That Hobbit Lady

We’ve had a good start to this year’s season on Alabama football!

Last weekend was a real test for us, playing Texas A&M, the only team that beat us last year. But this year…we got the better of them, and their Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Football! (Not his real name, obviously, just a nickname. But when you can beat a player nick named “Johnny Football,” I think that’s saying A LOT.)

Take a look at this video. It says it all, and very eloquently.

Roll Tide!!!

Last time I wrote about Tessie finding her way back to me. She’s such a happy little imp, and so adorable, that when she expressed an interest in finding some of her old friends, I couldn’t bear to say no. We tracked down her sister Trixie (far left) and her cousin Tillie (far right). Each girl has her own special charms, and since I took this picture, I’ve gotten them some more attractive clothes to wear, and we’ve also done some more “beauty treatments.”

There’s so much to tell about these Three Amigas, and I was hoping to post more about them here, but then today I suddenly had a brainstorm: why not let these whimsical Whimsies have their own website? The name came to me instantly: whimsieville.com. When I checked, it was not taken, so tonight I have purchased the rights to whimsieville.com and hope to have it up and running in a few weeks.

Yes, I am going a bit doll crazy, I admit. If ten years ago you had told me I would be following college football and playing with dolls, I would have never beleived it. But it’s always nice to surprise yourself. Especially when the surprises are this nice.

I can never remember how these things get started, but a short while ago I found myself on E-Bay looking for this Memory card game from when I was a kid. Now, Memory has been around for ages, with all kinds of images on the cards, but I recalled one very specific set, and was in fact able to find it on E-bay. Not only did I find it, I bid on it and won! So now I have this Memory card set from 1966, and these images bring back such memories.

I mentioned last time that I’ve been in a very nostalgic mood, didn’t I?

I thought the acquisition of the Memory game would be my big excitement on the nostalgia front, but I was wrong! Again, don’t know exactly how this got started (though probably from thinking about playing Memory with my sister and cousins and next door neighbors) but I soon started thinking about some dolls I had when I was a kid. Well…E-bay is right there, so I look them up, and lo and behold! There they are!

Apparently these dolls are called “Whimsies” and were only produced in 1960 and 1961. The one doll that was most beloved to me was Trixie the Pixie, though I never knew that was her name, because to me she has always been Tessie. I don’t know where the name Tessie came from, but that was her name.

Some of these dolls are now going for $100 and $200, if they are in good condition, but I found someone selling a Trixie the Pixie in “not such good condition,” (“well-loved” is the euphenism, I believe) and the price was extremely reasonable. More importantly, though, seeing this picture of the doll, I actually had to wonder…could this be my EXACT doll? Could this BE Tessie?

The way I remember it, my sister, cousins, neighbors and I went through a time when we used to play in our garage quite a bit, since there was an old piano in there, some lawn chairs and maybe an old couch. We kept our dolls there, with their clothes and carriages and such, and sort of thought of the garage as our “Clubhouse.” That was where the dolls stayed. That was where Tessie stayed.

Only one day, suddenly…no dolls. They were all gone. Tessie and all of them. I never did find out what happened. A logical explanation is that my Dad got tired of us kids making a mess of his garage and threw everything out. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but if it is, I’m sure it’s not because he was being mean, it was probably just because we had made such a mess and never cleaned it up, and we were probably told repeatedly to put our toys away or else, and we never did. And being an auto mechanic by trade, Dad probably just needed his garage back! To him, these dolls would not have looked like anything special. Talking to my Mom recently, she remembers them as “ugly” and “peculiar looking,” and if it was my Dad who got rid of them, I’m sure they didn’t look any more appealing to him.

That may or may not have happened. Another explanation, one which my kid-mind could not fathom at the time: perhaps they were stolen? Perhaps the garage door was left open and some other kids in the neighborhood (or some bad teenagers?) saw them and stole them? Oh, I hope not!

But there is a third possibility. I don’t know if someone said something like this to me, or if it was simply my own overactive imagination trying to make sense of the disappearing dolls, but somehow I got the idea in my head that wild animals must have come into the garage in the middle of the night and dragged the dolls away. Perhaps wild dogs. Perhaps wolves.

Oh, that was the worst scenario of all! And I cried and cried! I can only remember a handful of times in my life when I’ve cried buckets of unending tears, and this was one of them, and possibly the first. (Though this may have happened around the same time that a well-meaning relative offered me one crisp dollar bill in exchange for my collection of 100 shiny pennies, and I cried and cried, feeling I had been utterly GIPPED! And by a family member, no less!)

There are several incidents in my life which stand out as entirely unfair and deeply sad, and the mysterious disappearance of Tessie and the rest of the Whimsie dolls is right up there on the top of the list. To this day, I have always thought of this as one of the open-ended traumas of my childhood. (The penny-gipping being another, and my parents not allowing me to go to a Grassroots concert when I was in 6th grade also right up there on the top of the list.)

But here’s the wonderful thing about being an adult in the age of technology: You can find just about anything you seek on the internet, and if you’re willing to pay for it, you can get it.

So I bid on the Tessie doll, starting at about $16.00, and going all the way up to $24.00. There was a small bidding war with one other customer for a few hours, but in the end, I did not even have to put out the whole $24.00. I got Tessie for $20.50 (and $12.00 shipping.)

