Please don't call me a Scrooge (okay, go ahead if you must), but since the holiday hoopla started just about the time Halloween was winding down, I'm really tired of it by now. The endless catalogs cluttering my mailbox; the flash sale pop-ups each time I turn on my computer - they're like those pesky black flies that keeping dodging the swatter and are impossible to kill! - the commercials at decibel levels that make my ears ring; the Christmas songs that play...and play...and play...in an endless reel long after they've actually stopped playing but instead get stuck in my head and follow me to bed { Read More }
I Don’t Get This Whole Texting Thing
Okay, I need to get this off my chest at the risk of sounding old. And a little cranky. But hear me out. I think it's just a bit strange...no, not strange...maybe a better word is sad...that the younger generation (Oh, I hate sounding like this! But what else can I call them??) can't make a simple phone call when they want to ask someone out. I was recently having a conversation with a 20-something year-old. I'm not going to 'out' the person and reveal who it was, but let's call him YM (Young Male). YM is adorable, personable and the kind of guy any girl in their right mind would want to date. And { Read More }
Valuable Lessons Learned from Aging
I have friends of all ages, ranging in age from 20-somethings to 80-somethings. I enjoy them all; time together is always time well spent. When I'm with the younger ones, I feel like the wise old(er) woman, experienced enough to impart some of my hard-won wisdom upon them. (I never volunteer unless asked. I hate the thought of coming off as pushy or as a know-it-all. That makes me shudder. But asked for my opinion, I will gladly offer it, hoping that I can help). I'm also not too old to learn something from them, too. And being what I'd like to think of as a keen observer, I never fail to notice that { Read More }
Bullies, Be Warned! (There is Kindness in This World).
My first reaction when I heard the recent story of the bullying of a 16-year-old high school girl from a small town in Michigan was thank-goodness-I'm-too-old-for-this-kind-of-thing. But then, on second thought, I realized that bullying, though many times associated with middle and high school years, can go on way into adulthood, with actions like sexual harassment, manipulation, shaming, verbal abuse and domination, to name just a few. Were you bullied as a kid? I wasn't (not exactly - more on this below), but I can't help but feel drawn in by the story of Whitney Kropp, who was the target of mean { Read More }
The Freezer That Rang (and other tales of memory loss)
I once knew a woman who told me she took away her son’s cell phone to punish him – and then ended up having to buy a new one because she couldn’t remember where she hid it. I thought it odd at the time; after all, how could you possibly misplace something as valuable and important as a phone? Until I did it myself. I lost my cell phone and didn’t find it until…well, it’s kind of embarrassing, humiliating (and all those other words I need a thesaurus to find), so before I own up to this gaffe, I’d like to talk about the obvious – the way our memory changes as we get older. There’s something we start to { Read More }
What Midlife Crisis?
Why do these two words have to go together? The term is even in the dictionary: "A period of emotional turmoil in middle age...characterized especially by a strong desire for change." It's hard for me to believe that 78 million of us (that's how many people were born during the post-World War II baby boom) are making changes in our lives...because of CRISIS. Really? Change, yes. I'd like to think we're always changing and growing. Change is good. It gets us to a better place. So is desire; it propels us forward to make those changes. But why turmoil - does change have to be fueled by { Read More }
Welcome to my Blog!
What's Fear Got to Do With It? Strangely enough, I've been blogging for a pretty long time - almost five years - yet have dragged my feet getting my OWN blog off the ground. It's been a long time in the making. Why? Not sure... but I have a theory: FEAR. What a formidable emotion fear is. It's powerful enough to silence us, make us hide, procrastinate, make excuses (oh, do I have lots of those!), become practically... comatose. But here I (finally) am, introducing you to my new blog. I've gone head-to-head with fear before, and dammit, I'm gonna do it again. And I force myself to ask WHAT IS THE { Read More }