Serendipity

You know the old saying about 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone'? Well, in today's world, that really holds true for most of us...because of all the technology that we have available to us. Cell phones, computers, the internet...etc. We don't think about it...99.9% of the time it's right there. We turn on the computer and we are connected right away with the world. Turn on our cell phones and we have instant access to anyone we wish or need to call.  Then 'poof' it's gone in an instant.  Wednesday evening, around 7 p.m., I'm on the computer, checking emails, reading things on my wall on Facebook, checking my Etsy store...one minute I was connected...and the next, no internet.  None.  Gone. We waited about an hour, thinking maybe the storm that had rolled through our area at about the same time had knocked something out temporarily, but after an hour and a half I called to find out if maybe so...

From the time I was a child, who had a younger brother and sister, and later a step-sister and four step-brothers...into adulthood, having no less than one child with me (and up to 6 children in the household--my three and 3-step-children--at one time)...then living with my daughter and her three for most of the last decade, I have not known "silence". There was always, always the sounds of children in my home where-ever I have lived. For all those years in my adulthood, the need for silence, peace and quiet, away from the daily influx of noise, was a thing I coveted. It was my way of recouping and maintaining some degree of sanity...away from children and husbands. What little time alone that I did get, was rare...and there were times that I was lost because that silence was deafening to me. Call it a misguided sense of co-dependency. When I moved away from my daughter's home last September, away from my grand-children and their daily noises, I was like a bird t...

When I made the decision to move to Wisconsin, I hadn't thought at the time that I had any real expectations, other than to enjoy a new start to the next adventure in my life...living one day at a time. Driving that moving van with what little belongings I had...perhaps a third of a 10-foot truck full...I was excited!  I felt so youthful again, as silly as that sounds, I'd found my spontaneity again...and was spreading my wings. The first couple of weeks there...I was so sure that I had made the right decision, that I had found a place to belong...had found a place I could again call "home".  I was in love again...and everything was falling in place. Out of the blue, he and I had our first argument, on which the following ones were built, an argument that could not find a compromise. Neither of us were willing to give in, but the biggest issue is that he wanted me to change and be someone I was not. By the end of the 2nd week there, I knew I was coming home.....

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: - Knowing when to come in out of the rain; - Why the early bird gets the worm; ... - Life isn't always fair; - And maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies, don't spend more than you can earn and adults, not children, are in charge.  His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they thems...

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part, on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come...   [I can't lay claim to these thoughts...they were in an email!]     1.   The Post Office   Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long        term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the ...

My mom on her wedding day That's the day that changed the lives of my brother, sister and I forever.  February 8, 1975.  It's etched into my brain so that I can never forget that our mom was taken from us. It was a Saturday morning, like most others that Winter, where my mom would often get dressed-up in her one-piece snow outfit and take off for a while to enjoy the outdoors on her snow mobile.  That morning, it was mid-morning when she left...asking me to make sure that our dad got his hot lunch when he came in from doing chores at the dairy farm where we lived.   I said I would.   Dad came in for lunch about noon, and we (Dad, my brother, sister and I) all ate and talked about whatever the subject might have been that day.  After a bit, Dad headed back out to return to the barns which were less than a 5-minute walk up the road from our house.   I can't remember what I was doing at the time, maybe cleaning up after the meal and d...