She arrived yesterday, looking precisely as I remember, though perhaps a wee bit smaller. (Remember, I was seven or eight the last time I saw her. She hasn’t changed much, but I have.) It seems to me there is something familiar about the stain on the front of her dress. And the sparse matted hair on the back of her head is exactly the way I remember it. I’m not entirely convinced this is the exact same Whimsie doll I had as a kid, but I would not be at all surprised if someone could prove to me that she is.

One thing is different though. This Tessie that arrived USPS yesterday is missing an earlobe, apparently chewed off by some animal with teeth. That pack of wolves? Is that, in fact, how they dragged her from the garage all those years ago?

Has my Tessie been raised by wolves ever since? Funny…she does not seem at all wild, she simply seems content to be home. I gave her a sponge bath, cleaned her eyes and the corners of her mouth with Q-tips, and washed her outfit in Woolite. Unfortunately, the outfit still looks extremely ratty. (Well, how would your clothes look if you’d been wearing the same dress for 53 years?)

I searched though my “hope chest” of a few items I’ve kept from when my kids were babies, and found this nice little soft pajama set and put her in that. All clean and comfy, she seems happy to stay home and enjoy the house with Squee while I am away. At some time in the future I may visit yard sales and look for little socks or shoes, and dresses and other clothes in size 0-3 months, so she can enjoy feeling pretty.

We still have to do something about her hair, though. When she lived in the garage, I remember that one of our “toys” was an old brown wig we would sometimes put on her head, and she would look very glamorous. But I don’t think I want to do anything like that with her now. I think I’ll just gently wash her pink hair with Dawn (as suggested on this Whimsies website) and carefully brush it out, and maybe braid it up again. Her hair was never her strong point. Her charm has always been in her impish expression.

My Mom called her “ugly” and “peculiar looking,” and to some degree that is true, when you consider the pretty baby dolls some children like to play with. Not me. Besides the Whimsies, my other favorite “dolls” were TROLLS. (I had the troll clubhouse carrying case, and would often create outfits for them from the tiniest bits of fabric.)

So maybe I was somewhat of a peculiar kid. I don’t know, and at this point, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Tessie is home, and one gaping hole in my childhood has been satisfactorily closed up. Now my only concern is keeping those wild wolves from getting into our house and dragging her off again. But that shouldn’t be to hard, since we have an alarm system, and I doubt the wolves know the code.

Right now I have about 500 pictures in my phone. I kid you not. I went through them recently and right off the top was able to remove about 40 or 50, but there are still tons more that have to go. For instance, I often take pictures of my lunchtime salads and text them to Mary, and she in turn sends me pictures of her beautifully photographed vegan dinners. I have plans to someday showcase Mary’s healthy meals (still trying to work out the details on that project) but my ordinary pictures of my ordinary salads have little value beyond the moment. When I have more time, I’ll delete them.

Having a camera phone and the ability to take pictures at a moment’s notice, even of the most mundane things, is such a blessing. Remember, it was not that long ago we were buying film, taking 12 or 24 shots, bringing them to the store be be developed, and actually paying for prints, only to find out that half of what we paid for was blurry, or somebody’s eyes were closed, or their head was cut off. (Well, not literally cut off, I mean their head did not appear in the photograph, but you understand what I mean, right?) We’ve come such a long way, and it really is a great thing to be able to document the ordinary as well as the extraordinary moments in life. Only, I have to remember what my Uncle Chet told me years and years ago when I was a teenager and had my first “real” camera: only about one or two of every hundred pictures you take will be worth keeping.

Here then, are just a few of what I feel are the “worth keeping” photos from the 400-500 or so currently in my camera phone:

Near campus—in fact, across a very narrow street just opposite the mammoth football stadium—there’s this little diner called Rama Jama where on a summer afternoon from 2-6pm you can get hotdogs for a buck each. It’s a good place for some cheap junk food, but the real attraction is just sitting in this old building and looking at all the sports memorobilia—hundreds and hundreds of photos and posters, many of them signed, jerseys, footballs, and even the shoe that kicked a winning field goal. As you can see, there are even references to Alabama football on the ceiling! It’s a fun place steeped in history, and a summer hot dog (or two…) at Rama Jama is the perfect way to get ready for the upcoming football season (less than two weeks away now!!)

When I turned the page on my calendar recently I was greeted by this fine fellow, jauntily carrying a stick as he prances through the grass. What a great cat! He looks so happy, and so full of self-confidence (as any self-respecting cat should be.) I loved looking at him for the whole month of June, and was sad when I had to turn the page for July, so before I did that, I snapped this picture so I could always remember him.

Speaking of cats, I recently spent a Saturday reorganizing all my music CD’s, and as you can see here, Squee helped. Well….no, actually, he just got up on the table to be in the way.

The organization process was a complete success, and I now have every CD alphabetized on one shelf, or in several binders on the shelf (behind Squee). The point is, it’s all alphabetized, so if I take care to put things back where they belong, I should always be able to find any CD I’m looking for in a matter of moments. Of course, I’ve done this alphabetical thing at least a couple of times before in the last few years, so obviously though I might be very good at creating order out of chaos, I’m not really very good at maintaining that order.

But it always feels good to get some aspect of my life in order. Our next big project (and we’ve already decided we’re going to do it on Martin Luther King weekend, because it’s going to take at least three days) is putting Russ’ comic book collection in order. I’ll keep you updated on that one when it happens!

I’ve been on kind of a nostalgia kick lately (more on that next time, after a couple of Ebay purchases make their way to my front door), but in the meantime, here’s an image of a poster I had hanging in my room when I was in college. Don’t know why I find this so picture so appealing. I guess I just love the colors, and the quirkiness of it all. Well, I loved the color and quirk when I was in college, and I still do, and now in addition, it has that nostalgic appeal. I love finding things I used to love, and discovering that I do indeed still love them. Some things never change, and sometimes, that’s a good thing.

