Life’s Transitions; A Mother’s Perspective

If You Leave

Life is a series of beginnings and endings. Life moves too quickly. I spend most of my day wishing for 5:00, most of my week wishing for the weekend, and most of my year wishing for the next big thing; Summer, Christmas, or a vacation. It isn’t until I get to a big transition in my life that I realize how much time I has gone by wishing for the next big thing.

This Spring, my oldest child will graduate from high school and go off to college. This Spring, my oldest child will graduate from high school and go off to college. No, that wasn’t a typo. I needed to say that again for my own sake.  Where has the time gone?  It seems like just yesterday, he was that 3rd grader who walked down the school hall with me, let go of my hand and said, “Mom, I can get to my class on my own.” Just last week, wasn’t he was a toddler learning how to walk? And just a month ago, it seems, I was going to college myself!

My goal this year, as I turn 50, as my first born child goes off to college, and as my parents age, is to not wish away life.  I’ll try to find one thing every day to enjoy about the important people in my life.  Enjoy the moment, because it all goes too soon.

2014 is My Golden Year Too!

2014 is My Golden Year Too!

I’m so lucky to have been born in 1964, not just because it was the Year of the Dragon, or the last year to be a Baby Boomer, but it was also the year that the Beatles came to America, the year that the Mustang was born (of which my family and I have owned 4), and the same year that our First Lady, Michelle Obama was born.  Oh, it must have been a great year, 1964.

A year after President Kennedy was assassinated, our country must have either been healing or still needing some time for comfort.  Regardless of the reasons, more influential things happened during that year than in most other years.  Here are some more celebs with whom I am lucky to share a birth year:

• Brad Pitt!
• Sandra Bullock
• Nicholas Cage
• Matt Dillon
• Russell Crowe
• Elle MacPherson
• Melissa Gilbert
• Courteney Cox
• Keanu Reeves; ‘sigh…’

1964 is also the year that Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, and The Addams Family aired on our TV’s with knob channel changers.  (I wish I could say I share a birth year with The Brady Bunch, but that show didn’t start until 1969.) BASIC language was born, Satellites were transferring TV images into our living rooms, because that was the only place we had TV’s.  And most importantly, The Civil Rights Act was signed by President Johnson.

When I was young, 50 sounded so OLD!  Now, it doesn’t seem so bad when I know that I’m in good company in My Golden Year. What are you looking forward to on your next birthday?

My Backyard

In For the Ride

My Backyard:  One of the greatest memories of my early childhood

What are the earliest memories of the place you lived in as a child? Describe your house. What did it look like? How did it smell? What did it sound like? Was it quiet like a library, or full of the noise of life? Tell us all about it, in as much detail as you can recall.

As a child of the 70’s in a small town in Texas, no we didn’t have horses or ride to school in wagons, my greatest memories are of playing outside in my backyard.  Our house was a modest house.  My parents were both public school educators, so we had everything we needed.  The house wasn’t extravagant, but our backyard was, at least in the eyes of an 8 year old. Before Atari, computers, and cable TV, the inside didn’t have much to…

View original post 227 more words

My Backyard

My Backyard:  One of the greatest memories of my early childhood

What are the earliest memories of the place you lived in as a child? Describe your house. What did it look like? How did it smell? What did it sound like? Was it quiet like a library, or full of the noise of life? Tell us all about it, in as much detail as you can recall.

As a child of the 70’s in a small town in Texas, no we didn’t have horses or ride to school in wagons, my greatest memories are of playing outside in my backyard.  Our house was a modest house.  My parents were both public school educators, so we had everything we needed.  The house wasn’t extravagant, but our backyard was, at least in the eyes of an 8 year old. Before Atari, computers, and cable TV, the inside didn’t have much to offer.  Oh, I could read. But why read inside when I could sit in a 50 year old cottonwood?  The wind would blow through the trees as I read the likes of Little House on the Prairie, Nancy Drew, or Judy Blume.

But the trees weren’t the only things that beckoned me to my backyard.  We also had a jungle gym.  No ordinary swing set, mind you, but a set that included monkey bars, a set of rings, a fireman’s pole, in addition to a swing.  Our imaginations soared!  In the summer, my neighborhood friends and I would have contests to see who could cross the monkey bars first, who could walk across them, who could jump the highest off of the swing.  It’s a wonder none of us ever broke anything! We would hold a circus on Saturdays for anyone who wanted to come see our daring tricks, complete with my dog playing the role of a clown, costume included.  Of course, only the youngest in the neighborhood were gullible enough to spend a quarter to watch us.

As we got older, my friends and I would leave my backyard for better things; the mall, movies, hanging out in the Jack in the Box parking lot.  The monkey bars grew rusty and the rope swing frayed but the memories remain of the backyard of my childhood.

Record Album Memories

Record Album Memories

One of my most favorite memories when I was young was laying in front of my dad’s console stereo on a Saturday afternoon, listening to his albums.  I loved the album covers about as much as I loved the music.  I  wore out Simon and Garfunkel, The Fifth Dimension, Herb Alpert, Chick Corea, Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, Three Dog Night, The Mama’s and The Papa’s, and of course, the Eagles.  Now I have a playlist on my iPod with these artists.  But it’s just not the same.  I miss the crackle of the needle on the album and the smell of the covers, kind of like an old bookstore.  Upstairs at my parent’s house, my dad’s old console still sits, with the albums still in them, and all of those memories.

Laundry: It’s what’s looming in my life

Laundry: It’s what’s looming in my life

We all have jobs, tasks, and chores that we dislike doing. Tell us all about the least favorite job/task/chore that you get stuck doing routinely. What is it about this duty that you can’t stand?

It’s there. In a basket in my closet. On the floor in my daughter’s room. Jeans on the floor of my son’s room.  Towels on the floor in the bathroom.  Whites, darks, colors in the laundry room. Clean pile on my bed, ready to be folded.  Some folded and ready to be put away.  Help!  I’m drowning in a sea of laundry!  And what am I doing rather than the laundry?  Writing about laundry.  I’ll do anything besides laundry.