middle age Archives - Page 105 of 205 - Adulting: Second- Half

Monday – Funday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. I woke up this morning to all of the evidence that all six of us are here at the house, fully living life, and the celebration of the holidays has been a hearty one. My skin feels a little crawly. No one would ever come close to accusing me of being a “neat freak”, but that internal switch in me, has been flipped, the switch that cries out, “Austere could be nice. Austere sounds like a strangely appealing aesthetic just about now. ” How do I we go from “Colossal Chaotic Christmas is Over Mayhem” to “Modern Minimalism” without much time, effort, coaxing or yelling? Maybe some year I’ll figure out how to just twitch my nose, and everything will magically go back to some semblance of order. In the meantime, my household is going at this, at a snail’s pace:

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning! We have made it through another round of “the holiday season.” Whether it was wonderful, or it was weathered, or it was something in between, it is done. Fini. On to our hopes and to our dreams for the upcoming year!

Sundays on the blog are devoted to poetry. I consider Sundays to be a poetry workshop of sorts. I get up the nerve to write a poem (most of the time) and I bravely and vulnerably share it on my blog, and I strongly encourage you to do the same. My husband and one of my friends both purchased adult coloring books for me this Christmas, and I was fascinated at just how relaxing coloring really is for the soul. Writing poetry is much the same. Try it, you’ll like it. Here is my poem for the day:

“Blueprints”

my favorite relationships were never on purpose

my favorite relationships were never rigidly defined

by a stiff tome of archaic rules and regs and decrees

my favorite relationships can best be described as random,

they are as organic as scattered seeds, tossed in the wind

who happened to find themselves in the same bed of gravel

and they grow together, miraculously, mutually transfixed,

marveling in each other’s resiliency and vibrancy and growth

and reflectively thrilled to be part of a vivid flower garden

that was never purposefully preconceived and planned

but nonetheless, in itself, ends up vitally existing,

wildly and supernaturally, breathtakingly beautiful,

as only Nature knows how to create.

Therein lies the unerring, intuitive truth:

There are no blueprints greater than the Divine’s.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! I am sneaking on here to wish my beloved readers all of the best that the day has to offer. That’s the beauty of having older children. The festivities start well after sunrise, when the kids grow up. Although those of you with young grandchildren may be having a different experience right now. You’re sleepy and smiley and lucky and giddy right now, aren’t you?!!

Whatever feelings arise today, just feel ’em and then free ’em. Today can be a complicated day. There are no “shoulds”. Just try to savor the gift of a lifetime that you’re always unwrapping, every single day – the gift of experiencing a lifetime on Earth. It’s an interesting ride, isn’t it?

I appreciate you all. Your audience is what makes this a blog and not just another one of my personal journals, lying around, cluttering things up. You’re a vital part of Adulting – Second Half. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The 100 Best Christmas Memes For Friends And Family – Yellow Blogtopus

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Christmas Eve Friday

Good morning. Merry Christmas Eve!! Welcome to Favorite Things Friday. I have shared my favorite rendition of one of my favorite Christmas songs above. I have shared this song before on the blog, but I haven’t found anyone who can trump Martina McBride’s version of it. (kind of like how nobody can top Whitney Houston’s version of our national anthem) Listen to it all of the way to the end when she holds the notes into eternity. Goosebumps. Magnificent!

If you want other fun takes on the Christmas classics, I recommend looking up the band, Boney M. They do a great job with “Little Drummer Boy” but this song below “Mary’s Boy Child”, has always been one of my all-time favorites. It’s one of the happiest, upbeat Christmas songs ever sung. “There’s hope for all to find peace!” It’ll get your juices flowing:

Today, I have just one other kind of random favorite to share. Here it is:

Clare V “Ciao” earrings and pendant – I was wearing this pendant the other day and my husband asked me, “What does that mean?” He knows that “Ciao” usually means “good-bye” in Italian. I think that he was concerned that I was sending hidden, subliminal messages in the form of jewelry. Ha! The reason I bought these items is because I have always wanted to be Italian, or to have some other more fanciful and exotic background, other than my mostly staid English DNA. I would say, “Ciao!” or “Grazia!” to my kids all of the time and they would say, “Mom, we’re not Italian.” I bought this nice quality, fun, faux jewelry because it reminds me of these silly, fun times in my life and that fun, silly, off-the-cuff version of myself. “Ciao” can actually mean “hello” or “good-bye” in Italian. I think that I will use this jewelry as a reminder that I am in control of the “hellos” and the “good-byes” in my life. I can say “hello” to love and joy and peace and fun and creativity and I can say “good-bye” to bad habits, toxic people and difficult situations. Ciao!