With Russ’ mom recently passing, we’ve had several opportunities to peruse some of the old family photos. There are many gems, and I’m presenting just a couple of them here. Photography is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? To capture a moment in time, a smile…In a small way, it makes you feel that all times are NOW. A picture, a song, a voice, a smell, a taste of some special food… Hey, maybe it’s just because I’m getting older, and thus more sentimental, but I really love these reminders that our lives are so rich and full, never the same from moment to moment, and so many of those moments can be exceptional, and so worthy of remembrance.

Another thing I really love about these old baby pictures is when you’re able to look at a picture of someone as a child and see the person you know in the features of that child. Russ obviously no longer looks anything like the child in these picture, and yet…the child in these pictures is so obviously him. Again, it’s such a reminder that some things never change, and it’s a delight to be reminded that no matter how old we get, somehow the child we were is still always somewhere inside us.

Russ gets his hair cut every six weeks or so (even though I would love to see him try to grow a ponytail!), but I have trust issues when it comes to my hair. Too many times I have walked out of a salon with something that was not at all what I was hoping for, so mostly I snip at my hair with scissors in the hallway mirror, and Russ is very good at trimming the back for me (No trust issues there!) However, when I recently accompanied him to A Cut Above, while perusing the style books I found this cut that I think is super cute. Now, I don’t know if I would be able to carry this off at my age and my weight, but if I ever do actually lose all the weight I’d like to lose and somehow can get my face to look about thirty years younger (HA!) I might like to try this. Well, I’m being facetious about my face, I know that’s not happening, but I might like to try this anyway.

Right now I’m flirting with the idea of “going gray gracefully,” and my real wish is to grow out my hair and perm it, so I’m the crazy old lady with all that crazy gray hair, but I understand gray hair doesn’t always hold a perm that well. I guess when I get there I’ll have to see what my hair is like. But if my gray hair won’t look good long and curly, I think it could work with this short cut. I love this shade of red, but I think this cut would work in gray as well. Anyway, I’m not quite there yet on the gray, but someday I’ll be going there, so right now I’m just collecting ideas for when I get bold enough to finally make that decision.

Sometimes I eat healthy, and sometimes…not so much. When I’m not eating healthy, I have a biscuit for Sunday morning breakfast, but when I AM eating healthy, I like to create a little container of beans and veggies to bring with me to add to my side of pinto beans. Throw in some hot sauce and vavoom!! I can do non-traditional breakfast just as easily as the traditional. It’s all food, right?

And speaking of food, this is one of my new weekday breakfasts: a shake that usually contains a banana, some frozen fruit (right now I’ve got strawberries, or a mixture of tropical fruits), some almond milk, maybe some orange juice, and a healthy handful of kale. It’s the kale that gives this drink its beautiful green color, but does not overpower the sweet fruitiness. Kale is a wonder food, and I can’t believe I’ve only discovered it in the last year or so. I tried making kale chips, which was not that big of a success, but I’m always willing to throw kale in a juice or a shake. Next experiment in the kitchen: sauteeing kale with onions, garlic, and maybe a pinch of brown sugar.

And still speaking of food, here’s a lovely basket of peaches we picked up in Chilton County this past June, when peaches are at their peak. It’s a couple hours’ drive, so we stopped for lunch at the local Shoney’s, then picked up a bunch of fruits and veggies from a roadside stand. In addition to these lovely peaches, we also got a good selection of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and cukes. The veggies are long gone, but we’ve frozen six bags of cut-up peaches so that once every two months over the next year, we can pull some peaches out of the freezer and bake a peach cobbler. This way we have peach cobbler all year long…until next June, when we’ll make the trip to Chilton County once again, eat at Shoney’s, and stock up on more peaches!

Okay. Here’s a major milestone in my life. For the past several…oh, decades, I would say, I’ve been a big fan of the Pilot fine point black pen. No other pen writes finer or smoother. I’m sort of a nut about pens. When I have to fill out forms, like at a doctor’s office, I always bring my own pen. And I’ve always had a Pilot black fine point on me. (Once, as I was cleaning out my purse, I counted no less than ten pens! I’m sort of obsessive about pens.) However, a sad day looms, because Pilot has stopped making this particular pen. I spent several months looking for it all over town and on the internet, only to realize it’s a thing of the past. What to do, what to do!? Well, no problem, mate! Because along comes the PaperMate InkJoy 300 0.7F. And now I am here to tell you, there is no pen in existence that writes finer or smoother than this one! I’m not kidding. This is the best pen ever.

So I guess the moral of this story is: don’t be sad when life throws you a curve ball, because who knows? There might be something better just beyond the horizon. (Hey, was that enough mixed metaphors for you?)

This past Spring Squee spent some time in the yard, soaking up the sun, and he really loved it. But then, as will happen in Spring, there were BIRDS, particularly those nasty Mockingbirds, that swoop down when they’re protecting a nest. I don’t know exactly where their nest was, but they swooped Squee a few times and the big scaredy-cat refused to go outside anymore. At this point I don’t know if he even remembers that he used to enjoy going outside. The bird feeders are in the front yard now, so there are less birds hanging about in the back, but still Squee is not interested in going outside. Just as well, because it’s the middle of Summer and freaking hot. We’ll try the yard again when the weather gets cooler.

