Tag: empty nest

Auntie Dionne

“I’ve been having the best time, you know, being me.” – Dionne Warwick

I love watching SNL clips on You Tube. I don’t usually stay up late enough to watch SNL live, so I have to wait for the clips. I watched a great clip where the SNL players were pretending to be on a “Dionne Warwick Talk Show.” Dionne, the legendary singer, turned 80 the other day, and that was SNL’s way to celebrate with her. Apparently, Dionne Warwick has been enjoying a new kind of fame, as of late, with a younger crowd. She has been tweeting (Twitter) some crazy, funny tweets about younger performers. And she has been getting some new found attention for it; she is often dubbed “The Queen of Twitter”. When asked about this attention, Ms. Warwick says:

“I find it quite amusing.”

I watched an interview with Dionne Warwick, by Denny Directo, from the TV show Entertainment Tonight. It was one of the most positive, uplifting interviews which I have seen in a while. Ms. Warwick was performing in Las Vegas when the coronavirus came and shut everything down. She was sent home, to hunker down. This is what she said about that:

“I got to know my home, sleep in my own bed, make my own meals when I wanted them, how I wanted them. I’ve been having the best time, you know, being me.”

So simple. So pure. So healthy. There is a lot of times during coronavirus that we all dwelled on what we were missing out on, and what has been lost. And it is certainly healthy to grieve and mourn what this terrible pandemic has wrought on all of us. Some of us have even experienced the greatest losses of our lives, and those terrible losses need to be grieved. But at the same time, the coronavirus situation has, in many ways, forced us to get reacquainted with ourselves. By realizing what we miss and what we don’t miss, we understand our priorities better. By having to spend more times with just ourselves, we got to explore what really makes each of us tick. Sometimes this is an uncomfortable process. Sometimes being forced to really be with yourself, makes you face what you don’t like about yourself. But that’s okay, too. There are lessons of humility and acceptance and compassion, in that experience. And when we soak in those kinds of lessons, we then are better able to extend acceptance and compassion and kindness towards others.

Thankfully, the vaccine is here and it is giving us all hope that our “normal” lives are right around the corner. But in these next few months, maybe making sure that we have a loving relationship with ourselves, before we head out into the freed up world, again, is the way to go. Maybe if we all fall into the ease of “having the best time, you know, being me“, the after-pandemic world will be a whole new world, the likes of which we have never seen, filled with acceptance, compassion, humility and awe. Maybe if we spend some time, in these last few months of socially distanced living, giving complete unconditional understanding, and comfort, and love to ourselves, we will be able to better know how to extend that Love outwards into the world, which so sorely, sorely needs it. I have hopes that not only is “normal” right around the bend, but this “normal” will be brighter, kinder, more interesting, deeper, and more authentic, than we have ever experienced “normal” before. I can’t wait to see what it looks like and feels like! It’s going to be amazing.

“someday we will forget the hardship, and the pain its caused us; we will realise, hurt is not the end. lessons appear to teach us strength, we learn happiness is an inside job and to cure our insanity we must not fear what is to come, but believe in what we’ve been taught.”
― Nikki Rowe

“God gave us a variety of ways to get hurt out and do it clean. Blood cleans a wound. Tears clean a different kind of wound. You might not like it, Frannie, but you shouldn’t stop yourself from doing it. Clean the wound so it can heal. Then move on.”
― Kristen Ashley 

Monday Fun-Day

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I saw “Snow Day” trending on Twitter and I got lost in some happy memories. When I was a kid in Pennsylvania, we would sit by the radio, and we would listen attentively and hopefully, to the Snow Day cancellations. The schools were announced in alphabetical order. If for some crazy reason, you had to go to the bathroom or some other interruption or loud noise happened, you’d have to wait all over again, for the next series of Snow Day cancellations, and wait patiently as they were announced, one by one, in alphabetical order. If our school got swindled, and we just got a stupid 2 hour delay, or worse, we actually had to go to school, we would console ourselves that the other schools were “wimps”, and that they’d have to go to school into the summer to make up for the snow day. But secretly, we stewed in angry jealousy.

