dollar slots.

            I could be wrong, but is there any rhyme or reason to the slots? I just sit there and hit the buttons—but I have noticed that if you hit the higher buttons you tend to win more. Now, let us be clear here, you are not going to win a lot with $5 bets but the dollar slot machine actually had one of those arms you could pull—seriously, I had me some fun. Yesterday, I ended up winning back all my $5 bets.

            I did notice that a lot of the people at the casino were a lot more serious than I. They seemed to concentrate on what they were doing, and I am sure they have some method to their madness. My madness is my method when I play the slots. Now, you can laugh all you want, but when I won $20 on the quarter slots, I was happy as could be. But it really doesn’t take a lot to amuse me.

            To be honest, I understand how enticing gambling can be—but I am no high roller. I find I am not attracted to losing money. Nor do I have any talent when it comes to any kind of gambling other than pushing buttons, or in the case of the dollar slots—pulling the arm of the one-limbed bandit. The casino is colourful, noisy, gaudily classy, and a fun place to be if you come out ahead (or even).

            Yesterday was the end of my birthday celebrations—which were numerous and fun. So what do I do to celebrate my birthday? Well, I eat cake—and right now I think I am in cake withdrawal. You can never have too much cake. Well, actually you can—I am finding my jeans just that little bit harder to button up lately. What do I do on my birthday, besides spending (and winning back) $20 at the Casino? I go to bookstores. How boring is that? Actually for me, not boring at all—I have always loved books—and they are just about the best gift anyone can give me—so I always end up with either a gift card or a little gift money with the stipulation that I must spend it on me. So I do, and generally it is at the bookstore.

            So yesterday, I bought three books—a writing book, a book about prayer, and a book just to read—covering the gamut of what I am interested in. Now, this was a big birthday—one I was not looking forward to as I am a bit reluctant to admit that I am 29 now for the 31^st time. But hey, the cat is out of the bag. The eagle has landed. The cows are out of the barn. And you know~it is not that bad.

            I have finally started reading Zoomer magazine, and it is actually a great mag (it is geared to people 45 and up). The first article I read was written about people like me who do not feel or act their age (I have always been a late bloomer, and ever so slightly immature). I have now embraced my age—and as many have pointed out to me, the alternative is not all that attractive (well, it might be, but I am not ready to call it quits quite yet).

            I have not received a discount because of my age yet—but I remember a woman in a writers’ group I belonged to writing about her “first time” getting a discount. She was not ready for it yet, but when she started to see the dollars adding up—it became a “good thing” as Martha would say. So as I continue this journey called life, I am thinking that any discounts I get I can use for my next trip to the casino—where I intend to take life by the horns and play the dollar slots—this time with a ten dollar bet!

This was my newspaper column for this week–I promise not to talk about my birthday again until next year. Bliss is accepting your age at any age – what do you think?

Future Bliss

Like this Rosebud, I am still waiting to bloom.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 A service has been invented through which you can send messages to people in the future. To whom would you send something, and what would you write?

This is a timely prompt from lovely Michelle at WordPress, as I have not been looking forward to my upcoming birthday in April. I  have come to the realization that I will not be wandering this little place called earth for as many years as I have lived thus far. I am going to be 60 (sob, groan, ackkk!) and I am fairly sure I am not going to live another 60 years.

When I was younger, 60 was not something I could  easily imagine–and when I did, I imagined that I had “arrived”; that I had reached my ultimate goals; that I would be ensconced in comfort.

It is not so much the age of 60 itself that has me bummed out–it is the fact that I only have so much time left to “arrive”.  I am fighting the feeling that the book is closed and that my goals are unattainable, so I am going to write this letter to my sons in an effort to give them advice, and me some hope:

Dear Adam and Tyler;

As you read this, I am a vibrant 80 year old. I did not reach some of my goals until later in life, as I have always been a late bloomer. But along the way, I learned that even if I did not feel like I had been a “success” in the normal sense of the word, I reached success on many levels.

I found love with your dad; I found my maternal instincts as soon as I had you guys (it was an amazing transformation by the way as I did not know that I really wanted children until I had them); I worked at jobs I did not like; I worked at jobs I loved; I had a business of my own and learned that I would rather buy books than sell them; I learned how to be a “mother bear” advocate for you guys; I tried to learn to let go (even at this age, I am probably still struggling with that); I learned that family and friends can get you through anything; that losing your parents is rough but their voices stay with you; I have learned that success is not just financial (though it does make it easier); and I have learned that you should never give up.