And one more chapter in The Life of Squee: here he is looking so contented as he enjoys a nice chin-scratching. He’s such a cat, and really a very good boy. I miss Boogins, and I miss having more than one cat, but for the moment this is working for us. Squee loves being an only child, he’s adjusted quite well. We’ve determined that any behavior issues he had sprung out of sibling rivalry, so remove the sibling, no rivalry, no problem.

Last year we bought a lawn mower and edger and have been saving money by cutting our own lawn. In less than a year we broke even on the cost of the equipment, but I must admit, we don’t always do that job as often as we should. But don’t let the size of this weed make you think we are so incredibly lax in our duties This weed was the exception, not the rule, that’s why I took a picture of it. The rest of the grass was only moderately high, with some random weeds reaching up a little higher than the ankles, but this one…this one was right out of Jack and the Beanstalk! I shudder to think how tall it would have gotten if we had not finally put clipping shears to hearty stalk and hacked away until it finally came down. (“Timberrr!”)

Well, that’s it for now! Love my camera phone, and love creating this photographic panorama of a brief moment in my life. Next time, hopefully: the return of Tessie, and a Blast from the Past!

Thirteen years ago Russ’ Mom got a diagnosis of cancer, and lived with it bravely, until it got the best of her. Friday morning at 4 am, in Hospice Care and heavily medicated against the pain and nausea that had become far too common these last years, she breathed her last. Russ was with her at the time, and reports there did not appear to be any pain at that moment. She just…stopped…breathing.

She moved from this world to the next, taking nothing with her but a lifetime of memories, and the love of a large family and many friends.

Marianne was not an extraordinary woman—except that she WAS extraordinary, in the way that matters most, in the everyday way of simply living life and enjoying those things that God has put on earth for us to enjoy. Her biggest joy was obviously her family, and she was fortunate enough to have them all close, her entire life, spending over fifty five years married to her college sweetheart, and having all three children and six grandchildren never more than a twenty minute drive away. She got to see all her children married, and four of those six grandchildren graduate from high school.

She also got to see those grandchildren participating and excelling in various community events and sports over the last fifteen years or so. And as any true Southern gentlewoman, oh, how she did love her sports! Especially Alabama football, though she was known to sit glued to the TV for basketball and baseball as well.

She loved keeping a garden in the back of her house, sitting among the flowers with her little doggie, Sugar, feeding and watching the hummingbirds. She loved reading, especially biographies, and watching Dancing With The Stars. She was our Chief Cat-Sitter, and the only person whom, upon meeting both Boogie and Squee, fussed over how pretty Squee was. He apparently understood and appreciated her attentions, lavishing her with cat hugs, rather than hiding, as he did with all other visitors.

She also loved cooking (again, I say—“like any good Southern gentlewoman”) and was famous for her potato salad, chicken and dressing, corn muffins, and peach cobbler made with freshly picked peaches from Chilton County every June. Even though we may try to imitate her recipes in the future—adding “just enough” of this, and “a cup and half of that…or maybe a little more if you need it,” since she could never exactly explain how she did it, she just did what “felt right”—still, I don’t know if we’ll ever again taste these foods at their very best.

Marianne went to church and Sunday School, participating in lots of church events. She was the kind of Christian that did not clobber you over the head with her faith—she simply lived her faith, and it rubbed off on you, made you wish that you too could find that same magic where God is not some Great Presence with Whom you struggle to connect—God is simply there, so naturally a part of everything that to keep talking about Him too much would seem just as silly as constantly walking around exclaiming, “Oh, I’m so very glad there is air to breath!”

I believe Marianne was a Christian in the truest sense of the word, and that she is now in Heaven with Jesus. Free of pain and nausea, yes…but even better: with Jesus, saving a place at the table for the rest of us.

When she came to the last couple of weeks of her life and it became evident that this time there was not going to be a reprieve of her symptoms, I prayed for a miracle, that God would miraculously heal her of all cancer and all suffering. After all, “You do not have, because you do not ask,” right? (James 4:2). So, step one: I asked.

And there was no harm in asking, because when it came right down to it, I realized that in the end, I did, in fact, get a miracle. Only it was not the miracle I was expecting.

Sure it would have been dramatic if out of the blue, miraculously, Marianne had risen from her bed completely healed. Certainly something like that would have given glory to God! But when I went to Hospice and saw her lying there, gasping for breath, waiting for the end, it suddenly occurred to me that a miracle was indeed about to occur: not the selfish miracle I had been requesting, a bit more time for us to enjoy her company here on earth—but a bigger and better miracle, the common, everyday miracle where God lifts the veil between Heaven and Earth and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.”

That we live at all is a miracle. That God lives, and loves us, and takes us to be with Him, is the biggest miracle of all. That we can have peace in knowing that the people we love are not really “gone,” they have just moved on, and that we will see them again someday: THAT’S the miracle.

It was a pleasure knowing Marianne, even for a short time. She’s left her mark on every life she’s touched, and I’m sure we will all talk of her and remember her with smiles, once our own sadness passes.

It was an inspiration, to see how she continually won her battle with cancer, day after day, every day for thirteen years, bouncing back each time, up until the very end. Now her battles with cancer are over, the war has been won, and Eternity is her prize.

The following is a RANT. Don’t read it if you’re looking for something light and happy and airy. But do read it if you, like me, are feeling discouraged by modern life. Perhaps something I say here will inspire you, or make you feel better.

