midlife Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Adulting: Second- Half

Friday Frenzy

*****Ugh. I lost my entire post into the abyss and I had to start all over again. This has only happened to me one or two other times. My mouth needs to be cleaned out from the filth that was erupting from it.*****

Here we go again! Happy FRIDAY!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday, friends and readers!!! We keep it silly and surface-y, here at Adulting -Second Half, on Fridays. (I just hit Save Draft) On Fridays, I typically list around three favorite anythings, whether they be products, websites, songs, books, etc. etc. that have helped keep a spring in my step and joy in my life. I encourage you to add your favorites to the Comments section. Please also check out previous Friday posts for more favorites. Share the love!!

As my regular readers know (I know that you are getting really used to my complaints), we have had a little renovation project going on here at our home, that we are finally wrapping up. (I just hit Save Draft) The final touch to most projects, is the paint. I am very happy with the paint colors which we have chosen, so I thought that I would pass the paint colors on to you. All of these colors are neutral, background, subtle colors. None of them are color popping, statement colors, just so you know. (I just hit Save Draft) Some fun, helpful painting tips: Paint the color sample on to a white piece of poster board and tape it to the wall. This helps from the distortion of the color that may happen, if you just paint the color on the old paint, underneath the new paint. Also, the magical internet has pictures of rooms painted in the colors that you are considering and often, you can find more than one picture in different lighting. Finally, artists and crafters are happy and grateful to take the little containers of paint samples off of your hands for their projects. Just advertise them for free on Craigslist or neighborhood social media venues. (I just hit Save Draft) Win-win for all, including Mother Earth!!

Here are my paint color recommendations (they are all Sherwin Williams, as that is the brand of paint that our painter likes to work with):

(I just hit Save Draft)

SW6099 Sand Dollar – warm, slightly tan, slightly peach, glowy, dreamy. This is the color that you would have picked out of a crayon box, as a kid, to depict white people’s skin, but not pasty people.

SW7013 Ivory Lace – creamy, warm, glowy, very slightly pinky/ peachy. Matches anything. Clean and bright.

SW9166 Drift of Mist – slight, slight gray. Mist describes it perfectly. Bright, light, clean, crisp tint of gray.

(I just hit Save Draft)

SW7656 Rhinestone – the whitest of white, blues. White that might be a little bit blue. Subtle white, light blue. This does not scream light blue, it hints at it . . . .

I hope that you all have a very colorful weekend, as colorful as what was coming out of my mouth when I realized I lost my entire first draft. (I just hit Save Draft)

What is the Question?

To work on and practice my writing, I starting answering some questions on Quora. Today, I was flattered to have someone ask me, specifically, a direct question. I started to question in my mind, why they wanted me to answer their question. Most questions are Quora are not black and white. Some people post riddle-like, mathematical equation type questions that I suppose may have factual, right or wrong answers. Still, most of Quora seems to be more philosophical, “from your life experience”, what is your opinion on such-and-such topic?

I didn’t reach out to the person asking me the question, but I have to assume that she must have liked some of my previous answers and thus thought that I might have some good wisdom to share for her query. This reminded me of this quote I read a while back:

“People sometimes say be honest when they really mean validate me.” – Holiday Mathis

That statement is a hard truth, isn’t it? There are very few people in your life who will give you their complete, unvarnished truth, as they see it. The older that I get, the more I value these people in my life, even if I want to slap them silly, first. A book that I just finished and recommend reading, called Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb, describes therapists’ work as the intricate process of supporting patients, while confronting them at the same time. That must be almost impossible work. Talk about a tight rope act.

Along these same lines, I love this:

Image result for discussions are always better than arguments

Have a wonderful weekend, my treasured friends. My prayers and thoughts are going out to all of us, but are particularly intense for those of you who are going through some of life’s tougher uncertainties and situations that cause fear, pain and grief. You’ve got my arms around you from afar. See you tomorrow!

Big Balls

So, I did something really strange this week. (perhaps regular readers are used to me doing strange things) An electrician doing work in our house, was listening to the radio and AC/DC was playing. The song was “Big Balls.” This triggered a memory.