My kids were raised in North Carolina, when they were youngsters. Snow Days were sparse there, but sparse snow also creates instant and dramatic Snow Days, in the south. (North Carolina didn’t have much in the budget to clean snow up, nor did they have the salt piles stored up in weird looking pyramids, like they had in Pennsylvania) One of my first realizations that my children were having a significantly different upbringing than I did, due significantly, to the onset of technology, is when I called out to them one morning, that the man on the radio said that they were having a Snow Day. “We already know, ” one of my sons called back. “We saw it on the internet.”

Unfortunately, when we moved to Florida, Snow Days became a thing of the past. Not to be outdone, however, Florida took it up a notch. In Florida, we have “Hurricane Days.” Every kid deserves the thrill of a day off of school, every once in a while, and Mother Nature knows how to make that happen. Mother Nature loves her children equally.

McRib-ness

“I don’t want this guy gettin’ in your head, cuz he’s in mine a little bit.
I don’t want you to forget that you’re bringing something to the table.
You’ve got that Carl-ness.
That little twinkle in your eye, and you’re givin’ it to me right now.
That little glint that says they’re never gonna beat you; they can’t lay a glove on you.
Don’t forget that cuz you can’t put a price tag on that.
End of sermon.” (From the film You, Me and Dupree)

Friends, things are looking up!! The vaccine has been approved! The McRib is back at McDonalds. (I had one the other day, and it was just as I had remembered – incredibly messy and incredibly scrumptious) I feel like we are all getting back to our ***(insert your name)-ness. You’ve got that “you-ness” that’s been lying dormant for a lot of this year, and I think that the “ness” in all of us is sick and tired of hiding out in the bunkers. Our “ness” is bursting at the seams. Our “ness” is ready to bloom again.

Yesterday, I ran some mundane chores (nothing out of the usual), but I dressed out for it. And my friends and my family know that I am not afraid to take risks and chances when it comes to fashion. I felt more “myself” than I had felt in a long, long time. I said to my husband, “I miss my Kel-ness. I need to bring her back to the front row.” I am a little rusty. I forgot to put on earrings and I have hundreds of pairs to choose from, but that’s okay. My Kel-ness came back quicker than I thought. She’s been dying to get out. She is tired of being patient. (She still wears a mask and stays within social distance mandates, of course, but she doesn’t let that take away from the rest of her zesty Kel-ness.)

One of my friends is a social butterfly. She’s like a one-woman flock of social butterflies, that’s how social she is, at her very core. Like many extreme extroverts, this year has floored her to her lowest of lows, at times, but yesterday she texted that she had reconnected with people she hadn’t heard from in years and I could feel her “***-ness” flowing through the 5G cellular network. This is a woman who has more friends that I could possibly count. And yet, she can’t ever seem to get enough of all of them. Her “ness” was back. And it inspired me.

We are on the cusp of better days. We still have to be a little more patient, but in the meantime, bring out your “****-ness”. Polish up the parts of you, which feel the most authentic and right and meant to share with the world. Polish up the parts of you, that are your purest being. Remind yourself of what really makes you, you. That “you-ness” is your unique gift to the world. That “you-ness” is your true purpose in this pattern which we call Creation. Don’t apologize for it. Let it shine! You’ve missed your “ness”. The world misses your “ness.” Light a little fire under your “ness.” We are starting to wake up from hibernation. We are starting to remember that it is good to feel good. When we all are living fully in our own individual “nesses”, that’s when the world really begins to glow. I saw this quote on the internet today:

Ego says, Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace. Spirit says, Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.

I think that we feel the most peace when we are being our purest, truest, fearless selves. We feel peace when we give ourselves permission to be our highest forms of our own “-ness” without cover, shame, apologies or confusion. Perhaps, in finally tiring of this very trying, messed up, annoying year, a majority of us have started finding our way back to our “nesses”, despite it all, and in doing that, we have found a sense of peace. Miraculously then, it seems that the world around us starts to look like a more magnificent, hopeful place than it has looked like in a long time. You don’t believe me? Go get a McRib.