How are you doing today, my friends? My hope, for all of us, is that during the last minute whirl of activity, hoopla, tumult, excess, distraction and chaos that can come with the holidays, we can find the peace. We can find the calm. We can find the love. We can find the uninterrupted, eternal stillness. We can find the quiet, deep, unquestioned knowing that despite what we fear, the truth is “All is well.” That’s the real point of the day, isn’t it? All is well. “All is well.” A precious little baby came to Earth to remind us of that fact. And it changed the world.

I’ll finish with this wonderful compilation that my husband and I will be listening to as we do some last minute wrapping. It’s a good one:

Merry Christmas Eve! I love and I appreciate all of you! You are gifts to me with your precious time and your attention.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

For the Love of Dogs

I messed around with this picture that my husband sent to the family chat this morning, as best that I could. I am always cognizant of protecting my family’s privacy. My family and my friends are kind and loving enough to indulge my need/inclination/passion/desire to write about our family and my friends and our experiences, on a public forum. My form and style of writing is called “confessional writing.” As a private person myself (believe it or not), I don’t take their kindness and gratuitousness for granted.

The above picture is one of our dogs, Ralphie, giving some morning love to our eldest son. Our eldest is a professional who lives in a different state. Our son was already in college when when we got Ralphie, as a puppy. Our son has lived on his own for many years now. And yet Ralphie unabashedly adores our son. Ralphie has this lavish, overflowing way of showing our son how excited our entire family is to have him home for the holidays, with his constant exuberant outpouring of adoration. Ralphie honestly cherishes all of us, and no one could ever question that fact. My friend recently brought up the old proverb, “Actions speak louder than words.” My other friend made the point that this can be read in a positive sense, too. You can show people how much you love them without ever saying it. Ralphie doesn’t have words, but his actions speak volumes. So many of us love dogs, because dogs have absolutely no shame about their love and loyalty. They don’t judge us. They don’t ask us to change. They don’t shame us. Dogs just love, like no other being on this earth. Dogs love. As they say, “Dog is God spelled backwards.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

One of Those Random Thought Days

+ I once fell in love with a slouchy, soft, voluminous leather handbag and I promptly bought three more of them (in slightly different colors and variations) to have waiting in the wings. At that time, I told myself I have reached the age when I know what I like, and there is nothing better than a large, butter soft handbag, especially with all of the stuff that I (and my family) tend to jam into my purses. Then, one day, I saw a super stiff, shiny, molded handbag, but it was in the perfect, jaw dropping shade of aqua blue, with red accents. And aqua blue is my second favorite color, right below red. (True Confession: I once purchased a bottle of perfume that I didn’t really even enjoy the scent, because it had an aqua blue bottle with a red lid on it.) I couldn’t resist this purse. Now the truth is, I hate putting my hand in the back pocket of this stiff, inflexible bag, to retrieve my lipstick, because the bag is so hard that my hand tends to get a little cut up from the zipper as I try to carefully and slowly and strategically slide my hand into the pocket, but still . . . . the color. I honestly get more compliments on this purse than any purse I have ever carried. And it turns out that it is easier to find my stuff in a rigid, ungiving purse. My soft purses are almost like infinite, dark, dank caves, where you dip your hand in and you just never know what you might pull out of it. These slouchy bags are almost like snake charmers’ bags. So what’s the point of my story? I don’t know. Variety is the spice of life? Everything has its merits and its flaws? There’s good in being in soft, and there’s good in being firm? Maybe I should try to find a soft leather bag in aqua blue, or just stop wearing lipstick? Maybe this is an example of the ridiculous amount of time I spend over-thinking about things, that in the scheme of things, really do not matter? Who cares, right? You are probably thinking, “Wow, I just wasted a few minutes of my precious time, reading your nonsense about nonsense, Kelly. Do better.”