For those of you who are not familiar with “Big Balls”, here are the lyrics to the chorus:

I’ve got big balls
I’ve got big balls
And they’re such big balls
Dirty big balls
And he’s got big balls,
And she’s got big balls,
But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all!

The memory that got triggered by this interesting song is that the first time that I heard the “Big Balls” song is when I was introduced to it, late at night, at a sleepover, when I was in elementary school. We were giggling a lot, listening to it, and I am sure that my eyes were the size of saucers but I probably pretended that I already knew the lyrics. What bad-ass little kids, my friends and I must have been! Ha!

So, I thought about the friend who hosted the sleepover. She was one of my best friends in elementary school but we lost touch after that, as we never went to the same schools after elementary school. I remember her being daring, brutally honest and smart as a whip. Now, I don’t go on to Facebook very often, so I decided to just “Google” her name and the first site to come up, was her professional website. Turns out that my elementary school friend is currently a successful tax attorney in Chicago. Even though we haven’t seen each other in 40 years, I immediately recognized the piercing, “see right through you” expression on her face, on her professional, attractive, lawyer-ly picture that came with her bio.

Now, here comes the crazy part. I emailed my friend, at her law firm email address and I entitled the email “Blast from the Past.” I admitted, in my email, that the reason that she came to my mind was because of the “Big Balls” song. I gave a little blurb about my life and I asked how she was doing, hoping that she remembered me and then I sent it before I rationally thought about how weird and desperate and stalker-like the email could come across. (and I sent it to a lawyer . . . )

And then I waited. And then I started thinking rationally and feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. I mean, people expect you to reach out on venues like Facebook and Instagram and Linked In, but sending a random email to someone you haven’t had contact with, in over 40 years, to their place of employment, discussing a song called “Big Balls”, started to seem a bit “out there”, even for me, the lady who doesn’t embarrass all that easily.

So then I started rationalizing. I allowed myself this crazy blip. This was perhaps, just an unfortunate lack of judgment. I have been very stressed, having my house swarming with workers and dust clouds. I’m probably in some kind of mild midlife crisis. I miss my kids. . . even the kids who still live here. (those of you with teenagers, know what I mean)

I had just finished reading a great book, a thriller, and I got to thinking that even if I didn’t hear back from my elementary school friend, I could turn this whole scenario into an excellent start of a psycho-thriller novel. A bored housewife reaches out on a whim to an old, intriguing friend, who still lives on the edge (remember she’s the one who introduced me to “Big Balls” when we were probably only nine or ten years old) who ends up working for a “law” firm, which secretly does espionage work for the government or the mob or the Russians. And somehow the bored housewife innocently gets involved in all of the intrigue, and has to outsmart the government (easy) or the mob or the Russians (less easy and more dangerous). I realize that this makes for a great premise of a best-selling novel. (and someone out there who is better at writing fiction than me, should definitely steal the idea – it has Hollywood written all over it) Anyway, I started getting overwhelmed thinking about all of the research and fiction writing classes, a book like this would entail, when I noticed that I had a new email message.

It was from my friend, of course. And she remembered me! And she was thrilled to hear from me! And she was glad that I didn’t look for her on Facebook because she, like me, has dropped off of that scene for the most part, too. The best part of the email was that she had recently heard a different AC/DC song (Dirty Deeds) and when she heard that song, she said that she thought about our fifth grade picnics and she reminded me of a few more people that were good childhood comrades who I had long forgotten about. She laughed about us listening to “Big Balls” at her house and she said while she doesn’t remember the instance, she now realizes that it was “wildly inappropriate”. (her words) I thought about that and I thought that probably a less “wildly inappropriate” song would not have stuck in my memory and I would not have likely reached out to her, forty years later and experienced some really nice email exchanges and fond laughs and impressions, about shared childhood memories.

I think that this is how the Universe works. The Universe does not know time. The Universe does know that “wildly inappropriate” can be used in wildly appropriate ways to bring joy and remembrance and connection to people, perhaps when they need those feelings the most. At the very least, I don’t regret my “Big Balls” decision to email my long, lost friend.

