Tag: middle age humor

Conversation With Trudy

Me: Oh hi, Moody Trudy. I see that you are back in the mix. Great.

My “moody Trudy” side: (big sigh) Yes, I’m here. But barely.

Me: So what brings your Debbie Downer, blah, negative energy to my otherwise even-keel psyche, in order to, in no way at all, in any sense of the word, brighten my morning?

Moody Trudy: Do you even have to ask? Coronavirus. Quarantine. The Economy. The boys headed up to their college campus to collect the last of their stuff to bring home for the long term of the unknown future. It’s sad and depressing for the boys and of course, who knows what the amount of all of the nasty, disgusting spiky round germs that they’ll bring home, stuck to all of their stuff. Just saying.

Me: Right. Well, I’m trying to stay “up” here. The good news is that I finally get to have a Zoom meeting with my mentees today and tomorrow. I haven’t had contact with them for about a month and the red tape is finally broken. I’ve been worried about them and I want them to know that I care about them and that I am here for them.

Moody Trudy: Well, let’s hope Zoom works. You computer could crash, theirs could crash. Also, I hope you don’t get too emotional and cry. That would really wig the girls out. Speaking of crashing, I hope the boys stay safe. This would be a terrible, horrible time to have to go to the hospital.

Me: True, but there is thankfully, a helluva lot less traffic on the road.

Moody Trudy: In other news, I was reading about what could go worse in 2020. Some have suggested that Yellowstone could erupt. And the post office may come to an end . . .

Me: Okay, you are really too much for me today.

Moody Trudy: What are you making for dinner? I’d start rationing the meat. Just saying. You will all probably end up becoming involuntary vegetarians and that’s when all of this “togetherness” is really going to wear thin.

Me: Do me a favor and make yourself scarce for the rest of the week, Trudy. I’m really doing my best to make the best out of this situation and you are just not very helpful.

Moody Trudy: Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, or maybe I’ll check in later tonight.

Don’t Stress Like an Octopus

Fortune for the day – “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” – Goethe

For the last week or so, I have been feeling a tad scattered. Historically, spring time has always been a particularly busy time for us. Late winter/early springtime brings with it an uptick in sports and activities, three family birthdays, Valentines, Easter, two different spring breaks, taxes and the propensity to take on spring cleaning/house projects/small spruce-ups that always seem to have the tendency to roll into much larger, more complicated and doubly expensive projects. All of these things swirl around me, causing my agitation and irritation levels to uptick on a daily basis. So this morning, as an oven repairman and a door contractor were churning around my house, and turning my energy (and my dogs’ sensitivities) into a more frenetic mess, I decided to look up on the internet, ways to feel less frazzled.

Nothing I read wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. No earth shattering advice came my way. The usual stuff: Stay in the moment. Focus on your breathing. Think of things you are grateful about. Simplify where you can. Take some moments in nature. However, there was one interesting fact that I read. This fact is, that supposedly stress is really only harmful to you, if believe that it is harmful. This is from an article by Louise Stranger, writing for Thrive Global:

“In the Ted Talk, McGonigal discusses a longitudinal study of 30,000 adults on their experiences with stress. The participants who believed that stress is harmful to their health saw a 43% increase of dying from stress-related issues. However, this only held true if the participants believed stress was bad for them. 

Conversely, the participants who experienced high stress but did not believe it was bad for their health saw the lowest risk of death in the study from stress-related causes. As such, she reveals a key insight about stress: it doesn’t have to play a negative role in our lives if we don’t let it. A typical stress response is a pounding heart, sweaty palms and shallow breath. She points out that’s totally okay – not the harbinger of chronic disease. In fact, her research found that when participants in the study viewed their stress response as helpful, blood vessels in the body remained relaxed.”

My eldest son swears that he appreciates feeling stress. He believes that it makes him perform better and he likes the rush of adrenaline. I don’t necessarily agree with my son, but I do believe that stress is generally just part of modern day living. And if we want to believe this article, we certainly don’t want to add to our stress by stressing about being stressed. It seems that if we can find a way to accept our stress, and find reliable, comforting ways to deal with it, maybe our stress becomes less of a frightful monster, and more of an annoyance which we can live with, and perhaps maybe even on our best days, giggle about.


Image result for funny quotes about stress

I’m A Sloth

There’s a dead sloth lying in my pool area. (Either that or he is sunbathing) My dogs are brutal to their toys. I’m kind of feeling like their sloth toy right now. As you can see, I’m a little late with my blog post today. The taskmaster in me said, “Lady, you are not allowed to open up your blog page until you do those damn planks and sit-ups! And I mean it! Don’t you test me!” So the rebellious child in me, smiled sweetly and then meandered around and did everything else she could think of instead of exercises – tried on a new lipstick, looked for a replacement door latch on Amazon, sent funny, snarky texts to friends and relatives, and then, she even started doing not such fun things, such as bringing in the garbage cans, doing dishes, picking up soggy, germ-y dog toys (hence the picture) and even picking up dog do, to boot.

Why do I find it so hard to get back to my groove, after a trip?? It’s not like I was gone for a three week safari, six time zones away. It was just a long weekend away, in the same time zone. It was a long weekend of eating and drinking whatever I wanted (on a pretty much constant basis) without one mere glimmer of a thought about doing planks and sit-ups. It was just a four day hiatus from healthy living, and yet, trying to get back to my healthy norm has been nothing short of torturous.

My youngest son texted this morning that he has started doing a “prison workout.” I texted him back, asking him “WHY?!?” and meaning the question, at so many different levels. My son explained that one, he is not actually in prison (phew), or even preparing for prison (sigh of relief). He explained that the prison workout just works with your own body weight. Hmmmm. No wonder why I didn’t want to get back to my planks (at so many different levels). I had definitely added a few more pounds of weight to the workout, after the weekend that I just enjoyed and I just don’t feel ready for more weight to work with, in my current exercise regime. It’s the ultimate Catch-22.

Here’s the fortune for the day – “When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage. When a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man. – Zen saying

Too Quiet

Fortune for the day: Everyone must row with the oars s/he has. – English proverb

Thursday night I was feeling a little grumbly and annoyed. This is not unusual for the first week back from a lengthy winter break. I was feeling a little worse for the wear, from going full steam into a new, busy routine and I was also trying to coordinate other family members’ needs and obligations (also in full steam mode). Friday morning I had agreed to drive my daughter and her friends to a club competition, where they were going to present a project. The competition spot was a good hour away and their presentation is only 10 minutes long. Honestly, I was agitated and feeling my inner whining going, “When am I going to get some time for me? When am I just going to get some peace and quiet for myself? wah wah wah wah”

While the young ladies were doing their presentation, I ended up in a wonderful, warm, interesting coffee shop. It was filled with signs with funny, pithy sayings such as this:

And this:

And this one in the bathrooom:

Yes, the hipsters were getting a chuckle out of old lady me, walking around the shop taking pictures of all of the funny signs, that just openly and obviously tickled me. I am a decent tipper, so I didn’t get thrown out of the joint.

This is the sign that really got to me, though:

This whole delicious coffee shop experience helped to change my negative attitude, and this last saying was the major cherry-on-top. Soon after, I picked up the girls who were happy with how their presentation experience went. We shared a delicious, giggly brunch and I dropped them off at their friend’s house, where they planned to have a sleepover party. I went home to a very, very quiet house. Too quiet. Sometimes you have to be careful with what you wish for, I suppose.