When I was a teenager, living at home, we had a dog named Wendy. Wendy was devoted to my mother (who fed her), and followed Mom around like a second shadow. Sometimes Mom would go into a room and close the door behind her, leaving Wendy sitting in the hall, patiently waiting for her return. Whenever I saw Wendy in the hall, looking so sad, I would reflect how fortunate it was for her that she didn’t have enough sense to realize that if only she had opposable thumbs, perhaps she could reach up and turn the doorknob and gain access to the room, reunited with her beloved caretaker.

But no, Wendy was no smarter than your average dog, (I’m assuming), and had no thought of sorrow or frustration because she was physically limited in her ability to achieve her goals. In fact, I’m quite sure Wendy never thought about having “goals.” She simply knew her Mommy was there, and then she wasn’t, so she would wait, and then Mommy would be there again. Feelings of inadequacy never entered into the equation.

I tell this little story to preface my next comment: sometimes I wish, Oh! If only I could be like Wendy, blissfully unaware of my limitations. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply live life, and do some things, and be happy with that, rather than being cognizant enough to realize that there are so many things I want to do that, for whatever reason, I am never going to be able to do.

Having “goals” is a curse, when your desires far exceed your grasp. Yes, it’s great to have dreams, but truth is, there are only so many hours in a day, and there are only so many opportunities for a basically mediocre person like myself. I can think up a ton of stuff that makes me say, “Hey! Wouldn’t it be great if…?” but far too soon my life collapses under the weight of all those “If’s.”

I have been blessed with just enough intellect and enthusiasm to WANT so many things out of life, yet not enough time, talent and money to actually achieve even a portion of what I can dream.

It’s frustrating.

I think part of the problem is that I’m getting older. When I was younger, I had “my whole life” in front of me, and time seemed limitless. Now, in my mid-fifties, reality has set in. “My whole life” is probably going to be another 25, 30 or 35 years, if I’m lucky. When you’re in your teens or twenties, that sounds like an eternity. In your fifties, you have a much more realistic view of time.

I say “realistic,” but oddly, I find myself more and more experiencing the phenomenon of time “speeding up.” Of course I know that time is not actually speeding up, but it sure does seem like it. Years pass much faster, to say nothing of months, weeks, days. Every time I turn around, it’s a weekend, and I get some stuff done, but there isn’t enough time to do everything I wanted to do. But no bother! Another weekend will be here before you know it.

Another part of the problem, I’m sure, is that I have allowed my “To Do” list to get way out of hand. I try to keep track of all the little things that have to be done by writing them down on paper so I won’t forget (pay the water bill, have the oil changed, return library books), but then there are also those BIG things that there never really seems to be enough time for: edit my book for publication, vacation in Las Vegas, take belly-dancing lessons. When do I get to do those things?

Granted, I have a couple of hobbies/projects that take up a good deal of my time. I enjoy the podcast, I enjoy posting to The Marvelous Zone, but I don’t enjoy the fact that the time needed for these projects takes away time from other things I might like to—other things like, perhaps, reading a book. (I try to read at least a chapter a night before bed, but honestly, sometimes I’m just so tired by the end of the day, either I forego reading completely, or fall asleep with the pages open.)

The day starts at 6 am, and usually ends about 11. That allows for seven hours of sleep. Where’s the eight hours we’re all told we should get? Sometimes seven hours just doesn’t do it for me! And sometimes it’s less than seven hours, because at the end of the day, there’s still dishes to wash and laundry to fold, cat box to scoop, and papers to file. Never mind reading a book! I’m just trying to stay on top of the basics!

I realized recently that when people ask me “How was your weekend?” if the weekend was good, I’ll answer, “Great! We got a lot of stuff done!” I measure success by how much gets done. I don’t really take into account whether or not I had fun, enjoyed myself, etc. Well, I often do manage to fit in a few fun, enjoyable activities between all the “Must Do’s,” but when I think about how the weekend went, the measure of success is “How Much I Got Done.”

That’s not right. But I’m not sure how to fix it. I don’t want to give up my hobbies. I ENJOY my hobbies! (If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have them as hobbies.) In fact, part of my frustration is that I don’t have time to pursue MORE hobbies! I have lost count of how many ideas for good websites I have had, never mind how many ideas for books I might write, Even now, I’m having an idea: I should take the ideas in this post and make them into a website, and call it Simplify.com, or something like that. (Never mind, that website already exists, but if I put my mind to it, I could think up something to call it!)

I wish the dishes and the laundry and the cat box would go away. Not the meals and the clothes and the cat, just all the upkeep that goes with them. I know that’s being childish. So instead, I wish I had enough money to hire someone to come in and do all those necessary things, so I would have more time to pursue my true interests. Again: childish, wishful thinking. But we all do it…right?

Before I go any further though, want to make one thing perfectly clear: Don’t think for a moment I’m trying to be one of those “Super-Women” that hold down a full time job AND do all the housework besides. Russ is a GEM. He helps with all the household chores. In fact, we’ve worked out a system these last few months where we are at last able to stay on top of the household chores. The biggies are dishes and laundry, so on odd-numbered days, I do dishes and he does laundry. On even-numbered days we switch.

Since we’ve started doing this, the sink is almost always clear of dirty dishes and the chair in the bedroom is (relatively) clear of clothes that need to be hung up and put away. Sometimes there is not as much laundry as dishes, so on those days, the “laundry person” vacuums, or scrubs the toilets. All in all, this is working out quite well.