Happy Fridakkah

Happy Christmas and Merry Hanukkah! Also, Happy Kwanzaa and Yule. (Miss Anybody?) | Legends of Windemere

Happy Hanukkah to my dear Jewish friends and readers! Happy Friday to all my friends and readers no matter what your spiritual leanings are, in this stage of your life! Happy Favorite Things Friday, friends! On Fridays, my regular readers know that I don’t go to any depths. I keep it light and material on Fridays. On Fridays, I list three favorite products, songs, foods, TV shows, etc. and I strongly encourage you to add your favorites to my Comments section. Please check out previous Friday posts, for more favorites. Here are my favorites for today:

“Keep the Butterflies Flying in Formation” – This is my new favorite saying. A dear friend of mine is having serious surgery today on her spine, and a mutual friend of ours, texted that her dad would always say this, when they were going through nerve-wracking experiences. First, please send out prayers for comfort and success for my friend’s surgery, and second, keep this awesome, “easy to visualize” saying in your repertoire. It is one that could probably be helpful a lot, until we come to the end of this damn pandemic. It is a good reminder that we can always be in control of our emotions, if we just take a few of seconds to breathe and to reflect.

The Barbecue! Bible by Steven Raichlen – I mentioned that my husband has gotten back into barbecuing after a rather long hiatus. Decades ago, his sister bought him this recipe book and everything which my husband has ever made from this book, has been mouth wateringly delicious. There are some sauce recipes in this wonderful book that I would literally drink from a glass – they are that good. This would be a great Christmas gift for those people on your list who consider barbequing to be one of their crafts and passions.

T.G.I. Friday’s Potato Skin Chips – There is a little dive gas station by me which serves the best pressed Italian subs I have ever eaten. (Right next to it is Subway and I think to myself, how in the hell does that Subway stay in business?!) Anyway, any time that I decide to gorge on one of those glorious subs, I get these chips on the side. I adore these chips. They aren’t flaky. In fact, they are totally substantial and crunchy and full of flavor. The Potato Skin Chips are kind of like Bugles, in the way that they fly under the radar, but when you remember to buy them, you feel like you treated yourself royally, in a snack-y kind of way. Anything that has “Friday” in its name has got to be good, right?!?

Happy Friday, Friends!!! Have a wonderful weekend!!!!

60 Hanukkah Humor ideas | hanukkah, jewish humor, happy hanukkah
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TidBits

+I watched Red Table Talk for the first time ever yesterday. Red Table Talk features Jada Pinkett Smith and her daughter and her mother, talking to guests about current issues. The episode that I watched was the latest one, featuring Olivia Jade, the daughter of Lori Loughlin, and it focused on her reaction to being the “centerpiece” of the college admissions scandal. The show was excellent. There are no “commercial breaks” so the subject is discussed and explored, in depth. While everyone was respectful to each other around the red table, they were also honest and pointed and real and raw. I highly recommend watching this particular episode. It was a good reminder of how much of our personal perspective is really made up of our own surroundings and upbringing. We may think that we are more open-minded and worldly than we really are, in some cases. This show brings “food for thought” to the Red Table.

+I love this quote from the writer Anne Lamott: “I do not live in my thighs or in my droopy butt. I live in joy and motion and cover-ups. I live in the nourishment of food and the sun and the warmth of the people who love me.”

+Have you heard about the silver monoliths mysteriously showing up in places all over the world, and then disappearing as quickly as they are discovered? In our household, we have received 8 million political calls this year, with car warranty calls coming in at a close second. I think that this meme might actually be accurate and real.

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Mountain Mama

TOP 25 QUOTES BY CHUCK YEAGER | A-Z Quotes

RIP – Chuck Yeager. There are a lot of pilots in my family and Chuck was always a great hero to all of them.