As the two of you progress down the sometimes smooth, sometimes wretched path of life, keep in mind that in the end it is all worthwhile. You have seen your parents struggle, and now you see us comfortable in our own skins. Even though we are eighty, we live life as if there is no tomorrow, because as we all know, there may not be.

Live life well and fully. Enjoy good times even in the bad times. That old saying~this too will pass~is true, even though some things we would rather go away, do not go away fast enough.

You are loved, and my best successes!  ~ Love mom

I know that this letter to my sons twenty years down the line has fallen into cliché but I do not care–clichés are there for us to use–and sometimes they do the job. I am looking for my bliss today–in twenty years I am certain I will have found it and put it to good use.

What would you say to your loved ones from your place of bliss?

Related articles

• Where Is The Bliss In That? (onthehomefrontandbeyond.wordpress.com)

 

The Bliss of “Did”

Just Do It (Photo credit: AMANITO)

Today’s prompt from Michelle: Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda: Tell us about something you know you should do, but don’t…. brought Shel Silverstein’s poem, “Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda” immediately to mind:

Layin’ in the sun,
Talkin’ bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shoulda done…
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.

Reading to Kids (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am a great fan of Silverstein, having read three of his books of poems supposedly for children (but really for all of us) to both of my sons so many times, I cannot even venture a guess as to how many times we cuddled together, me reading, and they transfixed by his words.

We all should and could do many things and we would have except for…..so many things. But how about the many things we did do? I think those should count for something.

I vote for forgetting about woulda-coulda-shoulda and just concentrating on the “dids”—that sounds much more blissful to me. How about you?

Related articles

• Clean Slate (onthehomefrontandbeyond.wordpress.com)
• Can Routines be Blissful? (onthehomefrontandbeyond.wordpress.com)

~ One ~ Happy New Year! ! ! ! ! ! ! ~ Resolution 2013 ~ Finding My Bliss

12 O’Clock – January 1, 2013 (Photo credit: ladytimeless)

What a party we had–I will do a synopsis of it soon–but the food, wine, music, and entertainment were fantastic and the hundreds and hundreds of guests incredible!  Now if I can just get Robin to come down off the table, and Vanessa to move over in the kitchen we will have breakfast. While I am waiting for the bacon to cook, I am going share my resolution and a few random thoughts with you:

In the past I have made serious resolutions; quirky resolutions; philosophically based resolutions; and finally refused to make resolutions on the grounds that doing so might incriminate me. This year I am trying a new tactic in the hopes that I will not be one of those statistics that they come out with every year saying that 92.4% of people give up on their resolutions 3.4 days after making them.

Today I resolve to find my bliss. I put it somewhere and I am sure I am going to find it again. I found my brother’s missing Christmas gift the other day (only five days after Christmas) so I am sure I am going to be able to find my bliss. So what is bliss? I figure it is something that I can probably spend the rest of my life discovering as it takes on so many guises: happiness, contentedness, serenity, delight, harmony, and in some corners blessedness. Now wouldn’t it be nice to be blessed?

The Encarta Dictionary says that bliss is “complete happiness” or a “state of spiritual joy”. I am thinking here that I may never need to make another resolution again—just finding my bliss will encompass all those things I want to accomplish. Losing those five pounds that I lost and found again? Bliss. Eating healthy? Bliss. Being content with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book? Bliss. See how it works? No more having to bother to make a resolution every year—this one encompasses all.

~Looking Back to Look Forward~

One of my favourite columnists is Mitch Albom with the Detroit Free Press. He has written some books, and from the sales figures, he is a pretty successful author. But, I find that he writes best in column form. He is succinct, pithy, and at times amusing. His column from Sunday, December 30^th is one I am saving, and I am going to share a couple of paragraphs that really spoke to me, and I hope you will find engaging as well.

He said, “When all was said and done, 2012 was completely different from years before it, yet very much the same, because certain things are true no matter how long we live.

Mitch Albom 。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News stories come, news stories go; nothing is as great as it sounds and nothing is as bad. Technology is replaced by more technology; celebrities replace previous celebrities; science discovers something, then searches for something else.