But getting back to my bellyaching….wouldn’t it be great if there was all the time in the world for all the things we WANT to do, with no concerns about those nasty “Must Do’s”? I keep thinking it would be wonderful, but then I also think that if somehow that were to happen, I’m not even so sure any more that I would know exactly what it is that I want to do. I’ve gotten so use to measuring success by how much stuff gets done, that if I wasn’t actually knocking items off a “To Do” list, I don’t know if I would consider myself successful.

In part, I blame the internet. When I think this through, I realize my life would be a lot simpler if I didn’t have the internet. How did we ever get by without it? How did we ever get by without cell phones? Without remote controls? We did, but now when we think of those times, they seem so…primitive. So…underprivileged.

The computer was supposed to reduce paper accumulation, but as everyone knows, having a computer with an accompanying printer means we use MORE paper than ever before. Email was supposed to make corresponding so much easier, but as everyone knows, checking and responding to emails is a lot more time consuming and challenging than we had it back in the days of writing letters. We’re overwhelmed with information.

Information OVERLOAD.

Remember the commercial where the guy is at his computer and hears “You have now reached the end of the internet”? Why is it funny? Because there IS NO END to the internet. It goes on and on and on and on, and there is no end to what you might research and see on the internet.

Well, that might be fine for people whose brains function only slightly higher than the average family dog, but if you have a lot of interests, and a lot of curiosity, there is no end to what you can look up online. And that term about “surfing” the internet…well, how appropriate is that? One thing leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. Sometimes I can’t even remember where I started, but all of the sudden I’m somewhere completely different.

And I’ve found that one of the ironies of the internet is that though it gives you the opportunity to connect with people who have like interests, you will no doubt be overwhelmed by those opportunities. In our case, we do a podcast about Dark Shadows, and have met many great fans of the show. We have also run into many great websites about the show. We wish we had the time to visit all these fans and all these sites, but the reality is that because we are so busy producing our own podcast (and also busy adding to our other websites, and washing dishes and folding laundry, and scooping the cat box and getting the oil changed, not to mention spending eight hours a day at our paying jobs—now there’s a good chunk of time!) we don’t have anywhere near enough time to really get to peruse all the Dark Shadows sites we would like to.

If there was no internet, we would not have a podcast, or websites. We would not have Netflix, that keeps sending us great movies to watch. There would be no research to do on the best exercises or vegetarian recipes, or cat toys, and there would certainly be no email to answer. Without the internet, there would be no need for a printer, so there would be less paper in the house. With less paper in the house, there would be less time needed for filing.

And without the internet, there would be no need to clean out your email inbox. Last night, I took some time to clean out my email. I was going along, deleting one page at a time, page after page after page, and then somehow my finger slipped, I guess, and the next thing I knew, it was gone. It was ALL gone. All the personal emails I wanted to keep…GONE. Any important information I might have been saving…GONE.

For a moment, it disturbed me. I felt a terrible loss. But then suddenly I realized….the world was still spinning, and I was still alive. And not only that, but I was alive with an EMPTY INBOX! This is something I probably never would have done on my own, or if I had, it would have taken hours and hours. I almost feel like the hand of God reached down and caused my fingers to slip, so I could be done with this inbox all at once, and realize it was not the end of the world.

I was given the gift of time. And in some sense, I’ve been given a clean slate. Now, I can keep an eye on this inbox on a daily basis, and not let it get so full again. In fact, what I probably should do is to identify all those places that are sending me junkmail (the stuff I was TRYING to get rid of) and make arrangements to STOP that junkmail.

Sure, that will be time consuming. You see where this is going? It goes round and round, it never ends. How did I let myself get on this carousel? And how can I get off? Well, I guess I just have to start where I am.

And I guess I’ll have to reign in my expectations and get real with myself: I don’t have time to create and manage any more websites. I may never do Pysanki eggs again. I don’t have time each day to go to the gym, and floss, and soak my feet, and use the Neti Pot, and the body brush, and deep-condition my hair, and play the violin, and start an herb garden, and learn another language, and write a novel, and crotchet a scarf for winter, and learn to bellydance. At least not until I can afford to retire. Or, until I win the lottery. Whichever comes first.

But I know me. Even if I did win the lottery, and suddenly had so many extra hours in the day, I would quickly find a way to fill them, so that my “To Do” list might change in regard to the type of items on the list, but that list would only get longer and longer. And at the end of each day, I would still be judging my success by how many items I was able to cross off that list.

Sigh…I think I need a complete personality overhaul.

This past week Russ and I ate dinner at Schlotzsky’s three nights in a row. Yep! But here’s the great part: we only spent about $11 for both of us to eat dinner for three nights! Schlotzsky’s is having a “Week of Coupons,” and the first three were really great. Here’s what we got:

On Monday, the coupon was “Buy a drink and a soda, and get a free sandwich,” so for $3.50 we shared an overstuffed sandwich and a bag of baked chips, and a large soda. Well, Russ mostly drank the soda, I only took a few sips. It was Dr. Pepper or something like that, and it was not very good. (Bleah!!)

On Tuesday, the coupon was “Buy a 44 oz. drink and get a free personal pizza.” The large drink was $2.00, and we used two coupons, so the total was $4.00, but we each got our own pizza and our own drink. Russ said the pizza was filling enough to be a meal. I did not eat the crust, since I had just made the decision to go back on “No flour, no sugar,” but the toppings of chicken, cheese and jalapenos were enough for me!