+ I was spending an infinite amount of time standing in a post office line the other day, so I got to talking to the woman in front of me, in line. She appeared to be around my age and it turns out that her two kids were around some of my kids’ ages (early to mid twenties). She was saying to me, that she was concerned with this pandemic happening that her kids have become too reclusive and too sensitive to noise and to boisterous activity. Having worked from home for this long, her kids can’t stand crowds and commotions. She had taken them to a chic, popular, food market type eatery for dinner the other night and they couldn’t take it. Her kids suggested leaving the hotspot immediately, and getting take-out from Chick-fil-a instead. I said, “Well, at least you got off cheap,” but inside I was starting to wonder if my family was having the same distress and discomfort with noise and action. But my concerns were easily put to rest last night, when all six of us, surrounded by our three boisterous dogs were playing a competitive game of Farkle around our dinner table, and at that moment, I wondered if we were going to break the sound barrier. I wondered if our windows were going to start cracking. I wondered if our neighbors were going to call the police with a noise complaint. And at that moment, I realized that for all of the things that I worry about in regards to my family, worrying about any of them, not being able to handle loud noise and melee can easily be crossed off the trouble doll list. Half the time my family is the noise and the melee. We are usually the ones causing visceral pain to everyone else. And right about now you are probably thinking, “Ugh, is this story your idea of “doing better”, Kelly??? Get out of your head. Go walk your dogs.”

+ “I don’t know why, but all the strangers I met today were extra nice and that can make a day so much brighter.” _ Erica Rhodes, Twitter

I read this Tweet this morning and I thought, “That’s how it seems to go in life. People, on any particular day, are either especially nice or on other days, all people seem to be especially grumpy.” There never seems to be much of an in-between. And then I thought about how many times I have heard the proverb about “seeing people not as they are, but as you are. . . ” and I thought, “Wow, I must have some heavy pendulum, menopausal mood swings.”

You: “Enough. Shut down your thought train, Kelly. Shut down your computer. Go take your hormones.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Women of Excellence

The good news is that my daughter’s COVID test was negative yesterday. We all sighed a big sigh of relief. She works at a local credit union. It started as a summer internship and they asked her to stay on and work part-time during the school year, which happens to be her senior year of high school. I was hesitant about this, for time management reasons, but my daughter loves working there, so my husband and I acquiesced. Recently, one of my daughter’s female managers got promoted, and she was moving to a different location. Upon leaving, the manager wrote a hand written thank you note to my daughter, in which she wrote that my daughter is “a woman of excellence.” I love that terminology, and this is not just because I am a proud mama. One, I love women who support and mentor other women. This is a rarer phenomenon than it should be. Second, I have honestly never seen that terminology in writing before. “A woman of excellence.” What does that mean? I want to be one. I want to be called “a woman of excellence.” I want to believe that I am “a woman of excellence.”

I looked up the word “excellence” in the dictionary. It means “the quality of being outstanding/extremely good”. That’s pretty general, right? I think that we all have things that we are extremely good at, and we all have areas that we could probably work on. Maybe we don’t care enough about certain traits, to work hard enough to become excellent at them. There are certain areas that I do believe that I am “a woman of excellence” and then there are other things in my life that I believe that I am more likely to be called “a woman of sub-standards.” To be “a woman of excellence”, does that mean you have to be good at everything? That feels like a lot of undue stress and pressure, and perhaps, a lesson in frustration and futility. Perhaps being “a woman of excellence” means knowing yourself, knowing your values, and your priorities, and your purposes, and being excellent at these things. I’m not really sure. All that I know is that I would like to be one. I would like to be known as “a woman of excellence.” And I also know that I am grateful that another woman acknowledged and appreciated this quality of excellence in my daughter, besides just her adoring mother. That was an excellent thing for that woman to do, for a young woman coming up in the world behind her. And this vital encouragement is something that all of us “women of excellence” are more than capable to do, for the future generations of excellent women, for whom we are paving the way. If this encouragement and inspiration for young women is the only area that we choose to be excellent at, I am convinced that this will be more than enough.

“Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.” – Anonymous (probably written by an anonymous person of excellence and humility)

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi

“Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.” – Ralph Marston

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday-Funday

My daughter has to take another COVID test today because someone at her work came down with it. Luckily, my middle son got to come home for the holidays. He tested negative for COVID right before heading home, despite his roommate catching it. His roommate was vaccinated and boosted and still came down with it. And now his roommate’s plans to visit his 95-year-old grandfather for Christmas, are ruined. His roommate only had mild symptoms for one day, and now he is left all alone at their apartment for the holidays. I will never turn this blog into a political or controversial or an inflammatory tirade, so all that I will say is “Sigh.” I don’t have the answers. “Sigh.” I (like everyone else) am so sick of this sh%t. “Sigh.” Deep breath. “Sigh.” “Sigh.” “Sigh.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to Soul Sunday. Sunday is the day for poetry on the blog. I started reading a lot of Pearl Jam’s song lyrics before deciding to write my own poem today. It is fair to say that musicians are really poets, who just happen to know how to sing. Eddie Vedder has written some deep stuff in his life. So, I surprised myself when I started doodling my own poem and it turned out to be silly and quirky and fun. That’s what is great about playing around with poetry. You surprise yourself a lot. Write a poem today. Just do it. Surprise and delight yourself. Here is my goofy little ditty for today:

“The Pet Peeve”

There once was woman named Old Mrs. Leave

Who had a huge dog, she appropriately named “Peeve”

She fed him a lot, so he grew and he grew

His favorite thing to do,

was to sit and to stew,

Just like his owner.

Mrs. Leave spent all of her time and focus on Peeve,

To think of anything else, she just couldn’t conceive.

Peeve became a nasty, monstrous beast.

He was snarly and angry, to say the very least.

What is the moral of this poem I released?

“Don’t be a moaner.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

That Glow

Yesterday I experienced some of the lesser qualities that often come up during the holidays. These annoying little frustrations: cancelled orders, delayed orders, thinly-veiled passive aggressive guilt trips, twinkly lights half on/half off, things breaking out of nowhere when I am in a rush to go, long waits to get chores completed, and an email from the high school principal telling us parents to please not worry about a viral, national social media post, threatening bombs and guns at numerous, anonymous American high schools, across the nation. When these types of happenings occur as a one-off, you usually let them slide off your back as best you can, but in the middle of the holidays, when there is this underlying expectation to be so jolly and merry and bright, this string of annoyances made me start to behave like I belong on The Naughty List, in a big way.

While there are so many things that I love about the holidays, yesterday made me focus on what I like the least about the holidays, and that is the distraction of it all. It’s not like our everyday chores and obligations and routines go away, while we are busily and yet also thoughtfully, trying to do all of “the extras” that come with the show. Sometimes I even feel resentful. I just want my “normal” life back. During the holidays, it’s often easy to become irritable, and then flog yourself for being an irritable brat, during what is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year.”

That being said, yesterday I also noticed some of those most special gifts that tend to come around the holidays, the gifts that aren’t wrapped in a bow, and put under the tree. My two youngest children, celebrated being done with their finals, by going to see the Spiderman movie together last night. They both have been Marvel fans since they were little, and they made giddy plans, careful to not watch any spoilers, to go see a movie that they both ended up thinking was one of the best Spiderman movies they had ever seen. When they came home and excitedly regaled my husband and I, with the highlights of the show, my mind kept flashing back to two little children, brother and sister duo, watching Marvel cartoons and playing with action figures for hours. I think, at this moment, I might have started glowing like the Christmas tree.

One of our youngest son’s best friends from high school (and who also attends the same university), picked up our son for some golf yesterday, and he also told our son to keep himself free Monday night, because a few of my son’s buddies are wanting to take him out to a fancy steak house, to belatedly celebrate our son’s 21st birthday. This invitation came on the heels of the news that my son’s fraternity brothers did a fundraiser late this fall, and were proudly able to send a check for over $1000 to the Epilepsy Foundation, in my son’s honor. My son has had to remain home with us, for the majority of this semester, because his epileptic seizures have been uncontrolled, and as always, his wonderful friends have been so supportive and loving and kind. And witnessing all of this, reminded me of just how loving and supportive and kind all of our friends and our family have been to us, during this difficult chapter in my son’s epilepsy experience. And this is when I know that I started glowing, even brighter than our Christmas tree. And I didn’t feel distracted at all, at that moment. At that moment, watching my happy, contented children and reflecting on the love that we have been given from so many people, and the love that we have for so many people, despite my earlier frustrations, in this sometimes crazy, annoying, distracting, frenetic time of the year, all that I felt at that very moment, was peace. All that I felt was love. All that I felt was gratefulness. And these priceless, eternal presents, are the presents that are always here for the taking, when I take the time to notice them, and to soak them in. And that’s when I get that glow, that glow that starts from deep within my heart. I get that glow which you could never buy in a bottle. And I try to hold on to that glow, for as long as I can.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.