And the only thing that truly affects your year is how you lived within your own house, how you treated and were treated by your loved ones, and how you helped the people and community around you.”

Then he asked the question: “Judged by that, how was your 2012?”

I think that if we take his observations into account, we are equipped to handle 2013 in perhaps a more thoughtful way. I know that I am guilty sometimes of not treating the people I love most in the most loving way. They get the brunt of my frustration and they do not deserve it. They are the people who are here for me, and will continue to be in my corner. So, in addition to finding my bliss—or actually as a part of finding my bliss, I am going to try to treat my loved ones the way I want to be treated—in effect passing the bliss around a little more.

Mitch is right–the only thing that truly affects us is how we live within our own house and how we treat our loved ones and the community we live in.

Happy 2013, and may you all find your bliss, however you define it!

Wishes Come True

Gift Card Holder Ornament (Photo credit: ecokarenlee)

I told everyone in my family that if I did not get a gift card from Chapters for Christmas that there would be trouble. My husband took me seriously. Apparently he did not want trouble. On the Christmas tree was a pretty little card, and inside was the sacred gift card. I love going to Chapters (or any bookstore if truth be known). In fact I once owned a bookstore, but an unexpected but happy pregnancy, a second premature child (who is now a healthy 6’1″ college student), and a number of other factors led to its closure–but the point here is that I love books–buying them, borrowing them from the library, and most of all, reading them. I did not particularly care for selling them though.

Anyway, we got up early this Boxing Day morning and made our way into the city to the nearest Chapters, about 30 miles away. There was a winter storm brewing and threatening to blow its way here by noon, so I wanted to be back in my warm and cozy home before it got here. Target time to take off was 8:30; we made it out of the house by 9:00 a.m. Not bad in my books.

I used my card well and purchased “The End of Your Life Book Club” by Will Schwalbe and “The Mindful Writer” by Dinty W. Moore who promises that it is filled with “noble truths of the writing life.” Because they were hardcovers and 30% off, I shared the rest of my card with my family, buying a book about vintage guitars for my oldest son, and a motorcycle mag for my husband.

We got home just as the storm was starting–the wind is blowing right now and the snow is coming down a shade past gently and we are going to get four to eight inches. I know, I know this is Canada, so I guess we are getting between 8 and 10 centimetres–but I am still old school.

Hoping you all are having a relaxing day after all the excitement of Christmas, and are warm and cozy if it is cold out, and cool and happy if you live somewhere warm.

My To Do List ~ The Sorry Story

to do list (Photo credit: ebby)

How did I do with the first “To do” list I posted last week? Since you, my readers are clamouring for an update (okay only one of you asked—but that is all I need), I will tell you how I did. The list will be in italics and my response in a regular font.  I know you can’t wait to see how I made out (yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm):

1. First things first: I must write my On The Homefront column for the week for my newspaper deadline, which is Monday, and as of 6:45 on Sunday night, have no idea what the topic will be.

This is one of those things that have to be done every week. Yes I completed it, but due to its nature, have to do it again this week. The only time this is ever taken off my list is the week between Christmas and the New Year, as it is a holiday for the whole newspaper staff.

2. Write up council news taken from last week’s council meeting—discounting all the drainage and sewage discussions,…

Again this is something I have to do every week, except for the above noted holiday.

3. Write up the article for the Wine, Writers and Words Workshop.

This makes it way to this week’s list and for Monday’s deadline. Sometimes I have leeway with things that have happened, but not things that are going to happen.

4. Continue doing book work for our company.

Ongoing, and another one for this week’s list—I so hate paperwork and filing, and numbers—I like words!

5. Get everything into files—

I don’t want to talk about it.

Time Management (Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

6. Get some groceries and plan meals. Sounds easy but it is not. Or not for me. Will let you know how I do here.

This is one of those things that rears its ugly head week after week after week after (you get my drift). I did do it, but it has to be done again in a few days.

7. Get the house in some semblance of order which means get the pile of clothes off the bed and into the closet or drawers. Seriously, I cannot die suddenly, as my bedroom is in such a terrible mess I would be blushing in the next life over what I left behind.

Thinking about having a living will that says no one is allowed in my bedroom after I die except my husband. This is a mean thing to do to him, but at least finally the bedroom will be clean.