Wednesday, the coupon was “Buy a drink and chips and get a Pick Two.” That means you get a half serving of two different foods. Russ chose the half sandwich, and I chose the half salad (Turkey Avocado Cobb) which was big enough to be considered a full serving as far as I’m concerned. This time, I did not mess around with sharing his Dr. Pepper, I just brought some ice water with me. Total cost for this meal was once again around $3.50.

So! We had a very successful week of coupon use, and not a lot of dirty dishes at home. The coupon today is “Buy a meal and get a free Cinnabon,” but since I’m not doing sugar, this one doesn’t interest me. Tomorrow is something else that is not appealing either, so we’re done with Schlotzsky’s for the moment.

I was proud of myself for having a pizza and not eating the crust. Looking forward to getting back on track with my eating habits. It was great to be able to do that and STILL EAT OUT! I’m encouraged to look at all the local restaurants and try to figure out the best course of action, so that I can still “have my cake and eat it too,” so to speak—at least, still enjoy eating out, without having to succumb to unhealthy choices.

Today is the first day of Summer, and that’s good news.

Not because I love Summer. Actually, Summer is my least favorite season. Having spent so much of my life in the South, it’s already hot enough, thank you very much. Don’t really need to belabor the issue any further. No, the best thing about the first day of Summer is that it’s the longest day of the year. Because what happens after the longest day of the year? That’s right! The days start getting shorter again!

When the days get shorter, that means Autumn is on the way, and Autumn is absolutely my favorite time of the year. Besides the excellent weather and changing/falling leaves, there’s football, and holidays leading right up to Christmas. Oh yeah! And my birthday, and Russ’ birthday, let’s not forget those!

As much as I love having all this daylight (sometimes it’s light outside till way past eight o’clock!), I’m really looking forward to the shorter days. I don’t know why, but I love it when I get out of work and dusk is already falling, and as we’re driving home, the streetlights are coming on, and that restaurant with the mid-century modern angle to the roof turns on an orange neon light, and everything is getting quiet, and now just seems like the perfect time to go home and cocoon in your comfy house.

In Autumn we eat soup. We drink lots and lots of hot tea. The smells are cinnamon and apples and nutmeg. The colors are orange and cranberry and deep rich browns and purples. We wear sweaters, and big wooly socks. And boots. I would much rather wear boots than sandals.

So from this point on, I’ll be looking forward to the days getting shorter. I’ll look forward to the shortest day of the year, just around Christmas…but then, the days will start getting longer again. In January, maybe it will snow. And after that, I may finally be ready once again for the days to lengthen, and for the air to warm, and I may actually look forward to putting away the thermal longjohns, and start looking for the bright green buds on the naked trees.

But for right now…yea, Summer! Now that we’ve reached the pinnacle, we can once again begin that slow, easy and delightful downhill journey into a wonderful Autumn filled with all its usual seasonal magic.

I meant to write about our vacation as soon as we got back, but it’s been over a week now, and I am only just now finding the time. It’s starting to really amaze me that for someone who lives basically a very dull life, I never seem to have enough time for everything. How does that happen?

But as for the vacation, it was a great way to get away from it all, if only for a short time. The drive from Tuscaloosa to Orlando is of course a LONG one, and the first day, that’s about all we did. Once we got to our rented house, though, it was beautiful…at first. But then we discovered a few pesky little problems: a dead bug, then a LIVE bug, a blood spot on the sheets, and a toilet that would not stop running.

This is NOT what we signed up for! We put a fresh sheet over the blanket and did not get anywhere near the dirty sheets, and when we finally had the time and remembered to call the maintenance guy, he sent someone over right away for the toilet. I guess you can’t expect everything to be perfect but these few little things kind of freaked us out, to the point that when we make this trip again, even though this place was a great deal financially, we will probably want to stay somewhere else.

But otherwise the house was great, with TV’s in every room, a well-stocked kitchen, washer/dryer, security alarm system, swimming pool. On Sunday John and Karin visited with the kids and Barbara, and we had a nice lunch. The kids got to swim in the pool, and later we played a guessing game on the computer, which was a lot of fun.

Afterwards, Russ and I dipped into the pool a bit, then went back to the Wal Mart we had found earlier in the day when preparing for the luncheon, and looked around some more. We bought a set of jigsaw puzzles, thinking we might have time to do one, but that alas did not happen the rest of the trip. (We’d done a jigsaw puzzle on our last trip to Gulf Shores and really enjoyed the relaxing activity, but this time around there was not enough free time, and somehow we never really got started.)

Sunday evening Joey came in, and we all started watching The Avengers , then woke up early to head out to…Islands of Adventure!! Joey went on the Hulk roller coaster five times, and also on the dragon coaster in the Harry Potter area, but Russ and I played it a bit safer. Russ and Joey did the Spider-Man ride, but I didn’t, not being a fan of thrill rides.

However, Russ enjoyed the river raft ride so much that he convinced me to go on it with him just before we left for the day. You want to wait till the end of the day to do this one, because you are going to get SOAKED! It was a ton of fun. Late in the day, after a 90 minute downpour that really slowed us down and emptied out the park somewhat, on the raft ride was only middle-aged me and Russ, a mom and dad with two little kids, and two young gay guys. I really can’t say which of us was having the most fun, and it struck me that there are aspects of these theme parks that appeal to all walks of life.

One thing that did appeal to me was this entire Harry Potter village, but it was so freaking packed with people you could barely move around! The line for “butter beer” stretched for miles, so it wasn’t until later in the day that we finally got to try some (and it’s delicious, and if you want to do it at home, I think you could combine cream soda with a little butterscotch ice cream and get similar results).

