Midlife

Midlife / parenting — 5 Comments
27
Apr 12

No more brace face. Or I’m a bad mommy blogger.

I don’t brag on my kids. My dad bragged way too much on me and if anything, I am too slow to praise mine in front of others.

No, I don’t brag about my kids. I blog about them…which is probably far worse.

My son, my dear almost-ready-to-graduate-son got his braces off yesterday.

Before….

 

And when I picked him up an hour later.

 Yes, I am taking pictures these days not only for material for posts but because…

He is leaving me!!!!!!!!

A friend who has another senior son has been posting pictures on her Facebook page of their middle school and high school years.

Every time I’m tagged in a post and I look at some great moment in my child’s life, I can’t help but think…

WHERE WAS I? WHERE WAS MY CAMERA?

Maybe this blogging thing is my record.

Like scribes we are recording our families’ evolution…for whomever in the world happens to click on the blog.

Is it right?

I really don’t know. When my father saw me vigorously twittering on my phone he said, “It’s just not natural.”

I don’t know if it’s natural but my son turning into a young man is very natural — but most unnatural to me.

After four years he got his braces off yesterday.

What I’m really wondering is how did the rest of him change so fast in four years — without any money or brackets or wires?

What about you? Are there things you won’t post on a blog or Facebook?

 

Children / Midlife / Uncategorized — 6 Comments
14
Apr 12

The cord has a teensy tear. And mom has a teensy tear.

 

A person lies under that lump of blankets.

My son.

Our son.

Dad, son and mom were on our way to an Accepted Students Day at his chosen college. Festivities began with breakfast so we got an early start. Hence the comforter and the sleeping senior in the back seat.

From someone who has googled “What freshman need for college” (it’s basically a list like you’d pack for summer camp without the sleeping bag), I figured any organized activity from the school will help me in the next few months get my first child off to college.

Many of you have done this.

And then many of you have young children and this point in their lives heading to college seems as far away as Jupiter.  (Jupiter is still a planet, right? Planets seem to be in such a state of flux these days, I’m never quite sure.)

Yes, it seemed like yesterday I was teaching him his planets. Jupiter is the big one. With the red spot. Mostly all gases they say.

Or he was going with Mr. Troy on church outings to the telescope in Rutledge.

Now overnight I’ve become a tag along “mom” who is overly interested in uncool things.

 

Sitting in the auditorium with the other parents, it seemed like yesterday I was sitting in one with my mom. Out in the middle of Texas — a three hour flight and 2 day drive — from my home.

How did I get in the mom chair?

That’s what struck me today.

With how time roars by, there’s no way in a I’ll ever accomplish all I’d like in the time allowed on this earth. My mom who was sitting with me at my orientation now sits three months from her 80th birthday.

Though she looks damn good for 80 (as I’m sure I will) there’s not much time left for her to save the world.

Same goes for me.

No, today I realized one of my greatest accomplishments lay under a blue comforter on the drive to South Carolina this morning.

Kind of takes the pressure off.

You’d think I’d feel better.

But nope, I still feel like Pluto – first they welcome me as a planet and then they don’t need me in their galaxy anymore.

What about you and this whole children growing up thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attitude Matters / Midlife — 5 Comments
3
Apr 12

Waiting Room Lamentation.

Waiting rooms.

That’s where I was this afternoon.

The hum of the air conditioner – a voice behind me through a wall answered the phone, calling out to check if a patient’s son was current with a tetanus shot.

By the time we got there, later in the day –  chairs were empty.

The phone trilled on, folks scheduling appointments for the next day.

Appointments for people to come and fill up the chairs to wait once again.

I have rushed in this very room with a child bearing split skin over her chin on one occasion and split skin on the knee another.

Once carrying a child with a charred thumb after sticking a paper clip into a light socket.

Today was just calm waiting.

Sometimes we are made to wait. Other times we nail ourselves to the chair refusing to walk through the door when our name is called and a curled finger beckons.

We could spend most of our mortal existence  in rooms — waiting.

Comfortable in a holding-pattern at 30,000 feet expecting that sooner or later someone or something will impact our lives for the better. (Or we’ll finally land in Bora Bora and not Dubuque.)