8. Email my youngest son, Tyler who is at college and my sister Peggy every day. Expect to hear back from Peggy. Be surprised if Ty ever emails back. (I am one of his free calls on his phone, so we do talk often).

Did this religiously, may have missed one day for each of them. As predicted, my sister writes back, but Tyler calls.

9. Do some kind of  post for this blog every day; keep up with my blogging friends.

So for the first week in a long time, I think I missed posting for a day. It was probably my rebellion due to the fact that it was on the list.

10. Prepare a presentation for my Writers’ Group about blogging.

I was going to email them at the last minute to say I did not do it, but pulled myself up by my frayed bootstraps and did it. It was not really that hard because so many of you helped me out with your suggestions—so I used your responses to provide them with answers from a variety of people, instead of just me. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

11. Work on my October book and an intro to my On The Homefront book—thinking of calling it “The Worst of On The Homefront.”

I did both of these this morning before I wrote up this account of my To Do list so I could say that I had done them.

The good thing about “To do” lists is that you do some of it because you have to, you rebel against some of it (which does not really pay off in the end as you still have to do them), and it makes you do things you know you should. The best thing is that I finally went back to my book-in-waiting “Always October”  with a new twist that will help move it forward, and I got a good start on my “On The Homefront” book by writing up part of the introduction.

All in all, I would give myself an A+. (I am a pretty easy marker unless I am marking other people’s papers.)

W ~ or What Makes People Laugh?

“…what on earth makes people laugh?” ~  Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The question of “….what on earth makes people laugh” is a good one, posed by a famously adept and prolific author, Maeve Binchy. We lost her this summer but her words live on in about a thousand books (only a slight exaggeration).  Her question is one that does not have a single answer.

Binchy said in her book, “The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club”,  that “All writing takes courage. Maybe comic writing just takes more courage than the other sort.” In trying to come up with an answer to her own question, she came to three conclusions, which I have nut-shelled here for you:

1. Sometimes, she thinks, people will laugh when writers make themselves look foolish, vulnerable, or silly. If that is the case, then I have this whole comedy thing wrapped up. I am sure that sometimes I come across as both foolish and silly (without really putting a lot of effort forth – one could say it comes naturally).

2. Binchy believes that “people laugh if you can create a truly funny character, like a clown figure, somebody that you are meant to laugh at.” I don’t know about you, but I do not find clowns all that funny. There are a few, like Milky the Clown, Le Clown and Bozo, who do not fit into this category, but I find clowns on the whole, sad, which proves that laughter and comedy are highly subjective.

3. When she worked as a journalist, Binchy interviewed the guy who wrote the Marx Brothers scripts, as well as George Burns, and Bob Hope. “Every single one of them” she said, “had no idea whether something was funny until they tried it out.” I do not find the Marx Brothers all that funny except for Harpo who did not talk and used a horn to squeak out his answers (and even he became annoying after a while).

I think both George Burns and Bob Hope are funny. Burns because he was an advocate of observational humour and Bob Hope because he knew some of his stuff was old and hackneyed but delivered it with such self-deprecation that it was funny.

Comedy is very individual. What makes you fall off your chair, or lol does not necessarily strike my funny bone. What I find funny you might question. Binchy wrote an article that she said made her both popular and “thought to be humorous”. What she did was take an everyday situation and make herself vulnerable to it. She said that she had not stayed in a hotel until she was twenty-two and did not know the protocol “about whether you make the bed” or not when you stayed in a hotel. She opted for a compromise and “sort of straightened the bed and folded back the covers” which she felt would not destroy her as a “hotel visitor.”  After writing the article she was amazed that “half the country seemed to have the same dilemma” and was delighted with her wonderful sense of humour.

I understand why this garnered her the accolades she received, as it is something most of us have had to contend with. We don’t want to be thought of as slobs, but we also don’t want to make the bed up so perfectly that it looks not slept in, hence the staff would not change the sheets. Although I am not sure why we expect the sheets to be changed every day at a hotel when we certainly (or I certainly) don’t do it at home.

On a similar note, I have always wondered what it would be like to have someone clean my house. I am not a self-professed domestic goddess, but I am also not so sure I want my chaos to come to light (as if this is not confession enough; sure write about it and try to keep it secret: smart move).

