Posts Tagged: Midlife

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?

Marriage / Uncategorized — 5 Comments
22
Sep 11

Mr. SMMuse’s advice on a romantic getaway: his muse moves.

Every couple needs time away.

Not just time away from each other, I’m talking about the all-important time away

with each other.

Now some might think I talked bad about my husband yesterday.

I state facts as I see them…but he really sky-rocked in the  dude department when we landed in our room.

His three muse moves to romantic success.

Upon arrival:

 

1.

He pulled out plenty of wine.

 

2.

He had squirreled away plenty of lacy things. (For me not him -- not that I mind a guy with a feminine side.)

 

Okay. Those are most bathing suits but this is a PG-blog. Not that I would mind my children reading this and seeing pictures of lacy things. Children, you just need remember these things are is for mommys and daddys who love each other very much.*

So if he didn’t have all that going for him, he made himself utterly irresistible..

and gave me this.

3.

 

I love this man.

 

What is a gift that unlocks your heart and your …well, best stop with heart?

 

 

* And who are married to each other.

 

 

 

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? 

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

Columns / Latest Newspaper Column — 8 Comments
31
Mar 11

“You can dance. You can jive…As long as you’re home before 5.”

Sit me down in front of a movie and you might as well pry open my mouth and pour in a few hundred Ambien. My husband encouraged me to go on a girls’ night to Athens to see the musical “Mamma Mia” saying, “Well, maybe you’ll stay awake this time to find out who she ends up with.”

Not even a backdrop of white-washed Greek villas and turquoise Mediterranean vistas could keep me vertical during the movie. But this would be a live show. Certainly shame would stop me from waking to find my head nuzzling a friend’s shoulder and having to dry clean petrified spittle off her blouse. Continue reading →

Fashion Nonsense / Treasures of the transformed life — No Comments
31
Oct 10

Today’s treasure ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

Sally thought Jamie Lee Curtis looked great with short hair. Even with the gray. What do people have against gray? Gray was all Sally ever knew.

Okay ~ I just commented on a post about how older women lob off their hair. And it had a picture of Jamie Lee Curtis.

Who, of course, looks great. But she always has (and always has worn her hair short).

With Janet Lee and Tony Curtis as parents -- can't blame her for looking like that.

 What does this have to do with treasures of the transformed life?

I don’t know, but funny how so many women commented on why women of a certain age shear off their hair.

Me included.

Bottom line.

Why does someone being different bother us?

As in women over 50 with gray hair down their backs.

That’s the best part of church. Getting to know the woman over 50 with gray hair flowing down her back. And finding out that she’s an accountant with a hobby in entomology.

And that she loves to go read to a certain little boy at the primary school every Wednesday.

Or that she loves to make baklava and take it to the shut in down the street. She delivers some once a month and chats with her elderly friend ~ never once looking at her watch.

An I doing my part? Have I ever judged someone who appears to be doing less than I am?

Never. Well, there is that woman  (she must be at least 58) with the really long gray hair. What is she thinking? Doesn’t she know that long hair on anyone over 45 is terribly aging.

Family / South — No Comments
7
Oct 10

Today’s Muse. Little Boy Haircuts.

Sometimes my life is so cliche, I think I can’t write about a subject ~ it’s too cliche.

But sometimes life in your mid-40s sandwiched between aging parents and young children just melts from one fat platitude into another.

I’ve refused to blog about my children getting haircuts because everyone who has a blog shows a picture of their child in the barber chair.

But then I visited my parents this week and the subject kept coming back to my son’s hair. Please take him to Maria — the woman hair-keeper to my parent’s dos. “She can shape up his hair.”

Shape-up. Code for…you’ve let his hair get too long, too unruly. You’ve been following your own butterfly fancies and neglected to tame your son’s mane. Or failed to interrupt your desires and drive him to a stylist.

One thing age has tamed in me…the desire to battle my parents over cliches.

The march into Danny's.

Danny was a barber who left to follow a call as a Methodist preacher and now Maria, who apprenticed haircutting in Spain at age 12, runs Danny’s for Danny — who now is answering his holy call.

And once again I stepped into the middle of an old time haircuttery cliche.

I fell in love with Maria and Danny’s and knew I was supposed to be there in that chair watching my son get his haircut even if it meant squishing down every ounce of frustration at my parents for not so subtly trying to parent their very middle-aged daughter.

Maria and Joe.

Maria reminded me of my high school Spanish teacher, whom I loved. She was so vibrant, nuturing, positive and kind. Energy radiated from her. She talked of many things — but one thing she said I will always remember. She said it as an afterthought in a lot of conversation about Joe’s curls.

Curls which Joe can’t stand.

“Your hair makes you standout. You are different. You don’t look like anyone else, that’s why people notice you.”

And that was the revelation.

Joe does stand out. People notice his hair. He is very beautiful and different in his Joe way. But for the first time I got it.

He’s not so sure he likes to stand out. He not so sure he wants to be so different.

Joe is a ham and cut up. But like everyone — there are days you just want to have your straight, shag-Keith-Partridge cut like everyone else and fade into the 7th grade hall wall.

It’s my job to make him realize how special — looking different and being noticed  — is.

All done...

Some days I wonder if I can be the daughter I need to be and many days I wonder if I can be the mom this head of curls needs me to be…

In that chair in Danny’s listening to the television droning, in that shop with the little Spanish flags, drawing of Christ wearing the crown of thorns, tons of snapshots of relatives,

 I knew.

Columns / Latest Newspaper Column — 1 Comment
22
Sep 10

This Sort of Thing Never Happens at the Aquatics Center.

“A gentleman in the pool said he wanted you to have this.” 

Continue reading →

Blogging / South — 1 Comment
21
Sep 10

When the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars…Or blogging is cheaper than therapy.

That is what the sky is to look like tonight.   

Today, Jupiter is going to be in opposition.  Astronomers call this an Event. Not to be confused with The Event on television last night.  I only saw the last 15 minutes because I was out on my porch looking for Jupiter.  

How lazy must the executives at NBC be getting to think that a melding 24 and LOST will be the next super show. Right now the jury is out for me. But I hate to have my intelligence insulted that way – by powerful network executives. Even if it is the network of “The Office” and “30 Rock.”   

Back to Jupiter….

Last night (the 20th)  Jupiter was the closest to Earth since 1963 — 47 years ago. Last night, Jupiter was only 368 million miles away.   

Here is what it looked like from our porch.   

See the bitty dot in the bottom left...

 

It was perfect for a snuggle with Tebow.   

It took a while to get the picture right. 

Continue reading →