I’m done with that.

Done waiting for opportunity to throw open the door, running up to me with a full pant-on. Good fortune gushing all over my t-shirt on how deserving I am.

Nope.

No more waiting rooms for me.

Well, except this one…because it really is a waiting room and not a metaphor for a woman treading water in a mid-life cliché.

How about you?

Are you big on waiting?

high school football / Midlife / Uncategorized — 2 Comments
11
Oct 11

Musing on stinky clothes.

I grew up in a family of girls.

The first “male part” I saw was in grade school. The two-year-old brother of a friend running around naked after a bath.

Why do men — of any age —  love to run around naked? Or stroll around naked?  Utterly  unconcerned with the effect their nakedness is having on innocent bystanders. (That is an entirely different and much complicated post.)

 

*           *            *

My son was leaving just now.

“Oh mom, by the way, it was really muddy in practice. Can you wash my clothes?”

I picked up the black bag.

Growing up with a sister  — the only “black bag” we knew was carried by our grandfather, the doctor. We knew nothing of athletic bags that sons cram wet, body-sweat laden clothes into.

Why shouldn’t they?

Mom is going to reach in there and touch those cold, wet things and wash them.

How could she do this? I made her drop it after realizing she might get some sort of staph infection.

 

She said, “It’s not that bad?”

I made her drop it immediately.

A photograph can't capture the tint of the grime or the scent of dead animals.

 

It was so bad, I emptied clothes from the bag into the washer.

 

And for the good of all humanity, threw the bag in too.

 

How do you clean athletic wear – from the body odor of a teenage male or mid-life hormonal stink-like-I’ve-never-stinked-in-my-life woman?

Midlife — 11 Comments
15
Sep 11

Weighing in on scales. A Muse to lose a few pounds.

I’m female. And I obsess about my weight.

HATE it.

I weigh myself first thing every morning. (Well, after I go teeter to remove any excess water hanging out in my bladder.)

Lately, the scale has been five pounds up, then down five pounds. Within five seconds.

Don’t  be messin’ with my head like that.

I changed the battery and it still acted like a eighth grade girl deciding on an outfit to wear the first day of school.

“Do you think I need a new scale?” I asked hubby.

“That thing has been hauled to Saigon and back. I’m sure it’s worn out.”

I do take it everywhere.

Here I am leaving a hotel last fall. My husband took this to show me how stupid I look leaving a vacation with a scale tucked under my arm.

Everyone's two favorite accessories. A Starbucks cup and digital scale.

 

Something had to stop the insanity. (Not weighing everyday, but not knowing what I really weigh.)

So in a quest for justice, I headed to the local purveyor of scales.

 

There were all these terms…body fat, Professional…. 

Weight trend tracking. That’s what I needed.

That’s why I weigh every day. You want to nip a trend before while it is still new and fad-ish not after it becomes mainstream in layers on your middle.

As I was saying to one of my younger running partners the other day, when you are young…you gain a few pounds then you just exercise hard for a week and they vanish.

Now well…well into my fourth decade, once they’ve moved in, those happy pounds stick around like split orange juice on the kitchen floor.

I decided on…

Since I am such the amazing, aging athlete.

Good thing I bought that feature, for I couldn’t figure how to program it into the scale.

I weighed on my old scale, then stepped on my new.

Instantly I lost 3.5 pounds.

I LOVE my new professional, body fat, athlete scale that I can’t program.

Once again, all is right in the universe.

Are you a daily, weekly, or “I never step on a scale ” person? 

Life in Madison / Midlife — 10 Comments
2
Sep 11

Today’s Muse. It’s not easy being gray.

Me and Beth pre- hair do. It looks like she's stopping by for a visit with Mrs. Miles - her first grade teacher.

 

 

My 10-year-old daughter stays perturbed with me.

“Why don’t you color your gray hair? It makes you look old.”

Such the tender-hearted lassy.

“I’m going to dye my hair when I grow up. I’ll be 90 and people will think I’m young.”

 

*  *  *

Don’t know why I don’t cover my gray? Guess it’s just not me. (Some days I really wish it was.)

 

*  *  *

But I do go in once every 5 years to Beth at Petals for some highlights.