Humour really is in the funny bone of the beholder. Or as Peter Ustinov said, “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”

V ~ is for Vicarious

Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion, the first Trixie Belden mystery (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.” ~ Roger Ebert

I have a rather positive outlook on vicarious experiences. Though I may not have experienced something firsthand, that does not mean the experience is not worthy.  In fact vicarious experiences can be just as satisfying. Is that not what we do when we get lost in a good movie as Ebert so ably puts it, or better yet, when we read a book?

I remember as a young girl reading the adventures of Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew, and living them in my imagination. The things that they dealt with did not happen in my “real” life, but I was richer, as was my imagination, for having experienced them vicariously.

I sometimes live through the tales my friends tell of their adventures, their travels, and their creative acts. And by listening to them, my attention is rapt, and their memories become not my memories, but an open door to things I have not had the chance to do or create.

Some of the synonyms I found for vicarious are not at all how I define it.  The words second-hand, displaced, remote, indirect, removed or distanced do not play a part in my vicariousness.

To me, living vicariously opens up worlds that may not be available to me otherwise. It also provides an impetus to do the things that I find appealing. Sometimes living out something in your imagination translates itself into action.

I have lots of things on my life list (as opposed to my bucket list which sounds a little too final to me) that I want to do: travel, publish a book, learn to golf and play tennis, get involved in more community activities—and as I work on this list, I derive pleasure from those who do travel extensively, write books, play the games I want to play, and join the activities I want to take part in. It is part of the learning process—it is all part of my life research.

I think of  “living vicariously” as a practice run wherein I am identifying what it is I want to accomplish.

Comforts ~ Day 9 Or Cookies and Milk

My three things today may seem pedestrian, but they are what get me through the hard times:

books (Photo credit: brody4)

1. My books – I can lose myself in a good book (or magazine, or newspaper, or mouthwash bottle, or cereal box – I will quite literally read anything)

2. The Food Channel, Community, Downton Abbey, The Big Bang Theory, and sometimes when I am feeling really low, I watch really crappy TV to make me feel better about my life (LOL)

3. Comfort food – which generally includes something sweet and a glass of milk. The glass of milk cancels out the guilt from eating the something sweet – after all, we all need calcium-right?

It may sound like I am not really trying today, but seriously these are the things I am grateful for when life gets just that little bit too difficult.

A Big Hug

Granny (Looney Tunes) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am as guilty as anyone else. I love the idea of “community” and love living in a small town, but do I really contribute to the feeling of “community”? To me, the term is not geographical, but emotional —and can be, at its best (pardon the sentiment) “like a big hug”. Author, Ferenc Matte reminded me of the importance of “community”, in his book, “The Wisdom of Tuscany”. Fortunately, we do not have to travel so far afield to attain the close-knit feeling of belonging.

At its core community has the word commune, which  in essence means connect. I do not think I do enough to “connect” to my neighbours, or to the community at large. Matte makes the point that:

“If we all love such small towns—and surveys say that seven out of ten of us would live there if we could—why then are they ever more difficult to find? The demand is there, so where is the supply? When all it takes is a few good-natured people—a couple to teach school, a few to run the stores, some to farm the land, some to mend the sick and a bar to tend the healthy—then why isn’t there such a town behind every tree?” He ends his tiny diatribe by saying “How did it happen that things no one wants are burying us all, while the simple town we dream of we can seldom find.”

Matte, of course simplifies what a small town is all about, but he has a point. If we want a sense of community, then we should strive to achieve that goal. He mourns the loss of neighbourhood saying that its death “snuck up on us slowly”, with a little “thoughtlessness here, a tiny neglect there, a bit too much ambition, a little too much greed.” He misses Granny on the front porch reminding us of “simpler times, better days.”

About a week and a half ago, I attended an event which felt a bit like a “big hug”. I was there, not as a reporter, but someone enjoying an evening of books, wine, music, and food. It was called En Vino Novellus, which translated means “in wine there are stories”.  It featured four local authors, some local musicians, wine paired to the books that were featured by a local sommelier, and an appetizer presented by a local butcher shop. Note the word local—they were all a part of our community, and came together to present an evening enjoyed by an overflowing crowd of like-minded people.

My husband said that the evening personified what community is all about. He said that he wants to live in a place that can provide wonderful cultural events. Events that the community can get behind.

Me too.