We walked through the castle but did not go on the Harry Potter ride because there were warnings that it could cause motion sickness. Joey went on it, however, and the guy that did the Hulk FIVE TIME said yeah, the Harry Potter ride gave him motion sickness. Very glad I did not try it!

That night, coming back to the house we ate a ribeye steak and potato dinner which Joey had requested, then finished up watching The Avengers. The next day was our scheduled “down time” and we sat around the house watching TV all day. Somehow we got started with this SyFy show called Face Off, a competition that pits serious makeup artists against each other in bizarre challenges like “Create a werewolf from another planet,” or “Create a giant, and you must incorporate at least two heads in your design.” Joey watched several episodes with us, then had to get back home to pup Reggie. We watched a few more, but in a while I was ready for a NAP!!

The next day we went to Epcot, which has a much different feel than Islands of Adventure, a slower pace, heavier on the educational aspect. I was delighted to find that Spaceship Earth had been updated to include the more recent advancements in communication, and really enjoyed creating my own vision of “the future.”

At this visit to Epcot I finally got to see the Captain EO 3-D movie, which was a hoot. Also did some of the old favorite rides, and got to see the a cappella Americana singers.

But I was disappointed that we somehow could not time it to be around for any of the street shows I was looking forward to. We ate a small lunch in China and were timed perfectly to see the Chinese acrobats, but of course that was when the afternoon Florida rain started falling. This time however, we were ready, carrying ponchos and umbrellas. Learned a few valuable lessons during this trip to the theme parks!

Epcot was not at all busy during this Wednesday in May, but a word of warning: don’t think that means you can just stroll into any restaurant and sit down to dinner. You have to make reservations. We couldn’t get into Mexico, but did enjoy a nice dinner of rainbow trout in the seafood restaurant in Futureworld.

Then it was time for the fireworks, which were spectacular, then it was time to go home! I am here to tell you that there is NOT enough time to see an entire park in one day, whether it’s Islands of Adventure, Epcot, or anything else. We did not get to do the new Soarin’ ride at Epcot, and Russ was disappointed that the Jurassic Park ride at Universal was down for maintenance. Well, I guess this just means we will have to be making another trip at some time in the future! 🙂

In fact, we are already planning how we might do our next vacation to the theme park area. We’re thinking of perhaps flying in, to save valuable time, and having Joey pick us up at the airport. And then maybe next time we’ll stay in one of the theme park hotels. I would not be at all averse to staying in the Contemporary Hotel, with the monorail passing right through the lobby. This time our accommodations were economical, but maybe next time we’ll go for convenience.

On Thursday we headed home, another all day event. On the way down to Florida we listened to music, quizzing each other on old songs, but on the way back we did not turn the music on even once, we just talked. I love traveling with Russ and just talking with him. When I moved up to Alabama and we made the 11 hour trip in the Saturn, with the two cats in crates in the back seat, that was how we did it, with no music, and just talking the whole trip. It was a magical memory for me, and now I have another. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of just being and talking with Russ.

We stopped at a Citrus Stand where I saw this baby alligator in a tank and bought some fudge as “thank you” gifts for Russ’ mom and sister, who were stopping in to check on Squee. Then we stopped at a Steak n Shake in Tallahassee for lunch, because we do not have a Steak n Shake in Tuscaloosa. Very cheap, and pretty good! I’m hoping someone thinks to bring a Steak n Shake to our neck of the woods. We need this restaurant!!

Oh! And while I’m at it: when we first got into the Orlando area, we went to a Denny’s down the street from our rental house, and had a very reasonably priced breakfast which included free coffee after 10pm, and then come to find out that Denny’s gives a 20% discount to AARP members! Whoa! We have GOT to get one of these in our town as well!

We got home late Thursday, and Squee actually seemed pleased to see us, rubbing and purring, instead of turning his back on us, like Boogins used to do. Boogins was the greatest cat ever, but he sure would get mad when you left him alone for a long time. Of course he quickly got over it, but he liked to annoy you with that “Oh, were you gone? I hadn’t noticed…” routine whenever we would come in from a vacation. Jeez…

On Friday we continued vacationing in town, having a buffet lunch on campus, then Saturday and Sunday we put away the vacation stuff and basically relaxed, only doing a little work on the blog, and didn’t even touch the podcast. Of course, we are getting ready to post a new podcast this weekend, so this week has been busy getting that all prepared.

And here we are! It was a fun week last week, and we’ll do it again sometime, but for right now, it’s back to business as usual. Already looking forward to our short vacation to the coast in August.

It is just way too easy to become a vacationin’ fool!

(By the way, scroll down to see my update to the previous post, Joey Visits Universal, for an important development in Joey’s life!)

This was many years ago, of course. More than 15 I would imagine, but less than 20. I’ve always loved this picture of Joey.

I posted this picture because I knew we were getting ready to visit Universal with Joey. I was hoping I would be able to get a picture of him in front of the same car, and run it here with the younger picture of him. What I failed to realize is that Mel’s Diner, which is the backdrop for the picture above, is in the other half of Universal, the half we did not visit. So I was not able to get the picture I was looking for. However, I was able to get this picture of Joey…next to his BRAND…NEW…CAR!!!!

All in all, I think it’s better to have a picture of a young man standing front of his very own new car, rather than someone else’s old car. And as for that picture of Joey in front of Mel’s Diner, perhaps someday we will re-visit Universal, and when we do, I can get that picture as well, and post it here.