Chuck was raised in West Virginia and he took great pride from being from West Virginia, his entire life. I have travelled through West Virginia many, many times in my life. I was raised in western Pennsylvania. Many people from my high school’s graduating class attended West Virginia University. West Virginia gets a bad rap. It is wildly beautiful, mountainous, and free. You feel an awesome respect for what a tiny, fragile speck of nature, you really are, when you drive through the windy, treacherous, mountain roads of West Virginia, with the breath-taking spectacular views, everywhere you look. There is a reason why “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is one of John Denver’s most loved songs. It was written and sung with such heartfelt devotion:

“Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze”

People like to make fun of West Virginians for being “backwards” and “under-developed.” But I scoff at that, just as they do. The people who I know, whose roots are West Virginian, are strong, faithful, brave, salt of the earth, prideful, authentic and courageous – very much like Chuck Yeager. They don’t give one hoot what the rest of us think about West Virginia, or its people. Like Chuck, they fly under the radar, beyond the speed of sound, because they know that they live in a multi-faceted, untouched, gorgeous jewel- a hidden gem tucked in the corner of our country’s jewel box. And they don’t feel the need to prove that fact to anybody.

The sun doesn't always shine in West Virginia, but the people do. - Richard Ojeda

Monday Fun-Day

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I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I was reflecting on one of those “coming into my age” moments. Last week, I was having a Zoom meeting with my mentee, who is in the 4th grade. She made a reference comparing me to her grandparents.

“Oh,” I said, trying to hide the horror and shock I was feeling, in my voice. “So, you think that I’m about the age of your grandparents?” I looked off to the side, trying to look casual and only mildly interested.

“Oh, no, no,” she said, not so convincingly.

But then I thought about it more. Her mother is in her twenties. I have a son who is 24 years old. If her grandmother also had her mother in her young twenties, there is even a chance that her grandparents are younger than I am. Things That Make You Go, Hmmmmm.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends and readers. It is Christmas decorating day, here at my household, so I wrote a poem about it. My regular readers know that Sunday is devoted to poetry here at Adulting- Second Half. I consider Sunday to be a “poetry workshop space”, like Santa’s workshop, but we work with words here. Be like a poetry elf, and add your own additions to my Comments section, if you please. Today’s poem that I wrote is more “tongue in cheek” that my usual offerings. It’s just my mood today.

The Day Has Come

Why does decorating for Christmas change every year?

Sometimes it is something that I do, which I love and adore,

Sometimes it is nothing but a big, fat, ugly chore,

Sometimes I question if that ratty angel is starting to look like a whore,

Sometimes I only decorate, so to not seem like a grinch or a bore,

Sometimes the nostalgia rips me apart, right at my very core,

Sometimes I close a box and remind myself that “less is more”,

Sometimes the lights don’t work again, and we have to go to the store,

Sometimes I get competitive, as if our decorations get assigned a score,

Sometimes decorating gets precarious, and I have to yell “Fore!”

When it seems like the tree could fall over, and make a mess on the floor.

But in the end, when complete, the decorations make me revel in AMORE,

For, the feeling of hope and wonder is something that always stays the same.

Beautiful Josie

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.” – Sean Penn, quote from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

A friend of mine recently asked me why I never write about Josie, our collie. Do you still have her? Yes, of course, she still lives with us. Josie is a gem. I never write about Josie, because she is perfect. We never write about the perfect things in our lives, do we? The perfect things, we totally and completely, take for granted.

Josie is stunningly beautiful. Her coloring is succinctly divine. Sometimes people gasp when they see her. She’s that pretty. Recently, we were walking the three pups and two sisters passed us. (I know that they were sisters because they had the exact same face, just different hair.) The seemingly more outgoing sister exclaimed, “Oh my God! That collie is GORGEOUS!!”

The less outgoing, and probably more people-pleasing sister quickly blurted in, “They’re all beautiful. All of the puppies are beautiful!” She said this frantically, as if Ralph and Trip could understand the words, and had their feelings hurt.

Josie prances as she walks, and her tail swishes back and forth, with its perfect little white tip, so engagingly and tantalizingly perfect. Not to be weird, but her tail swishing is kind of alluring and sexy, in a way. If she weren’t spayed, she would drive male dogs mad with desire. Josie crosses her front paws when she lays down, ladylike and coy. Her white mane looks like a ravishing fur stole. Josie is Audrey Hepburn in dog form.