Experience Forever

“One of the most bittersweet feelings has to be when you realize how much you’re going to miss a moment, while you’re still living it.” -u.fo Twitter

This one hit me in the gut this morning. There are a lot of moments in life when you just wish time would fly, when the clouds will pass and quickly. (waiting for a job offer or medical results or for your teenage kids to get safely home at night . . . for renovations to be finished and strangers out of your house) But then there are those perfect moments, like the author described, that are so perfect, so beautiful, so profound, that you wish that you could just freeze those moments and go back to them, again and again. These moments remain in your memory, of course. You may have even gotten a few photos to help outline that memory, but the actual feelings, sensations, experiences will never be duplicated in quite the same way that is happening in that very moment that you wish could last forever. Often times we don’t even grasp that we are in one of those “big” moments until the experience has already passed. The most poignant experiences are the ones when you are fully aware of just how amazing and awe-inspiring these moments are, how special and fleeting these particular happenings are in life and you want to enjoy and savor them, but at the same time, you are already mourning their future loss.

I have become one of those annoying middle-aged women that pissed me off when I was a young mother.

“Enjoy these moments. They grow up so fast!”

When I was younger, that statement, spouted to me by a woman with grown kids would often overwhelm me with fatigue, and anger, and guilt and stress. But I think sometimes it jogged me into a new perspective – added a little bit more patience into my demeanor with my children. It put a little more awareness in me about the preciousness and fleetingness of life, and the moments that make up life. Sometimes, in my utter exhaustion, I slowed down enough to see the constant changes and growth in my children, sometimes on a daily basis. And on rare occasions, I was so overwhelmed with love, and gratefulness, and the awe of the gift of their lives in my life and our lives intertwined, that I wanted to crystallize and become a static statue of that particular moment, with all of the feelings and sensations encapsulated, so that I could experience it forever.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
― Georges Duhamel

Book Binge

I’ve been on a book binge. There are worse things to binge on, right? I love to read. To me, reading is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Two books that I recommend are My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb.

I finished My Lovely Wife in a day. It is a horribly dark, scary thriller about a suburban couple who become serial killers together. I’ve been frustrated with how long our renovations are taking, so I thought that reading this book was a healthy way to vent my dark side. The book is not particularly gory or gruesome, but it is chilling and I have been jumpy ever since reading it. I like to tell myself that I read My Lovely Wife to see what a successful first novel looks like, but the truth is, I found the premise of the book, kind of intriguing and interesting and I like books with twists and turns. It’s a page turner, for sure, and it is likely to end up as a movie, starring Jessica Chastain.

I’m halfway through Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Lori Gottlieb is a Stanford educated therapist who writes a weekly advice column for The Atlantic. She turned into a therapist later in life, as she also attended medical school and worked as a producer for TV shows like “Friends” and “ER”. Lori explains all of this in her book in such a candid, honest, funny way that I stayed up late to keep reading it last night and now, this morning, I am cranky as hell. But as soon as I finish this post, I am going to get back to reading the book. It’s really good. The book is the true story of a “therapist going to a therapist” after a bad break-up and the insights from both sides are hilarious, helpful, insightful and a truly honest look at what it means to be human, and sometimes flawed, in our thinking and our perspectives.

Please share in the comments section your book recommendations. When I’m on a book binge, I just want to keep on going. I want to eat the whole box of doughnuts and/or the entire cake, you know what I mean?

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” – Harper Lee

You Matter

I love people who return their carts to the return station.

I love people who are kind and interested, no matter what or who the subject matter is, at hand.

I love people who still write thank you notes.

I love people who laugh at everyone’s jokes and make them feel special and at ease.

I love people who are honest about who they are and do not perform metamorphosis, depending on their company.

I love people with sparkle in their eyes.

I love people who believe that almost everyone has good intentions.

I love people whose whole body smiles, when they do.

I love people who get excited about their passions.

I love people who remember little, seemingly inconsequential things that are meaningful to other people.

I love people who love nature and animals.

I love people who are comfortable in their own skin.

I love curious people.

I love people who can laugh at themselves.

I love people who you can rely on.

What’s on your list of favorite traits in people? I imagine you fit into my list, so thank you for being you. You brighten my life! You brighten other people’s lives! People notice. They really do. You matter.