Beth met me today. “I’ve been thinking about you. Why don’t we do low-lights and make your gray the highlights?”

“Sure,” I said. “I trust you Beth.”

I think she just inferred there was a tsunami of gray coming in and we had to develop a new color strategy.  (Hate it when that happens.)

*  *  *

Beth went to work.

*  *  *

Afterwards, I moved to a comfy chair to let the dye work its magic.

I pulled out a book.

POW.

All of a sudden, some evil person got me in the neck with a tranquilizer dart.  Just like Dexter. Obviously, it wasn’t him since I am here writing this.

I could not keep my eyes open.

I erased the picture of the sleeping me.

I will post pictures of my old hands. Or photos of me as Medusa in foils, but Ill never leave the image of me with drool slipping from my mouth onto a big wet spot on the chair floating about forever in cyberspace.

 *  *  *

Moms.

We stay still for 10 minutes and we go unconscious.  At least this mom does.

*  *  *

All done for another five years.

I thought this a clever way to show my cut and blow-out without having to pay excessive airbrushing fees.

What do you do? Gray or no?

Midlife / South — 18 Comments
24
Aug 11

Today’s Muse. Stairway to the Me I Forgot.

This morning, I chose to walk this path.

To an attic in a house I haven’t lived for ten years.

Someone is moving in and doesn’t want my stuff taking up space.

Some people.

So I strode the teetering path and found many things I had completely forgotten.

 

Completely forgot modeling for this 38 Special album cover.

 

Can show Mom why I haven't entertained for the last 10 years. Who can hostess without a lace apron?

 

Completely unable to find the 2011-2012 Morgan County Primary School Handbook I received last week, I do have the 1998 Peachtree Road Methodist Preschool Handbook. (Excellent condition. I don't think it's been opened.)

 

My hair was that color...naturally? (How did she do that?)

 

I  still have that coat hanging in my closet.

 

The dude I'm hugging above was hiding his "Sexiest Legs" under those acid-washed jeans.

 

 

Another stunner. Handmade Halloween costumes. By my hands. Wonder if Jake could fit his 6'1'' frame into this to trick-or-treat?

 

I found a small index card box with 3x5 cards where I had written a bible verse and the date. Here's the one for today's date 1996.

 

I have no memory of doing that. Did I memorize them? Why the date?

Who was this girl who made Halloween costumes, saved preschool handbooks and wrote bible verses on 3×5 cards. (And where did her lovely handwriting go?)

Alright, I still have a thing for 3×5 cards.

Writing bible verses and things on 3×5 cards seem to be the one common denominator between the girl in the attic and the woman at the keyboard.

And she’s still hugging the guy wearing the acid-washed jeans.

Have you cleaned out an attic lately? What did you find?  Or re-find about yourself.

 

 

iPhone Photo Phun

Midlife — 4 Comments
23
Aug 11

Today’s Muse. Is it hot in here?

Image created by my daughter.

 

I spent yesterday in an oven.

No. That’s not right. It was more like there was an oven inside me turned to 400 degrees.

I asked my daughter to create an image of me burning up. I chose a winter picture to emphasize that I am never, ever hot in winter. (This looks stupid I now realize, but I’m not waking her up to do another pic.)

The rest is her design.

My only request was that she didn’t cover me with flames so that I was unrecognizable and have worms crawling from my eyeballs and smelly swirls of steaming poop hanging from my hair. (Which usually adorn these Doodle Pad creations.)

Though at certain points yesterday that was an apt description of how I felt.

I thought I was getting sick.

That wasn’t it.

I went into Atlanta for my Writer’s Group and sat for over 2 hours in an air-conditioned deep freeze and was fine.

Then I came home to a ransacked house.

Do you know how hard it is to give full, emergency cleaning effort when your skin feels like a cookie just taken out of a 350 degree oven? (But never cools off.)

Surely, I must be getting sick.

They are called Hot Flashes.

Not Hot Your-Body-Has-Turned-Into-Nuclear-Reactor.

I thought these things involved sweating. Which I would welcome at this point. Sweating would involve cooling off before meltdown.

Any advice?

 

* * *

GRAPHICS ADDENDUM

 

This is what daughter came up with this afternoon.