We got Josie when she was eight months old. She was raised by a young man with Down Syndrome. I suppose that must have had a huge influence on her beautiful, kind, gentle and calm nature. We never had to train Josie. She never messed in the house. She walks on a lead like a dream. Josie, always sweetly, lets strange children come up to kiss her on her long, elegant collie nose, without a flinch. She guards Ralphie ferociously, as he swims in the pool and she licks Trip clean of the spray from Ralphie’s water shakes. Josie’s maternal instinct runs deep in her bones and it shows. She doesn’t like squirrels and she probably barks too much at them, but that’s okay. I don’t like squirrels either. Our dog trainer said that there is no doubt that Josie is the lead dog in our house. She is queen bee in a stealth way. She only raises her voice when she (barks) at squirrels. Yet, supposedly, she rules the roost. Trip and Ralphie, obviously revere her and adore her in equal measure. (much like the rest of us)

We named Josie after a beloved, bonding family trip to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite turned into an easier to say, “Josie”. I honestly was pretty hesitant to give Josie my full heart. Her predecessor was Lacey, the first collie who stole my heart and who will own a piece of my devoted heart forever. Lacey is/was a legend in our family lore. Still, Josie has wormed her way into my vein of utter devotion. And she never tried to force her way in. Josie just wakes up every morning, ever loving, ever joyful, ever elegant, and yet ever uninhibited. And I thank God every day for her absolute divine presence. I don’t write about Josie, because I don’t want to jinx anything. Josie is almost too good to be true. Josie is perfect.

Colorful Friday

Merry Friday! Pictures, Photos, and Images for Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter

The holidays are upon us. Around these parts, the Christmas decorations in people’s yards seem to have gone up extra early, many even before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if this is people wanting to fast forward everything to the end of 2020, or people just being in dire need of extra cheer. My guess is that it is a little bit of a mix of both things. Anyway, we’ll be putting our decorations up this weekend, which is on par with our typical schedule every year (creatures of habit, I suppose). Happy Friday, friends!!! My regular readers know that Fridays are devoted to “the stuff” in life. On Friday, I discuss three favorite things, or websites, or books, or beauty products, etc. that have made my life more interesting and fun. Welcome to Favorite Things Friday!! Please check out previous Friday listings for more of my favorites and please add your favorites to my Comments section. Here are my favorites for today:

Nature Made CholestOff – I have given blood three times this year. This is more often than most years, truthfully, because I have been monitoring my coronavirus antibodies, but still, giving blood is a good thing to do for yourself and for others, for a myriad of reasons. While I have been disappointed, after each session with my antibody results (negative so far), more alarmingly, my cholesterol readings were a tad scary, from my first two results, from giving blood. I am always loathe to recommend supplements to anyone. Of course, you should always discuss supplements with your doctor before taking them. That being said, I have been taking this supplement for the last few months, without changing my eating habits too much. I was happy to see that my cholesterol reading was the lowest that it has been this year, after this last session of giving blood. And that was from blood given a few days after our Thanksgiving feast. (butter, sausage stuffing, turkey, gravy – in other words, “Cholestafest!”)

Zuke’s Mini Naturals – It turns out (as per our dog trainer) that we have been way too generous with our giant dog treats for minimum good behavior from our fur friends. We have a lot of lessons to teach our canine trio, and we don’t want them to get fat in the process. Zuke’s treats have 3 calories each and those little crumbs must pack a lot of flavor, because our dogs are willing to do their “whole bag of tricks” for one little morsel. I order my bags of Zuke’s on Amazon.

Marco Polo app – This is a fun app. I didn’t think I would like it, but a teacher friend was raving about it, and I am a curious person. Basically, it is an app that allows you to send out recorded video messages to each other, without having to be available at the same time. I don’t like being on video. I don’t like watching videos. (I’m always looking for the written transcript.) Yet, I still had a lot of fun with this yesterday. I sent my friend a few videos of me, all masked up, in the hair salon. She was patient with my learning curve, and like the excellent teacher who she is, she encouraged my effort and told me that she was proud of me. (I hope that she saw that I was beaming under my mask)

Have a wonderful, comforting, restful, hopeful, brightly lit weekend, my friends!!!!