The Negative Committee

The above is another great post on Twitter’s Think Smarter. Esther Hicks says to tell ourselves, “This unpleasant thought is unnecessary” any time a negative thought enters our minds. It scares me how much I have to use that mantra.

What if just for today we treated ourselves as kindly as we would treat a blameless child or an innocent animal or a service person doing a kindness for us? What if just for today we gazed at ourselves in the mirror as lovingly as we gaze at the people, the pets, the flowers or anything else that we love so much for the joy and happiness that these persons, animals and things bring to us? It’s our eyes that allow us to do the gazing. It’s our minds that process our senses and feelings about what we are gazing at and it is our hearts that fill with fullness and joy and wonder, when we are doing the gazing. Don’t our eyes, our minds, and our hearts deserve love and gratefulness for helping us process all of the marvels in our world? Shouldn’t we be careful what we feed into our eyes and our minds and our hearts? We have more control in this regard, than we think we do.

Image result for quotes on avoiding negativity — **Better yet, I think it might just be apropos to fire this committee and shut the door on them forever, dear readers!! Just for today, at least, cancel the meeting with the negative committee!!**

Fried-day

Last night, I ordered the fried seafood extravaganza at a local little restaurant my husband and I love to frequent. With a side of fries. It arrived, a giant, overflowing pile of various shapes, in crispy brown. Yes, it tasted great, but now my mouth is still coated in grease, my stomach is churning and burning, and my mind is trying to come up with a formula for the number of cucumbers and kale leaves I must eat today, to counteract the damage done. I’m going to have to cut this short today, friends. (Friend is a much better word than fried, it’s amazing what one little letter can do . . . ) Virginia Woolf said it best:

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

Nor can one write well. Well, maybe Virginia Woolf could, but she was Virginia Woolf.

But Keep the Old

“Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” – Girl Scout song (in honor of the fact that it is Girl Scout cookie time – YAY!)

My husband and I went to a few new restaurants this weekend and they were all a bust. These were local establishments that were on our “List to Try” and since it was a relatively unscheduled three-day weekend, we were eager to give them a try. Not one of them made it on the list “To Go to Again.” It became almost a comedy of how bad it could get. I kept looking to see if there were cameras pointed in our direction, like we were on one of those Candid Camera type shows. Servers not showing up to the table and when they finally came, due to our exaggerated flagging them down, they acted like they were doing us a huge favor by writing down our orders. At one restaurant, my husband ordered a beer. It came out flat and tasted like fruit juice. He asked for a different one. It came out the same style. He finally ordered a canned beer to be on the safe side and it was full of ice. We went to brunch yesterday and my chicken fried steak basically had a cold can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup plopped unceremoniously on top of it. And this restaurant had pictures of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson on the wall, proving their visit! These establishments all had decent Yelp scores.

Do you ever feel like you are carrying some kind of strange energy that is coming with you wherever you go? By yesterday, I would have been more surprised if our brunch cafe would have turned out to be good and tasty. Sometimes I feel cursed by my need to adventure. Sometimes I feel envious of people who have the routine of going to their established favorites all of the time, whether it be restaurants, vacations, stores, etc. Maybe these people are better at owning what they like and knowing that their expectations will be met, at the places where they are loyal customers. I wish I didn’t get bored so easily. I have a huge fear of “ruts.” Maybe the price to pay for the need of novelty, is going through a lot of rocks before you find a gem. And while searching for new gems, it is probably best not to forget the special gems that you have found before and every once in a while, remember to go back to the old gems to appreciate their steadfast gleam.

“Develop the wings of loyalty and you will fly above the dooms of disappointments.” – Israelmore Ayivor

State of Mind

“If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to the state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘You know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.” – Jeff Foxworthy

“The state fair . . .where the four food groups are fried, deep-fried, sugared and on-a-stick.” – maxine.com

My daughter is going with her friends today, to the state fair. She is so excited. I am so excited that she has reached an age where I don’t have to go to the state fair with her. Honestly, I do like parts of the state fair. I like looking at the animals. I never knew that there were so many breeds of chickens until I went to a state fair. However, I have grown up past the rickety rides and the deep fried butter sticks. I’ll be satisfied just to hear her stories. I’m sure they’ll be good.

“State fairs are the confluence of the garish and the profound.”
― Douglas Wissing